NK NuKes

[Gob]

North Korea is suspected of conducting a nuclear test, several nations say, after an earthquake that monitors said had "explosion-like" qualities.

A shallow 4.9 quake was detected at 11:57 (02:57 GMT), the USGS said.

Its epicentre was in the same location as the Punggye-ri underground nuclear test site, at which activity has been observed in recent weeks.

There has been no word yet from North Korea, but it announced plans for a third nuclear test last month.

The UN Security Council had warned of "significant consequences" if Pyongyang went ahead. It is to hold an emergency meeting at 14:00 GMT on Tuesday in New York, diplomats say.

North Korea is not prone to seismic activity. The USGS said the quake occurred at a depth of 1km (0.6 miles).

A UN monitoring agency described it as an "unusual seismic event" with "explosion-like characteristics".

"Its location is roughly congruent with the 2006 and 2009 DPRK [North Korea] nuclear tests,'' said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation.

Japan's Meteorological Agency said the tremor was "different from a normal earthquake".

"We believe that there is a possibility that North Korea carried out a nuclear test, looking at past cases," said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.

A spokesman for South Korea's defence ministry echoed those sentiments, saying the reported magnitude equalled an estimated yield "of 6.0-7.0 kilotons".

If confirmed, this would appear to be bigger than past tests, reports the BBC's Lucy Williamson in Seoul.

South Korea has raised its military alert and outgoing President Lee Myung-bak convened a meeting of the National Security Council.

Japan's government is also holding an emergency meeting, public broadcaster NHK reported. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his government would "consider every possible way to address this issue".

North Korea's two previous nuclear tests were both conducted shortly after rocket launches condemned by the UN as disguised tests of long-range missile technology.

It announced in January that it planned to conduct a "high-level" nuclear test, in response to expanded UN sanctions imposed after its latest rocket launch on 12 December 2012.

That rocket launch successfully put a satellite into orbit, in an apparent breakthrough for the North.

There was no explanation of what "high-level" meant, but the reference led to speculation that the test would be of a uranium device. The two previous tests involved plutonium devices.

The US and North Korea's neighbours fear Pyongyang's ultimate goal is to put a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile that could target the west coast of the US, but it is not believed to have mastered the technology yet.

The US, South Korea and Japan had all warned Pyongyang not to go ahead with the test. China, North Korea's closest ally and biggest trading partner, had also called for restraint.

[rubato]

The question as always is how do we understand "what does he want?". Because until we understand that we can't make any progress.

They want to feel powerful and important. Since, by every every other metric, their country is a wretched failure this is what's left, their military and nukes. It will be very difficult to get them to give up the nukes and cut back on the wasteful military spending unless we give them other way of feeling powerful and important. "They" means the NK leadership, mostly the new fat little fellow, the Un-dictator.



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[Lord Jim]

The North Koreans are claiming that the Carter III, while more powerful than the Carter I or the Carter II, is also smaller which if true, would mean that they are making progress towards developing a bomb which could be delivered as a missile warhead....

Of course there is no way to verify this, and the North Koreans have a substantial track record for inflating their accomplishments.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Cut off our food aid. Not that it would stop the leaders from doing what they want as they don't give a hoot about their population.
What to do!?!?!?!

[Gob]

More likely to blow themselves up and / or poison their own land than anything else.

[rubato]

The N. Koreans developed their first nukes under Bush the First who only learned about it when Hans Blix, the weapons investigato,r caught them at it and told us. This is the same Blix who proved that Saddam did not have WMD before Bush II lied and said he did.

Hans Blix 2 Republican Presidents Named Bush 0

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[rubato]

One Swedish Blix in the Hand is worth more than two Bushes.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... ar_program

"1992: In May, for the first time, North Korea allows a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), then headed by Hans Blix, to visit the facility at Yongbyon. Blix and the U.S. suspect that North Korea is secretly using its five-megawatt reactor and reprocessing facility at Yongbyon to turn spent fuel into weapons-grade plutonium. Before leaving, Blix arranges for fully equipped inspection teams to follow.
The inspections do not go well. Over the next several months, the North Koreans repeatedly block inspectors from visiting two of Yongbyon's suspected nuclear waste sites and IAEA inspectors find evidence that the country is not revealing the full extent of its plutonium production."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Blix
"Iraq disarmament 'crisis' (2002-2003)

During the Iraq disarmament crisis before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Blix was called back from retirement by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to lead United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission in charge of monitoring Iraq. Kofi Annan originally recommended Rolf Ekéus, who worked with UNSCOM in the past, but both Russia and France vetoed his appointment.

Hans Blix personally admonished Saddam for "cat and mouse" games[3] and warned Iraq of "serious consequences" if it attempted to hinder or delay his mission. [4]

In his report to the UN Security Council on 14 February 2003, Blix claimed that "If Iraq had provided the necessary cooperation in 1991, the phase of disarmament -- under resolution 687 -- could have been short and a decade of sanctions could have been avoided."[5]

Blix's statements about the Iraq WMD program came to contradict the claims of the George W. Bush administration,[6] and attracted a great deal of criticism from supporters of the invasion of Iraq. In an interview on BBC TV on 8 February 2004, Dr. Blix accused the US and British governments of dramatising the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the regime of Saddam Hussein. Ultimately, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were ever found.[7]

In an interview with London's Guardian newspaper, Hans Blix said, "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media".[8]

In 2004, Blix published a book, Disarming Iraq, where he gives his account of the events and inspections before the coalition began its invasion.

Blix said he suspected his home and office were bugged by the United States, while he led teams searching for Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons of mass destruction.[9] Although these suspicions were never directly substantiated, evidence of bugging of UN security council representatives around the time the US was seeking approval from the council came to light after a British government translator leaked a document "allegedly from an American National Security Agency" requesting that British intelligence put wiretaps on delegates to the UN security council.[10]"

[oldr_n_wsr]

The N. Koreans developed their first nukes under Bush the First who only learned about it when Hans Blix, the weapons investigato,r caught them at it and told us. This is the same Blix who proved that Saddam did not have WMD before Bush II lied and said he did.

Hans Blix 2 Republican Presidents Named Bush 0

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And this helps us now how?
Blame is everywhere, solutions are not forthcoming.
I drank in previous years and am making amends where and to whom I owe. I don't see any of that from the current government. All I see is laying down or turning a blind eye.

Blaming the past for current situations does nothing but satisfy those who did not like those who were in power in the past. Leadership, real leadership looks at the situation, and make it better despite the cause.
There are plenty of things I have to fix (and have fixed) here at work that were either neglected by past people or caused by them. I do not sit there and say "hey, it's their fault therefore I have no need to fix it". I just look at the problem, figure out a way to solve it, then implement that solution. If it doesn't work, I take the blame and try again. I don't go back and say, "well the mess was bigger than I thought and thus needed more attention" I take my lumps and try once again to make it better.

Blame does nothing but make the blamer feel better. It does nothing to solve the problem that exists.

[rubato]

It helps us by teaching that there are honest and competent people like Blix who should be believed, and dishonest liars like Bush II who should not.

Bush's chronic, serial, and perpetual lying before he lied about Iraq was an important clue.

Blix's detailed and careful reporting was a clue.




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[oldr_n_wsr]

Be mindful of the past. Remember the past. Dwelling on it solves no current problems.