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sophistry .....

from today’s Australian …..

‘North Korea last night stepped up its nuclear blackmail with the announcement that it will test an atomic device for the first time.

Blaming an American "extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions", Kim Jong-il's increasingly isolated regime announced that a nuclear weapons test was essential to bolstering North Korea's defence.

Pyongyang gave no time frame, but the US and North Korea's neighbours have been on alert for a month since American surveillance detected possible preparations for an underground test in the country's north.

The outside world last night reacted with alarm and, in Japan's case, belligerence, to the threat of a North Korean test.’

North Korea's Nuclear Test Threat

Unsurprisingly, The Australian’s accusation that North Korea is engaged in “nuclear blackmail” is pure sophistry.

History shows that In the days when the US & the rest of the world’s ‘great powers’ appeared genuine in their efforts to limit nuclear proliferation through constructive foreign policy engagement, the Clinton administration successfully negotiated the suspension of North Korea’s infant nuclear program, in return for agreeing to supply her with the necessary nuclear technology to secure her burgeoning energy needs.

With the arrival of the ‘great deciderer’ & his crazed neo-con ideologues, the US promptly reneged on the Clinton agreement, accusing Pyongyang of being, amongst other things, a member of the ‘axis of evil’.

Like Iran, North Korea has recently witnessed the willingness of the US & its sycophantic ‘besiderers’, including Australia, to engage in all manner of ‘nuclear hypocrisy’, by supporting the expansion of the nuclear weapons capabilities of India, Pakistan & Israel, whilst also busying itself with the modernisation of its own obscene nuclear arsenal.

The world at large has also observed the willingness of the US & its allies to publicly malign, threaten & even launch wars of aggression against countries who refuse to toe their line, including Iraq & Lebanon. Even now the US is alleged to be preparing for another such pre-emptive attack, this time against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

Whilst The Australian & Alexander Downer are ever ready to mimic the unsupported accusations & shrill threats of the US, the more circumspect among us are capable of recognising that North Korea’s behaviour is regrettable but entirely predictable.

the great behinderer .....

‘North Korea today announced it had carried out its first nuclear weapons test, sparking an immediate barrage of condemnation from world leaders.

The test was the equivalent to blowing up  550 tons of TNT, a state-run South Korean geological institute said.

Prime Minister John Howard told parliament this afternoon his government was "disturbed and outraged" by the development, saying there was seismic confirmation it had taken place.

"The test has destabilised the region, it's eroded North Korea's own security,'' he told parliament.

"A strong international response is called for and Australia will give full support to that response.''’

wot, no “coalition of the willing” to root out the evildoer’s terrible arsenal of wmds ….. no “regime change” ….. no “police action” to discipline the barbarians, as we were so ready to mount in East Timor & the Solomons ….. no threat to send Geoff Cousins to sort the bastards out?

More like no oil ….. & as usual, our little pickette anzac loudly threatens to follow the actions of others ….. that’s our little rodent. 

A fart in the depth of the earf...

At an "equivalent of 550 tonnes of TNT", the "nuclear" test sounds more like a fake test to me, but who knows... A real nuke test would unleash at least an equivalent minimum of 10,000 tonnes of TNT... Either the figures are wrong, either someone is bullshitting and that could be North Korea... More analysis needs to be done of the data... the real data... and nothing changes anything unless we wish not to help a desperate authoritarian country... but not in the way we're trying to help Iraq...

and the test was not really deep...
from the Iris website (the website that monitors any earthquake of magnitude 4 and above):
09-OCT-2006 01:35:27 41.31 129.11 4.2 0.0 NORTH KOREA
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From the New York Times

The big challenge is to distinguish the signatures of earthquakes from those of nuclear blasts. Typically, the shock waves from nuclear explosions begin with a sharp spike as earth and rock are compressed violently. The signal then tends to become fuzzier as surface rumblings and shudders and after shocks create seismologic mayhem.

With earthquakes, it is usually the opposite. A gentle jostling suddenly becomes much bigger and more violent.

Most of the world’s seismic networks that look for nuclear blasts are designed to detect explosions as small as one kiloton, or equal to 1,000 tons of high explosives. On instruments for detecting earthquakes, such a blast would measure a magnitude of about 4, like a small tremor.

Echoes

From Alaskan Storm Plays Role of Butterfly for Antarctica:

Using the seismometer, MacAyeal and his colleagues discovered that the iceberg had been hit by a series of waves 13,500 km away. They drew a line on a map that was about 8,000 miles away from B15 and wound up in the Gulf of Alaska.

Fake or failed?

From the BBC

N Korea raises threat of new test

North Korea's second most powerful leader has threatened more nuclear tests if the US maintains its "hostile" policy, Japanese media report.
Kim Yong-nam said the decision depended on how the US treated North Korea, Japan's Kyodo news agency said.

The comments were the first from a senior North Korean official since the country's claimed nuclear test.

France's defence minister has questioned the test, saying the blast could have failed or been a fake.

Mr Kim said, in an interview with Kyodo, that "the issue of future nuclear tests is linked to US policy toward our country".

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Gus: as mentioned on two blogs above, things do not appear as sharp as they should... Only very sophisticated nuclear powers can manage small 1000 ton of TNT equivalent explosions as the downsizing engineering are complex and dicey. As a first test for success, most nations would have at least a reliable minimum 10,000 tonnes of TNT equivalent test — the amount of nuclear fissile material needed is not that much more... but the odds of success are much greater...