North Korea claims nuclear test
POSTED: 3:27 a.m. EDT, October 9, 2006
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea claimed it conducted a successful underground nuclear test Monday, according to the country's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
China, a close ally of North Korea, denounced the claimed test as "brazen" and South Korea said it would respond "sternly." The United States said a test would constitute a "provocative act."
The apparent nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (1:36 a.m. GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing defense officials.
South Korea's share market dropped almost 3 percent after the first reports of the apparent test before closing 2.4 percent lower. Japan's market was closed Monday for a public holiday (Full story).
Reports of the claimed test triggered global condemnation (Full story).
A spokesman for South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun said Seoul would "sternly respond" and the Defense Ministry raised the military alert level.
"The field of scientific research in the DPRK (North Korea's official name) successfully conducted an underground nuclear test under secure conditions on October 9 ... at a stirring time when all the people of the country are making a great leap forward in the building of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation," KCNA reported.
In Washington, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow responded to the reports in a conference call with reporters.
"U.S. and South Korean intelligence detected a seismic event Sunday at a suspected nuclear test site. North Korea has claimed it conducted an underground nuclear test," Snow said.
"A North Korean nuclear test would constitute a provocative act in defiance of the will of the international community and of our call to refrain from actions that would aggravate tensions in northeast Asia," Snow added.
A senior U.S. official said China was given a 20-minute warning ahead of the test and in turn passed the information along to the United States, Japan and South Korea.
A U.S. military official told CNN that "something clearly has happened," but the Pentagon was working to fully confirm the report.
Other senior U.S. officials said they also believed the test took place, citing seismic data that appears to show one.
Senior U.S. officials said the United States is consulting with allies around the world and would push for sanctions Monday at a 9:30 a.m. (1:30 p.m. GMT) meeting of the U.N. Security Council in New York.
They might want congratulations with some fireworks dropped to Pyongyang.North Korea Wants CongratulationsUnited Nations - The U.N. Security Council
U.N. Security Council should congratulate North Korea for its nuclear test instead of passing "useless" resolutions or statements, North Korea's U.N. ambassador said Monday.
The council was holding a meeting about the test, and several diplomats warned of tough measures, possibly including the threat of sanctions.
"It will be better for the Security Council of the United Nations to congratulate the DPRK scientists and researchers instead of doing such notorious, useless and rigorous resolutions or whatever," Pak said, referring to the North by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.
"The nuclear test in the DPRK will greatly contribute in increasing the world deterrence of the DPRK" and will contribute "to the maintenance and guarantee of peace and security in the peninsula and the region," he said.
These are the government responses, but I heard some reports too a lot of South Koreans are secretly not so displeased, that this has sparked a great welling up of national pride and they can understand the North's need for it...And anyway, after reunification it's going to give the entire penninsula much greater international leverage than it has now. I wonder how serious they can be this ? ☝The news is true. An earth shock was felt in Korea of 3.5. China officially disapproved the test, S-Korea stopped their help to N-Korea today, and a lot of more stuff is going to happen the next couple of days!!
Waiting for Abe his official response.
It was a few hours before the Roh-Abe summit when Kim announced the success of an underground explosion test, then this is what happened at the meeting:ricecake said:Majority Koreans silently support continue success in nuclear development for the peninsula,N Korea's aim is Japan.
Roh refused Abe's request to issue a joint statement condemning North Korea for its alleged nuclear test, according to the sources. The South Korean leader then talked for 40 minutes about his views on the history of Japan's atrocities during World War II and visits by Japanese politicians to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.
Roh or Kimuchi-jins wouldn't have refused a joint statement if it was " Proclamation of Japanese and Kimuchi-jins are ONE BLOOD " whatever that means,a pathetic cure for bitter stubborn Koreans' severe case of deep-seated inferiority complex.
Following intensive negotiations triggered earlier this month when the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) claimed to have conducted a nuclear test, the United Nations Security Council today imposed sanctions against the country as well as individuals supporting its military programme and demanded that Pyongyang cease its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution unanimously Saturday against North Korea over its claimed nuclear test, expressing "the gravest concern" and calling for all U.N. members to take wide-ranging economic and diplomatic sanctions.
It is the first time the Security Council has adopted a sanctions resolution against North Korea since the country joined the United Nations in 1991.
North Korea, however, totally rejected the resolution, calling it "unjustifiable." In July, Pyongyang also "totally rejected" a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its launches of ballistic missiles.
"It is gangster-like for the Security Council to have adopted today a coercive resolution while neglecting the nuclear threat and moves for sanctions and pressure of the U.S. against the DPRK," said North Korean Ambassador to the United Nations Pak Kil Yon during open consultations at the full council.
Read all
Explain what that Framework Agreement was.
BRUCE CUMINGS: Well, it was an agreement that came after a very dire threat of war in 1994 that froze their entire plutonium facility at Yongbyon in North Korea. They had seals on the doors, closed-circuit television, and at least two UN inspectors on the ground, 24/7, all the time. So there isn't any possibility of that agreement having failed. It held for eight years and denied North Korea the plutonium that would have allowed them to make more bombs. Senator McCain is engaged in some sort of demagoguery here, because I don't know a single expert who would say that that Framework Agreement was not successful, at least for eight years, in keeping North Korea's plutonium facility shutdown.
Now, the enriched uranium program is not even clearly a program for a bomb. It may be to enrich uranium for light-water reactors that were expected to have been built by the United States and its allies. But even if it is for a bomb, it's much more difficult to enrich uranium to a weapons grade and create a uranium bomb than it is to create a plutonium bomb, plus they already have now, thanks to the Bush administration's policies, the wherewithal for six to eight plutonium bombs, so in effect they don't even need the other program.
People say North Korea cheated. Wow, isn't that really terrible? Kim Jong-il cheated. I don't know anyone who thinks that Kim Jong-il is a person who can be trusted, but I do know that North Korea kept that agreement made in 1994 and the U.S. did not. We pledged ourselves to normalize relations with North Korea. We didn't do that. We pledged ourselves to build light-water reactors. They got started in 2002. So when you actually look at that agreement between country X and country Y, rather than the endlessly demonized North Korean regime, you see that we are responsible, as well as the North Koreans, for the current situation.
But as far as Senator McCain is concerned, he is just flat wrong. It's not a partisan question. It's a question of knowing what that agreement was and whether it was carried out or not.
South Korea as Kim's ATM
And the foreign minister, Ban Ki Moon, who was just selected to be the new UN secretary-general, praised the two South Korean projects in the North.
---Yes, and the US already knows that.Originally Posted by Hiroyuki Nagashima
As for the Korean, both the north and the south are the same.
There's that alliance again...much more important than SKorean sovereignty apparently.She said both countries should seek to understand each other and recognize the importance of their alliance.
Korean Nukes Linked to Japanese Pinballby Carl Freire
Gambling at pachinko was a lot more fun for Reiko Kuzuhara until she began to wonder whether maybe - just maybe - her losses were helping North Korea build nuclear weapons.
Pachinko, a form of pinball deeply loved in Japan, is an industry run by ethnic Koreans, and experts have long believed that the revenues are a vital source of hard currency for the impoverished regime in North Korea.
Now, as Kim Jong Il's nuclear weapons program gathers pace, Japan's attitude is hardening, and that includes shutting out the ferry on which money is believed to be hand-carried from Japan to North Korea.
"I really don't like that the money I spend could be helping them with those sorts of things," said Kuzuhara, 55, who works in the printing industry and was interviewed on a Tokyo street near several pachinko parlors. "It's making me think twice and cut back on how often I play."
The pachinko connection is facing increased scrutiny as tensions rise following North Korea's ballistic missile tests in July and its first test of a nuclear device on Oct. 9.
Pachinko is an upright pinball game played at tens of thousands of brightly lit parlors across the country. Success is measured in little steel payoff balls, which can be exchanged for cash or other prizes.
The machines rake in over $200 billion a year, some of which finds its way to North Korea. Official figures put the sum of remittances from sources in Japan at $25.5 million, but the bookkeeping is murky and some think the sum is closer to $850 million a year. No one knows how much of it derives directly from pachinko.
"It's very difficult to say how much cash is actually going from Japan to the North," said Toshio Miyatsuka, a North Korea specialist at Yamanashi Gakuin University in central Japan who has written a book about the pachinko industry.
"But it does seem certain that a lot of it is winding up in the hands of the North Korean government and military, and that includes money earned from drugs and pachinko," he added.
The Ministry of Finance only requires sums going to North Korea to be reported if they top $2.55 million in wire transfers or $85,120 in hand-delivered cash.
Japanese government records show that of $25.5 million sent from Japan to North Korea during the 2005 fiscal year, more than 90 percent was hand-delivered.
The banning of the Mangyongbong ferry from Japanese ports in July has almost certainly put a crimp in the cash flow.
Government officials, however, say it's hard to track money delivered through third countries, in person or through bank accounts. Cash from the drug trade traveling through Japan's underworld is likewise hard to monitor.
Officials in the pachinko industry say North Korea's image problems and the sanctions have not been a business issue.
While ethnic Koreans may worry about how relatives in the North are faring without the cash they used to take to them, their main concerns as businessmen lie elsewhere.
"Yes, there are a lot of ethnic Korean operators, but the industry is not at all concerned about the sanctions issue," said Takaaki Sasaki, spokesman for Zennichiyuren, an industry organization. "We're not hearing about anyone losing business because of the missiles or the nuclear test."
Still, the connection between pinball revenues and North Korea makes some Japanese pachinko players uneasy.
"I used to play frequently, but I don't go so often anymore," Kuzuhara said. "I really don't want North Korea using my money for bombs."