North Korea in apparent NUCLEAR preperations.

[BlairH]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4524477.stm

Right. Three schools of thought here:
1. NK is preparing for an underground nuclear test.
2. The US is "making stuff up again".
3. This is a bluff by NK. They are building a mine shaft with attachments that make it "look" like a testing site (observation bunker situated a few miles away).

I personally buy into the 1st school of thought. NK wishes to test a nuke to destabalise the region. This would work to their advantage as it could provoke Japan into swiftly starting a nuclear program, this will give China the incentive to step in and help their NK "allies" should NK decide to make a grab for South Korea...Or maybe that's a bit too much Tom Clancy stuff.

[mgs]

Right. Three schools of thought here:
1. NK is preparing for an underground nuclear test.
2. The US is "making stuff up again".
3. This is a bluff by NK. They are building a mine shaft with attachments that make it "look" like a testing site (observation bunker situated a few miles away).
one more:

4. NK WILL make nukes and loudly proclaim their quest for World Domination, threatening to kill anyone in their way! Bush, of course, will ignore this, laugh at NK like the mom from Family Guy who laughs at the child threatening to kill her, and he will instead concentrate on finding traces of uranium in the Middle East. Somewhere.

[Shadow Crawler]

Hasn't North Korea been doing nuclear preperations for the past year or two?

[BlairH]

Yeah, they've been processing the fissile material in order to manufacture the weapons. It's now believed that they have between 2-7 in their arsenal.

Recently, spy sats have shown that they have built what appears to be a live blast test site of the underground variety (an underground blast is the only feasible way for NK to test their weapons. They can't test in the pacific because the US would intercept their ships. They can't do an atmospheric test because NK is a small country and the effects on the populace would be devastating).

Basically the facility appears to have a strong military engineering presence (so it's probably not a civillian mining project). A large mine shaft and enclosers have been fabricated to limit the blast. An observation dect is situated several miles away from the site.

EDIT: A few days ago they test launched a medium range missile into the sea of Japan. It seems that NK wants to provoke a response.

[Paul McEnery]

EDIT: A few days ago they test launched a medium range missile into the sea of Japan. It seems that NK wants to provoke a response.
Possibly.

Or possibly they're just making a show of strength.

But yeah, it's something to be concerned about.

Too bad John Bolton made such a fist of our diplomacy with them.

[Archangel_29]

Another school of thought you might want to consider is that after NK is done developing it's Nuclear weapons they could easily sell them to terrorist groups since it's a known fact that they have been trying to buy one for the past few years.

[Charles RB]

Does North Korea actually have nuclear weapons? The only evidence seems to be NK saying they have them.

NK wishes to test a nuke to destabalise the region. This would work to their advantage as it could provoke Japan into swiftly starting a nuclear program, this will give China the incentive to step in and help their NK "allies" should NK decide to make a grab for South Korea...Or maybe that's a bit too much Tom Clancy stuff.

Japan already knows North Korea could hit them with a nuke if it had one and hasn't gone with a nuclear program (and would you want to be the politician in Japan advocating that the country uses nuclear weapons? That'd be political death!). And how happy is China going to be at the idea of one of its dodgy neighbours having nuclear capabilities?