World outraged by North Korea's latest nuke test

World outraged by North Korea's latest nuke test

SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting Monday after world leaders reacted with outrage to North Korea's latest nuclear test.

North Korea earlier said it had tested the weapon in an underground explosion, provoking an angry response from the world's governments.

It had threatened to conduct the test if the U.N. Security Council did not apologize for imposing sanctions on North Korea after it tested a rocket April 5.

The secretive communist state also apparently test-fired a short-range missile Monday, the White House said.

The Security Council called on its members to discuss the reported test Monday at 4 p.m. ET. Video Watch how the test may have taken world by surprise »

The United States and many other countries denounced the test. Even China, North Korea's strongest ally, said it opposed the test.

The White House -- which less than three weeks ago announced a new diplomatic effort to restart stalled talks with North Korea about its nuclear program -- said the test was in "blatant defiance" of the Security Council.

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Ruling Party Official: Japan Should Attack North Korea

A ruling party lawmaker today urged Japan to break the terms of its pacifist constitution and pre-emptively attack North Korea following the Stalinist state’s nuclear bomb test.

“North Korea poses a serious and realistic threat to Japan,” stated former defense chief Gen Nakatani in Tokyo at a meeting of Liberal Democratic Party officials. “We must look at active missile defense such as attacking an enemy’s territory and bases.”

Nakatani said the attack could be accomplished by equipping navy ships with cruise missiles.

The former defense minister’s warning arrives on the heels of an LDP panel proposal that Japan should change the terms of its pacifist constitution, written by the U.S. after world war two to prevent Japan using hostile force to settle geopolitical disputes, to enable a military attack on North Korea.

“The Japanese government has built a defense network since a North Korean Taepodong-1 missile flew over Japan in 1998 that includes anti-missile batteries around Tokyo and is expanding to other major cities. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada in March ordered the shooting down of any North Korean missile or related debris that entered Japanese territory,” reports Bloomberg.

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the world is outraged, huh?

Plutonium from US-Supplied LWRs for North Korea: Do We have to Worry
About It?

Victor Gilinsky
Nuclear Consultant
VG@Gilinsky.com

We in the United States are at an important decision point in our nuclear relations with North Korea. In 1994 we
signed a U.S.-North Korean nuclear agreement designed to prevent North Korea from getting physical access to
militarily significant quantities of the nuclear explosive plutonium. We now have to decide whether we are going to
interpret this agreement strictly in keeping with this purpose, or whether we will take a more “realistic” view—one
that is more accommodating to the North.

The North’s nuclear weapons work continues

Under the 1994 “Agreed Framework,” the United States promised to supply the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea with two large U.S.-type nuclear power reactors, called LWRs. In return, the North agreed to freeze its efforts
to get nuclear explosives for bombs. The U.S. reactor project is underway—the South Korean prime contractor has
started construction. For its part, the North has stopped operation of a small plutonium production reactor, has
stopped construction of two larger ones, and has stopped operation of a plutonium separation plant. But worrisome
intelligence continues to crop up concerning hidden DPRK nuclear weapons efforts. The U.S. Congress, in
appropriating funds for additional nuclear aid to the North, wanted the President to certify that the North was not still
surreptitiously seeking to obtain nuclear explosives. Instead, the President waived the requirement that he so certify.
He can do that under the law, but the implications are obvious.

http://lxmi.mi.infn.it/~landnet/corea/proc/020.pdf