North Korea tests "Hiroshima bomb"

In what is clearly intended to be an insult to America on a day we remember our dead, North Korea tested a nuclear bomb on par with the one that hit Hiroshima at the end of World War II. It is being claimed that Kim Jon Il gave the USA less than hour's notice of the test.

Russian defence experts estimated the explosion's yield at between 10 and 20 kilotons, many times more than the 1 kiloton measured in its first nuclear test in 2006 and about as powerful as the bombs the US used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war. One kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT.

The force of the blast made the ground tremble in the Chinese border city of Yanji, 130 miles away...Today's test will add to fears that the North is moving closer to possessing the ability to mount a nuclear warhead on long-range missiles that are capable, in theory, of reaching Hawaii and Alaska.

"This test, if confirmed, could indicate North Korea's decision to work at securing actual nuclear capabilities," Koh Yu-hwan, a professor at Dongkuk University in Seoul, told Reuters.

Two questions hang in the air at this point. (1) What can we do to limit North Korea and thus protect the region - Japan is clearly convinced they could be a target of a NK nuke? (2) What are North Korea's actual intentions for these weapons - defense or conquest? Either way, Kim Jong Il seems to be set on convincing the world that he is a clear and present danger to international peace.