North Korea Detonates Nuclear Bomb, Iran Sends Warships to Gulf of Aden

1) Defying world powers, N. Korea conducts nuke test SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea defied world powers and carried out an underground test Monday of a nuclear bomb Russian officials said was comparable to those that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The incident drew condemnation from Washington to Beijing and set the communist regime up for a showdown with the United Nations. …French officials said they would push for new sanctions, and even traditional Pyongyang ally China said it was "resolutely opposed" to the test, which Russian officials estimated yielded a powerful 10- to 20-kiloton blast — enough to flatten a city and far more than North Korea managed in a 2006 atomic test. …The U.S. Geological Survey registered seismic activity in northeastern North Korea at 9:54 a.m. (0054 GMT), which it initially identified as a 4.7-magnitude earthquake. North Korea also test-fired three short-range missiles from a nearby launchpad, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed sources. Sources described them as ground-to-air missiles with a range of 80 miles (130 kilometers), the report said. Yonhap cited military officials as saying the launches appeared to be aimed at keeping U.S. and Japanese surveillance planes away from the nuclear test site. …U.S. and French officials have said the 2006 test measured less than a kiloton; 1 kiloton is equal to the force produced by 1,000 tons of TNT. Russia estimated the force of the 2006 blast at 5 to 15 kilotons, far higher than other estimates at the time.  Pyongyang is believed to have enough weaponized plutonium for at least a half-dozen atomic bombs. However, experts say scientists have not yet mastered the miniaturization needed to mount a nuclear device onto a long-range missile. See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090525/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear 1a) Obama: N. Korea 'recklessly challenging' the world Reining in Pyongyang's nuclear program has been a continuing problem for U.S. administrations, dating to the Clinton administration. Former President George W. Bush labeled North Korea as a country that was part of an international "axis of evil," but the United States subsequently removed Pyongyang from its list of official state sponsors of terrorism when it shut down a nuclear installation late in the Bush administration. Yeah, we don’t use the term “axis of evil” anymore… See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090525/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_nkorea 1b) Analysis: NKorea widens threat, limits US options WASHINGTON – North Korea's nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists (emphasis mine). See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_north_korea_analysis 2) Iran Sends 6 Warships to International Waters in 'Saber Rattling' Move Iran has sent six warships into international waters in a move security experts are calling a "muscle flexing" show of defiance following missile tests last week. "Iran has dispatched six ... warships to international waters and the Gulf of Aden region in a historically unprecedented move by the Iranian Navy," Iranian Adm. Habibollah Sayyari told a gathering of armed forces officials, Reuters reported. Sayyari said the ships were moved to preserve Iran's territorial integrity in its southern waters, but foreign policy experts are calling it an aggressive move targeted at a Western audience as much as for regional powers like rival Saudi Arabia. The deployment is "a signal of military strength, resolve and continued defiance to U.S. and U.N. Security Council efforts to end the impasse over Iran's nuclear program," said Jim Phillips, senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at the Heritage Institute. "What's very important here is the timing of this move — and this naval muscle flexing comes after Iran's missile test earlier this week, which was saber rattling that was meant to send the same signal as this naval dispatch." See: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521730,00.html?test=latestnews