Yet Another Nuke Test?
Yonhap is reporting suspicious vehicle movements, plus South Korean denials that another test is likely (the power of bilateral engagement and “carrots” will save us … just like before!). Until Google Earth goes real time, the most accurate indicator of a North Korean provocation we ordinary folks are going to get is the exact opposite of whatever South Korea predicts.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice caution[ed] the communist nation that a second nuclear test “no doubt would deepen its isolation.” Rice and South Korea’s foreign minister, Song Min-Soon, agreed at a news conference in Washington that their governments want negotiations on North Korea’s nuclear program resumed.
“If North Korea is prepared to return in a more constructive spirit” the talks could be reopened fairly soon, Rice said. But she added, “We know of no substantive response from the North Koreans.”
….
“We think it is essential that North Korea should stop further nuclear testing and they should abandon all their nuclear programs,” said Nori Shikata, assistant press secretary for Japan’s Foreign Ministry. “If they conduct another nuclear test, then the international community, including Japan, will take additional measures.”
Hey, where’s Song’s statement? Guess I missed it.
If NK tests another nuke, I would guess the strongest motivation to do so would have been that the first test didn’t satisfy them technology wise.
I doubt Pyongyang believes it can get more done politically by testing another nuke. They seem better at reading the world than that. I also doubt they would want to use up a bomb unless they needed the data to fix problems noticed on the last test.
Better to see that all over the news for two weeks than Pelosi.
No Republican voter can fail to enjoy the spectacle of Nancy Pelosi blowing it for the Democrats with her stumbles on Hastings and Murtha, and her brewing fight with the Surrender Lobby over Iraq. It’s as if their only chance in 2008 is to ditch the very people who dominate their party, and Pelosi, whatever her other merits, seems not to have mastered that high wire act.