Breaking: North Korea Reportedly Tests Nuke

2 Comments

1. 

   diane101 on October 8, 2006 at 11:57 pm

   Here is another breaking story, couldn’t find any where else to post so thought I would put it here.  I think you have the two new stories of the day on Monday right here.  For sure the Korean thing will be front center.  

   Hundreds of Iraqi police poisoned, officials say
   POSTED: 7:57 p.m. EDT, October 8, 2006
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   BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Hundreds of Iraqi policemen fell sick from poisoning Sunday at a base in southern Iraq after the evening meal breaking their daily Ramadan fast, and officials said they were investigating whether the poisoning was intentional.

   An official with the Environment Ministry said 11 policemen had died. However, the governor of Wasit province — where the poisoning took place — denied any deaths, though he said some of the victims were in critical condition. There was no immediate explanation for the contradictory reports.

   Some of the policemen began bleeding from the ears and nose after the meal, said Jassim al-Atwan, an inspector for the Environment Ministry, who was serving as a liaison in the investigation between the Health Ministry and the base, located in the town of Numaniyah.

   “Hundreds of soldiers were poisoned after taking food and water in the iftar,” Wasit Gov. Hamad al-Latif told the Associated Press, referring to the meal that breaks the sunrise-to-sunset fast during the Islamic holy month. “Investigations are under way to determine the cause.”

   Samples of the food and water were being tested “to determine the substance in them” and will be sent to Baghdad for further tests, al-Latif said.

   Sunni insurgents who have targeted police and military forces with bombings and shootings have not been known to use poisoning as a weapon. But the suddenness and severity of the sickness raised speculation that the incident could be a new attack. The division is mainly made up of Shiites.

   Between 600-700 policemen were affected to varying degrees, and 11 who had the heaviest amount of the food had died, al-Atwan told The Associated Press.

   Some of the soldiers collapsed as soon as they stood up from the meal, others fell “one after the other” as they headed out to the yard in the base to line up in formation, al-Atwan said.

   Iraqi ambulances and helicopters sent by the U.S. military rushed the policemen to hospitals in Numaniyah and the nearby city of Kut.
   http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/08/iraq.poisoning.ap/index.html

2. 

   afs on October 9, 2006 at 12:15 pm

   It’s beginning to look like the NK test was a failure. Produced a fizzled nuclear reaction. What does that mean?

   “I love the US Geological Survey.

   They’ve published lat/long (41.294°N, 129.134°E) and Mb estimates (4.2) for the North Korean test.

   There is lots of data floating around: The CTBTO called it 4.0; The South Koreans report 3.58-3.7.

   You’re thinking, 3.6, 4.2, in that neighborhood. Seismic scales, like the Richter, are logarithmic, so that neighborhood can be pretty big.

   But even at 4.2, the test was probablya dud.

   Estimating the yield is tricky business, because it depends on the geology of the test site. The South Koreans called the yield half a kiloton (550 tons), which is more or less–a factor of two–consistent with the relationship for tests in that yield range at the Soviet Shagan test site:

   Mb = 4.262 + .973LogW

   Where Mb is the magnitude of the body wave, and W is the yield.

   3.58-3.7 gives you a couple hundred tons (not kilotons), which is pretty close in this business unless you’re really math positive. The same equation, given the US estimate of 4.2, yields (pun intended) around a kiloton.

   A plutonium device should produce a yield in the range of the 20 kilotons, like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever.

   Of course, I want to see what the US IC says. If/when the test vents, we could have some radionuclide data–maybe in the next 72 hours or so….”

   http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1230/nork-data-it-was-a-dud