I'm a little worried (as we all should be) by North Korea's apparent testing of a nuclear bomb.

Its not so much that I think they could fire a missile at the US, though apparently there is some risk of that.

I'm actually more concerned that they have been testing missiles recently, flying them over Japan or the most recent that failed and crashed in the Sea of Japan.

I'd be extremely worried if I lived in Japan right now (I may even retire there, so its not an entirely empty sentiment). The next time North Korea launches a "test" missile, how should we react? How should Japan react? How are they to know that Kim Jong Il didn't strap a nuclear warhead onto it?

The second scary question - what if he did? What if heaven forbid he nuked Tokyo or anywhere else in Japan? Its not like the US could "nuke them back to the Stone Age" with China on one side and South Korea and Japan so close. Nuclear fallout doesn't stop at the border - just ask any of the farmers in the UK whose sheep became radioactive after Chernobyl. And of course, its only the top leadership that is at fault here - that rank and file working in the fields are as innocent as always.

What this should teach us if nothing else is that once a nation has The Bomb, suddenly a whole bunch of options are off the table. Can't invade - thats like prodding a hornets nest. Turning their country to glass is interesting rhetoric but totally dumb.

Best to make sure it doesn't come to that in the first place. Iran anyone?

There was an apparent confirmation of how nothing will be the same again in that part of the world.

Japan experienced a 6.0 magnitude earthquake 6 miles off the coast of Miyagi prefecture in northern Japan. The quake had authorities thinking there had been a second nuclear test, but they quickly backed down.

Still, it goes to show with tensions running high, it doesn't take much to put people on edge. 

(this from Mainichi, the Japanese newspaper) 

SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea's military was reportedly readying for a nuclear conflict on Wednesday as rival North warned an international push to level sanctions on Pyongyang over its atomic weapons test would be an act to war.

A North Korean official warned Wednesday that the isolated, communist nation would regard sanctions against as a call to war, Yonhap news agency reported.

"Sanctions are nonsense. If full-scale sanctions take place, we will regard it as a declaration of war," the official based in Beijing, who wasn't identified, told Yonhap.

The harsh words came after North Korea shocked the world on Monday by claiming to have conducted its first nuclear bomb test, triggering a U.S.-backed campaign to have the U.N. Security Council sanction the country.

South Korea's military was checking its readiness for nuclear war, Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday. The Joint Chiefs of Staff reported to Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung the need for verifying and improving troops' capabilities, it said.

[Read the full story at Mainichi]