A Coreia do Norte testou um engenho nuclear ou o bom senso de políticos e também de jornalistas e autores de blogues apressados (negritos meus):
1) a posição oficial norte-americana ("President Bush's Statement on North Korea Nuclear Test"): Last night the government of North Korea proclaimed to the world that it had conducted a nuclear test. We're working to confirm North Korea's claim. Nonetheless, such a claim itself constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
2) a posição oficial do Conselho de Segurança das Nações Unidas ("Security Council members 'strongly condemn' nuclear test by DPR Korea"): The United Nations today strongly condemned the reported nuclear test by the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea (DPRK), calling it ?a grave challenge? that violates international norms, aggravates regional tensions and creates serious security issues for the world community.
3) a posição oficial europeia ("EU presidency statement on the carrying out of a nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea"): The Presidency of the European Union strongly condemns the test of a nuclear explosive device by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). Carrying out the test was unacceptable. The EU works in close cooperation with the international community for a decisive international response to this provocative act.
4)a posição oficial portuguesa ("Comunicado"): O Governo Português tomou conhecimento, com grande apreensão, da detonação experimental de um engenho nuclear no território da República Popular Democrática da Coreia.
O que outros disseram:
Scientists Try to Determine if North Korea Set Off Nuclear Explosion: North Korea sets off an earthshaking explosion and claims it was nuclear. Was it? For scientists, that was not a quick and easy question to answer.
Like earthquakes, large explosions send out shockwaves that can be detected on seismographs. Big nuclear bombs make big waves, with clear signatures that make them fairly easy to detect, analyze and confirm that they were caused by splitting atoms. But smaller blasts as North Korea's appears to have been are trickier to break down. [...]
"People have different way of cross cutting the data and interpreting them," said Lassina Zerbo, director of the International Data Center at the [Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization - CTBTO], which is based in Vienna, Austria. [...]
The CTBTO's stations are more extensive than those used by most countries. They monitor seismic events but also underwater data, radioactive particles in the air and radiowaves.
"Within 72 hours we will have full data. Then all this will be available to member states," said Zerbo.
While the North Korean explosion was small, potentially complicating monitoring efforts, sensors in South Korea were likely close enough to categorize it as nuclear, if that is what is was, said Friedrich Steinhaeusler, professor of physics at Salzburg University.
A nuclear blast also gives off a clear signature a clear graph of peaks and curves that differentiates it from other kinds of shocks, he added.
"We'll have the confirmation soon," he said.
North Korean blast seems small for a nuke: It is easy to say that the blast was an explosion rather than an earthquake by looking at the seismic signal: an explosion has a much sharper start than a quake. But to identify the details of a nuclear explosion will take more delving. Scientists will pour over seismic data in the coming days. To get a complete picture, the geology of the rock will also need to be considered.
North Korea may be far from being able to mount atomic attack: North Korea may have the bomb. But the complexities of developing nuclear warheads from Pyongyang's claimed successful test explosion _ and the means to deliver them _ means the country may be years away from posing an atomic threat to the rest of the world. [...]
Ahead of Monday's explosion, former U.N. nuclear inspector David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, speculated that the test bomb would have a yield three to four times weaker than the bombs that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II because of the North Koreans' lack of ability to produce a stronger weapon.
Indirectly confirming Albright's comments on Monday, both Russian and South Korean officials said seismic measurements showed the blast was far weaker than those dropped on the two Japanese cities.
Size matters as well. Rudimentary test bombs can be the size of small trucks, ruling them out as missile payloads. While smaller, even the bomb dropped from aircraft on Nagasaki weighed nearly 6 tons.
"They can deliver it, put it on a cargo ship, drop it from a cargo plane," said Gordon Chang, author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World." "The point is, can they shrink it to put it on a missile? I don't think they can."
