North Korea has apparently tested a nuclear weapon. If I read the NY Times' description of the monitoring network right, the magnitude 4-ish tremor is near the lower bound of what's detectable, and that boundary is believed to be near 1 kiloton in yield.
It's theoretically possible to reduce the size of the tremor by building a test chamber designed to decouple the shock waves from the surrounding rock, but I haven't heard any suggestions that DPRK has done such a thing.
NHK is running an hour-long program about what is known about the test, and world reactions (especially the Japanese politicians). I wouldn't trade jobs with Prime Minister Abe, President Bush, or President Roh for anything right now.
I'm not prone to particularly bad dreams, but the news over the last few days about the buildup to the test must have gotten to me; I dreamt last night that I died in a nuclear blast. One of the worst dreams I can ever remember having.
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