Posted on 10/13/2006 7:20:12 PM PDT by verum ago
NEW YORK, Oct. 13 (Kyodo) _ Preliminary evidence of radioactivity has been detected at North Korea's test site, CNN reported Friday, quoting a U.S. government source.
NBC News, meanwhile, reported that an increase in radioactivity has been observed around areas where North Korea's nuclear test sites appear to be located as a result of a U.S. analysis of air over the areas.
A further analysis is necessary to determine that a nuclear test has been performed there as claimed by North Korea, the CNN report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Taht's alright, the U.N. has everything under control.
That's like the opposite of the news report earlier today.
Is the source identified? If not, it's gossip so count me doubtful.
There's no particular reason to "test" a dirty bomb, really. There's no particular sophistication to them (and they're not really all that effective, frenzied media hype notwithstanding, anyway).
One problem is all of this is far too technical for the media to understand at all.
It's really not just "radioactivity" (I could detect "radioactivity" where you're sitting right now) - it's that actual Nuclear fission EXPLOSIONS create a SPECIFIC, short-lived set of radioactive isotopes that can be detected (and can even precisely date the time of an explosion.) This cannot be faked by simply putting some radioactive stuff from a reactor around a conventional bomb.
If these reports are true, that may have been what is detected.
Another thing is that scientific analysis and testing takes a lot more time and is a lot more ambiguous than the impression Star Trek tricorders or "CSI" would leave (witness the infinite number of "false positives" for Anthrax)
There's likely quite a bit of stuff that's still being analyzed and debated before there's any official word on what the US government believes.
Thanks for the info. And for explaining it well.
CNN leaps to the rescue of Kim.
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