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North Korea warned on Wednesday that increased U.S. pressure over the regime's reported nuclear test could be considered an act of war, and South Korea suggested it would build up its conventional arsenal to deal with its belligerent neighbor. North Korea's No. 2 leader threatened to conduct more nuclear tests if the United States continued what he called its "hostile attitude." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the United States would not attack North Korea, rejecting a suggestion that Pyongyang may feel it needs nuclear weapons to stave off an Iraq-style U.S. invasion. In its first formal statement since the...

Selected for the 2004 National Film Registry of "culturally, historically and aesthetically significant" motion pictures. Famous Civil Defense film for children in which Bert the Turtle shows what to do in case of atomic attack. Producer: Archer Productions, Inc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

1945: US drops atomic bomb on Hiroshima The first atomic bomb has been dropped by a United States aircraft on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. President Harry S Truman, announcing the news from the cruiser, Augusta, in the mid-Atlantic, said the device contained the equivalent of 20,000 tons of TNT and was more than 2,000 times more powerful than the largest bomb used to date. An accurate assessment of the damage caused has so far been impossible due to a huge cloud of impenetrable dust covering the target. Hiroshima is one of the chief supply depots for the Japanese army....

most things about North Korea, little is known for certain about the Taepodong 2 missile. But there is no doubt North Korea does have a very long standing and pretty sophisticated missile programme. North Korea's intentions are under the global spotlight In 1998, before it began observing a moratorium on tests, North Korea launched a Taepodong 1 missile which passed over northern Japan and surprised Western intelligence agencies by the use of three stages in the missile's propulsion system. What is striking about the Taepodong 2 is that it could well be North Korea's first genuine intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM)...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea will respond to a pre-emptive U.S. military attack with an "annihilating strike and a nuclear war," the state-run media said Monday, heightening its antagonistic rhetoric. The Korean Central News Agency, citing an unidentified Rodong Sinmun newspaper "analyst," accused the United States of increasing military pressure on the isolated communist state. The North Korean threat of retaliation, which is often voiced by its state-controlled media, comes amid U.S. official reports that Pyongyang has shown signs of preparing for a test of a long-range missile. "The army and people of the DPRK are now in full...

Attention MS President. We have placed nuclear suitcase bombs and dirty bombs in five major US cities. We will not detonate these bombs under the following conditions: 1) The US must not interfere with Iran's treatment of Israel 2) All Jews must leave Israel and all facilities must be turned over to us intact. 3) The US must withdraw from Iraq within 60 days. If these conditions are not met, we will detonate one bomb. If Israel or the US uses nuclear or conventional weapons against us, we will detonate all bombs. Checkmate. It wasn't a light bulb that went...

Botched CIA operations may have handed Iran vital information on how to make nuclear weapons and betrayed the identities of America's spies in the country, according to a new book on US intelligence. The latest account of American intelligence failures includes details of how the CIA allegedly tried to slip Teheran some Russian designs for an atomic bomb, which contained hidden flaws that would have made any device inoperable. The Iranians, however, were tipped off by the very agent sent to give them the documents. In a separate incident, the book claims a CIA officer mistakenly sent an Iranian agent...

Those of us who enjoy military history usually just switch on the History Channel for our daily fix of guts, gore and armed conflict. But if you’re a serious war buff, and you want to relive one of the most horrifying moments in the deadliest war in human history, an Italian toy maker has just the thing. Brumm recently unveiled miniature models of “Little Boy” and “Fat Man.” Those names may conjure up images of cuddly cartoon characters, but they’re actually the codenames for two atomic bombs that the U.S. military dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days...

See for example this thread first. El Baradei from the U.N. Says we should call Iran a frien' This means that Islam Would get its own BOMB A question of "Not if, but WHEN"

As the century's greatest thinker, as an immigrant who fled from oppression to freedom, as a political idealist, he best embodies what historians will regard as significant about the 20th century. And as a philosopher with faith both in science and in the beauty of God's handiwork, he personifies the legacy that has been bequeathed to the next century. In a hundred years, as we turn to another new century--nay, ten times a hundred years, when we turn to another new millennium--the name that will prove most enduring from our own amazing era will be that of Albert Einstein: genius,...

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. (AP) - Air Force Lt. Col. Daniel A. McGovern, a combat photographer who filmed the aftermath of the atomic bomb detonations in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, has died. He was 96. McGovern died of cancer Wednesday at his home in Laguna Woods. Weeks after the bombs were dropped in August 1945, McGovern began taking photographs that have since appeared in history books, newspapers, television shows and movies. Earlier during the war, McGovern photographed President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the White House. In 1943, McGovern flew missions as a cameraman while stationed in Chelveston, England. He survived two...

Why the Palestinians should be terrified of Iran? Dr. Jack Wheeler* BrookesNews.Com Monday 12 December 2005 The current insult to the Nobel Peace Prize is International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei. This week he announced that “the global community is beginning to lose patience” with the Iranian nuclear program. In an interview with the Arabic-language daily al-Hayat published Dec. 7, ElBaradei said the time period in which a solution to the crisis can be found is short, but that “a military solution is not an option.” It’s as if ElBaradei was reading from a script written by South Park...

Iran obtained detailed instructions on how to set up the complicated process of enriching uranium, which can used to make nuclear arms, from the black market network run by a Pakistani scientist, the U.N. atomic monitoring agency said Friday. In a confidential report, the International Atomic Energy Agency also said Iran was not giving inspectors access to a sensitive site that could be used to store equipment indicating whether the military is running a secret nuclear program. The five-page report seen by The Associated Press was prepared for Thursday's meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board, which could decide to refer...

March Calls For 'Nuclear-Free' Future By: Cliff Drought Wednesday August 10 2005 SYRACUSE, NY - Ken Howland reached into his pocket Tuesday and took a picture from his wallet. The black and white image was of a man with a shotgun showing his take from a bird-hunting trip. It was taken in 1942 and the man was his father. "He had become a pretty good shot," recalled Howland, pointing to the number of fowl in the picture. The reason for the quick mastery of marksmanship was simple: "If we hadn't used the bomb, he would have had to go over"...

August 6 marks the sixtieth anniversary of the devastating atomic bomb attack against the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. For the most part, up until the 1960s the predominant view was that the U.S. was justified in its decision to use nuclear weapons against the Japanese. There was a general consensus to accept, at face value, that American leaders had determined that Japan would not surrender, and that their determination to fight to the death against an invasion would have cost the lives of hundreds of thousands,...

Sixty years ago today, Hiroshima, Japan, became the first target of an atomic bomb, with Nagasaki the second target three days later. Thus, a war that lasted four years was ended in four days. To those who decry the devastation caused by President Truman's decision to develop and detonate this awesome weapon, I remind them of the lives saved, not lost. I'm very proud of the fact that my uncle was not only a member of the Enola Gay that dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, the first atomic bomb in history, but he was actually the bombardier. The bottom line,...

They insist they were ordinary men serving their country. But when the crew members of the Enola Gay arrived on the flight line on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, they knew instantly it wasn’t an ordinary mission... Van Kirk: No one was officially telling anybody else anything about it. And if you figured it out for yourself, you better well keep it quiet... ... When the bomb left the airplane, you’ve got the surge of course of releasing 9,400 pounds right away. Tibbets went into the turn 150 degrees to the right, pushed the nose down, lost about 2,000...

Saturday August 6, the Sundance Cable Channel will be showing "Original Child Bomb". This hour long film is from the top secret compilation of the US Government filmed aftermath of Hiroshima, which was kept out of the public's viewing for decades. "The young soldiers who shot the film in Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than a month after the dawn of the atomic age were unprepared for what they found." " 'It was to me the most horrendous, terrifying thing that I had ever seen,'camera operator Herbert Sussan, who's now deceased, said in a 1983 interview with the British Broadcasting Corp."...

The mind of the pilot whose B-29 dropped the first atomic bomb often seems more prisoner than resident of his bantamweight body wracked by injury, ailments and 90 years of living. In the months before today’s 60 th anniversary of his mission to Hiroshima, Paul Tibbets was hobbled by a pair of spills that fractured two vertebrae. For a while, his appetite disappeared, his weight dropped alarmingly, and he railed against the fates torturing him in his waning years. "I’ve never been incapacitated a damned day of my life," he groused two months ago, daily downing enough OxyContin to make...

Reuters reports: “As the world prepares to mark the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the 1st atomic bomb on Saturday, some American media experts see uncomfortable echoes between the suppression of images of death and destruction then, and coverage of the war in Iraq today.” Reuters cites an article in Editor & Publisher by Greg Mitchell, claiming American officials seized film after the “atomic attacks” on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to prevent us from seeing the devastation. Mitchell compares this to Iraq: “The chief similarity is that Americans are still being kept at a distance from images of death, whether...