North Korea Nuke Test Plans?

U.S. Spy Satellites Detect Something — Possible Ruse

(CBS/AP)  But the North Koreans also have a good idea when U.S. spy satellites are overhead — the U.S. does not possess enough to watch the country constantly — and are capable of making such preparations solely to cause a reaction among its adversaries, the defense official said.

Separately, a senior Japanese Defense Agency official told The Associated Press that Japan's government had information that North Korea might be preparing for a nuclear test.

Japan on Friday threatened to put the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons program before the U.N. Security Council next month unless six-nation talks on the dispute show progress.

There have been several recent reports of a possible test in the works. The New York Times reported Friday that the U.S. government has informed Japan and South Korea about the satellite imagery. And Tuesday, South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo reported that U.S. satellite photos showed the frequent movement of trucks and the placement of cranes and other equipment in the North Korean town of Gilju.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said a nuclear test by North Korea would be "a grave mistake."

"It would have grave implications, security implications, political implications, possibly environmental implications in terms of radiological fallout," he said in an interview with the Associated Press. "I think the message should be very clear to the North Koreans that nuclear blackmail does not work and that, whatever the settlement, they need to roll back their nuclear weapon program, that the international community in 2005 has zero tolerance for any new nuclear weapon states."

The six-nation talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to forego its nuclear ambitions have been stalled for nearly a year. They involve North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia. North Korea has boycotted the talks since June, and on Friday reaffirmed it would stay away unless the United States dropped what it called hostile policy toward the communist regime.