According to Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, press agency Yonhap tells that North Korean officials have confirmed a successful nuclear test.
It is breaking news more or else everywhere right now, but no details or confirmation.
Update 1: The Associated Press has a one-pragraph story saying the test is confirmed.
It is interesting how the threat of a NK nuclear test appeared to bring Japan and China closer together. The relationship has been quite chilly as of late. We'll see what the fallout (no pun intended) of an actual test is on this.
Update 2: The test was supposedly performed at an underground nuclear facility close to Kilchu.
Update 3: Slightly late for once, the BBC now has a breaking news page about this development.
Update 4: Obviously, all the links above now contain much updated articles. We can complete the collection with the news articles from Reuters and CNN. From the latter:
The apparent nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, Yonhap reported, citing defense officials.
A senior Pentagon official told CNN late Sunday that he was not aware of any evidence to confirm that North Korea had conducted a successful nuclear test, and suggested that any confirmation would come from the White House.
Additionally, the U.S. Geological Survey's Rafael Abreau said the earthquake-measuring agency has not recorded any seismic activity from North Korea.
However, South Korean intelligence officials said a seismic wave of magnitude-3.58 had been detected in North Hamkyung province, according to Yonhap.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday information still needed to analyzed to determine whether North Korea truly conducted a nuclear test, The Associated Press reports.
It is actually not yet confirmed that the test was successful.
I just heard a report on BBC radio that China supposedly received a 24 hour warning, and passed this on to Japan and the US.
Update 5: And the reaction:
White House press secretary Tony Snow said that the White House is not officially confirming that there was a nuclear test.
Snow said the U.S. had spoken to the Chinese and had contact with the South Koreans. If they confirm that the seismic event was a nuclear test, John Bolton will call for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, Snow said.
Bush administration officials say they will push for an "extremely strong U.N. resolution against North Korea that would make it illegal to transfer missile and missile-related items, materials, goods and technology for North Korean weapons of mass destruction programs."
U.S. officials say the White House will seek "much stronger punitive measures" on general trade with North Korea, although they do not believe the country's oil supplies will be targeted.
I think this will again fizzle out due to a Chinese veto, but we'll see.
Update 6: There are as yet wildly conflicting statements about the size of the explosion:
There were conflicting reports about the size of the explosion.
South Korea's geological institute estimated that the force of the explosion was equivalent to 550 tons of TNT, far smaller than the two nuclear bombs the U.S. dropped on Japan in World War II. But Russia's defense minister said it was far more powerful, equivalent to 5,000 to 15,000 tons of TNT.
The U.S. Geological Survey said it recorded a magnitude-4.2 seismic event in northeastern North Korea. Asian neighbors also said they registered a seismic event, and an official of South Korea's monitoring center said the 3.6 magnitude tremor wasn't a natural occurrence.
Only Russia said the blast was a nuclear explosion but the reaction of world governments reflected little doubt that they were treating the announcement as fact.
"It is 100 percent (certain) that it was an underground nuclear explosion," said Lt. Gen. Vladimir Verkhovtsev, head of a Defense Ministry department, according to Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency.
From what I understand, it is not trivial to estimate the size of the nuclear explosion from seismic data alone, as the geological condition around the site, the depth, and so on influences the results.
For what it's worth, NORSAR at Kjeller in Norway reported 4.2 on Richter's scale (graphic above), according to Aftenposten. The estimates based on this vary between 1 and 10 kiloton TNT equivalents. The Hiroshima bomb, by comparison, has been estimated at 12-15 kilotons.
If the nuclear explosion was relatively small, this possibly raises a few questions. It is possible that NK only needed a relatively small nuclear test for its purposes (partly technical, but undoubtedly mostly political). It may need to save on sparse nuclear fuel. It is also possible the nuclear test was not fully successful, for technical reasons. NK obviously have some capabilities to create a nuclear explosion, but its capacity to build weapons that can be mounted on credible delivery systems is probably not there yet.
Another issue worth thinking about is that this test has made China's leaders "lose face", as they clearly had intentions to show their diplomatic muscle by reining in North Korea. This diplomatic failure is not going to go unnoticed in Beijing. NK is thus increasingly isolated, and is as always dependent on China delivering food and power.
5:26:13 AM 
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