The communists in charge of North Korea said Monday that they had conducted a second nuclear test. The New York Times reports:

The North’s official news agency, KCNA, said “The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for self-defense in every way as requested by its scientists and technicians.”

The test was safely conducted “on a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control,” the agency said. “The results of the test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily developing nuclear technology.”

The announcement took South Korean, Japanese and American officials by surprise. It sent shock waves through Asia’s major stock markets.

Not only did North Korea announce it conducted it test, South Korean media reported earlier today that they had also successfully test fired short-range missiles.

Although the North has a long reputation for, well, being a bunch of paranoid liars, it seems that they are actually telling the truth this time:

Hints that the North had conducted a test first emerged Monday morning when South Korean authorities detected an artificially triggered earth tremor emanating from the area of Kilju, in northeast North Korea, said Lee Dong-kwan, spokesman of the office of President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea.

US and South Korean officials are monitoring the situation.

The White House already responded:

In Washington, the Obama administration had a cautious initial reaction to the news early Monday. “We are aware of the reports of a nuclear test by North Korea,” said a senior State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the department was still gathering information. “We are consulting with our allies. Once we have established the facts, we will have more to say.”

Pyongyang truly is utterly unbelievable. It’s like a little kid with expensive toys. Toys that can destroy entire countries. It did not receive any attention lately, so it conducts a nuclear test: that should do the trick! After all, negative attention is attention too.

Despite North Korea’s childish behavior, we have to take it serious. It has a reasonably big army, its leaders are ideological communists, and they may very well be willing to take their entire country – and perhaps even the South – down with them; that would logically cause a major international crisis. The WSJ adds:

North Korea made its second test of a nuclear explosive on Monday and declared it was more destructive than the first, an advance that is likely to further embolden Kim Jong Il’s regime in its standoff with the U.S. and other countries pushing for it to halt its weapons program.

The country also launched three short-range missiles, including one from the same place it fired a long-range missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean seven weeks ago.

And explains:

The combined actions again show that the U.S. and other countries that have tried for years to persuade North Korea to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons are in the same spot they’ve long been – unable to get North Korea to bend to their will.

Ain’t that the truth. Sooner or later the West and modern Asian democracies will have to deal with North Korea; perhaps we should just let it collapse completely, and jump in at the last moment to make sure that liberal democrats can stage a successful takeover.