NEW YORK (CAP) - The world awoke Monday morning to the shocking news that North Korea has failed its previously-announced nuclear test.
"We here in great country of North Korea are very saddened that we fail test," said a newscaster on North Korea's official state news program, Good Morning Pyongyang!. "We study long time, but test very hard."
This failure probably means that North Korea will have to wait another year to be inducted into the Nuclear Club, assuming they pass the test when it is given again in October, 2007.
While this failure will mean that money earmarked for club dues can now go toward feeding the North Korean people, many North Koreans that CAP News encountered on the streets of the capitol city Pyongyang were stunned and saddened at the news.
"I have seen some answer given, and they are ludicrous," said one man. "They say 'thingies' instead of 'enrichment cylinders'? The test-taking delegation should be shot and cooked with a delicious lime sauce."
"I did not chant 'Death to America!' loud enough," said one distraught woman. "I will kill myself sometime this afternoon."
The North Korean government, meanwhile, remained officially subdued on the test results, only blowing up one nuclear weapon to mark the auspicious occasion.
Back in New York, the United Nations Subcommittee on Annihilation Standards, which supervises the test each year, pointed in particular to North Korea's difficulties on the verbal section of the test.
"They kept saying 'nu-cu-lar, nu-cu-lar'," said an anonymous UN proctor. "We let that slide once. Never again."
This latest development on the Korean peninsula has spawned a number of high-level meetings between the US and its allies on how to deal with the situation. Many allies are seeking to increase funding for the "Tutors and 'Taters" program to help North Korea achieve its goal of a peaceful transition to well-fed superpower.
However, President Bush is taking the unconventional approach of pushing hard for increased aid to South Dakota to help it deal with the "evil test-failing menacer to the north."
- Rich Gray
Contributing Writer