South Korean companies – mostly small- and medium-sized – make products such as watches and fashion goods with cheap labor from North Korea.
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Regardless of exactly what it was, what is widely regarded as North Korea’s fourth test of a nuclear weapon remained a worrying development.
In the past, the broadcasts typically blared messages about alleged North Korean government mismanagement, human rights conditions, the superiority of South Korean-style democracy as well as world news and weather forecasts.
North Korean military personnel clap hands in a rally, after North Korea said Wednesday it had conducted a hydrogen bomb test, at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.
The main newspaper in North Korea, the Workers’ Daily, hailed the country’s nuclear test as a success, and all the other state-controlled media left no doubt about the official report of the hydrogen bomb detonation. The broadcasts, considered an insult by the North, led to an exchange of artillery fire the last time they were used. South Korean President Park Geun-hye orders her military to bolster its combined defense posture with US forces.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China, the North’s only major ally and its biggest aid provider, to end “business as usual” with North Korea.
At a UN Security Council emergency session, diplomats pledged to swiftly pursue new sanctions against North Korea, saying its test was a “clear violation” of previous UN resolutions. Separate statements from the White House said Obama and the two Asian leaders also agreed to countries “agreed to work together to forge a united and strong worldwide response to North Korea’s latest reckless behavior”. But South Korea sees K-pop and propaganda as quick ways to show its displeasure – and a guaranteed irritant to the North’s sensitive and proud leadership. Seoul turned off its speakers in August after marathon negotiations with the North. Seoul also limits the entry of some South Koreans to an industrial park in North Korea jointly run by the two Koreas, which has been a valuable cash source for the North.
One of the aircraft seen departing, the RC-135S, collects optical and electronic data from ballistic targets.
Officials say broadcasts from the South’s loudspeakers can travel about 10 kilometers (6 miles) during the day and 24 kilometers (15 miles) at night.
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But even if the North exploded a boosted fission bomb, its explosive yield, estimated at six kilotons, showed the test was likely a failure, a South Korean defense official said Thursday.
