South Korean girl group Girlfriend.
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Do you think North Korea has an H bomb?
(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man). A visitor uses binoculars to see North Korean territory from the unification observatory in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016.
“The North’s fourth nuclear test is a grave violation”, Cho said, according to South Korea’sYonhap News Agency, citing the test as the reason to start blaring broadcasts again.
The broadcasts will draw a furious response from North Korea, which considers them an act of psychological warfare.
While it is unclear how more sanctions would deter North Korea, which has paid little heed to global pressure as it conducted four nuclear tests since 2006, the United States and its ally South Korea are limited in their military response.
In August South Korea turned on these broadcasts for the first time in 11 years in retaliation for a North Korean landmine incident in the DMZ.
“North Korea is used to sanctions and not afraid”, the source said, adding that the latest test pointed to advances in its weapons. South Korea returned fire, but there were no reports of casualties.
British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond had asked South Korea to refrain from the propaganda broadcasts.
A male announcer could be heard from South Korea telling North Koreans that Kim Jong Un, the leader of their impoverished country, and his wife wear clothes costing thousands of dollars.
South Korean officials said stopping the broadcasts was the main reason the North agreed at that time to end an armed standoff and express regret over a landmine explosion that injured South Korean soldiers. North Korea’s state media called the test a self-defence measure against a potential USA attack.
Citizens of North Korea – and especially Pyongyang – are unsurprisingly proud of this: after the 2013 nuclear test, many offices knocked off early and celebrated with hearty amounts of food, “soju” and beer.
U.S. aircraft created to detect evidence of a nuclear test, such as radioactive particulate matter and blast-related noble gases, could be deployed from a United States base on the Japanese island of Okinawa.
In 2005, North Korea reached an agreement with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russian Federation to suspend its nuclear programme in return for diplomatic rewards and energy assistance.
A South Korean military official told Reuters the two countries had discussed the deployment of USA strategic assets on the divided Korean peninsula, but declined to give further details.
North Korea carried out a nuclear test on Wednesday, although the US government and weapons experts doubt Pyongyang’s assertion that the device it exploded was a powerful hydrogen bomb.
The Obama administration and the U.N. Security Council both vowed to impose new sanctions. While initial analysis show the test is not consistent with a successful hydrogen bomb test, as North Korea claimed, it has drawn condemnation internationally.
South Korea’s spy service said it thought the estimated explosive yield from the blast was much smaller than what even a failed hydrogen bomb detonation would produce.
North Korea also said it was capable of miniaturising the H-bomb, in theory allowing it to be placed on a missile and threatening the U.S. West Coast, South Korea and Japan.
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South Korea halted the broadcasts on August 25, 2015 after North Korea made conciliatory gestures, including holding reunions of family members separated by the 1950-53 Korean War’.
