Traders bought the yen and dumped the South Korean won on Friday as financial markets were jolted by news that North Korea conducted another nuclear test, reigniting geopolitical tensions.
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North Korea also has staged almost two dozen ballistic missile tests despite a new round of toughened United Nations sanctions that were imposed after the January test, which was followed by a long-range rocket launch the next month.
Nuclear tests have been North Korea’s go-to last resort when backed into a corner.
South Korea’s president said the detonation, which Seoul estimated was the North’s biggest-ever in explosive yield, was an act of “fanatic recklessness” and a sign that leader Kim Jong Un “is spiraling out of control”.
On his way back to Washington overnight, the President held phone calls with the President of South Korea and the Prime Minister of Japan.
Another Weibo user, living in Changbai Korean Autonomous County, in Jilin province, said she had felt a clear tremor this morning and her first thought was that North Korea had conducted another nuclear test.
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As Commander in Chief, I have a responsibility to safeguard the American people and ensure that the United States is leading the worldwide community in responding to this threat and North Korea’s other provocations with commensurate resolve and condemnation.
The statement came after North Korea announced earlier in the day that it had conducted a successful “nuclear warhead explosion” test, saying it was meant to counter United States hostility. “This constitutes a direct threat to the USA, and we can not and will never accept this”.
“This is in clear violation of numerous UN Security Council resolutions and in complete disregard of the repeated demands of the global community”, Yukiya Amano, head of the worldwide Atomic Energy Agency, said in a statement.
Pyongyang also conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013. “The results would have to come out, but for now I see that North Korea’s nuclear technology has come to a stage where it’s right before being arranged for combat”. “We must urgently break this accelerating spiral of escalation”, Ban said. North Korea is incorporating lessons learned from its launch failures as was indicated by the string of Musudan missile tests.
Although North Korea is not believed to be capable of delivering warheads to the US mainland, it is considered a threat on USA troops in South Korea and Japan.
“In reality, the means by which the United States, South Korea and Japan can put pressure on North Korea have reached their limits”, he said.
China reportedly opposed the latest test, but it has supported North Korean demands that South Korean refrain from deploying the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system built by Lockheed Martin Corp.
The magnitude of North Korea’s Friday blast now approximates the historic Hiroshima bomb that measured 12.2 kilotons and killed 100,000 people.
In January, North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the U.S. and its regional allies.
South Korea’s military put the force of the blast at 10 kilotonnes, which would still be the North’s most powerful nuclear blast to date.
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The announcement today that North Korea has carried out its fifth test of a nuclear device has once again raised fears of regional instability and the prospect of a potential armed conflict on the Korean peninsula.
