The global community needs to take a resolute action to send strong message to North Korea in order to prevent further provocations from the country, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told US President Barack Obama in a phone conversation.
Advertisement
Jan 7, 2016- The UN Security Council says it will begin work immediately on new measures against North Korea, after Pyongyang said it had tested a hydrogen bomb.
U.S. congressional sources said Republican leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives were considering a vote as soon as next week to impose stiffer punishment on foreign companies doing business with Pyongyang.
“The initial analysis that’s been conducted of the events that were reported overnight is not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful Hydrogen bomb test”, Josh Earnest, White House press secretary said yesterday. “The Security Council has a key role to play in holding North Korea accountable by imposing a tough, comprehensive, and credible package of new sanctions, and by ensuring rigorous enforcement of the resolutions it has already adopted”, she said. Taking a more subtle approach, the South Korean broadcasts do not directly criticize Kin Jong Un and the North Korean government, but make clear the relative wealth and freedom of life in South Korea through a mix of music (such as catchy K-pop tunes), commercials for various consumer goods and report about the current economic conditions in the two nations.
North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since it first tested an atomic device in 2006 and could face additional measures.
Observers agree a nuclear explosion of some kind took place and it seems to have been a bit bigger than the last test in 2013, but not almost big enough to be a full thermonuclear explosion – an “H-bomb” – as Pyongyang claims.
For Beijing, the North Korea issue is not simply one of nuclear proliferation, but also of peninsular stability, the balance of power in Northeast Asia and its growing rivalry with the United States, said Jingdong Yuan, an Asia-Pacific security expert at Australia’s University of Sydney.
And in some ways a developing nuclear state can be more risky than an established one, in the sense that nervousness about the security or power of a limited arsenal may cause dictators to keep their nuclear weapons on a hair-trigger alert. It is speculated that a real hydrogen bomb should have produced a much larger seismic reading.
“Major Chinese banks do not want to find themselves sanctioned for their activities in the North and the day may not be too distant when these banks will need to choose”, writes Jonathan Pollack of Brookings. It uses energy from a primary nuclear fission reaction to ignite a secondary nuclear fusion reaction.
In this context, why did North Korea explode a nuclear device now?
Last Friday, the mood for cross-border ties appeared fairly upbeat as North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed his resolve for dialogue instead of touching on his nuclear ambitions in his New Year’s address, which was duly noted by President Park Geun-hye who responded positively. Nuclear-tipped missiles could then be used as deterrents and diplomatic bargaining chips – especially against the USA, which Pyongyang has long pushed to withdraw its troops from the region and to sign a peace treaty formally ending the Korean War.
It could be weeks before the true nature of the test is confirmed by outside experts, if they are able to do so at all.
At least three planes departed Thursday from Kadena Air Base on the Japanese island of Okinawa. But “we were picking up particulate matter for years from the Soviets and their tests were underground”.
Zerbo said its monitors are looking for confirmation by detecting radioisotopes, which is the only way to determine if it was indeed a hydrogen bomb or similar to previous North Korean tests.
Advertisement
Ministry officials refused to elaborate about what USA military assets were under consideration, but they likely refer to B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear-powered submarines.
