Pop, Handbags And Democracy: South Korean Payback For North’s Nuclear Test

Despite that, North Korean defectors say South Korean music is popular in their home country, with songs and other elements of South Korea popular culture smuggled in on USB sticks and DVDs.

Analysts, however, say the test might be a show of Pyongyang’s dissatisfaction with Beijing, a reflection of deteriorating ties between the two allies.

The senior official added that talks between the USA and Seoul after the North’s H-Bomb test had stoked tensions and “driven the two countries to the brink of war”.

An estimated 100-thousand people have taken part in the rally in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square.

Pyongyang’s rivals are “jealous” of the North’s successful hydrogen bomb test, Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam said in comments broadcast on state TV late Friday.

The images showed Kim Jong Un on the deck of a vessel watching a missile emerge from the water in a short and heavily edited clip.

According to a statement made from a South Korean defense ministry official to the government-funded media outlet Yonhap earlier this week, the weaponized K-pop strategy is not something that nation is taking lightly either. However, an industrial park operated jointly by North Korea and South Korea in the former’s border town of Kaesong has not faced any disruptions.

Under the deal, the South had agreed to stop broadcasting anti-Pyongyang messages from loudspeakers near the border.

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.

Marathon talks by the Koreas in August eased anger and stopped the broadcasts, which Seoul started after blaming North Korean land mines for maiming two soldiers.

Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia Cory Gardner (R-CO) responded to news this week that North Korea is claiming to have tested a hydrogen bomb at its Sungjibaegam test site.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also confirmed that Wang had spoken to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday and “stated China’s position”. He then introduced a resolution in May calling for new sanctions against North Korea for its long history of human rights abuses, military threats and global law violations. For current sanctions and any new penalties to work, better cooperation and stronger implementation from Pyongyang’s protector China is seen as key.

A South Korea official confirmed Seoul and the USA had discussed military strikes on the Korean peninsular. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Kim Jong-un’s secretive state said it successfully tested a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, a move that would be a significant advancement of its nuclear armoury, but experts have cast doubt on the claims.

Late Friday, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said a small amount of radioactive elements was found in air samples collected from the peninsula’s eastern seas after the blast, but the measured amount was too small to determine whether the North had really detonated a nuclear device.

Big Bang’s slightly raunchy dance hit with its “Like you’ve been shot/Bang Bang Bang” chorus, contrasted with the more plaintive tone of GFriend’s offering – sample lyric: “We’re both so shy/But I wanna go closer to you”.