Japan, S. Korea, US to join efforts vs nuclear threat

The United States and its allies are trying to muster worldwide support for a new round of sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test last week.

North Korea is now holding prisoner a us citizen who was allegedly arrested for espionage, an official from Pyongyang told CNN in an exclusive interview.

North Korea claimed Wednesday to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, although the United States and nuclear experts have questioned the veracity of Pyongyang’s statement.

South Korean President Park Geun Hye is expected to deliver a national address tomorrow morning and focus on issues relating to North Korea’s nuclear test as well as key reforms aimed at revitalising the economy, said a presidential office spokesman.

The U.S. State Department said they could not confirm whether Kim is a U.S. citizen, telling CNN that “speaking publicly about specific purported cases of detained Americans can complicate our tireless efforts to secure their freedom”.

Ma Young-ae said she had met the man identified as Kim Dong-chul in 2007, and claimed he was a missionary helping North Koreans. South Korea and the USA could hold their first joint exercise created to counter North Korean nuclear and missile attacks as early as March, the Yonhap News Agency reported. Staff members of the humanitarian organizations working in Pyongyang are discussing the knotty situation on the Korean Peninsula at process meetings. He also shared that he was spying on behalf of the “South Korean conservative elements”, taking photos of military secrets as well as “scandalous” scenes.

The recent test “demonstrated the invincibility and mightiness of Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea far, and wide and struck awful horror into the hearts of the US imperialists and their followers”, Kim was quoted as saying in a congratulatory speech.

That the network was granted “unprecedented” access to Hyeon Soo Lim – a pastor with the Light Korean Presbyterian Church west of Toronto – suggests North Korean authorities may be softening their stance, Lisa Pak said.

USA experts have raised eyebrows at the latest bravado and remain doubtful of North Korea’s nuclear prowess.

They said Lim has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997 and that his trips were about helping people and were not political.

Westerners held previously in North Korea have said their confessions were given under pressure from the state.

When asked if the crimes he had “allegedly” committed were for being a dissenter against the North Korean Regime, he replied “I think so”.

But Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said last week after Pyongyang’s announcement that USA policy toward North Korea has been an “abject failure” for the past several decades.