North Korea expands propaganda broadcasts: Seoul

North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un reiterated Monday his claim that last week’s test was of a miniaturized hydrogen bomb.

The report by South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that Lee and Scaparotti “confirmed their resolve to deter the North from further provocations”. “So we have requested for a call and waiting for a response”, said Kim Min-seok.

South Korea and the US are spurring global efforts to slap a fresh batch of crippling sanctions on North Korea following the communist nation’s fourth atomic experiment, ratcheting up pressure to extract China’s endorsement while crafting separate punishments at home and with close partners.

Curtis Scaparrotti, Commander, U.N. Command/Combined Forces Command/United States Forces Korea (USFK), made the order during a visit to the Osan Air Base, operated jointly by the United States and South Korea, a USFK official said.

The US and Japan deemed North Korea’s actions to be “yet another violation of its obligations and commitments under global law”. “We know they will continue doing it, so the real question is what will we do about it”. The North has previously shelled a South Korean island near their maritime border and sunk a South Korean naval ship.

The strategic bomber was joined by US F-16 fighter aircraft and South Korean F-15 fighter aircraft.

United States forces stationed in South Korea have been put on the highest alert, as the two countries discussed deploying more strategic assets to the Korean Peninsula after a US B-52 bomber flew over the South in a show of force against North Korea on Sunday. After its third test, in 2013, the Security Council took about three weeks to agree a resolution that tightened financial restrictions and cracked down on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo.

The Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection has mobilized 500 officials to check whether the North’s nuclear test has caused any environmental and radiation damage to the Chinese side, according to the ministry’s statement released on Monday.

It also raises $200-300 million a year sending labourers as far afield as Poland and Mongolia to earn cash, said the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul.

China fears North Korea’s nuclear programme destabilises its neighbourhood and gives the United States a pretext to send weapons and forces to the region.

If China cuts off all fuel supplies, however, there will be total mayhem in North Korea within a week, said Kim Kyoung-sool, a senior researcher at the state-funded Korea Energy Economics Institute.

The potential for a collapse in North Korea is a bigger threat to South Korea than a direct military confrontation, credit ratings agency Moody’s Investors Service analysts Shirin Mohammadi and Steffen Dyck said in an e-mail on Monday.