North Korea says nuclear test shows it could ‘wipe out’ US

Some 900 serving in the South’s army and 150 Marines have applied to postpone their discharge as tensions remain high on the Korean peninsula, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reports.

Waving decorative flowers on streets in Pyongyang, about 100,000 North Koreans cheered a procession of vehicles carrying the scientists and officials, according to the North’s state-run radio station.

But experts are questioning the North’s boast, saying early evidence suggests the blast, which caused a magnitude 5.1 natural disaster, similar to its last test three years ago, wasn’t caused by a hydrogen bomb.

North Korea announced on January 6 that it successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb that marked the North’s fourth nuclear test since 2006.

In 2014, Seoul officials discovered what they called several North Korean drones that had flown across the border.

A Korean-American man who says he is being held in North Korea was a Christian pastor who had worked in China and the United States, a North Korean defector who met him and traveled with him in 2007 told Reuters.

South Korea, still technically at war with the North since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, has for days been blaring propaganda through loudspeakers across the border. If North Korea is not prepared to freeze its nuclear and missile programs and return to negotiations on security, economic and humanitarian issues, bringing about regime collapse must be seriously considered as the “least worst” option.

“We share Congress’s concerns about North Korea’s continuing violation of its commitment and global obligations, and we look forward to continue to work with Congress on our shared goal of enhancing sanctions pressure to steel North Korea towards better choices”, he said. She said, “People here are more apprehensive than boastful”.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan denounced the nuclear test, and said it represented “a grave threat to Japan’s security”.

North Korea will read the fly-over of a bomber capable of delivering nuclear weapons – seen by an Associated Press photographer at Osan Air Base near Seoul – as a threat.

The council last approved sanctions against North Korea after its third nuclear test on February 12, 2013.

Hwang and his counterparts from the US and Japan held three-way talks in Seoul on Wednesday, and they agreed on new “meaningful” sanctions on North Korea that should be approved by the U.N. Security Council.

“This is in everyone’s interests and is everyone’s responsibility, including China and South Korea”, he said.

North Korea appears to have responded with its own psychological operations. Just last week, North Korea carried out another nuclear test, in violation of multiple United Nations resolutions. The Defense Ministry believes those leaflets were floated over by the North’s military.