S Korea to hold multilateral talks over North’s n-programme

A United States Air Force B-52 Stratofortress from Andersen Air Base Guam, conducted a low-level flight in the vicinity of Osan, South Korea, in response to recent provocative action by North Korea on Saturday.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye planned to make a speech to the nation on Wednesday in which she was expected to express strong will to respond to North Korea’s nuclear test, a presidential official said.

The news from North Korea reignited fears in the worldwide community over Pyongyang’s efforts to build a warhead small enough to be mounted on a missile and capable of reaching the shores of the mainland US.

In one opinion poll of some 42,500 people by the state-run Global Times, 81 percent say the North’s nuclear test poses a threat to China’s security.

The US military said the fly-by was a demonstration of the “ironclad” commitment to its military alliance with South Korea, and a direct response to the North’s fourth nuclear test.

North Korea has reportedly set up some loudspeaker stations of its own in the border area to drown out the South’s broadcasts.

The B-52 flew low over an air base close to the North-South border.

USA forces in South Korea were also put on their highest level of alert on Monday.

The South has been continuing its loudspeaker broadcasts since Friday, when they resumed it following the nuclear test. Seoul had halted the psychological campaign since last August upon the inter-Korean agreement that was reached after Pyongyang’s land mine attack earlier in the month.

North Korean state television claimed there had been a bomb test, explaining a 5.1 magnitude quake near the country’s nuclear testing site.

A business association representing South Korean companies in the Kaesong complex is urging the Seoul government not to shut down their operation.

In a show of force & support the USA sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber in a flight over South Korea.

A standoff between the rival Koreas has deepened since last week’s test, the North’s fourth.

The park, which employs about 53,000 North Koreans, is the last major inter-Korean project from the era of rapprochement.

North Korea has bragged about the testing internally, with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un praising scientists in the country and telling his countrymen that more nuclear bombs would be created to show Western aggressors that North Korea is a formidable military force. According to the official newspaper of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the United States is “is going insane with its military exercises in Korean waters using aircraft carriers and nuclear-armed submarines that are aimed at conquering Pyongyang”.