South Korea to resume loudspeaker broadcasts on North Korea border

South Korean girl group Girlfriend.

(AP Photo/Lee Jin-man). A visitor walks by a map of the Korean peninsula at the exhibition hall of the unification observatory in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016.

Pyongyang tests a bomb or a rocket and makes a grand declaration about its success.

In Seoul, the government also took unilateral action by announcing the resumption of high-decibel propaganda broadcasts into the North – a tactic that had prompted Pyongyang to threaten military strikes when it was last employed during a cross-border crisis previous year. Pyongyang is extremely sensitive to any outside criticism of the authoritarian leadership of Kim, the third member of his family to rule.

The anti-DPRK propaganda began to be broadcast from noon across the border toward the DPRK at 11 locations in frontline areas, installed with a set of large loudspeakers. Since then the country has also been under intense scrutiny regarding any and all weapons development and testing.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, told reporters that Democrats would support a North Korea bill likely to be brought for a vote by Republicans next week.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond had asked South Korea to refrain from the propaganda broadcasts.

“As dictator Kim Jong Un celebrated his birthday, CNN, the only USA broadcaster operating in the country, spoke to North Koreans at the newly-opened Science and Technology Center”.

An analysis by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) has found that the explosion that caused the seismic event in North Korea was man-made.

Kerry decisively denied a journalist’s allegation that the new North Korean nuclear test was a result of lack of oversight by Washington.

North Korea said Wednesday it had successfully tested a “miniaturized” hydrogen bomb that elevated the country’s “nuclear might to the next level“.

“The North’s fourth nuclear test is a wanton violation of its global obligations…and a grave violation of the inter-Korea agreement on August 25”, an official at the presidential Blue House said.

The deployment of United States military assets, which serves as a show of force against Pyongyang’s provocations, could include a nuclear-powered submarine, the F-22 stealth combat fighter and the B-52 bomber, South Korea’s Defence Ministry said.

North Korea has been under U.N. Security Council sanctions since it first tested an atomic device in 2006 and could face additional measures.

The North’s claimed of a successful test drew extreme skepticism overseas. Experts doubted that North Korea managed to build a fully fledged thermonuclear warhead, which has far greater explosive power than the fission weapons it has tested before.

“Broadcasts from South Korea can reach deep and far into North Korea’s society, imbuing the minds of its people with the images of a free nation and hurting the oppressive personality cult”. The Yonhap report cited an unidentified defence official.

Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday that “China should solve that problem, and we should put pressure on China to solve the problem”. Other nations may also either have it or are working on it, despite a worldwide effort to contain such proliferation.