China, Russia fail to stop United Nations meeting on rights in North Korea

“North Korea threatens global peace and security by expanding its nuclear program and continuing its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons”, Adam J. Szubin, acting undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was reported Thursday as saying North Korea is a “powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate” a self-reliant hydrogen bomb to defend its sovereignty and dignity. A hydrogen bomb is both more complicated to produce technically and also results in a more powerful blast. North Korea developed its first nuclear weapons in 2005, and tested them in 2006, 2009, and 2013.

The U.N. Security Council held a meeting on North Korea’s human rights situation on Thursday, the second time the issue has been discussed at the top global security body after the first such meeting previous year. Lee Chun-geun, a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute in Seoul, said the North “seems to be developing it”.

A similar resolution has been proposed this year, passed the Third Committee last month and is expected to be formally adopted at the General Assembly later this month.

“We have always opposed the involvement of the U.N. Security Council in a country’s human rights issues”, said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying at a regular press conference in Beijing.

An atomic bomb uses fission to break up the atomic nucleus and release energy, while a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb uses fusion to add to the nucleus.

Pyongyang has wanted the resumption of tour to North Korea’s scenic resort of Mount Kumgang.

North Korea eventually acquired all shares of the vehicle company but made headlines in 2010 when it transferred the Unification Church’s share of profits to South Korea – an unprecedented transaction at the time.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – North and South Korea on Friday held high-level talks at a North Korean border town, a small step meant to improve ties battered by a military standoff in August and decades of acrimony and bloodshed. North Korea has threatened before to destroy South Korea and its major ally the United States in a sea of flames.

Zhang Liangui, a North Korea expert based at the China’s Central Party School who once studied at Kim Il Sung University, said he doubted North Korea has the ability to develop a hydrogen bomb.

“They have not even conducted any single test and now they make this claim – there’s no way for us to believe it is true”, he said.

Refugees, defectors and human rights organizations have expressed their frustration that little has been done in the two years since the United Nations report was published.