End ‘business as usual’ with North Korea, US tells China

Yonhap said the military had increased its cyberdefense agents deployment.

Among the singers whose songs are played are the young singer IU, who is famous for her sweet, girlish voice; popular female group Apink; idol boy band Big Bang; and middle-aged singer Lee Ae-ran, who rose from obscurity last year with a song about living for 100 years.

South Korea has resumed loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts into North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s claim to have tested a hydrogen bomb.

The test angered both the United States and China, which was not given prior notice.

The test also alarmed Japan.

Speaking at an upper house plenary session, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will strongly demand that Pyongyang abandon “all its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” in line with U.N. Security Council resolutions on the country.

“Initial reports indicate the North Koreans may be bragging a little bit too much”, one unidentified official was quoted in the report as saying of the claims of a hydrogen bomb test. South Korea responded to North Korea’s nuclear test with broadca… The North’s state media has yet to mention Kim’s birthday or South Korea’s loudspeaker campaign.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he made clear in a phone call with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that China’s approach to North Korea has not succeeded.

“We are anxious about how things are developing”, the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a briefing.

North Korea considers propaganda broadcasts a direct provocation of war. Diplomats said that could mean an expansion of sanctions, although major powers might baulk at an all-out economic offensive. In comparison, the yield of the nuclear device North Korea tested in 2013 was 7.9 kilotons and it caused a 4.9-magnitude natural disaster.

North Korea also said it was capable of miniaturising the H-bomb, in theory allowing it to be placed on a missile and threatening the U.S. West Coast, South Korea and Japan. But even a test of an atomic bomb, a less sophisticated and less powerful weapon, would push its scientists and engineers closer to their goal of building a nuclear warhead small enough to place on a missile that can reach the USA mainland.

The rhetorical battle eased after historic summit talks in 2000 between North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, the father of Kim Jong Un, and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, but it didn’t stop.

“We need to conduct further analysis”, Abe said.

Some believe North Korea might have detonated a boosted fission bomb, a weapon considered halfway between an atomic bomb and an H-bomb.

USA officials said the administration at all levels is stressing to China that it should be very concerned that North Korea did not warn China about the test ahead of time, thus illustrating the danger of the regime’s unpredictability.

The resolution was passed unanimously through the National Assembly two days after Pyongyang announced its first successful test of a “hydrogen bomb”.