South Korea raises cyber alert level after North Korean bomb test

Although there is skepticism that North Korea carried out the test as claimed, its actions have been condemned internationally. Besides the U.N. Security Council, the topic of dealing with North Korea will likely be taken up with meetings related to the summit of industrialized nations in Mie Prefecture in May. For current sanctions and any new penalties to work, better cooperation and stronger implementation from Pyongyang’s protector China is seen as key. On Wednesday (Jan. 6), it recorded tremors caused by the nuclear test that had a power equivalent to an natural disaster of a magnitude of 5 on the Richter scale, according to Lucas Barros, head of the observatory.

But, we have to be bigger than the North Koreans and I would urge South Korea and other like-minded countries in the region to exercise restraint.

In the past, the broadcasts typically blared messages about alleged North Korean government mismanagement, human rights conditions, and the superiority of South Korean-style democracy, as well as world news and weather forecasts. Seoul agreed to stop them a year ago in a deal with the North to resolve particularly high tensions after a border skirmish.

Leader of the Democratic minority, Nancy Pelosi of California, promised Thursday there will be strong bipartisan support for the legislation tabled by the top Republican and Democrat lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that would target access to hard currency and other goods and step up inspections of North Korean cargo.

Now former US Army psychological warfare officer Scott Bennett tells Press TV that the United States may have inflated North Korea’s claim of an H-bomb test for any future response on the part of Washington.

The White House said President Barack Obama had spoken to South Korean President Park Geun-Hye and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan.

The loudspeaker broadcasts – which will start today, thought to be the birthday of young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – are certain to infuriate Pyongyang because they are meant to raise questions in North Korean minds about the infallibility of the ruling Kim family.

– U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry tells reporters he spoke with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi over the phone and urged Beijing to end “business as usual” with North Korea after its nuke test. Media said the assets could include B-2 and B-52 bombers, and a nuclear-powered submarine.

There is still widespread speculation over what device the North actually did test, but global experts mostly concur that it could not have been a full-scale thermonuclear device as claimed.

“They’ve definitely got our attention, and we’re watching it closely”, 7th Fleet commander Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin said.

Late Friday, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety said a small amount of radioactive elements was found in air samples collected from the peninsula’s eastern seas after the blast, but the measured amount was too small to determine whether the North had really detonated a nuclear device.