U.S. flies B-52 over South Korea after North’s nuclear test

Seoul already has resumed loudspeaker broadcasts of propaganda and pop music across the DMZ that reportedly can be heard up to 6 miles away during the day and 16 miles at night into the North. North Korea is making its own broadcasts there, presumably to partially drown out the South Korean din.

Seoul’s unification ministry said Monday that it will restrict entrance of South Korean workers into the Kaesong industrial complex, the only remaining symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation, from Tuesday.

Sunday’s overflight saw a B52 Stratofortress, which is capable of carrying nuclear weapons, briefly roar over the Osan Air Base, some 70km south of the inter-Korean border, the United States military and an eye-witness said.

The last time a similar US show of force flight occurred was in 2013 after North Korea’s nuclear test then.

“The United States and South Korea are continuously and closely having discussions on additional deployment of strategic assets”, Kim Min-seok, spokesman at the South Korean defense ministry, said Monday.

US and South Korean media said the strategic assets Washington was considering included the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier US Ronald Reagan, B-2 bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and F-22 stealth fighter jets.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has repeated that his country’s test of a purported hydrogen bomb last week was an act of self-defense.

Pyongyang claimed Wednesday that it had tested a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear device far more powerful than the three atomic bombs the North Korean capital has tested in the past.

“North Korea’s nuclear test is a blatant violation of its worldwide obligations”, Harris said. “Although they go ahead and obliterate North Korea as they have (already destroyed) Iraq and Libya and they’re trying to do in Syria, but the target is China”, he said, noting Obama “is interested in building up forces for the attack on China”.

The new restriction was “aimed at securing the safety of South Koreans as the North is expected to react to Seoul’s resumption of anti-North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts”, ministry spokesperson Jeong Joon-hee told reporters.

Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian who was the head pastor at one of Canada’s largest churches, who has been held by the North since February, was brought into a Pyongyang hotel for an interview.

The spokesman said the DPRK increased troops in parts of the border areas for the past few days, though there’s no detected provocation for now.

China fears North Korea’s nuclear programme destabilises its neighbourhood and gives the United States a pretext to send weapons and forces to the region.