US House of Representatives supported the bill on sanctions against North Korea

“I don’t think we need nuclear” weapons in South Korea, Park said, citing Washington’s nuclear umbrella to Seoul. “Until now, China has repeatedly declared that it won’t allow a nuclear-armed North Korea”.

(Hong Hae-in/Yonhap via AP). Her military announced it has found hundreds of anti-Seoul leaflets near the western portion of the Koreas’ border, which the defence ministry believes were floated over by the North’s military.

China is the North’s main ally and trade partner but it has made clear it opposes its bombs, while China’s ties with South Korea have grown increasingly close in recent years.

Park acknowledged that China has a major role to play in making sure this round of sanctions has more of an impact.

South Korean troops fired around 20 warning shots in the direction of the aircraft before it returned to the North, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a release to local media. North Korea has denied any involvement in the attack.

Top nuclear envoys from Japan, South Korea and the United States on Wednesday agreed to push for “meaningful and new sanctions” in response to North Korea’s latest globally condemned nuclear test, according to USA envoy Sung Kim. She warned that these sanctions must be “strong enough to change North Korea’s attitude” – something that clearly didn’t happen after the first, second, or third nuclear tests.

 Tensions along the heavily-fortified border between North and South Korea rose further on Wednesday. The shots did not hit the drone.

South Korean activists occasionally send anti-Pyongyang leaflets in balloons across the border. Those drones were crude and decidedly low-tech, but they were still considered a potential new security threat.

A week after the country drew widespread condemnation for a nuclear test Kim “set forth the important tasks to be fulfilled to bolster up the nuclear force”, the official KCNA state news agency said.

On January 8, South Korea resumed operating its propaganda broadcasting loudspeakers situated near the demilitarized zone against Pyongyang.

That is especially true among the many North Koreans who have turned to private trade to survive after starvation in the 1990s ended government hand-outs and crippled a state rationing system, laying the foundation for a now-thriving gray-market economy.

Turning to Beijing, South Korea’s president Park Geun-hye stressed China’s condemnations of North Korea.

Her comments echoed those last week of US Secretary of State John Kerry, who had urged China to take a tougher line with North Korea, warning in a call to his Beijing counterpart that it can not be “business as usual”.

“Security and the economy are the two axes that support a country, and we are now facing an emergency in which both of them are in crisis”, Park said in her address.

Beijing has recently shown signs that it’s losing patience with North Korea over its repeated provocations.

North Korea has insisted that the goal of the test was part of its efforts to defend itself from a nuclear threat posed by the United States.

Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se talked to his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi only on Friday. His reported remarks sparked speculation in Seoul that China has no intention of joining in any harsh punishment of the North.

Park said whether South Korea will take additional steps on the factory park is up to North Korea.