White House skeptical of North Korea claims it tested hydrogen bomb

By the time the world’s great powers joined together in universal condemnation of the hermit kingdom’s latest nuclear provocation at a United Nations security council meeting on Wednesday morning, more than half a dozen contenders for the Republican nomination had issued statements decrying Obama’s “weakness”, which they see as facilitating North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

“In line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on such measures in a new Security Council resolution”, he said. The hermit nation had, it claimed, successfully tested a hydrogen bomb.

“There are very legitimate reasons for concerns”, he said, citing the Saudi-Iran row and the report of North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test. “You could argue the market response has been very rational”.

Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement called on the government to take a strong stand with its allies, while not losing sight of the severe human rights violations of the Pyongyang regime.

U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter spoke by phone with his South Korean counterpart Han Min-Koo, and they agreed that a North Korean nuclear test would be an “unacceptable and irresponsible provocation”, according to Carter’s spokesman, Peter Cook.

China, Japan, Russia and the United States, along with the Koreas, are parties in the long-suspended six-nation talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear weapons program.

In addition, the US will seek a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions against North Korea in the wake of its nuclear test, USA officials told CNN Wednesday.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion initially took to Twitter to express Canada’s outrage about the “reckless behaviour” of North Korea, then followed that up with a formal statement. “They have total control over North Korea, and China should solve that problem”.

The U.S. has also been watching North Korea’s efforts to develop its intercontinental ballistic missile program, although this official said that “it’s hard to judge the extent of their capabilities”.

“If found to be yet another test, yesterday’s event serves as a sober reminder that ignoring this threat and hoping it will go away does not constitute a policy”, Corker said. The Clinton administration led the world in relaxing sanctions against North Korea. It claims it needs such weapons to deter an invasion by the United States, which retains 28,000 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War that ended without a peace treaty. The letter read “5.1 natural disaster near North Korea’s nuclear facility”.

South Korean army soldiers patrol by ribbons, wishing for the reunification of the two Koreas, attached on the barbed-wire fence in Paju, near the border with North Korea, South Korea, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016.

Pyongyang is thought to have a handful of crude nuclear weapons. A hydrogen bomb, also known as a thermonuclear bomb, is far more powerful because it uses both nuclear fission and fusion, compared with a conventional nuclear bomb, which relies only on fission.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO tweeted: “North Korea is yet another Hillary Clinton foreign policy failure”.