South Korea resumes anti-North broadcasts after H-bomb test

In case the North attacks, the South’s military is said to be planning to retaliate with fire power that is three to four times stronger than the North’s.

Tours of the Demilitarised Zone, popular with visitors to South Korea, were also cancelled at the military’s request.

You could write the same story about each North Korean nuclear test, updating the name of the North Korean leader, the U.S. president and the USA policy (this time known as ‘strategic patience’) that is the subject of criticism.

The U.N. Security Council that has pledged new sanctions against North Korea after its purported hydrogen bomb test on Wednesday.

North Korea has a determination to defy both world opinion and heavy sanctions to reach its nuclear goal. For current sanctions and any new penalties to work, better cooperation and stronger implementation from Pyongyang’s protector China is seen as key.

The bomb was previously tested by the United States and Russian Federation in 1952 and 1953, the Wall Street Journal said, adding that the United Kingdom, China and France are also believed to have developed this kind of nuclear weapon.

South Korea needs the courage to persuade the North that it is willing to strike at the source of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

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

“We are sending out K-pop and information about life in South Korea as well as about North Korea”, a South Korean military official told NBC News.

The broadcasts, in rolling bursts from walls of loudspeakers at 11 locations along the heavily militarised border, blare rhetoric critical of the Pyongyang regime as well as “K-pop” music.

Included are songs by a young female singer, IU, which might be aimed at North Korean soldiers deployed near the border.

The broadcasts irritate the authorities in Pyongyang and North Korea has previously threatened to use force to stop them.

Officials say broadcasts from the South’s loudspeakers can travel about 10 kilometers (6 miles) during the day and 24 kilometers (15 miles) at night.

U.S. president Barack Obama spoke to South Korean president Park Geun-hye and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday and reaffirmed the “unshakeable United States commitment” to their security.

State media published images of the rally which appeared to show thousands of people gathered in central Pyongyang, holding propaganda signs glorifying leader Kim Jong Un, whose birthday was also on Friday.

Ministry officials refused to elaborate about what us military assets were under consideration, but they likely refer to B-52 bombers, F-22 stealth fighters and nuclear-powered submarines.

Despite North Korea’s claims, experts are sceptical that it can make a nuclear weapon small enough to fit on a missile.

SITTING as Malaysia does, currently, on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the claims by rogue nation North Korea to have detonated a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear device, successfully, is worrying indeed.