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North Korea Carries Out 3rd Nuclear Test, Security Council to Hold Emergency Meeting

North Korea Carries Out 3rd Nuclear Test, Security Council to Hold Emergency Meeting
folder_openKoreas access_time11 years ago
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North Korea on Tuesday staged its most powerful nuclear test yet, announcing a breakthrough with a "miniaturized" device in a striking act of defiance to global powers including its sole patron China.


North Korea Carries Out 3rd Nuclear Test, Security Council to Hold Emergency MeetingThe communist state said it had staged its third test with a "successful" underground detonation, in a riposte to US hostility. This announcement suggests that it is a step closer to fitting a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile.
The confirmation from North Korean news agency KCNA came nearly three hours after seismic monitors detected an unusual tremor in the area of the country's Punggye-ri nuclear test site, close to the Chinese border.
The timing of the test comes just ahead of US President Barack Obama's State of the Union address at the start of his second term.

North Korea's two previous tests in 2006 and 2009 triggered waves of UN sanctions, and the Security Council was set to meet in emergency session on Tuesday morning in New York in response to the third detonation.
There was no immediate response from US or Chinese leaders, but Beijing had made its displeasure clear to the youthful Kim Jong-Un's regime in Pyongyang, a UN diplomat said.
"The Chinese gave the North Koreans a strong warning against carrying out a test as it became apparent that it was imminent," said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, labeling the test "a big challenge to the Chinese".

The test drew condemnation from Japan and UN chief Ban Ki-moon. The United States said only, via the office of the Director of National Intelligence, that its spy agencies were evaluating a "seismic event" in the Stalinist state.
The test came after North Korea earlier Tuesday had called for "high-intensity" action and further long-range rocket launches, after incurring UN wrath for firing a ballistic rocket in December.
Tuesday's explosion yielded six to seven kilotons, South Korean defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told reporters, significantly more than the 2006 and 2009 tests.

He said it was unclear yet whether uranium was used.

The explosive yield compared with 15 kilotons in the world's first atomic bomb dropped by the United States on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.
North Korea's first test yielded less than one kiloton and was widely seen as a dud. The second test yielded between two and six kilotons, according to Seoul.
The third test throws down a stark security and diplomatic challenge to Obama as well as to new Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org

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