North Korea tunnel near nuclear base collapses; up to 200 killed: Report

A tunnel at North Korea’s nuclear test site collapsed after Pyongyang’s sixth atomic test in September, possibly killing more than 200 people, Japanese broadcaster TV Asahi said on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

Reuters has not been able to verify the report.

About 100 workers at the Punggye-ri nuclear site were affected by the initial collapse, which took place around Sept. 10, the broadcaster said.

A second collapse during a rescue operation meant it was possible the death toll could have exceeded 200, it added.

Experts have said a series of tremors and landslides near the nuclear test base probably mean the country’s sixth and largest blast on Sept. 3 has destabilised the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons.

READ MORE

Take threat of hydrogen bomb test in Pacific 'literally': North Korea

The recent warning from North Korea’s foreign minister of a possible atmospheric nuclear test over the Pacific Ocean should be taken literally, a senior North Korean official told CNN in an interview aired on Wednesday.

“The foreign minister is very well aware of the intentions of our supreme leader, so I think you should take his words literally,” Ri Yong Pil, a senior diplomat in North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, told CNN.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said last month Pyongyang may consider conducting “the most powerful detonation” of a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean amid rising tensions with the United States.

The minister made the comment after President Donald Trump warned that North Korea, which has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States, would be totally destroyed if it threatened America.

CIA chief Mike Pompeo said last week that North Korea could be only months away from gaining the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons.

Experts say an atmospheric test would be a way of demonstrating that capability. All of North Korea’s previous nuclear tests have been conducted underground.

Trump next week will make a visit to Asia during which he will highlight his campaign to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programs.
READ MORE

US asks UN to slap oil embargo on North Korea, freeze Kim Jong-Un's assets

The United States has asked the UN Security Council to slap an oil embargo on North Korea and freeze the assets of leader Kim Jong-Un, in response to Pyongyang's sixth and most powerful nuclear test.

A US-drafted resolution obtained by AFP also called for banning textile exports and ending payments made to North Korean labourers sent abroad, further depriving the regime of revenue to pursue its military programs.

The United States circulated the proposed resolution to the 14 other council members two days after Ambassador Nikki Haley called for the "strongest possible measures" to be imposed on North Korea.

Haley said on Monday that the United States was seeking a vote on the new sanctions on September 11.

The draft text takes aim directly at North Korea's leadership with a freeze on leader Kim's assets as well as those of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea and the government of North Korea.

Kim would be added to a UN sanctions blacklist that would subject him to a global travel ban, along with four other senior North Korean officials, according to the draft.
READ MORE

US will receive more 'gift packages,' warns North Korea after nuclear test

A top North Korean diplomat on Tuesday warned that his country is ready to send “more gift packages” to the United States as world powers struggled for a response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear weapons test.

Han Tae Song, ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, confirmed that North Korea had successfully conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test on Sunday.

”The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a gift package addressed to none other than the US,” Han told a disarmament conference, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s formal name.

“The US will receive more ‘gift packages’ ... as long as it relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,” he added without elaborating.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of “begging for war” with a series of nuclear bomb and missile tests, and urged the 15-member Security Council to impose the “strongest possible” sanctions to deter him and shut down his trading partners.

READ MORE

South Korea conducts missile drill after N Korea nuclear test rattles world

South Korea has launched a ballistic missile exercise in response to Pyongyang's provocative detonation of what it claimed was a miniaturised hydrogen bomb, state news agency Yonhap reported.

The South's military conducted a live-fire exercise late on Sunday simulating an attack on the North's nuclear site, hitting "designated targets in the East Sea", the report added, quoting the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"The training came in response to the North's sixth nuclear test... And involved the country's Hyunmoo ballistic missile and the F-15K fighter jets," it said.

The South's military said the range to the simulated targets were equivalent to the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site in its northeastern province.

US President Donald Trump on Monday criticised Seoul. South Korea, Trump said, "is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!"
READ MORE

North Korea missile test: How Trump's unpredictability changes the game

Given that North Korea can already produce a nuclear weapon, it is vital to keep it from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile. On this measure, the rest of the world has so far failed – and that was made clearer than ever on July 4 2017, when Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time.

If reports of the missile’s performance are accurate, Kim Jong-un may soon have the ability to hit US territory for the first time. Donald Trump previously said this will never be allowed – and, sure enough, the US and South Korea responded to the test with a missile drill of their own in the Sea of Japan.

Trump has been banging this drum on and off since his presidency began – albeit very inconsistently. Heralding the end of Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience”, he has ostensibly hardened the US’s stance on North Korea, saying that there is chance of a “major, major conflict” if the country does not curb its nuclear ambitions.

In April 2017, pressed to say whether another nuclear test would trigger military action from the US, Trump said “we’ll see”. But in the same interview, Trump has gone on the record saying he would be “honored” to meet the North Korean president, Kim Jong-un, praising his counterpart as a “pretty smart cookie” and apparently empathising with him, noting that it must have been “hard” for Kim to take the reins at such a young age.

Observers saw this as yet another sign of Trump’s ineptitude and incoherence. But looked at another way, his apparently garbled messages could have value as a sort of extreme carrot-and-stick methodology, simultaneously threatening devastating military action and offering the ultimate diplomatic prize of a meeting with the US president himself.

This approach has so far yielded mixed results.
READ MORE