North Korea ‘hydrogen bomb’

  •  South Korea’s military has conducted a show of forcesimulating an attack on Kim Jong-un’s nuclear test site, Punggye-ri, a day after the regime held its sixth and largest nuclear test. It involved live-fire exercises using its Hyunmoo ballistic missiles, F-15K fighter jets and troops on the ground at undisclosed locations on its east coast. It plans more exercises jointly with the US.
  • Seoul is poised to approve further deployments of a controversial US missile defence system. China has said the Thaad system is a threat to its own national security. Many in the South are calling for the country to develop its own nuclear deterrent independent of the US.
  • The United Nations security council is set to hold an emergency meeting on Monday morning. Nations around the world condemned the test.
  • Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has pledged to do his utmost to increase the country’s missile defences. He spoke after he and South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, held a 20-minute talk on the phone and agreed to pursue stronger UN sanctions to draw North Korea to the negotiating table.
  • The White House responded to North Korea’s nuclear test with a sharp warning by defense secretary James Mattis that “any threat” against any US territory “or our allies will be met with a massive military response.”
  • China’s president, Xi Jinping, did not mention the crisis at the Brics summit today, and Chinese media joined him in downplaying tensions. The Communist party’s official mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, carried just one line on its front page. China is furious, but has few options, experts say.
  • Asked whether the United States would attack North Korea, Donald Trump said, “we’ll see.” Video here. Trump earlier turned on South Korea, tweeting: “South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!”
  • The test reflects the failure of Trump’s bellicose rhetoric on North Korea, the Guardian’s Julian Borger writes.
  • Trump earlier spoke to Shinzo Abe and “confirmed the two countries’ ironclad mutual defence commitments,” the White House said.
  • Theresa May condemned the test as “reckless”, saying it is more pressing than ever to look at increasing the pace of implementing sanctions on the regime.
  • North Korea’s claim that it had tested a hydrogen bomb was not implausible. The test caused an earthquake of magnitude 6.3. Read about the test.