North Korea steps up activity at its nuclear site, South says

CNN ^ | 4/22/14 | Jethro Mullen and Stella Kim

[TangledUpInBlue]

North Korea has stepped up activity at its main nuclear test site, possibly preparing to carry out a fourth underground blast, South Korea said Tuesday.

The report comes just days before U.S. President Barack Obama is due to arrive in South Korea as part of a visit to several Asian countries.

"We confirm that we have spotted several activities related to the nuclear test in Punggye-ri in North Korea," the South Korean Defense Ministry said in a statement. It declined to specify what the activities were, saying the information was classified.

The ministry said it had increased its military preparedness since Monday morning and was monitoring around the clock for signs of activity at the Punggye-ri site in a northeastern region of North Korea.

North Korea said last month that it wouldn't rule out "a new form of a nuclear test" to strengthen its nuclear deterrent. Experts have speculated that that could refer to the testing of a uranium bomb

[TangledUpInBlue]

Maybe Obama will send Rodman back. ??

[PGR88]

I’m convinced these tests are meant as a demonstration to China, as much, or more than they are meant for the USA, Japan, or South Korea.

Indeed, China has a lot more to lose from a nuclear DPRK than the USA does. They share a border and Beijing is less than 500 miles away.

[JoeProBono]

[Bobalu]

I have read that some experts speculate that NK is working on a low-yield device to generate a massive gamma burst.

Such a device is known as a super EMP weapon and is characterized by low-yield explosions on the order of 3kt...very similar to the calculated yield of the devices tested in NK.

According to several press reports, South Korean military intelligence concluded independently of the EMP Commission that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop a Super-EMP nuclear warhead. In 2012, a military commentator for the People's Republic of China stated that North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear warheads.

One design of a Super-EMP warhead would be a modified neutron bomb, more accurately an Enhanced Radiation Warhead (ERW) because it produces not only large amounts of neutrons but large amounts of gamma rays, that cause the EMP effect. One U.S. ERW warhead (the W-82) weighed less than 50 kilograms. North Korea's so-called Space Launch Vehicle, which orbited a satellite weighing 100 kilograms, could deliver such a warhead against the U.S. mainland--or against any nation on Earth.