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(LEAD) N. Korea says it has conducted hydrogen bomb test 2016/01/06 12:43 (ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; ADDS more info) SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea announced Wednesday it has succeeded in conducting a hydrogen bomb test, hours after what seems to be an artificial earthquake was detected close to the North's nuclear test site. In a "special" announcement aired on the North's state television station, North Korea said it conducted an H-bomb test at 10:00 a.m. (Pyongyang Time).

State media indicated Thursday that North Korea has added the hydrogen bomb to its arsenal, a development that, if true, would represent a major leap in its nuclear weapons capabilities. But outside observers were skeptical, saying that such an advance in the country's nuclear technology seemed unlikely. Analysts in recent years have believed that North Korea may have been working toward -- but didn't yet have the capability to produce -- a hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bomb. It can be hundreds of times more powerful than an atomic bomb....

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said Wednesday it had conducted a hydrogen bomb test, a defiant and surprising move that, if confirmed, would put Pyongyang a big step closer toward improving its still-limited nuclear arsenal. A television anchor read a typically propaganda-heavy statement on state TV that said North Korea had tested a "miniaturized" hydrogen bomb, elevating the country's "nuclear might to the next level" and providing it with a weapon to defend against the United States and its other enemies. The statement said the test was a "perfect success." The test, if confirmed by outside experts, will...

If true, North Korea has created a major escalation in the standoff on the peninsula. But is it true that Pyongyang has a hydrogen bomb ready to deploy? Reuters reports that analysts remain skeptical of the claim: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared on Thursday to claim his country has developed a hydrogen bomb, a step up from the less powerful atomic bomb, but outside experts were skeptical.Kim made the comments as he toured the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site, which marks the feats of his father who died in 2011 and his grandfather, state founder and eternal president, Kim...

In the midst of controversy over the Israeli prime minister's plans to address Congress next month, a researcher has won the release of a decades-old Defense Department report detailing the U.S. government's extensive help to Israel in that nation's development of a nuclear bomb. "I am struck by the degree of cooperation on specialized war making devices between Israel and the US," said Roger Mattson, a former memer of the Atomic Energy Commission technical staff. The 1987 report, "Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations," compares the key Israeli facilities developing nuclear weapons to Los Alamos and Oak Ridge...

At the height of the McCarthy era, J. Robert Oppenheimer, the government’s top atomic physicist, came under suspicion as a Soviet spy. After 19 days of secret hearings in April and May of 1954, the Atomic Energy Commission revoked his security clearance. The action brought his career to a humiliating close, and Oppenheimer, until then a hero of American science, lived out his life a broken man. But now, hundreds of newly declassified pages from the hearings suggest that Oppenheimer was anything but disloyal. Historians and nuclear experts who have studied the declassified material—roughly a tenth of the hearing transcripts—say...

Interview: Yang Guoxiang One of China's top test pilots recalls the H-Bomb that almost backfired. By Bob Bergin Air & Space Magazine, January 01, 2010 When your assignment is to drop a live nuclear bomb, you’d better not return to base with it. But that’s just what happened in 1971 to Yang Guoxiang, a pilot with the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, who told his harrowing tale to Bob Bergin, a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who writes about the aviation history of Southeast Asia and China. Bergin interviewed Yang in Kunming, China, in early 2009, with the assistance of...

TOKYO — North Korea took a step on Thursday toward reintegration into the world community and rapprochement with the United States by submitting for outside inspection a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program. The 60-page declaration from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, was expected to describe in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons — meeting a major demand of the United States and other countries that consider the North a dangerous source of instability. “This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” said President Bush, announcing the...

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran is pressing ahead with research tests on nuclear fusion, a type of atomic reaction which has yet to be developed for commercial power generation, a senior Iranian official said on Monday. Iran said in the 1990s it was working on nuclear fusion research but this is the first mention in years that the work is continuing and comes at a time of heightened tension over Iran's nuclear program. Iran has been hauled before the U.N. Security Council for failing to convince the world that its atomic work is not being used to make bombs. Tehran insists...

North Korea Suggests H-BombNewsMax.com WiresFriday, Oct. 18, 2002 WASHINGTON – North Korea's mention of "more powerful" weapons in its statement admitting to a nuclear weapons program could mean the country thinks it can create a thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb, scientists told United Press International on Thursday. The North Korean regime confirmed the existence of its uranium-enrichment and weapons development program to U.S. officials Oct. 2 after being confronted with evidence about it from U.S. intelligence sources. North Korea, officials said, ominously warned it had even "more powerful" weapons. The Bush administration disclosed the news late Wednesday in a series...

A United States Air Force report asserts that Israel is building a nuclear naval force meant to respond to any nuclear strike by such countries as Iran or Iraq. It is the first time a U.S. military institution has stated that Israel has produced a hydrogen bomb. The number of purported Israeli nuclear weapons cited in the report is double that of previous assessments. The report, sponsored by the air force's Counterproliferation Center, asserts that the navy can deploy any of what it asserts is Israel's 400 atomic and hydrogen weapons, Middle East Newsline reported. The center is located in...

Government asks federal labs to develop underground nuclear bomb By DAN STOBER San Jose Mercury News SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Pentagon and the Energy Department have directed the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories in Livermore, Calif., and Los Alamos, N.M., to compete for the chance to design a hydrogen bomb that could destroy targets underground. To the dismay of arms-control proponents, the Bush administration is advocating such weapons — which would slam into the earth at high speed and then explode underground — as a means of attacking command bunkers or biological and chemical weapons facilities possibly buried in such...