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7 September, 2017 00:00 00 AM
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N Korea nuclear test 10 times more powerful than Hiroshima: Japan

AFP
N Korea nuclear test 10 times more powerful than Hiroshima: Japan
This undated file photo shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) looking at a metal casing with two bulges at an undisclosed location. AFP photo

Japan yesterday again upgraded its estimated size of North Korea’s latest nuclear test to a yield of around 160 kilotons—more than ten times the size of the Hiroshima bomb, reports AFP from Tokyo.

This marked Tokyo’s second revision higher after previously giving estimates of 70 and 120 kilotons.

Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters that his ministry’s upward revision to 160 kilotons was based on a revised magnitude by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation (CTBTO).

“This is far more powerful than their nuclear tests in the past,” Onodera told reporters.

The US bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945 carried a yield of 15 kilotons.

Japan’s latest estimate far exceeded the yield of between 50 and 100 kilotons indicated by UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman at the UN Security Council.

Early Wednesday, Onodera held telephone talks with US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and both agreed to step up “visible pressure” on North Korea, the ministry in Tokyo said.

“North Korea’s nuclear and missile development is at a new stage of grave and imminent threats,” Onodera told Mattis, the ministry said, adding that his US counterpart shared the view.

Pyongyang’s Sunday test of what it described as a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile triggered global alarm and has divided the international community as it scrambles for a response.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council that Washington would present a new sanctions resolution to be negotiated in the coming days, but Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday rejected US calls for more sanctions as “useless”.

Putin’s comments appeared to have widened a split among major powers over how to rein in Pyongyang, pitting Moscow and Beijing against Washington and its allies.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to press Putin for his support over the North Korea’s provocation, when the two leaders hold talks in the Russian Far East city of Vladivostok on Thursday.

“We have to make North Korea change its current policy and understand that there is no bright future if North Korea continues the present policy,” Abe told reporters ahead of his departure.

Abe, who will separately hold talks with South Korea’s leader Moon Jae-In in Vladivostok, said he wants to send a message to the North from his two talks with Putin and Moon.

US President Donald Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he would allow Japan and South Korea to buy more “highly sophisticated” US military equipment.

Pressed on this during a regular news conference, Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to comment on the specific proposal, saying only that Tokyo would continue to purchase necessary equipment from the US and other countries.

Another AFP report adds:Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korean President Moon Jae-In agreed yesterday that resolving the North Korea crisis as soon as possible was the top priority.

“It is more important than anything else to resolve the North’s nuclear and missile issues, which are the most urgent and gravest challenges facing this region, at an earliest date,” said Moon as the pair met on the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok on Russia’s Pacific coast.

“I and President Putin also agreed that the missile development pursued by North Korea is a wrong path and it is an urgent task to ease tension on the Korean peninsula,” he told reporters after the talks.

And Putin stressed the need for a political solution, saying further sanctions and pressure would not solve the problem.

“Today, as never before, everyone needs to show composure and avoid steps that lead to an escalation of tensions,” he said.

“It would be extremely difficult to advance the situation at hand without political and diplomatic instruments,” he said.

“It is not worth giving in to emotions and driving North Korea into a corner.”

World powers are scrambling to respond to the latest advance in North Korea’s rogue nuclear weapons programme, which has sent global tensions soaring.

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Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman

Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.

Editor : M. Shamsur Rahman
Published by the Editor on behalf of Independent Publications Limited at Media Printers, 446/H, Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1215.
Editorial, News & Commercial Offices : Beximco Media Complex, 149-150 Tejgaon I/A, Dhaka-1208, Bangladesh. GPO Box No. 934, Dhaka-1000.

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