PUBLISHED BY: SURENDER KUMAR
FEBRUARY 12, 2013

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In a stunningly defiant act, North Korea has conducted its most powerful 3rd nuclear test with a “miniaturised” device.  The government staged its third test with a “successful” underground detonation to retaliate the US “hostility’’.

The miniaturisation claim suggests N Korea’s getting closer to fitting a nuclear warhead onto a ballistic missile. The confirmation came nearly 3 hours after seismologists found an unusual tremor in the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, near the Chinese border.

The timing seems to be an attention-getting mechanism from a country familiar with provocative acts, coming just before President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address at the beginning of his new term. North Korea’s previous tests in 2006 and 2009 had invited UN sanctions. The Security Council is set to have an emergency meeting in New York in response to the third detonation.

Beijing and Japan have conveyed their displeasure to the youthful Kim Jong-Un’s regime in Pyongyang. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has also condemned the test.