North Korea conducts nuclear test

Sunday, 24 May 2009

The communist country ,North Korea has staged a "successful" underground nuclear test, the state-run KCNA agency reports.

The agency says it was more powerful than the previous one in October 2006.

South Korea's president has convened an emergency security meeting and Japan is setting up a task force in the prime minister's office.

Just hours later, North Korea appeared to have test-fired a short-range missile, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Pyongyang has so far not commented on Yonhap's report.

Following the announcement of North Korea's latest nuclear test on Monday, Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kazuo Kodama said Tokyo would respond "in a responsible fashion" at the UN, without giving further details.

Russia's UN ambassador said an emergency meeting of the Security Council would be held later on Monday.