The US Is Thinking About Sending More Weapons to the Korean Peninsula

The United States and its ally South Korea were discussing on Monday sending more strategic US weapons to the Korean peninsula, a day after a US B-52 bomber flew over South Korea in response to North Korea's nuclear test last week.

North Korea said it set off a hydrogen bomb last Wednesday, its fourth nuclear test since 2006, angering China, the North's main ally, and the US, which said it doubted the device was a hydrogen bomb.

In a show of force and support for allies in the region, the US on Sunday sent a nuclear-capable B-52 bomber based in Guam on a flight over South Korea, accompanied by South Korean fighter jets.

North Korea's Rodong Sinmun newspaper, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers' Party, said the US was bringing the situation to the brink of war.

South Korean media said the US may send B-2 bombers, nuclear-powered submarines, and F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea. A South Korean defense ministry spokesman declined to give details.

China called for all sides to avoid raising tension.

Related: Yes, North Korea Probably Tested an H-Bomb — Just Not the Kind You're Thinking Of

The chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff warned that North Korea was likely to carry out further "sudden provocations," a South Korean defense ministry official said, while the commander of the 28,500 US troops in South Korea, General Curtis Scaparrotti, urged them to be vigilant.

"I want you to maintain the highest level readiness from a long-term view as joint military exercises are coming up," Scaparrotti told US and South Korean forces on a visit to a base — apparently referring to joint annual military exercises that usually begin in February or March and invariably provoke an angry reaction from North Korea.

On the diplomatic front, South Korea said its chief nuclear negotiator planned to meet his US and Japanese counterparts on Wednesday to discuss a response to North Korea, and the next day, he would meet China's nuclear envoy in Beijing.

North Korea has been under UN Security Council sanctions since its first test of an atomic device. After its third test, in 2013, the Security Council took about three weeks to agree a resolution that tightened financial restrictions and cracked down on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo.

South Korea and Japan used a military hotline for the first time after of North Korea's test, South Korea's defense ministry said, in a sign the North's behaviour is pushing the two old rivals closer together.

South Korea has also resumed anti-North propaganda broadcasts through loudspeakers along the border, a tactic that the North considers insulting. It responded with artillery fire the last time South Korea used the speakers in August.

Related: You Give Me 'H-Bomb,' I Raise You K-Pop: South Korea Resumes Propaganda Broadcasts

Meanwhile, CNN reported from Pyongyang on Monday that a Canadian pastor serving a life sentence in North Korea for subversion said he spends eight hours a day digging holes at a labour camp, while a naturalized American citizen said he is being held by the state for spying.

If confirmed, Kim Dong Chul, who CNN said was 60 and formerly of Fairfax, Virginia, would be the second Western citizen known to be held currently in North Korea. He was being held for spying for South Korea and asked the South or the US government to rescue him, CNN said.

Hyeon Soo Lim, a South Korean-born Canadian who was the head pastor at one of Canada's largest churches, who has been held by the North since February, was brought into a Pyongyang hotel for an interview. He said he works eight hours a day, six days a week digging holes in an orchard at a labour camp where he has seen no other prisoners.