North Korea signals 'high-intensity' action

North Korea's ruling communist party has called for the staging of a"high-intensity" action and further long-range rocket launches, statemedia said Tuesday, ahead of an expected nuclear test.

A meeting of the workers party politburo "called for staging an all-outaction of high intensity," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) saidTuesday, without specifically mentioning a nuclear test.

The politburo also "stressed the need to continue launching satellites... and powerful long-range rockets", KCNA said.

The statement carried strong echoes of the initial announcement last monthby the North's top military body, the National Defence Commission, that itwould conduct a "high-level nuclear test" and further rocketlaunches.

Since then, the international community has issued repeated appeals and warningsto Pyongyang against testing, while analysing satellite images of the North'snuclear test site for any sings of an imminent detonation.

On Monday, South Korea's Yonhap News agency said no activity had been pickedup at the test site for several days, suggesting manpower may have beenwithdrawn ahead of a test.

But some officials noted that the inactivity might just be linked to theLunar New Year holiday which fell at the weekend.

There has been widespread speculation in the South that the North wants toconduct the test ahead of late leader Kim Jong-il's birthday on February 16.

Pyongyang has said any test would be a direct response to the UN SecurityCouncil's adoption of a US-proposed resolution that condemned the North'srocket launch in December and expanded existing sanctions.

North Korea insists the rocket launch was a scientific mission aimed atputting a satellite into an orbit.

But the United States and many other countries viewed it as a disguisedballistic missile test, banned under UN resolutions triggered by Pyongyang'sprevious nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.

Confusion over the possible date of a third nuclear test was compounded by aNorth Korean state media outlet last week that said the United States and SouthKorea had "jumped to conclusions" that a test was imminent.

The politburo meeting stressed the need for the Korean People's Army (KPA)to remain combat ready at all times and prepare for an attack on the South andthe US troops stationed there.

"It said that once an order is issued, the KPA should blow up thestronghold of aggression at a strike and wipe out the brigandish USimperialists and South Korean puppet army to the last man," KCNA said.