North Korea ‘planning to launch a long-range missile’

North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as next week, just days after dictator Kim Jong-un claimed he had weapons capable of obliterating the U.S.

Japan's Kyodo news agency, citing an unnamed Japanese government official, said there are signs of possible preparations for a missile launch based on analysis of satellite imagery of the North's Tongchang-ri missile test site on its west coast.  

The government source said a missile launch could occur in about a week at the earliest, Kyodo reported.

The report comes amid discussions among U.N. Security Council members for fresh sanctions against the North after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on January 6. The country is already under sanctions for its nuclear and missile programmes.

North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, successfully putting an object into orbit in what is believed by experts to be part of its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Earlier this month, North Korea's state news agency KCNA, reported that the leader's scientists 'are in high spirit to detonate H-bombs of hundreds of kilotons and megatons, capable of wiping out the whole territory of the US all at once'.

The declaration came after the pariah state claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb and released suspect footage of a submarine-launched ballistic missile it claims could deliver such a weapon.

State television broadcast footage of the test, said to have taken place in December, and boasted about the hermit nation's ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it would allow the country to deliver a nuclear warhead.

Experts have largely dismissed the H-bomb test, saying the yield – around six kilotons – was far too low for a fully-fledged thermonuclear device, which would have been 100 times more powerful.

 The KCNA commentary said the test 'was neither to "threaten" anyone nor to "provoke" someone for a certain purpose'.

KCNA insisted that the main focus was on providing a 'sure guarantee' of the North's immunity from attack by hostile forces.

Prime among those forces was the U.S. it said, offering an apocalyptic vision of how it would respond to US aggression.

On January 12, the U.S. House of Representatives voted nearly unanimously to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North.

But apparently unperturbed by the prospect of further international isolation, Kim called for an expansion of the size and power of his country's nuclear arsenal, urging the 'detonation of more powerful H-bombs', the North's state media reported.