US officials said North Korea had moved equipment into place that may indicate it plans a second nuclear test. They differed on the timing of another possible blast, but one senior official with access to intelligence told Reuters it could be ?imminent.?

?NBC Nightly News? quoted US officials as saying North Korea?s military had informed China it intended to carry out a series of underground nuclear tests.

Defiant in the face of sanctions backed by even its closest ally, China, Pyongyang said it had withstood international pressure before and was hardly likely to yield now that it had become ?a nuclear weapons state? with the October 9 test.

?It is quite nonsensical to expect the DPRK to yield to the pressure and threat of someone at this time when it has become a nuclear weapons state,? official media quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying. ?The DPRK wants peace but is not afraid of war,? he said, referring to the country?s official name, the Democratic People?s Republic of Korea. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made his first public appearance since last week?s nuclear test, taking in a song-and-dance performance, the North?s official KCNA news agency reported.

Kim has mostly been absent from the public eye since North Korea test-fired seven missiles in July, leading some to speculate the North?s actions over the past few months had put his leadership to the test. The Bush administration began a diplomatic campaign to rally international support for the sanctions, and said it would view another test as ?belligerent? and ?provocative.?

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice left on a trip to Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Moscow seeking to bolster support for the sanctions and find practical ways to implement them. Rice?s biggest challenge will be to get firm assurances from China, worried over the possible collapse of the impoverished, militarized state it borders, that it will follow through on the UN resolution.

Japan?s Kyodo news agency, quoting a government official, said Chinese President Hu Jintao had voiced concern about how the sanctions are applied. ?Things must be done in such a way that they don?t bring about an escalation of the situation into something uncontrollable,? he told Japanese lawmakers.

Second blast?</B>

Speaking to reporters on her way to Asia, Rice said, ?It is our goal to see a de-escalation of this,? and stressed Washington had no plans to invade the country.

Rice said her mission was intended in part to reassure South Korea and Japan they had no need to develop a nuclear deterrent of their own in response to the North?s weapons program.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said Washington would not be surprised by a second North Korean blast meant to test the will of the United Nations and the states ? the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia ? engaged in long-stalled talks with Pyongyang about its nuclear ambitions.

?The North Koreans have made no secret of their desire to be provocative. The first test, while nuclear, did have a low yield and perhaps it would not be unreasonable to expect that the North Koreans would like to try to something again,? he said in Washington.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov also said he did not exclude the possibility of another test. ?Russia?s reaction in that case would be exactly the same as it was to the first nuclear explosion ? that is, negative,? he told reporters.

The US government has confirmed the October 9 underground blast was a nuclear explosion and some officials have said they have seen ?general? activity near the site of the first test. ?This activity could represent prep for a second test, but it doesn?t necessarily mean definitively that it is,? one US defense intelligence official said.

One US official said Russia and Japan expected something soon, while Americans ?see ... a little more heightened activity, but haven?t been able to sort it all out. In some ways it?s reminiscent of what was happening ... before the previous test.?

He confirmed the October 9 test was a plutonium-based device and said it suggested that if, as the United States suspects, Pyongyang also has a uranium program, ?they have a long way to go? before that uranium program gets to the point of test.

NONCHALANCE

Kim Jong-il makes first appearance since test</B>

■ North Korean leader Kim Jong-il made his first public appearance since last week?s nuclear test, taking in a song and dance performance, the North?s official KCNA news agency reported yesterday.

Kim has mostly been absent from the public eye since North Korea test fired seven missiles in July, leading some to speculate the North?s defiant acts over the past few months have put his leadership to the test. Kim was accompanied by several top North Korean officials as they watched performers sing the praises of the communist state and Kim?s leadership with songs such as ?Love of Comrades? and ?Always looking up to the Leader?, KCNA reported. Kim waved back to the enthusiastically cheering artistes and audience and congratulated them on their successful performance.

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