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Swedish stocks take hit from North Korea H-bomb test

The Local Sweden
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Swedish stocks take hit from North Korea H-bomb test
man watches a TV news report about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea at the Seoul Railway station in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017. South Korean officials say they have det

Even Sweden is feeling the aftershocks of Pyongyang's widely condemned nuke bomb test over the weekend, with the Stockholm stockmarket taking a small, but sure, hit from the tensions building between North Korea's Kim Jong-Un and US President Donald Trump.

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By midday on Monday, the Stockholm stockmarket, OMX, had slipped 0.5 percent on the back of giddy investors trying to move their placements to more safe and secure industries and business areas.

The decrease was in line with other European markets and comes after North Korea announced it had tested a Hydrogen bomb over the weekend.

While North Korea hailed the test as a “perfect success”, Washington responded by saying that any threat posed to the United States and its territories would be met “with a massive military response”.

READ ALSO: What exactly is Sweden doing in North Korea?

Tensions have been building between the two countries in recent months amid an increasingly hostile rhetoric between Kim and Trump who both seem to wanting try to call each other’s potential bluff.

Reacting to the news coming out of Pyongyang on Sunday, Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallström said on Twitter thatshe considered the test to be a considerable worsening of prospects for international peace and stability.

“Reports of new nuclear test by North Korea a turn for the worse. Further endangers international peace, stability. UNSC [UN Security Council, ed.] role important,” Wallström wrote.

Although Sweden has no obvious links with North Korea, it is one of the hermit state’s biggest aid donors with about 40 million kronor a year ($5 million), and it was also the first western country to open an embassy there, providing consular responsibility for US, Canadian and Australian citizens there.

 

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