china, to see his reaction. melinda, how important is china for north korea? reporter: china s very important. it s the closest ally, the strongest ally, the source of most of its energy and food needs. it s really north korea s only friend, only reliable friend. and even that relationship is very strained. recently there was a number of incidents that suggest that the ties between pyongyang and beijing are less than close. xi jinping, for example, has not visited north korea, despite this long-standing historical alliance between the two countries. melinda liu, thank you very much for being with me this morning. more presidential politics now. new in-fighting between donald trump and ted cruz. this morning on morning joe the billionaire questions
the nation s debt ceiling is fueling hopes the government won t run out of money on august 2nd. obama saying the deadline drawing close and congressional leaders need to talk turkey in today s meetings. most of the central heat under a heat alert. some areas feel as hot as 126 degrees. . the taliban blaming u.s. hackers for a text that announced the death of mullah omar. the taliban says, no, he is alive and well. one day after rupert murdoch tried to repel the british assault on his empire, it s the prime minister s turn to face parliament. david cameron tainted by claims that he was too cozy with the media giant and drew raucous responses in his appearance before the special session. what is the public expects is not petty political point scoring but a what what they want, what they deserve is concerted action to rise to the level of events and pledge to work together to sort this issue out once and for all and it is in that spirit that i commend this statement
countries around the world have condemned the test. and an emergency myieeting of t u.n. security council is called for later today. there is always reason to be skeptical about what actually happens. there is no way to independently confirm anything in north korea. the earthquake detected overnight was similar to one detected after north korea s last nuclear test three years ago. that was an atomic bomb that created a nuclear explosion roughly on par with the bomb dropped on hiroshima at the end of world war ii. that s enough. but a hydrogen bomb? that s hundreds of times more powerful and would likely have created a much bigger earthquake. news week s beijing bureau chief melinda lu joins me from the chinese capital. what do we know this morning? well, unfortunately we don t know very much, josé.