The UN Security Council prepared to condemn North Korea today at the beginning of a weekend of urgent diplomacy aimed at stopping the paranoid state from testing a nuclear weapon.

Speculation is mounting in South Korea and Japan that the test could take place as soon as Sunday, a national holiday in both North and South Korea, while Chinese officials briefed by the North Korean military said today that Pyongyang is determined and "more or less ready" to detonate a nuclear device.

The permanent five members of the Security Council are expected to approve a statement drafted by Japan which says a test would "jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond".

But China and Russia have both objected to threatening Pyongyang with specific punishment, believing that an offer of direct negotiations with the US and the possible lifting of sanctions are more likely to coax their fractious, unpredictable neighbour away from testing a bomb.

The UN statement will coincide with a visit to China and South Korea from Shinzo Abe, the Japanese Prime Minister who is facing an international crisis in his second week in office. Mr Abe flies to Beijing on Sunday and Seoul on Monday with the aim of repairing Japan's relations with China and bringing combined pressure on Pyongyang to abandon the test.

"We need to send messages together to stop the North before they make such a reckless action," he said.

But there was little optimism in the region today, with separate reports in China, South Korea and Japan that the North Korean military, an increasingly powerful voice in the regime of Kim Jong Il, was in the last stages of preparing a test.

Japan's Deputy Foreign Minister, Shotaro Yachi, said he had discussed "the possibility that the test would occur this weekend" with the US Deputy National Security Adviser, Jack Crouch, in Washington.

"They will probably go ahead and do it as they had that tone in their declaration," he said.

An American aircraft capable of detecting radiological activity took off from the US military base in Okinawa yesterday and is expected to patrol North Korea over the coming days. The South Korean army is at high alert and has deployed teams to detect seismic activity in the North.

Meanwhile Reuters quoted a Chinese official, briefed by Pyongyang, saying that North Korea was "more or less ready" to test a bomb.

The Chinese official said the plan was to set off the device in an abandoned coal mine, deep underground, near the border with China in the north of the country. The districts of Hagab and Shijung in the province of Jagang, on the Chinese border, and Gilju in North Hamkyung province, have come under particular scrutiny in recent days. US reconaissance aircraft reported unusual activity on suspected nuclear sites in Gilju last month.

Li Dunqiu, a Chinese analyst and North Korea expert who works for a Chinese government think tank said the only way to avoid the nuclear test was for the US to lift financial sanctions that have targeted North Korean money laundering since last November.

"North Korea has already made a decision to carry out a test," he said. "(But) if the U.S. removes sanctions... then tensions can be eased. Otherwise launching a nuclear test is unavoidable for North Korea."

For its part, Pyongyang has done little to calm international unease about its intentions.

In a rare appearance today, the country's autocratic leader, Kim Jong Il, met hundreds of military officers in front of the enormous mausoleum erected for his father and the founder of the communist state, Kim Il Sung. "Let’s fight at the cost of our lives for the respected Supreme Commander Comrade Kim Jong Il!" The officers shouted.

Kim Jong Il has reportedly ordered that the test should "not excessively rock" Mount Paektu, the mountain many Koreans consider sacred. Sunday is considered a likely date for the test because it is the anniversary of his accession as leader of the Korean Worker's Party in 1997.

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