SEOUL (Reuters) - Wearing a pink Korean dress and flashing a wide smile, television presenter Ri Chun Hee delivered the news of Pyongyang s sixth nuclear test with her usual gusto. Using her trademark bombastic delivery, Ri announced on state television on Sunday the hydrogen bomb test was  a perfect success!  and a key step in  completing the state nuclear force.  The 74-year-old grandmother is considered a national hero who first took to the airwaves in 1971, leaving a career in acting for the broadcaster Korean Central Television (KCTV) Ri s dramatic flare set her apart from other announcers - whether she was angrily denouncing the West or boasting of the regime s achievements and the strength of its leaders.  She s the perfect person to voice North Korea s hard-line stance,  said Ahn Chan-il, a high-ranking North Korean defector who now lives in South Korea.      There is no one else who has that power in her voice as she does. It s just right for talking about nuclear weapons or missiles,  Ahn said. Ri, who usually wears a traditional Korean dress known as a hanbok, has also shown a softer side.  She famously wept on air when announcing North Korea s founder Kim Il Sung s death in 1994. When his son Kim Jong Il died in 2011, it was Ri - clad in black funeral clothes and her voice trembling - who delivered the news to North Koreans.   Despite officially retiring in 2012, Ri has been brought back for major announcements. Sunday s broadcast underscored her longevity at a time when current leader Kim Jong Un has purged some party and military officials from his father s era.  Outside North Korea, the  pink lady  is a familiar face of the regime during the latest tensions over Pyongyang s weapons programs.  I know that if something happens, she will talk,  said Tokyo resident Masashi Sakota. Matt Walker, a credit manager in Sydney, said Ri was  very expressive and excited  on the news item he watched this week.  I don t know how you can get excited about bombs going off. It just seems very odd,  he said. In a rare 2012 interview with China s state-run CCTV, Ri said she wanted to help train the next generation of North Korean broadcasters, who she said were younger and better suited for today s television audience.  She said she saved her gentler side for the North Korean public.  When we read to people in the DPRK, you shouldn t shout but speak gently to viewers,  Ri said. (This version of the story corrects order of name in paragraph 13 to Masashi Sakota) 
Voice of triumph or doom: North Korean presenter back in limelight for nuclear test