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Whether North Korea will launch a nuclear missile attack on the US mainland is best left to its conscience. A potential offensive against the world's most powerful military, however, raises a question: Can the US protect itself from such an occurrence?
Read to find out: Can the US intercept a North Korean missile flying towards it?
The North Korea vs US rhetoric has picked pace in the past few weeks. It threatens to destabilise the global balance. Both countries have, in the recent weeks, exchanged verbal volleys prompting comments from Japan and China too. US President Donald Trump has called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man" while Pyongyang has likened the US President to a "barking dog". Catch up with all the updates in the North Korea vs US situation here.
Russian Senate head to meet delegations from North as well as South Korea: Russian news agency
The speaker of the upper house of Russia'a parliament said she will discuss the issue of North Korea's missile and nuclear program with parliamentary delegations from both Seoul and Pyongyang, RIA news agency reported on Friday, according to Reuters.
The speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, said she will propose that the delegations of North Korea and South Korea meet to seek a compromise, RIA reported. Russia is hosting an international congress of parliamentarians this weekend.
Trump to meet parents of Japanese girl abducted by North Korea four decades ago
US President Donald Trump will be meeting parents of a Japanese teenager who was snatched away from her home by North Korean spies around 40 years ago, according to The Guardian.
Trump will be meeting Shigeru and Sakie Yokota when he visits Tokyo next month.
Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said that he was arranging for meeting.
Shigeru and Sakie Yokota's daughter Megumi, was abducted from Niigata town on the coast in November 1977. She was 13 years old.
Just one week after he made his "this is the calm before the storm" statement to the press ahead of a dinner with military leaders, President Trump has dispatched a second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier -- the USS Theodore Roosevelt -- to the Korean Peninsula with 7,500 marines on board, Zerohedge reported.
About 46 percent of Republicans support a pre-emptive strike on North Korea today—compare that with just 42 percent of Republicans who say they don't support it, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll.
However, even though Republicans favour acting now with a pre-emptive strike against North Korea, a small plurality want the US to at least attempt to negotiate -- about 50 percent compared with 46 percent against.
A Catholic priest who has been to North Korea 52 times on a humanitarian mission said the new US travel ban will not stop him from going again.
Father Jerry Hammond has been travelling to North Korea since 1995, helping to treat people suffering from tuberculosis. But in July, the state department introduced a travel restriction amid growing concerns over the detention of Americans. Read the full story by BBC here.
Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton tweeted that the US was now down to 2 choices -- destroy the North Korean regime, or destroy the nuclear weapons that it holds.
The United States Government has welcomed the United Arab Emirates' decision to break ties with North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency.
The UAE announced yesterday that it will terminate the missions of North Korea's non-resident ambassador and its own non-resident envoy to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang and that it will stop issuing new visas and business licenses to North Koreans.
“Very happy to hear that,” the spokeswoman for the US State Department, Heather Nauert said during a press briefing. “There are many countries that are taking those steps that we have asked those countries to take,” Yonhap reported her as saying.
Eight NATO countries today joined forced to take part in a massive missile defence training drill, Business Insider reported.
The participating countries -- USA, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands -- assembled at the UK Ministry of Defence Hebrides Range to take part in “Formidable Shield,” a US-led exercise to train the countries to defend against ballistic missiles.
China wants South Korea to end its deployment of US ballistic missiles systems, which undermine Chinese and Russian security, a senior officer with the Chinese Defense Ministry’s Central Military Commission told Iran's Mehr News Agency.
Read this interesting story of Kim Seong Ryeol, who at the age of 10, escaped from North Korea and settled in Seoul. Kim has overcome many challenges over the years, including discrimination against him by native South Koreans in the city and has now been awarded a Fulbright scholarship to do a Ph.D in the US.
South Korea unification minister Cho Myoung-gyon said today that North Korea appears to be operating a hydroelectric power plant near a shuttered inter-Korean industrial complex amid speculation that Pyongyang is unilaterally resuming work at the factory park.
"It has been recently found that North Korea activated a small hydroelectric station," Cho said when asked whether electricity has been supplied to the industrial park.
The United States and South Korea will kick off a major navy drill next week in a fresh show of force against North Korea over its missile and nuclear tests, the US navy said today.
Tensions over North Korea's weapons programme have been rising continuously in recent months with Pyongyang launching a flurry of missiles and conducting its sixth and most powerful nuclear test yet in defiance of multiple sets of UN sanctions.
North Korea today mocked the US for being "frightened by the high spirit and rapid advance of Juche Korea dashing ahead toward the final goal of rounding off the state nuclear force", and said that nothing would stop it from achieving its intended state nuclear force.
"Nothing can break the invincible faith and indomitable will of the army and people of the DPRK to surely achieve the goal of accomplishing the state nuclear force without any vacillation despite manifold hardships and ordeals," a statement in a North Korean state-run publication read.
In an article published this morning, North Korean state-run media hit out at South Korea's unification ministry for recently taking up the issue of human rights violations in North Korea.
"It is a vicious challenge to the dignified DPRK and an unpardonable mockery of its people that the south Korean puppet forces are running high fever in provoking it while building up public opinion over 'human rights issue in the north'," the statement read.
"They are kicking up 'human rights' campaign against the DPRK, adding to the crimes they have already committed, not content with getting frantic in the moves for a nuclear war and sanctions against it as running dogs of the US," it said. Read the full story here.
The Rodong Sinmun article reiterated North Korea's threat of firing a salvo of missiles into the waters near Guam, saying US military drills have made the entire region unstable.
“We have already warned several times that we will take counteractions for self-defence including a salvo of missiles into waters near the US territory of Guam, an advance base for invading the DPRK, where key US bases are located, as the US has resorted to military actions in sensitive regions, making the waters off the Korean peninsula and in the Pacific restless,” the statement read.
In an article this morning, North Korean state-run publication Rodong Sinmun issued a warning that US, South Korean and Japanese military drills in the region had further increased tensions in the Korean Peninsula.
“The US military action hardens our determination that the US should be tamed with fire and lets us take our hand closer to ‘trigger’ for taking the toughest countermeasure,” the statement read.
Culture Minister Do Jong-whan has said that nothing has been decided on whether North Korea will take part in next year’s PyeongChang Paralympics, amid confusing reports of the hermit nation's participation.
The minister said that to the best of his understanding, Pyongyang had submitted a letter of intent to unofficially participate in the Winter Paralympics to the International Paralympic Committee in May. However, he said, North Korea has not taken any further steps for official participation internationally.
Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop has pledged solidarity with South Korea in the face of the North's ongoing nuclear threat. The foreign minister and defence minister Marise Payne are in Seoul for talks with their South Korean counterparts.
"We stand united with (South Korea) against the provocative and threatening behaviour of North Korea," Bishop told reporters.
South Korea plans to drastically shift its defense strategy to allow for pre-emptive strikes against North Korea and the transfer of military command from the United States as soon as possible, the Asahi Shimbun reported.
The proposed changes were listed in the National Defense Ministry’s report submitted on October 12 to the National Assembly. The report outlines the ministry’s plans to compile new defense guidelines in December.
South Korea and China have renewed a USD 56 billion currency swap deal, Seoul said today, despite tensions over the controversial deployment of a US anti-missile system in the South.
There had been fears the diplomatic row would threaten the major economic agreement that expired on Tuesday, but the central Bank of Korea said it has been extended for another three years.
China’s imports of North Korean goods plummeted for the 7th consecutive month in September.
The General Administration of Customs in Beijing reported on Friday that their imports of North Korean products slipped 37-point-nine percent last month, year-on-year, while it exports to the North also shrank nearly seven percent over the same period.
Malaysia, which until recently had been one of Pyongyang's closest friends, has halted all imports from North Korea, as part of global efforts to cut off funding over its nuclear and missile programmes, Reuters reported.
Malaysia did not buy any goods from North Korea in June and July, after buying 20.6 million ringgit (USD 4.89 million) worth of goods in the first five months of the year, according to data from the Department of Statistics.
North Korea is seeking investment for a new hotel construction project in the Wonsan-Mount Kumgang International Tourist Zone, according to a proposal released this week.
The guide for what will be called “Naekumgang Hotel” was released on Monday, with information on the “total planning of developing Mt. Kumgang International Tourism Special Zone.”
Amid rising tensions in the Korean Peninsula, fears of a nuclear war between world powers has now become a thing to actually worry about.
This has resulted in many people across the globe, and particularly in South Korea, the United States and Japan, to consider getting nuclear bunkers.
Nuclear bunkers have not been used in a long time and many of the existing ones are largely unusable. However, private bunker manufacturers have started selling more bunkers. Read the full story by Forbes here.
Yesterday's 2.9 magnitude earthquake near North Korea's nuclear testing site has assumed immense relevance since two top officials of Kim Jong-un's regime responsible for its nuclear weapons and missile programs have not been seen at public events in Pyongyang over the past week.
Ri Man-gon, supervisor of the nuclear and missile development department, and Kim Rak-gyom, the head of the strategic rocket forces, were noticeably missing at a Saturday mass rally in Pyongyang and a Tuesday celebration for the anniversary of the Worker’s Party of Korea, according to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.
White House Chief of Staff John Kelly said yesterday that Americans should be concerned about North Korea's ability to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, cryptically telling reporters that if the threat grows "beyond where it is today, well, let's hope that diplomacy works."
A series of tremors and landslides near North Korea’s nuclear test base likely mean the country’s sixth and largest blast yet has destabilised the region, and the Punggye-ri nuclear site may not be used for much longer to test nuclear weapons, Reuters quoted experts as saying.
Group of Seven (G7) finance leaders have agreed to co-operate in countering North Korean attempts to avert UN sanctions, a senior Japanese finance ministry official said yesterday.