nuclear-news

Donald Trump threatens north Korea with ‘fire and fury’

Trump warns North Korea of ‘fire and fury’, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/us-politics/donald-trump-threatens-fire-and-fury-against-north-korea/news-story/75274296325581df29207164d5c20eb3, CAMERON STEWART, WASHINGTON, The Australian August 9, 2017 

His strong words came after the revelation that North Korea has successfully miniaturised a nuclear warhead, removing the last major obstacle to Kim Jong-un’s regime launching a nuclear attack on the United States or Australia.

It was met by a furious response from the president. “(They) best not make any more threats,” he said. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

The frightening new assessment by US intelligence is a game-changer for the west, catapulting the rogue regime into the status of a genuine nuclear weapons state.

“The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” says a confidential US intelligence assessment by the Defence Intelligence Agency reported by the Washington Post.

A separate US intelligence assessment also estimates that North Korea now has as many as 60 nuclear weapons, up the three times the number of previous estimates.

The conclusions are startling because they shows North Korea had developed all aspects of its nuclear and missile capability much faster than previously thought.

The regime successfully tested its first long range ICBM last month, bringing some of continental US and parts of Northern Australia into its missile range.

But the west was still sceptical that North Korea had advanced its technology to be able to miniaturise its nuclear weapons to place them on the ICBM and deliver them to a distant target.

The alarming new assessments come as North Korea threatened ‘thousands-fold revenge’ against the US over its role in obtained UN Security Council agreement for sweeping new sanctions against North Korea.

Donald Trump’s national security adviser HR McMaster said at the weekend that a North Korea with nuclear-tipped ICBMs would be ‘intolerable from the president’s perspective.”

August 9, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international, weapons and war