Nuclear security

Can North Korea nuclear threat focus minds?

The crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programmes has reached a new and more dangerous phase.

For decades efforts have continued to try to persuade or pressure Pyongyang to give up its weapons programme.

A fully-fledged nuclear capability - warheads that could actually be delivered to a distant target at the tip of a long-range missile - seemed years away. But no longer.

It is impossible to assess the exact capability that North Korea now has. It claims to have missiles that can reach the continental United States - and two recent tests convince Western experts that this may well be a possibility.