[justa-hairyape]

Japan: possible North Korea has advanced nuclear arms

Japanese Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said the possibility that North Korea's nuclear arms development is fairly advanced cannot be ruled out.

"North Korea's uranium enrichment activities are a highly worrisome development ... We cannot rule out the possibility that their nuclear arms programme is fairly advanced," Kitazawa told a news conference, Reuters reports.

[RayChuang88]

Here's the question: has the North Koreans reached the point of building an implosion-style nuclear bomb that uses plutonium as the fissile material? If they've reached that point the North Koreans could build warheads with a yield of 45-50 kT for their Nodong-2 missile that could threaten the major US military bases in Japan.