Russia just carried out a test launch of its Satan 2 nuclear missile on Thursday, which is reportedly capable of wiping out an entire country with a single strike. According to the country's defense ministry, the rocket, also called the RS-28 Sarmat, was fired roughly 500 miles north of Moscow from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome spaceport.

Detonating a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific Ocean would be a logical final step by North Korea to prove the success of its weapons program but would be extremely provocative and carry huge risks, arms control experts said on Friday.

North Korea has warned the United States that it will pay a "due price" if harsh sanctions against the country are agreed at a United Nations Security Council meeting on Monday. North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement published on state media that if the US "does rig up the illegal and unlawful 'resolution'" it would respond in kind.

North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme must be “halted” before it develops a missile capable of hitting London, the Defence Secretary said. Asked if the rogue state could strike the UK capital, Sir Michael Fallon replied: “Not yet, but they are clearly accelerating the missile programme, the range is getting longer and longer.”

North Korea has become a "global threat" after its latest nuclear test, the UN's nuclear watchdog has said. The North's claim it had tested a hydrogen bomb represents a "new dimension of threat," Yukiya Amano, director general the International Atomic Energy Authority, told CNN. "I think the North Korean threat is a global one now. In the past people believed it was a regional one, that's no longer the case," Mr Amano said.

Guam’s residents have been given information useful to anyone in the crosshairs of a nuclear attack.

Tensions around the Korean Peninsula remain high after North Korea's recent missile tests followed by its provocative threat Wednesday to engulf a U.S. territory in a barrage of missiles, a ranking South Korean official said. However, the situation does not represent a crisis, the official from Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said, noting the North Korean threat may have been multipurposed but not to incite an actual conflict.

North Korea has said it needs the capability to launch intercontinental missiles at the heart of the United States to prevent an invasion. The North is ready to give the United States a "severe lesson" with its strategic nuclear force if it takes military action against it, it said in a statement to a regional meeting in Manila.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Saturday the second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile demonstrated his country can hit the U.S. mainland, hours after the launch left analysts concluding that a wide swath of the United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of North Korean weapons.

Over 120 countries adopted the United Nations’ first-ever global ban on nuclear weapons Friday, in a significant milestone in the push against nuclear proliferation. Except for one thing: None of the countries that actually have nuclear weapons adopted the treaty, so it doesn’t technically apply to them.

Hundreds of workers have been forced to "take cover" after a tunnel in a nuclear finishing plant collapsed in Washington state. Following the incident Tuesday morning, which a spokesperson told the Independent is still being investigated, a manager sent a message to workers telling them to “secure ventilation in your building” and to “refrain from eating or drinking.” The US Department of Energy activated its Emergency Operations Center Tuesday following the collapse.

Taking a look at our not-so-distant history may be the key to solving the rising tension with North Korea. Pyongyang is defiant and belligerent, while Washington seems in a dilemma. Most analysts agree “there is no silver bullet” to solve the Pyongyang problem, and diplomacy may be the only sensible way to reach a solution. Yet, the Vincent Strike Group is ordered to move into the troubled waters near the Korean Peninsula, which was followed by more hostile rhetoric from Pyongyang. Was Washington’s hyped-response to North Korea’s provocation warranted? It might be beneficial to look back into the “Beijing problem” in the 1950s and 1960s.

A Russian military expert has claimed Moscow has been "seeding" nuclear bombs off the US coastline. The Kremlin has dismissed the claim as "strange", while an independent expert referred to it as an act of "political warfare". Viktor Baranetz, a former colonel and defence ministry spokesman, told Komsomolskaya Pravda Russia was “quietly 'seeding' the US shoreline with nuclear 'mole' missiles".

The US military is considering shooting down North Korean missile tests as a show of strength to Pyongyang, two sources briefed on the planning have told the Guardian. Amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, the Pentagon is looking for ways short of war to pressure the country into denuclearization, particularly if Pyongyang goes forward with a sixth nuclear test.

A top North Korean official is threatening a preemptive strike against the U.S. if his nation believes America is taking "reckless" military action. Vice Minister Han Song Ryol on Friday told The Associated Press that President Trump's tweets are part of a "vicious cycle" of escalated tensions in the region, adding that North Korea will continue to stockpile more nuclear warheads and improve on the country's nuclear program.

Amid a growing missile threat from North Korea, the northern city of Oga, Akita Prefecture, held Japan’s first-ever evacuation drill for local residents, gaming out a scenario in which Pyongyang lobs a ballistic missile into the waters nearby.

A Japanese company tasked with cleaning up Fukushima, the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, has admitted that its attempts to probe the site are failing repeatedly due to incredibly high levels of radiation. The nuclear meltdown at Fukushima in 2011 was triggered by an earthquake and tsunami which left around 18,000 people dead and more than a million buildings destroyed.

Tepco, the utility company tasked with overseeing cleanup and waste processing for the former Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, hit another snag this week. Last month, we reported on new findings about Reactor #2 that showed it was far more radioactive inside than previously measured. At the time, we noted that Tepco was working on a new robot that could handle up to 73 sieverts of radiation, but the measured level of 530 sieverts vastly exceeded that tolerance.

Radioactive glass from the Trinity nuclear test site resembles ancient moon rocks

With just 3 years left until the 2020 Olympics, Japan is likely desperate to reassure the world's athletes that all is well, but an admission from TEPCO - the Fukushima nuclear plant operator - that they discovered a hole at least one square meter in size beneath the reactor's pressure vessel, and lethal record-high radiation levels have been detected, will not likely reassure anyone.