Tobin Harshaw talks to non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis about North Korea’s nuclear programme and why the regime’s recent ICBM launch shouldn’t have come as a surprise

The United States and Japan opened the door to new nuclear talks with North Korea if the sabre-rattling country lowered tensions and honoured past agreements, even as it rejected South Korea’s latest offer of dialogue as a “crafty trick”.

The United States and South Korea detected a seismic event at a suspected nuclear test site in North Korea, the White House said today after North Korea claimed it had conducted an underground nuclear test.