North Korea is capable of producing a nuclear bomb every six or seven weeks

THE CIA dubs it “the disco ball”, but intelligence reports have revealed shocking insight into North Korea’s nuclear program.

US President Donald Trump says North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is not as strong as he thinks he is. Picture: AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

THE CIA dubs it “the disco ball”, but for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, this piece of nuclear weaponry is anything but a party.

For years, the world has groaned at North Korea’s seemingly unfounded threats, despite the signs of growing nuclear momentum within the militarised country.

But this giant, round, metallic sphere - one that looks like its been ripped off the set of an Austin Powers movie - is Kim Jong-un’s “jewel in the crown” of its arsenal. And the world has continued to ignore it.

Since 2006, when North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, leaders across the world have condemned the defiant weapons program without much need for urgency.

It exploded a nuclear device underground in 2009, had a third nuclear test in 2013 and a successfull test of a hydrogen bomb in 2016.

Yesterday, North Korea staged what appears to be its largest ever live-firing drill to mark the 85th anniversary of its military.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un meeting with the scientists and technicians in the field of researches into nuclear weapons and guiding the work for boosting the nuclear arsenal at an undisclosed location.

Norris Bradbury has his photograph taken with the first nuclear weapon, an atomic bomb nicknamed ‘Gadget’. It was detonated in 1945 in the United States. Picture: US Dept of Energy

Yet the evidence of North Korea’s nuclear might over the past 11 years has remained somewhat sketchy; possibly why former US administrations remained worriesome, yet inactive.

But according to the New York Times, the Trump administration has received a stark slap to the face as classfified intelligence reports conclude the country is “capable of producing a nuclear bomb every six or seven weeks”.

According to the piece, despite the fact this accusation is “impossible to verify”, given North Korea blocked access to its facilities years ago, expert studies and information gathered from intelligence sources are enough to cause serious concern for Donald Trump and his administration, who “fear they are running out of time”.

But with each missile launch has come an ability to learn and adapt and there are serious fears that a North Korean weapon could hit not only the United States in a few years, but Australia as well.

The disco ball, shown repeatedly in photos of Kim Jong-un, is a thing of great mystery. A nuclear weapon, it is designed to fit inside one of the country’s many missiles.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on TV at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea last year. Picture: Ahn Young-joon

Whether it is real or a piece of propaganda is another story, American intelligence officials have yet to figure that out. But if estimates are right, North Korea will own an impressive 50 weapons by the end of Mr Trump’s presidency - about “half the size of Pakistan’s”, according to The Times.

“The best estimates are that North Korea has roughly 1000 ballistic missiles in eight or so varieties.”

The issue for Kim Jong-un, according to Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor who North Korea allowed into a uranium enrichment facility in 2010, is for North Korea’s bombs to travel that far, they must be “smaller, lighter and surmount the additional difficulties of the stresses and temperatures”.

Dr Hecker claims that we should expect that capability within four or five years.

A seperate facility, a reactor in Yongbyon, can make enough plutonium for one atomic bomb in a year.

The task, for North Korea, is two-fold: Build a missile that can travel through the Pacific Ocean, and pair that to a warhead that can survive the journey.

As former President Barack Obama noted before he left office, North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile program were becoming “steadily more alarming” and claimed his failure to do anything about it was “glaring”.

For Mr Trump, the task remains, how to stop North Korea from growing? Before it’s too late.

Mr Trump has sent more US military assets to the region in a show of force while leaning on China to exert economic pressure on its wayward ally.

In Washington, top Trump administration officials are due to brief the entire US Senate on Wednesday.

TRUMP SAYS KIM JONG-UN NOT AS STRONG AS HE THINKS

Donald Trump took a fresh swipe at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as the rogue state marks a military anniversary with a massive show of force.

There has been no let-up in the tit-for-tat taunts between the Trump administration and North Korea, as tensions continue to boil over the nation’s nuclear weapons program.

“I’m not so sure he’s so strong like he says he is; I’m not so sure at all,” Mr Trump told a reception of conservative journalists on Monday, according to CNN.

Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have been engaged in a war of words for weeks. Picture: AP Photo/Wong Maye-E

Meanwhile, North Korea’s state run mouthpiece, the newspaper Rodong Sinmun, said on Tuesday there would be dire consequences from a US-led pre-emptive strike.

It promised “the most brutal punishment … in the sky and land as well as at sea and from underwater without any warning or prior notice”.

The comment came ahead of the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, which North Korea marked with what South Korea’s defence ministry described as a “massive fire drill” in the eastern port city of Wonsan.

A South Korean navy sailor watches the destroyer USS Wayne E Meyer during a joint exercises between the United States and South Korea in South Korea's West Sea on Tuesday. Picture: South Korean Defence Ministry via AP

There were fears that the nation would celebrate the military milestone by testing a nuclear weapon or firing a missile, but this did not come to pass.

Instead, the big day on the calendar was marked with North Korea’s “largest ever” firing drill, according to a government source speaking to the South’s Yonhap News Agency.

Mr Kim is believed to have watched the exercise, which included up to 400 long-range artillery pieces that are capable of reaching the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Nuclear-powered submarine USS Michigan approaches at the southeastern port city of Busan on Tuesday. Picture: AFP/Yonhap

A US guided missile submarine, the USS Michigan, arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan on the same day as the North Korean military exercise.

While US Naval Forces Korea called the visit “routine”, a US defence official told CNN it was a show of force to North Korea.

Aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is expected to join the submarine in waters off the Korean Peninsula later this week.

A US Air Force U-2 spy plane prepares to land at Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, on Tuesday. Picture: Hong Hae-in/Yonhap via AP

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has heaped pressure on the United Nations Security Council to do more to punish North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.

“The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable,” Mr Trump told ambassadors at a White House meeting on Monday.

“The council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not.

“North Korea is a big world problem, and it’s a problem we have to finally solve.

“People have put blindfolds on for decades, and now it’s time to solve the problem.”

He urged member nations to hit North Korea with stronger sanctions.

Senior Trump administration officials, including secretary of state Rex Tillerson and defence secretary Jim Mattis, will brief all 100 US senators on the tense stand-off with North Korea at an extraordinary meeting at the White House on Wednesday.

It is unclear whether Mr Trump will attend the briefing, but The Washington Post suggests a photo op with the President and the entire Senate would be a good look ahead of his 100th day in office on Saturday.

— with wires