 If claim of ICBM launch is confirmed, it could move regime closer to being able to strike US mainland 
 
 North Korea claims to have conducted its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) , a development that, if confirmed, could move the regime closer to being able to strike the US mainland and dramatically strengthen its hand in negotiations with Washington. North Korea's missile programme 
 
 Are neighbours and nuclear powers concerned? Faced with what it says are US provocations, North Korea says it has as much right as any other state to develop a nuclear deterrent. Since taking office after his dictator father Kim Jong Il's death in late 2011, Kim Jong Un has overseen three nuclear weapons tests and a slew of missile tests. The launch, which came as Americans prepared to mark Independence Day, triggered a Twitter outburst from President Donald Trump who urged China to act to “end this nonsense once and for all”. Image copyright Reuters Image caption North Korean state TV said the launch was overseen by leader Kim Jong-un 
 
 President Trump has repeatedly called on China, Pyongyang's closest economic ally, to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear and missile programmes. U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials say it flew for about 40 minutes and reached an altitude of 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles), which would be longer and higher than any similar North Korean test previously reported. But analysts also cautioned that although they had been impressed by the rapid and steady progress in the North’s missile programs, the long flight time itself did not suggest that North Korea had mastered the complex technologies needed to build a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM, like the know-how to separate the nuclear warhead and guide it to its target. Independence Day holiday, days after the first face-to-face meeting of the leaders of South Korea and the United States, and ahead of a global summit of the world's richest economies. It came soon after Donald Trump met the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, in Washington, and held telephone discussions dominated by Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear weapons programmes with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe. The joint statement from Russia and China, issued shortly after President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping held wide-ranging talks in the Kremlin, called on North Korea, South Korea and the United States to sign up to a Chinese de-escalation plan designed to defuse tensions around Pyongyang’s missile programme. Photograph: Korean state television 
 
 David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a blogpost the initial assessments of the flight time and distance suggested the missile fired on Tuesday could have a maximum range of roughly 6,700km (4,160 miles). “That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska,” Mr. Wright wrote in a blog post.
– The stakes just got even higher on the Korean Peninsula: North Korea says the missile it test-launched early Tuesday was an intercontinental ballistic missile, not the intermediate-range missile that US and South Korean authorities initially said they detected. North Korea's military described the launch of the Hwasong-14 as the "final step" in creating a "confident and powerful nuclear state that can strike anywhere on Earth," though other nations have yet to confirm that the missile really was an ICBM. The latest: Authorities in Japan and South Korea did not comment on whether they now believe the launch, thought to have been Pyongyang's most successful yet, was an ICBM, the AP reports. Confirmation may require retrieving parts of the missile, which landed in the Sea of Japan. If the missile is confirmed to have been an ICBM, Pyongyang could now be capable of striking the US and will have a much stronger hand in dealing with Washington, reports the Guardian. According to US Pacific Command, the missile flew for 37 minutes on a very high trajectory, landing in waters Japan considers to be part of its exclusive economic zone. In a look at the technical issues involved, CNN reports that Pyongyang aimed the missile high to test it without causing a major international incident. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he will ask the leaders of China and Russia to do more to help stop Pyongyang's missile program, Reuters reports. "Leaders of the world will gather at the G20 meeting. I would like to strongly call for solidarity of the international community on the North Korean issue," he said. David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists says the missile could have reached 4,160 miles on a standard trajectory, which "would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska." But experts believe that Pyongyang still lacks the technology to target a place accurately or miniaturize a nuclear warhead to fit on an ICBM, the BBC reports. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, tells the New York Times that the missile appears to be the longest-range one North Korea has ever tested. "It's a very big deal—it looks like North Korea tested an ICBM," he says. "Even if this is a 7,000-km-range missile, a 10,000-km-range missile that can hit New York isn't far off." (After the launch, President Trump called for a "heavy move" from China.)