A new report indicates that North Korea would someday have the capability to produce a nuclear weapon that could be placed onto a missile.

The recent aborted voyage of a North Korean ship, photographs of massive tunnels and a top secret meeting have raised alarm bells that one of the world's poorest nations may be aspiring to join the nuclear club — with help from its friends in Pyongyang.

North Korea, which has been firing missiles and spewing threats against the United States, was identified by South Korea's main spy agency Wednesday as a suspect in the cyber attacks targeting government and other Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea. North Korea is not known for its computing prowess, but experts said such attacks would be easy — and cheap — to mount by hiring outside help.

U.S. and South Korean authorities yesterday were investigating the source of attacks on at least 35 government and commercial Web sites in the two countries, officials said.

Top Pentagon officials have grown increasingly confident in the nation's missile defense system at a time when North Korea is threatening to conduct a long-range launch, leading to speculation of a possible showdown in the exosphere.

North Korea has several thousand tonnes of chemical weapons it can mount on missiles that could be used on a rapid strike against the South, said a report released by the International Crisis Group (ICG).

North Korea may be capable of hitting West Coast cities with its missiles within three years, according to Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but is unlikely to be able to deliver a nuclear warhead in that time frame.

The United States has agreed to sell GBU-28 "bunker-buster" bombs to South Korea that are capable of destroying underground facilities in North Korea.

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty could be effectively brought into force despite North Korea's repeated nuclear tests and continued intransigence on the global stage, experts say.

The satellite that North Korea insists it has sent into orbit was evidently a dummy that the North manufactured to justify testing a Taepodong-2 missile, South Korean space experts say.