US PRESIDENT Donald Trump boasted of his country’s nuclear superiority yesterday as Canada secured the release of a prisoner from North Korea.

On the anniversary of the  devastating US nuclear attack on Nagasaki, Mr Trump tweeted: “My first order as president was to renovate and modernise our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.

“Hopefully, we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world.”

Following CIA reports on Tuesday that North Korea possessed compact nuclear warheads and missiles capable of carrying them as far as Chicago, Mr Trump vowed to rain “fire and fury” on Pyongyang if it continued to threaten the US.

Pyongyang responded by threatening to create an “enveloping fire” around the US island territory of Guam, one of the Pentagon’s major bases in the Pacific.

But, striking a very different tone, the North’s state news agency KCNA reported yesterday that South Korean-born Canadian citizen Hyeon Soo Lim, jailed in 2015 on espionage and sedition charges, would be released on health grounds.

That followed Tuesday’s arrival of a Canadian government delegation led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser Daniel Jean.

At the close of the Asean regional bloc security summit in Manila on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stressed: “There is no alternative to the resumption of the political process, in particular the six-party talks.”

Mr Lavrov said Russia and China would push for talks at the United Nations and elsewhere.

“With the prudent approach of all players, naturally including the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan, we will be able to find a solution that suits all parties.”

jamestweedie@peoples-press.com