SEOUL (REUTERS, AFP) – Kim Jong Un on Monday (Jan 1) warned the United States that he has a “nuclear button” on his desk ready for use if North Korea is threatened, but offered an olive branch to South Korea, saying he was “open to dialogue” with Seoul.

After a year dominated by fiery rhetoric and escalating tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme, Kim used his televised New Year’s Day speech to call for lower military tensions on the Korean peninsula and improved ties with the South.