BARRING an act of God or a North Korean nuclear attack Donald Trump will today become the 45th President of the United States of America.

At 4.30pm our time, the half-Scottish billionaire businessman and reality TV star will solemnly swear to execute faithfully the office of President of the United States.

Looking on will be three former holders of the post, including Bill Clinton, husband of Hillary, the candidate who lost out to Trump in last year’s election, plus Barack Obama.

It will be little solace to defeated Democrat candidate Clinton that she won more than three million votes more than her Republican rival.

The weighting of the American political system means that he, rather than she, is moving into the White House.

George HW Bush is the only living former president who will miss the ceremony. The 92-year-old has been admitted to the intensive care unit at a hospital in Houston, to “address an acute respiratory problem stemming from pneumonia”.

His wife, Barbara Bush, has also been hospitalised as a precaution, after experiencing fatigue and coughing.

In Scotland, Trump’s inauguration will be met with protests. In Glasgow, Stand Up To Racism has called for mass demonstration in the city’s Buchanan Street.

The Bridges Not Walls coalition will drop banners over the North Bridge in Edinburgh, and the Wellington Bridge in Aberdeen.

Thousands are expected to protest outside the US Embassy in London.

But that will be nothing compared to the numbers expected in Washington DC. The District of Columbia Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency expects 900,000 people to attend the inauguration overall, roughly half the number who turned up for Obama in 2009. It’s not yet clear how many of them are supporters, and how many protesters.

One protest group, DisruptJ20, plans to do all it can to stop Trump’s inauguration from happening. Its main demonstration will feature a gigantic moving wall, in “honour” of the hard border Trump wants to build on the US-Mexico border.

Other demonstrations will aim to block the 12 public entrances to the inauguration, with protesters linking arms and doing all they can to get in the way of Trump’s supporters.

The protests kicked off on Wednesday night, when hundreds of LGBTQ activists hosted a Queer Dance Party close to the house of vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

Meanwhile, outgoing Obama, has said he is looking forward to getting “to be quiet a little bit and not hear myself talk so darn much”.

Obama said he intended to concentrate on his writing and spending time with his daughters, but admitted he may still contribute to the public discourse, where he feels America’s “core values may be at stake”.

The 44th President said he remains upbeat despite Trump’s victory. “At my core, I think we’re going to be OK,” he said. “We just have to fight for it. We have to work for it and not take it for granted.”

Meanwhile, North Korea has reportedly placed “two intercontinental ballistic missiles” on launchers to send a “strategic message” to the Trump administration.

South Korea’s joint chief of staff said the reports could not be confirmed but that the military were monitoring the situation closely.

An unnamed official told the Yonhap news agency the devices “are estimated to not exceed 15m in length, making them shorter than the North’s existing ICBMs”.

An ICBM test in the coming days is “highly plausible”, academic Andrei Lankov told CNN. “Judging by earlier behaviour they usually like to greet a newly-elected American president with some kind of nice surprise like a nuclear test or missile launch,” he said. “Because president-elect Trump tweeted that ‘it won’t happen’, such a launch could be seen as a serious humiliation for the US.”

Trump tweeted last month: “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US. It won’t happen!”

It was unclear whether he was casting doubt on Pyongyang’s ability to fire a nuclear weapon, or if he was threatening action.

The world will likely find out soon.