North Korea: Regime's ICBM went more than 2,000 miles into space and was highest yet - as it happened
The missile is one of a number of launches undertaken by Pyongyang this year
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Your support makes all the difference.North Korea has fired a ballistic missile that landed near the Japanese coast.
The missile flew eastward and the South Korean military was analysing details with the US. A Pentagon spokesman that the missile was likely an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and it had travelled about 1,000 km. Japan said the missile had reached a height of 4,000 km, with South Korea saying 4,500 km.
Donald Trump was briefed while the missile was “still in the air”, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe convened a meeting of cabinet officials.
Follow the latest live updates below
Japanese officials had been bracing for an imminent missile launch, saying they had detected suspicious radio signals. North Korea has menaced Japan in recent months, firing a ballistic missile over Hokkaido in September — the second time it hurled a missile over Japan — and warning that the nation should be “sunken into the sea” by a nuclear strike.
The launch marks the latest escalation of a global standoff with an increasingly assertive North Korea. The nuclear-armed hermit state has repeatedly displayed its military prowess in recent months, combining ballistic missile launches with threats of destroying Japan, the United States and the US territory of Guam. It tested a powerful hydrogen bomb for the first time.
Diplomatic constraints have failed to halt North Korea’s belligerence, with the country forging ahead with military tests despite successive rounds of United Nations sanctions targeting the country’s economy.
French President Emmanuel Macron has called for greater pressure on Pyongyang.
"I condemn the new ballistic irresponsible trial of North Korea. It reinforces our determination to increase the pressure on Pyongyang and our solidarity to our partners," Mr Macron said on Twitter.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has called North Korean missile launch a serious threat to world peace and demanded stronger sanctions against Pyongyang.
The UN Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch.
Italy chairs the council and its spokesman said the Wednesday afternoon meeting was requested by Japan, the US and South Korea.
US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have agreed to boost their response to North Korea's missile programme, as well as urging China to do more to solve the issue.
In a phone call the leaders "agreed to strengthen our deterrence capability against the North Korean threat," Yasutoshi Nishimura, deputy chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.
Mr Trump and Mr Abe also "agreed that China needs to play an increased role" in countering North Korea, Mr Nishimura said.
They did not discuss military options toward North Korea, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a separate news conference.
Japan will work closely with the United States and South Korea in response to the missile launch, Mr Suga said.
Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has announced that her nation will host a meeting on the North Korea crisis, in conjunction with the US. it is believed it will involve about a dozen world leaders, but no date ot location has yet been set.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has raised concerns that North Korea's perfection of an intercontinental ballistic missile would let regional security "spiral out of control" and make the United States consider a pre-emptive strike against the North.
Mr Moon said during a National Security Council meeting that it would be important to prevent a situation where North Korea miscalculates and threatens the South with nuclear weapons or the U.S. considers a pre-emptive strike to eliminate the threat.
Mr Moon has called for his military to take further steps to strengthen its capabilities following a recent agreement between Seoul and Washington to lift the warhead payload limits on South Korean missiles.
President Donald Trump has now spoken with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to discuss the countries' response to North Korea's latest missile launch.
The White House says both leaders "underscored the grave threat that North Korea's latest provocation poses" not only to U.S. and South Korea, "but to the entire world."
The two presidents also "reaffirmed their strong condemnation of North Korea's reckless campaign to advance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, noting that these weapons only serve to undermine North Korea's security and deepen its diplomatic and economic isolation."
Hawaii will resume monthly statewide testing of Cold War-era nuclear attack warning sirens for the first time in at least a quarter century this week, in preparation for a possible missile strike from North Korea, state officials have said .
A recording of the wailing air-raid siren - familiar to older generations who grew up hearing it on a regular basis - was played at a news conference by Governor David Ige, civil defense and emergency management officers in the state capital, Honolulu.
Mr Ige said he believed Hawaii was the first in the nation to reintroduce statewide nuclear siren drills.
The news came just hours after the latest missile launch, but had been planned for weeks.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said they presume North Korea fired a Hwasong-14 long-range ballistic missile on Wednesday, the South's Yonhap News Agency reported.
A military spokesman said he could not confirm the report.
Reuters
Mr Trump later tweeted the launch showed it was "more important than ever to fund out gov't & military!".
Referring to an impending US government shutdown if stop-gap funding measures are not extended by Congress, he claimed Democrats were holding troop funding "hostage" due to their demands on other issues.
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