NORTH KOREA DARES AGAIN, FIRES NEW MISSILE
End Pyongyang’s nonsense: Trump tells China
North Korea launched what appeared to be its longestrange ballistic missile yet on Tuesday, with experts suggesting it could reach Alaska.
If the test -- which came as the United States prepared to mark its independence day on the Fourth of July -- represents an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) it would force a recalculation of the strategic threat posed by Pyongyang.
The North has long ambitions to build a rocket capable of delivering an atomic warhead to the continental United States - something that Trump has vowed "won't happen".
Analysts say the isolated, impoverished country has made great progress in its missile capabilities in the years since the ascension to power of young leader Kim Jong-Un, who has overseen three nuclear tests and multiple rocket launches.
There are still doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon sufficiently to fit it onto a missile nose cone, or has mastered the technology needed for it to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
But Tuesday's launch was the latest in a series of provocations that have ratcheted up tensions, and came days after Seoul's new leader Moon Jae-In and Trump focused on risks from Pyongyang in their first summit.
The United Nations has imposed multiple sets of sanctions on Pyongyang over its weapons programmes, which retorts that it needs nuclear arms to defend itself against the threat of invasion.
The "unidentified ballistic missile" was fired from a site in North Phyongan province, the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, and came down in the East Sea, the Korean name for the Sea of Japan.
It flew for "more than 930 kilometres", they added.
US Pacific Command confirmed the test and said it was a land-based, intermediate range missile that flew for 37 minutes, adding the launch did not pose a threat to North America.
It was estimated to have reached an altitude of more than 2,500 kilometres, Japan said.
"That's it. It's an ICBM," responded arms control specialist Jeffrey Lewis on Twitter. -AFP US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hit out at North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for testing the country's first intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit targets "anywhere in the world" and nudged China to make a 'heavy move' to end this nonsense once and for all. Reacting to the development on Twitter, Trump said, "North Korea has just launched another missile. Does this guy (Kim) have anything better to do with his life?"
"Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer. Perhaps China will put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!" he tweeted.
The US has been urging China - North Korea's closest diplomatic ally - to pressure the Pyongyang regime to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.