'All options are on the table': Donald Trump says world has received North Korea's message 'loud and clear' after Kim Jong-un fires missile over Japan
Barney Henderson,The Telegraph 56 minutes ago 
- North Korea fires missile over Japan
- Citizens on Japan's northern Hokkaido island warned to 'evacuate to basement'
- Donald Trump says 'All options are on the table'
- Japan condemns launch as 'unprecedented threat'
- China warns situation now at a 'tipping point'
- South Korea responds with bombing drills
- UN Security Council to hold meeting on Tuesday
- 'There's nowhere to run': Japanese residents tell of 'worrying' alerts
US President Donald Trump said all options to respond to North Korea were on the table after Pyongyang fired a ballistic missile over Japan earlier on Tuesday.
"The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior," Mr Trump said in the statement released by the White House.
"Threatening and destabilising actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table".
North Korea fired a missile over Japan early on Tuesday morning, as Tokyo warned citizens in the north of the country to take cover.
An envoy from Pyongyang later accused the United States of driving the Korean peninsula towards "an extreme level of explosion".
The launch also prompted a stark warning from China that tensions on the Korean peninsula had reached a "tipping point”.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a briefing in Beijing that the situation was "now at a tipping point approaching a crisis."
Japan's warning system kicked in, advising citizens on its northern Hokkaido island to take precautions, as the missile headed towards land in what was a significant escalation of Kim Jong-un's military posturing.
Map: North Korean missile test over japan
The missile later broke into three pieces and landed in the sea. It flew for around 1,700 miles, reaching a maximum altitude of 350 miles, South Korean officials said. The Pentagon confirmed the launch.
The Japanese military made no attempt to shoot down the unidentified missile, but condemned the launch in the strongest terms possible..
"We will do our utmost to protect people's lives," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters. "This reckless act of launching a missile that flies over our country is an unprecedented, serious and important threat."
Following a 40-minute phone call with Donald Trump, he said he and the US president had agreed to escalate the pressure on North Korea. "We must immediately hold an emergency meeting at the United Nations, and further strengthen pressure against North Korea," Mr Abe said.
Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, and South Korea's foreign minister agreed to consider tougher sanctions against the North in response to the missile test, South Korea said.
Yoon Young-chan, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House in Seoul, also told a briefing that South Korean fighter jets conducted bombing drills at a firing exercise ground after Pyongyang's latest missile launch.
South Korea and the United States had discussed deploying additional "strategic assets" on the Korean peninsula, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, without giving any more details.
North Korea remained defiant.
"The US should know that it can neither browbeat the DPRK with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmails nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself," North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun said later on Tuesday, using the initials of the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, said he was "outraged at (the) reckless provocation by North Korea". He strongly condemned the "latest illegal missile launch". Theresa May is flying to Japan on Wednesday for trade talks.
Kim has overseen more than 80 missile tests - more than both his father and grandfather combined.
The regime fired several short-range projectiles into the sea off its east coast on Saturday in what was thought to be a response to US-South Korean joint military exercises.
Saturday's launch was the first since Pyongyang test-fired a intercontinental ballistic missiles on July 28 that could have been designed to reach 6,200 miles, putting parts of the US mainland within reach. The North Korean dictator threatened to target Guam, the US territory, with a missile.
Analysts speculate the North may have tested a Hwasong-12 missile, a new intermediate-range projectile that Pyongyang recently threatened to fire towards Guam.
The missile landed nowhere near Guam, which is about 1,550 miles south of Tokyo, but the length of Tuesday's launch may have been designed for the North to show it could follow through on its threat.
"The launch doubled as a threat to Washington, not only because of the US military bases in Japan, but also that the North showed it has the real capability to fire missiles to waters near Guam if it chose to shoot them in that direction," said Moon Seong Mook, a former South Korean military official and current analyst for the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.
Seoul says the missile was launched from Sunan, which is where Pyongyang's international airport is, opening the possibility that North Korea launched a road-mobile missile from an airport runway.
North Korea fired what it said was a rocket carrying a communications satellite into orbit over Japan in 2009. The United States, Japan and South Korea considered it a ballistic missile test.
"It's pretty unusual," said Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of Strategic Studies in California. "North Korea's early space launches in 1998 and 2009 went over Japan, but that's not the same thing as firing a missile."
Television and radio broadcasters broke into their regular programming with a "J-Alert" warning citizens of the missile launch. Bullet train services were temporarily halted and warnings went out over loudspeakers in towns in Hokkaido.
"I was woken by the missile alert on my cellphone," said Ayaka Nishijima, 41, an office worker from Morioka, the capital of Iwate prefecture, 300 km (180 miles) south of Cape Erimo.
"I didn't feel prepared at all. Even if we get these alerts there's nowhere to run. It's not like we have a basement or bomb shelter, all we can do is get away from the window," she told Reuters by text message.
Global markets reacted to the escalation in tensions, buying safe-haven assets such as gold, the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen, and selling stocks. Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell almost 1 percent to a near four-month low, while South Korea's KOSPI index was down a similar percentage.
North Korea nuclear grid
12:47PMTrump: All options are on the table
US President Donald Trump says all options to respond to North Korea are now on the table.
"The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior," Mr Trump said in the statement released by the White House.
"Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table".
12:39PMTheresa May 'outraged by North Korea's 'reckless provocation'
Downing Street said Theresa May was "outraged" by North Korea's "reckless provocation" by its missile launch over Japan, but would not allow it to affect her travel plans when she leaves London for a three-day visit to Japan later today.
Mrs May will arrive in Kyoto on Wednesday morning on an overnight flight from London and will be greeted by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, before taking a bullet train to Tokyo with him.
She will carry out a series of discussions on trade, defence and security with Mr Abe before returning home on Friday.
A Downing Street spokesman said: "The Prime Minister is outraged by North Korea's reckless provocation and she strongly condemns these illegal tests. "From our perspective, we are willing to continue to work with out international partners to keep the pressure on North Korea."
An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council will consider possible new sanctions against Kim's regime and "over the next three days the Prime Minister will have quite a lot of time with Prime Minister Abe to discuss, among other things, North Korea".
The spokesman added: "We are going on the trip and our plans haven't changed at all."
12:18PMEU says North Korea missile launch is a 'serious threat'
The EU on Tuesday critisized North Korea's launch of a ballistic missile as a “serious threat" to regional security.
"These actions constitute outright violations of the DPRK's international obligations, as set out in several UN Security Council Resolutions, and represent a serious threat to international peace and security," EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.
11:42AMSeoul 'will exterminate North Korean leadership' says Colonel, as South releases dramatic pictures of military drills
Asia correspondent Nicola Smith reports:
South Korea responded immediately to Pyongyang’s missile launch with an aggressive show of force on Tuesday, conducting a live-fire drill on a shooting range close to its border with the North, and threatening the leaders of the hermit state with “extermination”.
Four F-15 fighter jets dropped eight MK-84 bombs that accurately hit targets at a military field in Gangwon-do, near the northeast coast of South Korea, Seoul’s presidential spokesman Park Su-hyun said. Each bomb weighs 2,000 lb and can penetrate 11 metres of earth and 11 feet of concrete.
South Korea’s defence ministry released footage of the drill along with a video of its own ballistic missile tests conducted last week.
“If North Korea threatens the security of the South Korean people and the South Korea-US alliance with their nuclear weapons and missiles, our air forces will exterminate the leadership of North Korea with our strong strike capabilities,” South Korean Colonel Lee Kuk-no warned in the video.
The images showed a powerful bomb striking a mock target, sending earth flying into the air, at the Pilseung Firing Range on Tuesday morning, just a few hours after North Korea fired a ballistic missile across Japanese airspace into the Pacific Ocean.
According to Yonhap news, the bombing was intended to show off the country’s “overwhelming force”, sending a message to dictator Kim Jong-un that Seoul was ready to defend itself.
The bombing was ordered personally by President Moon Jae-in, who has previously pressed for peace talks with Pyongyang.
A statement from Seoul later on Tuesday stressed that South Korea was “fully ready for any threat from the North and will make unwavering efforts to protect the lives of our people and the security of our nation.”
South Korea is nearing the end of a ten day long joint military exercise with the US, that Pyongyang has strongly condemned and cited as a reason for its own missile tests.
North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Han Tae Song, blamed the US for “driving the peninsula towards an extreme level of explosion.”
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting in Geneva, he said: “My country has every reason to respond with tough counter-measures as an exercise of its right to self defence.”
11:11AMNorth Korea says US driving peninsula to "explosion"
North Korea accused the United States of driving the Korean peninsula towards "an extreme level of explosion" following its aggressive missile test.
Han Tae Song, North Korea's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, also declared that Pyongyang was justified in responding with "tough counter-measures".
The envoy was speaking after his country's latest test firing of a ballistic missile, which flew over Japan, but did not directly refer to the launch.
"Now that the U.S. has openly declared its hostile intention towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, by waging aggressive joint military exercises despite repeated warnings... my country has every reason to respond with tough counter-measures as an exercise of its right to self defence," Mr Han told the UN Conference on Disarmament.
10:51AMMissile test is ‘another provocation’, says US disarmament envoy
North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test is “another provocation”, Robert Wood, the United States’ disarmament ambassador said.
“It’s another provocation by North Korea, they just seem to continue to happen,” Wood said before a session of the UN-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva.
“This is a big concern of course to my government and to a number of other governments.”
10:16AMChina says North Korea situation at 'tipping point'
China has warned that tensions on the Korean peninsula have reached a "tipping point” and that the situation was fast becoming a crisis after North Korea fired a ballistic missile over Japan.
A foreign ministry spokeswoman also said the United States and South Korea are partly to blame, reiterating a long-held stance in Beijing.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the situation was "now at a tipping point approaching a crisis. At the same time there is an opportunity to reopen peace talks.
"We hope relevant parties can consider how we can de-escalate the situation on the peninsula and realise peace and stability on the peninsula," Hua told a regular briefing in Beijing.
The spokeswoman also made a call for the resumption of peace talks, saying "pressure and sanctions" against North Korea "cannot fundamentally solve the issue".
Ms Hua also repeated China’s position that North Korea should halt tests in exchange for the US and South Korea suspending military drills in the region.
5:41AMNorth Korea 'will not flinch'
North Korea has issued a defiant message in response to warnings of further pressure from the US, Japan and South Korea.
"The US should know that it can neither browbeat the DPRK with any economic sanctions and military threats and blackmails nor make the DPRK flinch from the road chosen by itself," North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun said.
4:25AMSouth Korea releases footage of new missiles
South Korea has released footage of its own missile tests it says were conducted last week in a response to the latest North Korean missile launch.
The South Korean military said on Tuesday it conducted three flight tests of two types of new missiles with ranges of 800 kilometers (497 miles) and 500 kilometers (310 miles) on August 24 and that the missiles were close to being operationally deployed.
The military released footage of the tests of the longer-range missile that showed the missile being fired from a truck-mounted launcher and hitting a land-based target.
South Korea hasn't officially named the missile yet, but it is tentatively called the Hyunmoo-2C.
The missile is considered a key component to the so-called "kill chain" pre-emptive strike capability the South is pursuing to cope with the North's growing nuclear and missile threat.
4:22AMUN Security Council to hold meeting on Tuesday
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Tuesday afternoon over North Korea's latest missile launch at the request of Japan and the United States, diplomats said.
The planned meeting in New York comes as Washington and Tokyo agreed to step up pressure on Pyongyang after it fired a ballistic missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean.
3:39AM
3:39AM
Town's loudspeakers fail to relay warning
Residents on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido were warned of the North Korean missile launch by a "J-Alert" on their mobile phones, with loud alarms and an email that told people to stay indoors.
The system also is designed to kick in an automated voice repeating the warnings on area loudspeakers.
Hironori Matsuura, an official in the coastal town of Erimo, told AP the phone alarm worked but not the 50 speakers in the town.
Matsuura said people were stunned as this is the first time a North Korea missile is believed to have flown over Hokkaido. The town, which has about 4,800 residents, is checking on what went wrong with the speaker system.
"We all woke up," he said. "But there are no reports of any damage, and no one had to evacuate."
3:26AM'There’s nowhere to run'
The Japanese government's J-Alert system broke into radio and TV programming, warning citizens of the possible missile. Bullet train services were temporarily halted and warnings went out over loudspeakers in towns in Hokkaido.
"I was woken by the missile alert on my cellphone," said Ayaka Nishijima, 41, an office worker from Morioka, the capital of Iwate prefecture, 180 miles south of Cape Erimo.
"I didn’t feel prepared at all. Even if we get these alerts there’s nowhere to run. It’s not like we have a basement or bomb shelter, all we can do is get away from the window," she told Reuters by text message.
2:51AMFighter jets conduct bombing drills
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and South Korea's foreign minister have agreed to consider tougher sanctions against North Korea following the latest launch.
Yoon Young-chan, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House in Seoul, also told a briefing that South Korean fighter jets conducted bombing drills at a firing exercise ground after Pyongyang's latest missile launch.
Separately, the South's Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified Blue House source as saying the US military was considering the deployment of strategic assets to the Korean peninsula.
Trump and Abe discuss missile launch
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe says he agreed with US President Donald Trump in telephone talks to increase pressure on North Korea after the country's latest missile launch.
Trump also said that the United States was "100 percent with Japan" and he showed a strong commitment to Tokyo's defence, Abe told reporters.
Possible military reaction
South Korea's Yonhap news agency says the top US and South Korean military officers agreed to make a strong response to North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch, including possible unspecified military measures.
The chairmen of both countries' Joint Chiefs of Staff agreed on a phone call "to take response measures at the earliest possible time that can demonstrate the alliance's strong will including military measures," Yonhap reported, quoting the South Korean military.
2:22AMWhat was the missile fired?
A former South Korean military official who is now an analyst at Seoul's Institute for Far Eastern Studies says the early flight data suggests the North Korean missile was likely a Hwasong-12, a new intermediate range missile that the North has recently threatened to fire toward Guam.
Analyst Kim Dong-yub a tells AP there is also a possibility the missile could have been a midrange Musudan, a missile with a potential 3,500-kilometer (2,180-mile) range that puts much of the Asia-Pacific region within reach, or a Pukguksong-2, a solid-fuel missile that can be fired faster and more secretly than weapons using liquid fuel.
1:58AM
1:58AM
US, South Korea and Japan request
UN Security Council meeting
The United States, Japan and South Korea have requested a United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's firing of a missile over Japan, diplomats said, Reuters reports.
The 15-member Security Council was expected to be held late onTuesday.
1:26AMS.Korea finance ministry to review stability measures if needed over N.Korea risks
South Korea's finance ministry said on Tuesday it will monitor financial markets around the clock and act according to its contingency plans to stabilise markets if needed after North Korea's latest missile test, Reuters reports.
"Our view is that we need to fully prepare and make stern responses to manage risks at home and abroad," the ministry said after a policy meeting with the Bank of Korea and financial regulators that was urgently called after the launch.
1:23AMNikkei falls to 4-month low
Japan's Nikkei share average fell to a near four-month low on Tuesday morning as sentiment following the missile incident.
In early trade, the Nikkei opened down 0.7 percent and fell as low as 19,304.76, its lowest since May 1.
The broader Topix dropped 0.5 percent to 1,592.77.
12:56AMAbe to call for emergency UN security council meeting
Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, has said that Japan will call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council meeting to discuss North Korea's latest missile launch. He added that Japan wants the UN to put additional pressure on North Korea, which may mean the imposition of more sanctions.
Tokyo on Friday imposed additional unilateral sanctions on North Korea, expanding its list of companies, organisations and individuals with links to the North that are having their assets in Japan frozen.
The list includes a number of Chinese companies, including the Bank of Dandong, which is accused of laundering money on behalf of Pyongyang, and Dalian Global Unity Shipping Co., which ships coal and steel products between North Korea and China.
12:55AMJapan expects US to 'strongly protest' launch
Itsunori Onodera, the defence minister, said Tuesday morning that he expects the US to "strongly protest" North Korea's missile launch.
12:20AMAbe: launch was 'unprecedented, serious and grave threat'
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday said North Korea's launch of a missile over its territory was an "unprecedented, serious and grave threat".
"Their outrageous act of firing a missile over our country is an unprecedented, serious and grave threat and greatly damages the regional peace and security," he told reporters.
11:53PMNK warned UN on August 25
North Korea's mission to the United Nations submitted a letter to the UN Security Council on August 25 hinting at "tough countermeasures" and "catastrophic consequences" unless the council intervened to halt the Ulchi Freedom joint US-South Korea military exercises presently taking place in the South.
The letter warned:
11:44PMWaging such provocative and aggressive joint military exercises on the Korean peninsula, which has already turned into a tinderbox, is nothing short of hysterical conduct that adds fuel to the raging flames.Acknowledging that the US-South Korea joint military exercises constitute a grave threat to the peace and security of the world, as well as those of the Korean peninsula, the DPR Korea strongly requests the UNSC to discuss the issue of the joint military exercises as an emergency agenda item", the letter stated, according to the Korea Central News Agency.Should the UNSC ignore the request from the DPR Korea once again, it will become self-evident that the UNSC has ceased to remain a body that assumes the primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, but been reduced into a marionette and a political instrument of the USNow that the US has blatantly manifested its hostile intention towards the DPR Korea by waging aggressive joint military exercises, despite the repeated warnings from the latter against its reckless behavior, the DPR Korea has every reason to respond with tough countermeasures as an exercise of its right to self-defense and the US shall be held totally accountable for the catastrophic consequences to follow.
Boris Johnson 'outraged' by 'latest illegal missile launch'
Officials warn of sixth underground nuclear test
The launch on Tuesday morning of a missile that crossed Japan may only be the first significant provocation from North Korea in response to the military exercises taking place in South Korea, with officials warning that Pyongyang may be preparing to carry out a sixth underground nuclear test.
South Korea's National Security Service has informed political leaders that it has detected preparations at the North's Punggye-ri proving grounds, where the previous five tests were conducted.
Kim Byung-kee, a member of South Korea's ruling Democratic Party, said the NIS reported that North Korea "has completed its preparation to carry out a nuclear test at tunnel two and tunnel three at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site".
He added the NIS said it had also detected activity suggesting tunnel four was being prepared for renewed development work after excavation work was halted last year.
Analysts suggest the test may be held close to September 9, a national holiday marking the founding of the republic and the date on which it conducted its last nuclear test, in 2016.
The North claimed that test was of a miniaturised nuclear warhead small enough to be fitted to an intercontinental ballistic missile, although analysts say it is impossible to verify that claim.
North Korea 'is showing no mercy'
The launch of the land-based missile comes two days after the Rodong Sinmun newspaper "ridiculed the US and its vassal forced for being flustered due to the ... pluck of the DPRK" in an editorial.
The article in the state-run publication added that North Korea is "showing no mercy".
"If the US persists in its reckless anti-DPRK moves, sanctions and pressure, it will eventually meet a miserable fate.
"So long as the US and its vassal forces persist with such actions and imperialism, the root cause of injustice and evil remains", it added. "The DPRK will further sharpen its just nuclear treasured sword in its hand and defend independence with nukes and usher in a new era of national prosperity".
11:11PMMissile 'flew 1,650 miles'
South Korean military sources have reported that the missile flew a distance of around 1,650 miles and reached a maximum altitude on its lofted trajectory of 340 miles.
11:03PM'A serious, grave security threat to Japan'
Yoshihide Suga, Japan's chief cabinet secretary, told a hastily called press conference that the missile fell into the ocean about 730 miles off Cape Erimo, in Hokkaido.
The missile launch poses "a serious, grave security threat to Japan", Suga said, adding that Japan would cooperate closely with the United States and South Korea to counteract the danger posed to the region by North Korea.
In Seoul, Moon Jae-in, the South Korean president, summoned an emergency meeting of the National Security Council.
10:49PMMissile 'broke into three pieces and landed in the sea'
The missile broke into three pieces and fell into the waters off Japan's northern Hokkaido island.
The Japanese government's J-Alert warning system advised people in the area to take precautions.
The Japanese military did not attempt to shoot down the missile, which passed over Japanese territory around 6:06 a.m. time (2106 GMT).
10:28PMJapan's Shinzo Abe vows to take utmost efforts to protect Japanese republic
Japan's prime minister has said he will take all precautions necessary to protect citizens.
"We will make utmost efforts to firmly protect the lives of the people," Abe told reporters in brief remarks as he entered his office for emergency meetings on the missile firing.
10:26PMSouth Korea confirms missile launch
The North fired the "unidentified projectile" from Pyongyang at around 5:57 am (2057 GMT), according to the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.
10:25PMMissile 'passes over Japan'
Reports in Tokyo state that a missile fired from North Korea has passed over the country.
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