North Korea fires 2nd missile over Japan in a month: Top 10 developments

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) will meet at 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT) on Friday over the latest missile test by North Korea at the request of the United States and Japan.

North Korea on Friday launched a missile that flew over northern Japan before plunging into the Pacific Ocean, the South Korean military said. The still-unidentified missile was launched around 6.30 am (local time) from east of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to South Korea's military Joint Chiefs of Staff. 

The officials said that the rocket could have reached an altitude of 770 km and flew for a total of some 3,700 km. According to the Japanese government's missile alert system, the missile overflew the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido and fell into the Pacific Ocean, Efe news reported.

 

Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the missile fell into the ocean some 2,000 km from the town of Erimo in eastern Hokkaido without being seen to do so by any ships or aircraft in that area.

Here are the top developments: 

1) The UNSC will meet on Friday over the latest missile test by North Korea.

2) US President Donald Trump has been briefed on North Korea's launch of an unidentified missile over Japan, according to White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

3) Following the missile launch over his country, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said that Japan would "never tolerate" what he called North Korea's "dangerous provocative action that threatens world peace".  

"We can never tolerate that North Korea trampled on the international community's strong, united resolve toward peace that has been shown in UN resolutions and went ahead again with this outrageous act," Abe told reporters, adding, "If North Korea continues to walk down this path, it has no bright future. We must make North Korea understand this." 

4) The South Korean President's Office immediately called a meeting of that country's National Security Council and troops of the Asian nation undertook a ballistic missile test in the Sea of Japan to the east of the Korean Peninsula in response to the launch.

5) The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the UNSC imposed the eighth set of sanctions on the country over its ballistic missile and atomic weapons programmes.

6) The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously in support of a US-drafted resolution condemning the missile test conducted by North Korea on September 3 and imposed measures that include a ban on its textile imports and restrictions on oil exports to the country.

7) The US has asked China and Russia to take direct action against North Korea to "indicate their intolerance" to the provocative missile tests carried out by Pyongyang. 

"China supplies North Korea with most of its oil. Russia is the largest employer of North Korean forced labour. China and Russia must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own," US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement after Pyongyang carried out another missile test on Friday that flew over Japan.  

8) Gold rose on Friday to pull further away from a two-week low, after the latest North Korean test, triggering the latest round of safe-haven buying in markets while weighing on the dollar. Spot gold was up 0.3 per cent to $1,333.06 an ounce by 0020 GMT, after dropping to its lowest since August 31 at $1,315.71 in the previous session. US gold futures for December delivery gained 0.6 per cent to $1,337.40 an ounce.

9) North Korea has threatened to sink Japan and said the US should be "beaten to death like a rabid dog" after the two countries spearheaded fresh UN Security Council sanctions in response to the regime's nuclear test earlier this month, a media report said.

10) This is the first missile launch by North Korea since the end of August when the Kim Jong-un regime fired another projectile over northern Japan, and the first weapons test since Pyongyang carried out its sixth, and to date most powerful, nuclear test on September 3.