North Korea threatens to 'sink' Japan, turn US to 'ashes and darkness'

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.

The Korea Asia-Pacific peace committee, which oversees North Korea's relations with the outside world, described the UN Security Council, which passed a new round of sanctions earlier this week, as a "tool of evil" in the pay of Washington, and called for it to be broken up, the Guardian newspaper reported on Thursday.

"The four islands of the (Japanese) archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche," the committee said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.

It is the first time that Pyongyang has issued an explicit threat to Japan since it fired a medium-range ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido in August end.

"Japan is no longer needed to exist near us," the committee said.

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.
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North Korea launches another missile over 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 a.m. (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.

Suga also said that no damage had been reported as a result of the missile. Specifically he said that no potentially dangerous debris had fallen from the missile, confirming that no aircraft or ships in the region have been hit or damaged as a result of the launch and missile's flight.
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Global stocks tumble, yen gains after North Korea fires missile over Japan

US stock futures and Asian share markets tumbled on Tuesday, while the yen jumped to four-month highs against the dollar after North Korea fired a missile over northern Japan, setting up a tense start to trading for markets in the region.

S&P mini futures fell as much as 0.85 percent on the news before paring losses to trade 0.5 percent below its close on Monday, when it was little changed.

Japan's Nikkei fell 0.7 percent to four-month low while South Korea's Kospi shed 0.5 percent, helping to drag down MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan 0.3 percent.

North Korea fired a missile early on Tuesday that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific waters off the northern region of Hokkaido, South Korea and Japan said, in a sharp escalation of tensions on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has conducted dozens of ballistic missile tests under young leader Kim Jong-Un, the most recent on Saturday, but firing projectiles over mainland Japan is rare.

"North Korea's reckless action is an unprecedented, serious and a grave threat to our nation," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters.

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Japan sets up missile defence over North Korea threat to Guam

Japan is deploying its Patriot missile defence system after North Korea threatened to fire ballistic missiles over the country towards the US Pacific territory of Guam, reports said on Saturday.

Regional tensions are mounting as Washington and Pyongyang ratchet up their war of words, with President Donald Trump warning Pyongyang would "truly regret" any hostile action against the US.

The defence ministry started deploying the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system in Shimane, Hiroshima and Kochi in western Japan, which Pyongyang warned could be along its missiles' flight path, public broadcaster NHK said.

It was also to deploy the anti-missile system in neighbouring Ehime, NHK said.

Television footage showed military vehicles carrying launchers and other equipment for the surface-to-air system entering a Japanese base in Kochi before dawn.
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