North Korea fires banned missile in longest flight yet
N Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, which flew for 86 minutes - the longest flight recorded yet - before falling into waters off its east, South Korea and Japan said.
The ICBM was fired at a sharply-raised angle and reached as high as 7,000km (4,350 miles). This means that it would have covered a further distance if it were launched horizontally.
Thursday's launch violated UN curbs and came at a time of deteriorating relations between the two Koreas and Pyongyang's increasingly aggressive rhetoric towards Seoul.
South Korea had also warned on Wednesday that the North was preparing to fire its ICBM close to the US presidential election on 5 November.
Seoul's defence ministry said the test was intended to develop weapons that "fire farther and higher".
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a rare same-day report on state media that the launch shows "our will to respond to our enemies" and described it as "appropriate military action".
"I affirm that [North Korea] will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces," Kim said.
The US called Thursday's launch a "flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions".
"It only demonstrates that [North Korea] continues to prioritise its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes over the well-being of its people," the White House's National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett said in a statement.
South Korea said it would impose fresh sanctions on the North in response to the launch.
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