North Korea's latest missile launch: All you need to know

Also declared itself a “complete” nuclear state

1. North Korea has reportedly test-fired a rocket today morning which is a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) as it declared itself a “complete” nuclear state.
2. The missile was reported to have flown for 50 minutes on a very high trajectory, reaching 2,796 miles above the earth (more than 10 times higher than the orbit of Nasa’s International Space Station) before coming down off the west coast of Japan.
3. This has made it the most powerful of the three ICBMs North Korea has ever tested.
4. While Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has condemned the launch as “intolerable” and called for an emergency meeting of the UN security council, China has also expressed “grave concern” at the test.
5. A government statement has quoted the leader Kim Jong-un as saying: “Now we have finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, the cause of building a rocket powe
6. The regime has also stated that its strategic weapons were developed to defend itself from “the US imperialists’ nuclear blackmail policy and nuclear threat”.
7. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has reacted to North Korea’s latest threat by attacking the Democrats and accusing them of holding defence funding “hostage” as the chances of a government shutdown increased over the lack of a deal to protect young, undocumented, immigrants.
8. Trump, who was briefed on the missile while it was in flight, also said it did not change his administration’s approach to North Korea, which has included new curbs to hurt trade between China and North Korea.
9. North Korea’s latest test have come just a week after Trump put the state back on a US list of countries it says support terrorism.
10. Earlier, North Korea has called the terror designation a “serious provocation” that justifies its development of nuclear weapons.