French Ambassador Francois Delattre, who is president of the U.N. Security Council this month, said the latest tests are a "clear violation" of Security Council resolutions that ban North Korea from using ballistic missile technology and developing nuclear weapons. The United States and Japan called the meeting, in consultation with their ally, South Korea, to deal with what U.S. “I strongly condemn the launch by North Korea of two ballistic missiles,” Stoltenberg said in a statement. “These repeated provocative actions ... undermine international security and dialogue,” he said, calling for North Korea to “fully comply with its obligations under international law, not to threaten with or conduct any launches using ballistic missile technology and to refrain from any further provocative actions”. U.S. and South Korean military officials said the first missile failed shortly after it was launched but the second missile flew approximately 400 kilometers before falling into the Sea of Japan or East Sea as it called in South Korea. Jeffrey Lewis, of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said missiles were usually fired at a certain angle to maximize range, so the high altitude of the second launch may have been chosen to avoid Japanese airspace. REUTERS/KCNA 
 
 Lewis said failures were a normal part of testing and that North Korea would fix problems with the Musudan intermediate-range missile sooner or later. “If North Korea continues testing, eventually its missileers will use the same technology in a missile that can threaten the United States,” Lewis told Reuters. South Korea called the missile test a clear provocation “against us” and urged Pyongyang to exercise restraint. Image copyright Reuters Image caption South Korea's presidential office has announced that it would hold a national security meeting to discuss the launch 
 
 Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the launches "undermine international security and dialogue". Regional security conference 
 
 North Korea’s latest missile test will likely be addressed at a closed-door regional security forum currently underway in Beijing that includes diplomats from North Korea, the U.S. and South Korea. North Korea is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never attempted to test-fire them until April. The U.N. Security Council, backed by the North’s main diplomatic ally, China, imposed tough new sanctions in March after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range rocket that put an object into space orbit. North Korea has conducted a series of tests since then that it claimed showed progress in nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missile capabilities, including new rocket engines and simulated atmospheric re-entry.
– North Korea is not only continuing to defy international warnings to stop testing ballistic missiles, it's starting to get pretty good at launching them. Relatively speaking, anyway: Pyongyang launched two intermediate-range Musudan missiles in the direction of Japan on Wednesday, reports the BBC. The first one flopped almost immediately, just like four previous launches. But the second one reached an altitude of about 620 miles before plunging into the sea, raising concern in both South Korea and Japan, reports Reuters. The missile also covered about 250 miles, getting more than halfway to Japan's coast. The BBC notes the missile's range is much further; it's unclear whether it fell short due to failure or was intentionally kept from reaching Japan. "This is a very important milestone because the previous launches had blown up either very shortly after launch or possibly even right at launch," an analyst at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California tells the Voice of America. "So this is a real sign of progress." Japan's defense chief put it more succinctly: "The threat to Japan is intensifying." South Korea and the US are still assessing the test, but South Korean President Park Geun-hye denounced the "reckless provocation." UN resolutions forbid the North from working on ballistic missile technology, notes the BBC, but the launches suggest that Pyongyang is having little trouble obtaining the technology and the know-how.