PYONGYANG, Korea, Democratic People's Republic Of — North Korea launched a ballistic missile Friday night which flew longer than any of its previous missiles and landed in the ocean off Japan, according to officials from Japan, South Korea and the United States. Friday’s ballistic missile launch is North Korea’s 11th ballistic missile test this year and the first since North Korea launched an historic ICBM on July 4, an action U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said represented "a new escalation of the threat to the United States, our allies and partners, the region and the world." Quoting the Japanese chief cabinet secretary, Yoshihide Suga, the Associated Press news agency said the missile "flew for about 45 minutes and appeared to have landed in the waters of Japan's exclusive economic zone". The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and the United States held separate phone calls and agreed to step up strategic deterrence against the North and push for a stronger U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution, the South and Japan said. The launch comes less than a month after the North conducted its first ICBM test in defiance of years of efforts led by the United States, South Korea and Japan to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Add Interest

"The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America," Pentagon spokesman Capt. US navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesperson, said the launch occurred at about 14:45 GMT, but it was not immediately known what type of missile it was. Separately, the United States has said new U.S. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s weapons programs, including measures aimed at Chinese financial institutions, can be expected “fairly soon.”

“RELIABLE ICBM BY YEAR-END”

In Friday’s test, North Korea’s Hwasong-14 missile, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula’s east coast, KCNA said.
North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile that flies 620 miles horizontally in about 45 minutes, landing in the Sea of Japan, according to Japan, South Korea and the United States.