The UN Security Council on Thursday strongly condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile test, calling it a "flagrant and provocative" defiance of UN resolutions.

The council unanimously adopted the statement of condemnation as Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Florida for his first meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Council members "expressed their utmost concern" about North Korea's "highly destabilizing behavior and flagrant and provocative defiance of the Security Council."

North Korea fired the ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan on Wednesday in what was seen as a warning ahead of the US-China summit.

The KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile flew around 40 miles (60 kilometers), South Korea's defense ministry said.

Pyongyang is on a quest to develop a long-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland, and has staged five nuclear tests so far, two of them last year.

UN resolutions bar North Korea from developing nuclear and missile technology.

The council said it would closely monitor developments in North Korea and "take further significant measures," without elaborating.

The latest launch was a "grave violation" of Pyongyang's obligations under UN resolutions, it said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will make his first visit to the United Nations on April 28 to chair a council meeting on North Korea.

The United States holds the presidency of the Security Council in April, giving Trump's administration an opportunity to showcase its foreign policy priorities.

The council has imposed six sets of sanctions on North Korea -- two of which were adopted last year to significantly ramp up measures and deny Kim Jong-UN's regime hard currency revenue.

EU adds to to NKorea nuclear sanctions
Brussels (AFP) April 6, 2017 - The European Union on Thursday imposed additional sanctions on North Korea over nuclear and ballistic missile tests which it said threatened international security.

The move comes at a time of increased tensions as North Korea presses ahead with nuclear and missile programmes which have badly rattled the United States and its allies Japan and South Korea.

North Korea is high on the agenda of the first summit later Thursday between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, with Washington pressing Beijing to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

In a statement, the EU called on North Korea to resume talks with the international community, "to cease its provocations and to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes as well as other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes."

It said it imposed the new sanctions because North Korea's actions "violate multiple UN resolutions and constitute a grave threat to international peace and security in the region and beyond."

The sanctions include extending an investment ban to "new sectors, namely the conventional arms-related industry, metallurgy and metalworking, and aerospace," it said.

Additionally, they "prohibit the provision of certain services to persons or entities... namely computer services and services linked to mining and manufacturing in the chemical, mining and refining industry."

Four people were added to the EU's visa ban and asset freeze blacklist, bringing the total to 41. Their names will be published Friday.

Seven entities remain subject to an asset freeze.

The EU has steadily increased its sanctions against North Korea, the previous move coming in late February with Pyongyang in the spotlight after the assassination at the Kuala Lumpur airport of Kim Jong-Nam, the estranged half-brother of leader Kim Jong-Un.

EU sanctions against North Korea date back to 2006 and are part of international efforts to halt a nuclear and ballistic missile programme which experts say is intended to give Pyongyang the capability to hit the US mainland.

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S. Korea test fires 800km-range missile
Seoul (AFP) April 6, 2017
South Korea has successfully test-fired a home-developed ballistic missile with a range long enough to hit any part of North Korea, Yonhap news agency reported Thursday. It comes a day after the North fired its own ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan - which analysts dubbed a warning ahead of a China-US summit, at which Pyongyang's accelerating atomic weapons programme is set to top the ... read more

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