North Korea Challenges Region, World after Firing Another Missile over Japan

Women walk past a large TV screen showing news about North Korea's missile launch in Tokyo, Japan, August 29, 2017.   REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
Women walk past a large TV screen showing news about North Korea's missile launch in Tokyo, Japan, August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
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North Korea Challenges Region, World after Firing Another Missile over Japan

Women walk past a large TV screen showing news about North Korea's missile launch in Tokyo, Japan, August 29, 2017.   REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
Women walk past a large TV screen showing news about North Korea's missile launch in Tokyo, Japan, August 29, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

Regional tensions deepened on Friday after North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido far out into the Pacific Ocean, a move that came following Pyongyang’s recent test of its most powerful nuclear bomb.

The missile flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific about 2,000 km east of Hokkaido, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Warning announcements about the missile blared around 7 a.m. in parts of northern Japan, while many residents received alerts on their mobile phones or saw warnings on TV telling them to seek refuge.

The missile reached an altitude of about 770 km and flew for about 19 minutes over a distance of about 3,700 km, according to South Korea’s military – far enough to reach the US Pacific territory of Guam.

The US military said soon after the launch it had detected a single intermediate range ballistic missile but the missile did not pose a threat to North America or the US Pacific territory of Guam, which lies 3,400 km from North Korea. Pyongyang had previously threatened to launch missiles towards Guam.

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said the launch “put millions of Japanese into duck and cover.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also called on China and Russia to take “direct actions” to rein in North Korea.

“China supplies North Korea with most of its oil. Russia is the largest employer of North Korean forced labor,” Tillerson said in a statement.

“China and Russia must indicate their intolerance for these reckless missile launches by taking direct actions of their own.”

The launch, from near Pyongyang, came after the United Nations Security Council imposed an eighth set of sanctions on the country over its ballistic missile and atomic weapons programs.

The sanctions came following North Korea’s sixth nuclear test earlier this month.

It was by far its largest to date and Pyongyang said it was a hydrogen bomb small enough to fit onto a missile.

The Security Council was to meet at 3 p.m. on Friday at the request of the US and Japan, diplomats said.



Nearly 450,000 Afghans Left Iran since June 1, Says IOM

Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
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Nearly 450,000 Afghans Left Iran since June 1, Says IOM

Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP
Afghans in their thousands have streamed over the border from Iran at the Islam Qala border point in Afghanistan's Herat province in recent weeks. Mohsen KARIMI / AFP

Nearly 450,000 Afghans have returned from Iran since the start of June, the UN's refugee agency said on Monday, after Tehran ordered those without documentation to leave by July 6.

The influx comes as the country is already struggling to integrate streams of Afghans who have returned under pressure from traditional migrant and refugee hosts Pakistan and Iran since 2023, said AFP.

The country is facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises after decades of war.

This year alone, more than 1.4 million people have "returned or been forced to return to Afghanistan", the United Nations refugees agency UNHCR said.

In late May, Iran ordered undocumented Afghans to leave the country by July 6, potentially impacting four million people out of the around six million Afghans Tehran says live in the country.

Numbers of people crossing the border surged from mid-June, with some days seeing around 40,000 people crossing, UN agencies have said.

From June 1 to July 5, 449,218 Afghans returned from Iran, a spokesman for the International Organization for Migration told AFP on Monday, bringing the total this year to 906,326.

Many people crossing reported pressure from authorities or arrest and deportation, as well as losing already limited finances in the rush to leave quickly.

Massive foreign aid cuts have impacted the response to the crisis, with the UN, international non-governmental groups and Taliban officials calling for more funding to support the returnees.

The UN has warned the influx could destabilize the country already grappling with entrenched poverty, unemployment and climate change-related shocks and urged nations not to forcibly return Afghans.

"Forcing or pressuring Afghans to return risks further instability in the region, and onward movement towards Europe," the UN refugees agency UNHCR said in a statement on Friday.

Taliban officials have repeatedly called for Afghans to be given a "dignified" return.

Iranian media regularly reports mass arrests of "illegal" Afghans in various regions.

Iran's deputy interior minister Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian said on Thursday that while Afghans illegally in the country were "respected neighbors and brothers in faith", Iran's "capacities also have limits".

That the ministry's return process "will be implemented gradually", he said on state TV.

Many Afghans travelled to Iran to look for work, sending crucial funds back to their families in Afghanistan.

"If I can find a job here that covers our daily expenses, I'll stay here," returnee Ahmad Mohammadi told AFP on Saturday, as he waited for support in high winds and dust at the IOM-run reception center at the Islam Qala border point in western Herat province.

"But if that's not possible, we'll be forced to go to Iran again, or Pakistan, or some other country."