North Korea

North Korea's second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test on July 28, three weeks after its first test on July 4, raised tensions in the Asia-Pacific and strained relations between China and the United States.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson promised on that Washington is not trying to topple Kim Jong-Un's North Korean regime, but warned it must halt its nuclear missile program.

Briefing reporters on diplomatic efforts to pressure Pyongyang, Tillerson said Washington would be willing to talk to the North if its leaders accept that they must disarm.

The U.S. Air Force successfully launched an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile from California, the fourth such test this year.

The 30th Space Wing says the Minuteman 3 missile launched at 2:10 a.m. local time Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, about 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs?

The number of North Koreans slipping illegally into Thailand has surged in recent months, according to immigration bureau officials, as tensions mount on the Korean peninsula because of Pyongyang's weapons programs.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and American President Donald Trump vowed to take “concrete actions” to discourage further North Korean belligerence following yet another missile launch last week in an extended phone conversation Monday.

Photo: AP

The US envoy to the UN, Nikki Haley, has said that the time for talk on North Korea is "over," and that another weak UNSC resolution is "worse than nothing." Tensions are flaring over Pyongyang's recent tests of what it said were intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The Trump administration slapped financial sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on Monday after a weekend election that gave the South American country's ruling party virtually unlimited powers, reported USA TODAY. 

The United States said July 30 the time for talk over North Korea was "over," spurning a U.N. response to Pyongyang's latest ICBM launch in favor of bomber flights and missile defense system tests.

The time for talk on North Korea is “over”, the United States said, spurning a UN response to Pyongyang’s latest ICBM launch in favour of bomber flights and missile defence system tests.