South Korea RETALIATES after Kim missile launch with 'precision strike' - DAILY NEWS

South Korea RETALIATES after Kim missile launch
with 'precision strike' SOUTH Korea's military has conducted a 'precision
strike' missile exercise in response to Kim Jong-un's own weapon test. North Korea fired one intercontinental ballistic
missile from Pyongsong, a city in South Pyongan Province, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff
said on Wednesday. It flew for 50 minutes and around 620 miles
before crashing into the sea near Japan. Minutes after the North fired the missile
at 6.17Pm UK time, South Korea's military conducted a missile-firing test in response
to the provocation, it confirmed.

US President Donald Trump said "it is a situation
that we will handle" after the launch. While Japan's Prime Minister Shinz Abe called
for an emergency meeting of the United Nations. "We detected a probable missile launch from
North Korea," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters. "We are in the process of assessing the situation
and will provide additional details when available." The US officials declined to say what type
of missile they thought North Korea might test, but noted that Pyongyang had been working
to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States and had already
tested inter-continental ballistic missiles.

After firing missiles at a rate of about two
or three a month since April, North Korea paused its missile launches in late September,
after it fired a missile that passed over Japan's northern Hokkaido island on September
15. This is now the North's first ballistic missile
launch since that date. This comes just hours after the US warned
a missile launch was imminent as it detected secret radio signals from Kim's hermit kingdom. In the past few months, Trump has traded insults
and threats with North Korean leader Kim.

He warned in his maiden speech to the United
Nations in September that the US would have no choice but to "totally destroy" North Korea
if forced to defend itself or its allies. Washington has said repeatedly that all options
are on the table in dealing with North Korea. Trump has pursued a policy of encouraging
countries around the world, including North Korea's main ally and neighbour China, to
step up sanctions on Pyongyang to persuade it to give up its weapons programs. North Korea has given no indication it is
willing to re-enter dialogue on those terms.

It defends its weapons programmes as a necessary
defence against US plans to invade. The US has 28,500 troops in South Korea as
a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean war but denies any such intention..