North Korea says Trump speech is 'a dog's bark'

North Korea's top diplomat has called US President Donald Trump's speech to the UN "the sound of a barking dog".Speaking to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Mr Trump said he would "totally destroy" North Korea if it posed a threat to the US or its allies.

Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho's comments were North Korea's first official response to the speech.
The North has continued to develop its nuclear and weapons programmes, in defiance of a UN ban.

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Mr Ri told reporters near the UN headquarters in New York: "There is a saying that goes: 'Even when dogs bark, the parade goes on'."
"If [Trump] was thinking about surprising us with the sound of a barking dog then he is clearly dreaming."Speaking about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Mr Trump had told the UN: "Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and his regime."
When asked what he thought of Mr Trump calling Mr Kim "rocket man", Mr Ri responded: "I feel sorry for his aides."Mr Ri is set to make a speech to the UN on Friday.
Separately, on Thursday South Korea said it would send fresh humanitarian aid to the North for the first time in nearly two years.
The unification ministry in Seoul plans to provide $8m (£6m) through UN programmes aimed at children, pregnant women and improving medical supplies.
The decision comes days after the UN approved new sanctions against Pyongyang, restricting oil imports and banning textile exports - an attempt to starve the North of fuel and income for its weapons programmes.The UN sanctions came in response to the North's latest nuclear test on 3 September.Experts say North Korea has made surprisingly quick progress in its development of long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.

North Korea crisis in 300 words

The North Korean stand-off is a crisis that, at worst, threatens nuclear war, but it's complicated. Let's take a step back.

Why does North Korea want nuclear weapons?

The Korean peninsula was divided after World War Two and the communist North developed into a Stalinesque dictatorship.
Almost entirely isolated on the global stage, its leaders say nuclear capabilities are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.

How close are they?

North Korea claims it has successfully tested a hydrogen bomb - many times more powerful than an atomic bomb - that can be miniaturised and loaded on a long-range missile.
State media called the test "a perfect success", and although analysts said the claims should be treated with caution, leaked information suggests US intelligence officials do believe North Korea is capable of miniaturisation.
Pyongyang views the US as its main adversary but also has rockets aimed at South Korea and Japan, where thousands of US troops are based.

What has been done to stop them?

Attempts to negotiate aid-for-disarmament deals have repeatedly failed.
The UN has implemented increasingly tough sanctions - to little effect. China, the North's only real ally, has also put economic and diplomatic pressure on the North.
The US has now threatened military force.

Is it for real this time?

The crisis has been brewing for years, but is at a new level now.
The US is within reach of a strike now, which coupled with the miniaturisation is a game changer. And over the summer North Korea has grown increasingly provocative, threatening Guam and Japan.
The US responded to the latest test by saying its patience is "not unlimited", while South Korea carried out live-fire naval drills.
But while confrontation seems more real than ever, the end result of this crisis is still uncertain.

North Korea: Does latest nuclear test mean war?

South Korea says that North Korea could be preparing more missile launches after details of the isolated nation's latest test - equivalent to a 6.3 magnitude earthquake - emerged over the weekend.

US Secretary of Defence James Mattis says any threat will be met with a "massive military response". President Donald Trump has previously promised "fire and fury".
Is there a diplomatic solution? Or is the crisis heading to an inevitable war?Defence and diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus answers your questions on North Korea and how the situation might be resolved.

One certainly hopes not. It is hard to imagine any conflict breaking out since the risk of escalation to all-out war would be very likely in these highly-charged times. The US is signalling strongly that the North Koreans should do nothing that might risk a conflict.
All-out war would be catastrophic in terms of lives lost. It might potentially involve the use of nuclear weapons - the first time since the closing stages of the Second World War - which could set a terrifying new precedent in international affairs.
At its close, after terrible destruction, North Korea would no longer exist. That is a given, hence the hope that the Pyongyang regime is rational and understands the risks involved.
Its behaviour, though, amounts to very, very high-stakes brinksmanship.

Who would be the key players and what role would they play?

Initially it would be North Korea versus the rest - South Korea and the US certainly.
Quite what Japan's precise role would be is hard to say unless it had been attacked directly, but there are large numbers of US troops and bases in Japan.
The US would seek diplomatic support from the UN Security Council and, failing that, also from its allies. How far they might be involved in practical terms is hard to say. We hope this is just an academic question.

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Could armed conflict trigger a global nuclear war?

Unlikely. A regional conflict would be bad enough.
Russia, Washington's NATO allies and so on are not directly implicated. However the big question is if there was conflict, what might China do? Would it effectively intervene as it did in the 1950s to ensure the survival of the North Korean regime or would it remain on the sidelines?
It is linked to Pyongyang by a defensive treaty but this does not guarantee Chinese involvement. Again, one hopes that this question is academic.

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For practical purposes, North Korea is already a nuclear power and has had a small nuclear arsenal for some time.
What makes the current crisis more serious is that Pyongyang is now making rapid headway towards a capability to threaten the continental United States with a nuclear-armed missile.
Rolling back North Korea's nuclear and missile programmes may no longer be possible. In the future the emphasis may be upon deterrence and containment.
Practically, the world may have little choice but to reluctantly accept North Korea as a nuclear power. But experts fear the impact this may have on the wider question of nuclear proliferation.

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Is there a diplomatic solution?

The exact pace of North Korea's technical progress is hard to determine.
More tests may be necessary and it is hard to know if a North Korean missile and warhead could survive the force upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere. So they are not there yet but they are moving ever closer.
Until now, the emphasis has been upon rolling back North Korea's nuclear programme. For all the talk about seeking a diplomatic avenue - and that would presumably mean multi-national talks with Pyongyang - it is not clear what the goals of such talks would be.
Is the idea to freeze North Korea's activities? To get it to halt further nuclear and missile tests? And what are the Americans in particular willing to give diplomatically (and probably economically) in return?
There have been talks with Pyongyang in the past. Deals were struck and they were implemented, at least in one case, albeit for a period. It is wrong to assert that there have never been negotiations with Pyongyang, nor that they cannot have a positive outcome. This current North Korean leadership, though, may be another problem.

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China is key but it is a conflicted party. On the one hand it does not want to see a nuclear-armed North Korea and it has made its view clear to Pyongyang on many occasions.
However, it does not want to see the North Korean regime swept away. This would result in millions of refugees flooding into China and would probably result in a unified Korea very much in the US orbit. This is seen in Beijing as worse than having a difficult nuclear neighbour.
If China were to take the view that the coincidence of a rapidly advancing North Korean nuclear programme and the uncertainties of the Trump Administration's diplomatic capabilities means that there is a very real risk of misunderstanding and catastrophe, then maybe it might bring much greater pressure to bear on Pyongyang.
North Korea is a very isolated country and China is both its major ally and economic prop. There is a lot more that China can do. North Korea's recent testing has been as much an embarrassment to China as it has angered the US. But the Chinese have a difficult diplomatic calculation to make.
China and Russia together have tabled a diplomatic roadmap that proposes the de-nuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and a peace deal to end the Korean War. In the interim, they say that North Korea should suspend its nuclear and missile testing and that the US and South Korea should suspend large scale military exercises.
North Korea has not shown any interest in this proposal, at least publicly, and the Americans have dismissed it - in the words of US UN Ambassador Nikki Haley - as "insulting".