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Trump: Japan could shoot down North Korean missiles

US President Donald Trump has said Japan could shoot North Korean missiles "out of the sky" with military equipment bought from the US.

Japan's PM Shinzo Abe followed up by saying his country could intercept missiles "if necessary", and added that he was looking into the deal.
The two leaders were speaking to reporters at the close of Mr Trump's first state visit to Japan.
North Korea has fired missiles over Japan twice in recent months.

On Monday, while answering questions at a press conference, Mr Trump said Mr Abe was "going to purchase massive amounts of military equipment" from the US.
Referencing North Korea's missiles, he said Mr Abe could "shoot them out of the sky" when he completed the purchase, which Mr Trump said would provide jobs to Americans as well as "safety for Japan".
Mr Abe said he was considering such a deal, adding that Japan had to "qualitatively and quantitatively" enhance its defence capability, given the "very tough" North Korea situation.
He stressed that missile defence was based on "legal co-operation" between Japan and the US, and as for shooting down missiles, "if necessary of course we can do that".
It is not clear whether a military deal has been signed during Mr Trump's trip, but the two countries are close military allies with the US maintaining several military bases in Japan.
In September Mr Trump had tweeted that he would allow the sale of high-end military equipment to Japan and South Korea.

Japan does not have a standing army, but instead maintains what it calls self-defence forces, under its post-war pacifist constitution which the hawkish Mr Abe has been seeking to revise.
The two leaders also reaffirmed their ties and pledged to "stand against the North Korean menace", said Mr Trump. Mr Abe said Japan was imposing sanctions on several North Korean entities and individuals.
Earlier on Monday, North Korean state media accused Mr Trump of driving tensions "to the extremes" and said that "no-one can predict when the lunatic old man of the White House, lost to senses, will start a nuclear war" against North Korea.

Mr Trump on Monday met families of Japanese people abducted by North Korea - a topic which he later addressed in the press conference, calling it a "very, very sad thing".
He said it would be "a tremendous signal" and "the start of something very special" if North Korean leader Kim Jong-un returned the abductees, something which Mr Abe has constantly pushed for.
The two leaders also said they discussed economic co-operation in the region.

Mr Trump is visiting Japan as part of his first tour of Asia as US president.
He has also visited a US air base near Tokyo, and met American business leaders where he publicly criticised Japan over a trade deficit.
Mr Trump will be going to South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines in the coming week.

Texas shooting: Gunman Devin Kelley 'had row with mother-in-law'

Texas church gunman Devin Patrick Kelley had three guns and had been involved in a row with his mother-in-law, officials have said.

The attack on the small church outside of San Antonio during Sunday services left 26 people dead and 20 injured.

The gunman called his father after he was shot by an armed bystander, and said he did not think he would survive.

Kelley was not legally permitted to own the weapons, which included a semi-automatic rifle and two handguns.

Freeman Martin, the regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told reporters it appeared that Kelley died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after first being shot by a "Good Samaritan".

"This was not racially motivated, it wasn't over religious beliefs," Mr Martin said.

"There was a domestic situation going on with the family and in-laws," he said, adding that the mother-in-law had received threatening text messages from Kelley in recent days.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt said that family members had not been present at the time of attack.
Officials have not yet identified the victims in the small town of Sutherland Springs.
Ten of the injured victims are in hospital in critical condition, with officials warning that the death toll could rise.

America's gun culture in 10 charts

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 after he was accused of assault against his wife and child. He was sentenced to 12 months confinement.
He received a "bad conduct" discharge two years later, according to Ann Stefanek, a US Air Force spokeswoman.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Monday: "It's clear this is a person who had violent tendencies, who had some challenges, and someone who was a powder keg, seeming waiting to go off."
Mr Abbott added that the attacker should not legally have been allowed to own a firearm, after having been denied a gun owner's permit by the state.

The suspect had a licence to work as an unarmed security guard, a job that police described as "similar to a security guard at a concert-type situation".
"There were no disqualifiers entered into the national crime information database to preclude him from receiving a private security licence," Mr Martin said.
The shooting comes just a month after a gunman in Las Vegas opened fire on an outdoor music festival, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds in the deadliest mass shooting in recent US history.

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North Korea will reach its nuclear force goal - Kim Jong-un

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to reach the country's nuclear goals, according to state media.

The aim was to establish "equilibrium" of military force with the US, the KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Mr Kim's comments come after North Korea fired its latest missile over Japan - in what is being described as the country's farthest-reaching test.

The move split world powers who united behind new UN sanctions against North Korea just days ago.

"We should clearly show the big power chauvinists how our state attain the goal of completing its nuclear force despite their limitless sanctions and blockade," Mr Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA.

He also said North Korea's goal was "to establish the equilibrium of real force with the US and make the US rulers dare not talk about military option for the DPRK [North Korea]".

Mr Kim personally watched the launch of a Hwasong-12 ballistic missile on Friday.

The missile reached an altitude of about 770km (478 miles), travelling 3,700km past the northernmost island of Hokkaido before landing in the sea, South Korea's military said.

The missile had the capacity to reach the US territory of Guam and experts say it is the furthest any North Korean ballistic missile has ever travelled above ground.

How the world reacted to the test?

US President Donald Trump said North Korea had "once again shown its utter contempt for its neighbours, and the entire world community", but that he felt more confident than ever that the US was ready should a military option be needed.

But Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vasiliy Nebenzia, urged caution, saying: "We think that threats, tests, launches, and mutual threats in fact should be stopped, and that we should engage in meaningful negotiations."

China accused the US of shirking its responsibilities.

"Honestly, I think the United States should be doing... much more than now, so that there's real effective international co-operation on this issue", China's ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

"They should refrain from issuing more threats. They should do more to find effective ways to resume dialogue and negotiation," he said.

Chinese irritation

Analysis by BBC's Carrie Gracie in Beijing

United Nations sanctions - no more no less.

From a Chinese ambassador, that is blunt language and signals Beijing's irritation over American pressure.

China feels it deserves more credit for the hard work and economic pain involved in enforcing two new rounds of UN sanctions within a matter of weeks. It also doubts that sanctions alone, however tough, will deter Pyongyang.

So Ambassador Cui Tiankai had his own advice for Washington, saying it should avoid making threats and instead resume dialogue.

The only satisfied party today is North Korea.

But China has insisted time and again that it will never accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, and it can't avoid the obvious and urgent question: how does China intend to stop it?

No new sanctions have been announced at the Council's meeting.

Why does this new test matter?

The launch took place from the Sunan district of the capital Pyongyang just before 07:00 local time on Friday (22:00 GMT on Thursday), South Korea's military says. Sunan is home to Pyongyang International Airport.

As with the last test on 29 August, the missile flew over Japan's Hokkaido island before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

Sirens sounded across the region and text message alerts were sent out warning people to take cover.

Pyongyang has been developing weapons, initially based on the Soviet-developed Scud, for decades
Conducted short and medium-range missile tests on many occasions, sometimes to mark domestic events or periods of regional tension
Pace of tests has increased in recent months; experts say North Korea appears to be making significant advances towards building a reliable long-range nuclear-capable weapon
On 3 September, North Korea said it tested a hydrogen bomb that could be miniaturised and loaded on a long-range missile

Parsons Green: Man arrested over Tube bombing

An 18-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of terror offences in connection with Friday's attack on a London Tube.

The man was detained in the port area of Dover on Saturday by Kent Police and is being held at a local station.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said the arrest was "significant", but the terror threat level remains at "critical".

Thirty people were injured after the explosion on a train at Parsons Green.

Rohingya crisis: Satellite images of Myanmar village burning

Rights group Amnesty International has released satellite images which it says show an "orchestrated campaign" to burn Rohingya villages in western Myanmar.

Amnesty said this was evidence security forces were trying to push the minority Muslim group out of the country.

The army says it is fighting militants and denies targeting civilians.

Some 389,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since violence began last month. They have long been persecuted in Myanmar as "illegal immigrants".

At least 30% of Rohingya villages in Rakhine state are now empty, the government says.

They have lived in the state in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for generations but are denied citizenship.

Myanmar has faced international condemnation over the crisis.

On Thursday US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Myanmar's democracy was facing a "defining moment".

"I think it is important that the global community speak out in support of what we all know the expectation is for the treatment of people regardless of their ethnicity," he said in London.

"This violence must stop, this persecution must stop."

A day earlier UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said the Rohingya were facing a catastrophic humanitarian situation, and attacks on villagers were unacceptable. The UN Security Council has called for urgent steps to end the violence.

What does the Amnesty report say?

Amnesty said it had new evidence based on fire-detection data, satellite imagery, photos and videos, as well as interviews with eye-witnesses, of "an orchestrated campaign of systematic burnings" targeting Rohingya villages for almost three weeks.

"The evidence is irrefutable - the Myanmar security forces are setting northern Rakhine State ablaze in a targeted campaign to push the Rohingya people out of Myanmar. Make no mistake: this is ethnic cleansing," said Tirana Hassan, the group's crisis response director.

Amnesty said security forces would surround a village, shoot people as they fled and burn down their houses, describing the acts as "crimes against humanity".

It said it had detected at least 80 major fires in inhabited areas since 25 August, following attacks on police posts by the rebel Arkan Rohingya Salvation Army (Arsa).

No fires of this magnitude had been seen in similar periods over the last four years, Amnesty added.

The rights group said it had also received credible reports of Rohingya militants burning homes of Buddhist ethnic Rakhine but had been unable to verify them.

What do the authorities say?

Myanmar's envoy to the UN has blamed the Rohingya insurgents for the violence in Rakhine state and said that his country would never tolerate such atrocities.

Government spokesman Zaw Htay has urged displaced people to find refuge in temporary camps set up in Rakhine state, but said Myanmar would not be able to allow all those who fled to Bangladesh to return.

On Wednesday, the head of Myanmar's armed forces, Gen Min Aung Hlaing, said that the country "could not accept and recognise the term 'Rohingya' by hiding the truth" (meaning Myanmar's claim that they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh).

"Rakhine ethnics [Buddhists] are our indigenous people who had long been living there since the time of their forefathers," he said.

What other evidence is there?

At the government's own admission, 176 Rohingya villages, more than 30% of the total in northern Rakhine state, are now empty.

Reports of atrocities preceded the Amnesty report, with testimony from fleeing Rohingya of involvement by security forces in the razing of their villages.

Though access to Rakhine state is heavily controlled, the BBC's Jonathan Head was one of a few journalists taken on a government-run tour recently and witnessed Muslim villages being burned with police doing nothing to stop it.

While the current crisis has seen nearly 400,000 Rohingya flee, the UN says Bangladesh was already hosting several hundred thousand undocumented Rohingya who had fled earlier violence.

Other Rohingya have been living in camps for displaced people within Myanmar.

Who are the Rohingya?

There were at least a million members of the Rohingya ethnic group living in Myanmar, most of them Muslim, though some are Hindu. They are thought to have their origins in what is now Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, but many have been present in Myanmar for centuries.

The law in Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya ethnic minority as one of its "national races" and they are effectively denied citizenship. Human Rights Watch describes the Rohingya as one of the largest stateless populations in the world.

"Restrictions on movement and lack of access to basic health care have led to dire humanitarian conditions for those displaced by earlier waves of violence," the group says.

Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on Myanmar to take the Rohingya refugees back.

Who will help Myanmar's Rohingya?