North Korea will be punished if it carries out its threat to conduct a nuclear test, John Kerry has warned.

The UN Security Council condemned North Korea’s successful rocket launch today and said it will urgently consider “an appropriate response”.

INTERNATIONAL talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme stalled yesterday, envoys said, after the communist regime snubbed a Chinese proposal outlining how monitors could verify its past atomic activities.

The United States wants to withdraw a third of its 37,000 troops it has stationed along the Cold War’s last frontier by the end of next year, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said today.