US warns it is ready to take action if North Korean missiles threaten it
Hong Kong — The US military is ready to take action against missiles from North Korea that pose a threat to America or its allies, secretary of defence Jim Mattis said. North Korea has fired two missiles over Japan in the past month, both of which landed in the Pacific Ocean beyond the northern island of Hokkaido. Leader Kim Jong-un has threatened to fire missiles into waters near Guam, home to US military bases in the Pacific. "Those missiles are not directly threatening any of us," Mattis said Monday when asked why the military didn’t shoot them down. "The bottom line is that, when the missiles — were they to be a threat, whether it be to US territory, Guam, obviously Japan — Japan’s territory, that would elicit a different response from us," he said. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that military options were available if diplomatic efforts failed to rein in Kim’s nuclear push. North Korea has said it needs the capability to strike the US with a nuclear weapon to det...
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