BREAKING: Japan deploys missile defence to North Korean island

Japan will on Tuesday deploy an additional missile defence system on its northern island of Hokkaido, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP, days after North Korea launched a missile over the island. "We are deploying a PAC-3 system at about noon" to a base of the nation's Ground Self-Defence Force in the southern tip of Hokkaido, said Kensaku Mizuseki.

The move comes with tensions on the Korean peninsula at fever-pitch after Pyongyang carried out its sixth nuclear test and fired two missiles over Japan in the space of less than a month, sparking emergency warnings to take cover.

The UN Security Council, which condemned the launch as "highly provocative," will hold a new ministerial-level meeting Thursday on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, focused on enforcing sanctions on the North Korean regime.