North Korea shrugs off Trump threat as 'dog's bark'

Trump used his stormy maiden address at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday to warn the North that Washington would "totally destroy" it if the US or its allies was attacked.

The bellicose speech came after months of escalating tensions over advances in the rogue weapons programme operated by Pyongyang, which has defied tough sanctions to launch its sixth and largest nuclear test and to fire a series of missiles over Japan.

Arriving in New York for the UN meetings, North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong-ho was mobbed with questions from reporters about the Trump speech and replied with a proverb.

"There is a saying that marching goes on even when dogs bark," he said as he entered his hotel on Wednesday.

"If they are trying to shock us with the sound of a dog's bark they are clearly having a dog dream."

Isolated and impoverished, the North says it needs a sturdy nuclear deterrence to protect it from an aggressive US and the autocratic regime has made militarism a central part of its national ideology.

Pyongyang's stated aim is to be able to target the US mainland and the nation has flaunted the advances in its weapons programme in recent weeks, with the September test of what it said was a miniaturised H-bomb capable of being loaded onto a rocket.

The country also tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July that appeared to bring much of the US mainland into range.

The increasingly brazen provocations have frayed the patience of the US and its allies.

Trump dubbed the North's leader Kim Jong-Un "Rocket man" and said he was on a "suicide mission".

Washington: President Donald Trump said he will announce new sanctions on North Korea on Thursday as the US pushes to curb Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. "We will be putting more sanctions on North Korea," Trump told reporters before a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in New York during a week of United Nations events. Earlier, national security advisor H.R. McMaster said the president will make an "important announcement" as he meets with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in later in the day. It will relate to actions to stop North Korea "short of war," McMaster told CNN. McMaster did not say, specifically, what action Trump plans to take. The measure will not target oil, Reuters reported.

Trump has separate bilateral meetings scheduled with both Moon and Abe. He also will have lunch with both leaders. North Korea has tested ballistic missiles and an apparent hydrogen bomb in recent weeks in the face of international economic sanctions and warnings. On Tuesday, Trump told the UN General Assembly that the US "will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea" if it is forced to defend itself or its allies.