North Korea has fired a suspected ballistic missile off its east coast, its first known test since June, South Korean military officials have said.
It came after a US aircraft carrier arrived in South Korea to participate in joint drills, and ahead of a planned visit by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Seoul said the launch was an "act of grave provocation".
The UN prohibits North Korea from ballistic and nuclear weapons tests.
South Korea's military said it detected a short range missile fired at just before 07:00 local time (11:00 GMT) close to Taechon, more than 100 km (60 miles) north of Pyongyang. It said it flew about 600 km at an altitude of 60 km.
"Our military maintains a full readiness posture and is closely cooperating with the US while strengthening surveillance and vigilance," it said in a statement.
Japan's coast guard confirmed the launch, warning ships to "be vigilant". Tokyo's defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile reached a maximum altitude of around 50 km, falling in waters off North Korea's eastern coast, and outside Japan's exclusive economic zone.
"It's North Korea's way of showing defiance of the [US] alliance," Soo Kim, an analyst at the Rand Corporation, told AFP.
The nuclear-powered USS Ronald Reagan docked in the southern port city of Busan on Friday, to take part in joint drills off South Korea's east coast. The exercises are for the "sake of peace and stability on the Korean peninsula", according to the South Korean navy.
Ms Harris will visit South Korea in the coming days as part of a trip to the region that will include the funeral of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked in the past year, with Pyongyang firing a number of ballistic missiles.
South Korea's President, Yoon Suk-yeol, who took office in May, has promised a tougher stance on North Korea and indicated closer ties with the US.
Earlier this month, North Korea passed a law declaring itself to be a nuclear weapons state, with leader Kim Jong-un ruling out the possibility of talks on denuclearisation. Despite widespread sanctions, Pyongyang conducted six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017.
Iran's president has vowed to take action against protesters after more than a week of anti-government demonstrations.
President Ebrahim Raisi pledged to "deal decisively" with the protests, which have now spread to most of Iran's 31 provinces.
Officials say some 35 people have been killed since protests broke out over the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
Clashes continue in several cities.
Ms Amini had been detained for allegedly breaking headscarf rules. Officers reportedly beat her head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles. The police have said there is no evidence of any mistreatment and that she suffered "sudden heart failure".
And while Mr Raisi says her death will be investigated, his Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi has insisted that Ms Amini was not beaten.
"Reports from oversight bodies were received, witnesses were interviewed, videos were reviewed, forensic opinions were obtained and it was found that there had been no beating," he said.
Videos circulating on social media have captured violent unrest in dozens of cities across the country over the past few days, with some showing security forces firing what appeared to be live ammunition on protesters in the north-western cities of Piranshahr, Mahabad and Urmia.
More clashes in several cities, including the capital Tehran, were reported on Saturday. Demonstrators are reported to be spreading out to avoid congregating in a single place.
New images have also appeared on social media showing protesters hurling petrol bombs at the security forces.
Meanwhile reformist group the Union of Islamic Iran People's Party has called for the mandatory dress code to be repealed and for "peaceful demonstrations" to be allowed.
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Amnesty International has warned that evidence it gathered pointed to "a harrowing pattern of Iranian security forces deliberately and unlawfully firing live ammunition at protesters".
It added that government forces shot 19 people dead - including three children - on Wednesday night alone. The BBC cannot independently verify this.
Mr Raisi has dismissed the protests as "riots". Iran, he said, must "deal decisively with those who oppose the country's security and tranquillity".
Hundreds of people have been detained by security forces, with the police chief in the north-western province of Guilan announcing on Saturday that some 739 people - including 60 women - have been detained in his region alone.
The BBC has heard testimony from some of those arrested who allege they were beaten. One said he was beaten "ruthlessly" before being jailed in a small cell with hundreds of others, where they were deprived of food, water and access to a bathroom.
Government forces have also launched a crackdown on independent media and activists. The US-based media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists says 11 journalists have been detained since Monday.
In the western border town of Oshnavieh, sources told the BBC that demonstrators briefly took control of sections of the town from government forces.
Locals told the BBC that demonstrators had seized control overnight and that security forces and government officials had fled, before regaining control on Saturday. Videos posted from the town showed large crowds of people marching through city streets with no police presence, while loud explosions could be heard.
State media denied the reports, but said protesters had stormed three outposts of the Basji Organisation, a paramilitary associated with the government's Revolutionary Guards.
The US says it will ease internet curbs on Iran to counter Tehran's clampdown on the protests, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledging to "help make sure the Iranian people are not kept isolated and in the dark".
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Hundreds of people have been arrested by authorities as protests against Russia's new "partial mobilisation" continue across the country, an independent rights group has said.
OVD-Info said 724 people were detained across 32 different cities on Saturday.
Widespread demonstrations have broken out since President Vladimir Putin announced plans to draft 300,000 men to fight in Ukraine.
Unsanctioned rallies are banned under Russian law.
But Mr Putin's move to draft civilians into the military has sparked large scale protests in urban areas, with more than 1,000 people being detained at demonstrations earlier this week.
In Moscow, news agency AFP reported witnessing one demonstrator shouting "we are not cannon fodder" as she was arrested by officers.
And in St Petersburg, Russia's second city, one man told reporters: "I don't want to go to war for Putin."
Seventy-year-old Natalya Dubova told AFP that she opposed the war and confessed she was "afraid for young people" being ordered to the front.
Some of those arrested on Saturday reported being handed draft papers and ordered to report to recruiting centres while being held by security officials. The Kremlin defended the practice earlier this week, saying "it isn't against the law".
Moscow has also approved harsh new punishments for those accused of dereliction of duty once drafted.
Mr Putin signed fresh decrees on Saturday imposing punishments of up to 10 years imprisonment for any soldier caught surrendering, attempting to desert the military or refusing to fight.
The president also signed orders granting Russian citizenship to any foreign national who signs up to serve a year in the country's military.
The decree, which some observers have suggested displays how severe Moscow's shortage of troops has become, bypasses the usual requirement of five years of residency in the country.
Elsewhere, other young Russians continue to flee mobilisation by seeking to leave the country.
On the border with Georgia, queues of Russian cars stretch back more than 30km (18 miles) and the interior ministry has urged people not to travel.
Local Russian officials have admitted that there's been a significant influx of cars trying to cross - with nearly 2,500 vehicles waiting at one checkpoint.
The admission is a change of tone from Russia, with the Kremlin describing reports of Russians fleeing conscription as "fake" on Thursday.
Meanwhile, Finland has also seen a sharp increase in the number of Russians seeking to enter the country.
Matti Pitkaniitty, a spokesperson for the country's Border Guard, said said the number of Russians arriving had more than doubled since last week.
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On Friday, the government announced plans to stop Russian tourists entering the country.
"The aspiration and purpose is to significantly reduce the number of people coming to Finland from Russia," President Sauli Niinistö told the state broadcaster.
Several other neighbouring states have already ruled out offering asylum to Russians seeking to avoid the draft.
"Many Russians who now flee Russia because of mobilisation were fine with killing Ukrainians," Latvia's Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said. "They did not protest then. It is not right to consider them as conscientious objectors."
On Friday, the Kremlin revealed a host of occupations it said will be exempt from conscription aimed at boosting its war effort in Ukraine.
IT workers, bankers and journalists working for state media will escape the "partial mobilisation" announced by President Putin on Wednesday.
But some have cast doubt on the truth of the Kremlin's claims, and reports have been emerging of Russian men who do not meet the criteria being called up by local recruiting officers.
Margarita Simonyan, the editor of the state-run media outlet RT, posted to Twitter a list of elderly and disabled citizens ordered to report for duty.
A century ago, in 1922, Benito Mussolini's Black Shirts marched on Rome, the start of 20 years of Fascist rule. Now, Italy could for the first time elect a prime minister whose party is rooted in neo-Fascism.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, is widely expected to win the national elections on Sunday, and then form a coalition government including Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and Matteo Salvini's League party.
The 45-year-old would be the first female leader in Italy, a country far behind its European allies in gender parity, and the first far-right politician to become head of government in a major eurozone economy.
Image:(L-R) Matteo Salvini, Silvio Berlusconi and Giorgia Meloni at the close of the campaign. Pic: AP
It would be an astonishing success for a politician long seen on the fringe and for a party that won just 4.3% of the vote at the last election in 2018.
Now, Brothers of Italy, which Ms Meloni founded 10 years ago, could win around 25% and become the country's largest party.
But the victory of a nationalist and eurosceptic in Italy would also raise fears in Europe, already grappling with the government of Viktor Orban's Fidesz in Hungary and the rise of Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National in France, Vox in Spain, and Chega in Portugal.
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1:39
Meloni tells Sky News she'd honoured to be Italy's first female PM
A Roman native, Ms Meloni has a no-nonsense attitude, a thick working-class accent and an ability to rouse crowds that make her stand out among the white middle-aged men who dominate Italian politics and boardrooms.
Her values of God, homeland and (traditional) family echo those promoted during the Fascist regime. Her party is named after the opening line of the national anthem, a warcry about fighting to the death for freedom.
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Like other populists, she speaks out against "global elites" and fights what she calls the "groupthink" of political correctness and gender ideology.
But she has long been a supporter of NATO, and has spoken out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, while many others on the far-right support Vladimir Putin.
Fascist roots
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1:19
Meloni: Fascism 'handed over to history'
Ms Meloni, who as a young woman praised Mussolini, now repudiates the Fascist dictator and his anti-Semitic laws.
She places her party, which has roots in the Italian Social Movement (MSI) created by Mussolini supporters in 1946, firmly in the mainstream, alongside the Conservative Party here or the Republican Party in the US.
Indeed she often cites Roger Scruton, the philosopher and public intellectual who inspired Margaret Thatcher.
And she told Sky News' Europe Correspondent Adam Parsons that "there is nobody all over the world who needs to be afraid of us."
In a video posted this summer on Facebook - where she speaks English and other foreign languages for the consumption of the international media - she seeks to reassure European capitals that she poses no threat to democracy.
"The Italian right has handed Fascism over to history for decades now," she says.
Still, Brothers of Italy retains the flag-flame logo associated with Fascists (it is reputed to mean that Fascism burns on), and its rank-and-file includes Mussolini sympathisers who are sometimes caught giving the stiff-arm salute, while some local officials have Mussolini memorabilia in their offices.
Image:Giorgia Meloni in an effective public speaker Pic: AP
'I'm Giorgia'
Ms Meloni first captured widespread attention in 2019, when she gave a rousing speech that would become the most famous of her career.
Speaking to supporters in Rome piazza, she issued a rallying cry against global leftist forces that, she claimed, see family and national identity as enemies, and that want us to be "just codes".
"But we aren't just codes. We are people. And we'll defend our identity," she said.
Then, in what has become a signature line, she added: "I'm Giorgia, I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I'm Christian! You won't take that away from me!"
This last flurry became a meme, remixed as a hit dance track that further spread her notoriety, and her fame. "I am Giorgia" is also the title of her autobiography.
She is against adoption by same-sex couples. When Peppa Pig featured a couple consisting of two mothers, her party rushed to say that showing the episode in Italy would be unacceptable.
And though she insists she won't abolish Italy's abortion law, some fear she might try to restrict its application.
Image:This episode of Peppa Pig, featuring two mothers, irked Brothers of Italy
Naval blockade
A strong anti-immigrant stance is a cornerstone of Ms Meloni's manifesto, even as many economists note that, with Italy's low birth rate, the country's economy needs migrants.
She has called for a naval blockade of Africa's Mediterranean coast to stop migrants from reaching Italy.
In the past she alluded to the "Great Replacement" theory, a conspiracy suggesting that global elites want to substitute Europeans with immigrants.
In another notable speech, at a rally of the Spanish rightist party Vox last June, she said: "Yes to natural families, no to the LGBT lobby.
"Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology. Yes to the culture of life, no to the abyss of death."
"No to the violence of Islam, yes to safer borders. No to mass immigration, yes to work for our people. No to major international finance!"
In one of the most controversial moments of the electoral campaign, she retweeted the blurred video of a Ukrainian woman allegedly being raped by an asylum seeker in an Italian city, saying she could not remain silent in the face of "this atrocious episode of sexual violence". (The video was eventually removed by Twitter for violating its rules.)
'Moment of truth'
"For somebody who prides herself of being true to herself, of always saying what she really thinks, it's almost as if she's had a split personality during the electoral campaign", says Giada Zampano, a journalist and expert on the right-wing movement in Italy who has followed Ms Meloni's rise.
"On the one hand, we see the orator, the speaker who rouses the crowd, who seeks to appeal to the 10% Fascist core of her electorate.
"On the other we see the reassuring face who seeks to assuage the fears of Europe."
Zampano, who expects a decisive victory by Ms Meloni, adds: "Once she's in power, she will have to show her true colours.
"She will have to make choices when it comes to Italy's relationship with Europe, fiscal policy, nationalism, the European recovery funds. These decisions will be far more significant than labels about Fascism, post-Fascism or neo-Fascism.
"That will be the moment of truth."
Image:Giorgia Meloni (left) with other women ministers in Silvio Berlusconi's 2008 government
Her life
Ms Meloni was raised by her mother in a working-class neighbourhood on the outskirts of Rome.
Her father left when she was one to live in the Canary Islands, with Ms Meloni and her sister visiting him once or twice a year. When she was 11, Ms Meloni stopped seeing him altogether.
As a child, she was called "fatty", something she said made her stronger.
She studied languages in high school and never went to university, instead taking up all manner of temporary jobs: she worked as a babysitter, as a stallholder at a flea market, as a bartender in a disco.
As for her political passion, it was awakened, she says, after the Mafia murdered a prosecutor in the early 1990s.
Still a teenager, she walked into the local branch of a previous iteration of the heirs to the Fascists, a party that had refashioned itself as mainstream conservative under the name of National Alliance.
Image:Meloni in 2015
By 29 she was an MP, at 31 she became the youngest minister in post-war Italy, running the youth portfolio in Mr Berlusconi's coalition government in 2008.
More recently, she was among the few who didn't participate in the unity coalition headed by Mario Draghi, the prime minister she might succeed.
She has a daughter with a TV journalist but, despite her defence of the traditional family, is not married.
Ukrainians have reported armed soldiers going door-to-door in occupied parts of the country to collect votes for self-styled "referendums" on joining Russia.
"You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it," one woman in Enerhodar told the BBC.
In southern Kherson, Russian guardsmen stood with a ballot box in the middle of the city to collect people's votes.
The door-to-door voting is for "security", Russian state media says.
"In-person voting will take place exclusively on 27 September," Tass reported. "On the other days, voting will be organised in communities and in a door-to-door manner."
One woman in Melitopol told the BBC that two local "collaborators" arrived with two Russian soldiers at her parents' flat, to give them a ballot to sign.
"My dad put 'no' [to joining Russia]," the woman said. "My mum stood nearby, and asked what would happen for putting 'no'. They said, 'Nothing'.
"Mum is now worried that the Russians will persecute them."
The woman also said there was one ballot for the entire household, rather than per person.
Although the evidence is anecdotal, the presence of armed men conducting the vote contradicts Moscow's insistence that this is a free or fair process.
Experts say the self-styled referendums, taking place across five days, will allow Russia to claim - illegally - four occupied or partially-occupied regions of Ukraine as their own.
In other words, a false vote on annexation, seven months into Russia's invasion.
The "annexation" would not be recognised internationally, but could lead to Russia claiming that its territory is under attack from Western weapons supplied to Ukraine, which could escalate the war further.
US President Joe Biden described the referendums as "a sham", saying they were a "false pretext" to try to annex parts of Ukraine by force in violation of international law.
"The United States will never recognise Ukrainian territory as anything other than part of Ukraine," he said.
British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK had evidence that Russian officials had already set targets for "invented voter turnouts and approval rates for these sham referenda".
Mr Cleverly said Russia planned to formalise the annexation of the four regions - Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - by the end of the month.
Reuters
A source in Kherson told the BBC there was no public effort to encourage voting, apart from an announcement on the Russian news agency that people can vote at a port building, which had been disused for 10 years.
Another woman in Kherson said she saw "armed militants" outside the building where the vote seemed to be taking place. She pretended to forget her passport, so she didn't have to vote.
The woman said all her friends and family were against the referendum. "We don't know how our life will be after this referendum," she said. "It is very difficult to understand what they want to do."
Kyiv says the referendums will change nothing, and its forces will continue to push to liberate all of the territories.
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Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent mobilisation of at least 300,000 extra troops has caused many Russian men of fighting age to flee.
One young Russian man who left St Petersburg for Kazakhstan to avoid the draft told BBC World Service's Outside Source programme that that most of his friends were also on the move.
"Right now, I feel like it's a total collapse. I know only maybe one or two folks that don't think about exile right now," he said.
He said some, like him, are travelling across the border, whereas others have gone to small Russian villages to hide.
"The big problem of Russia is that we didn't think about the war in Ukraine in February as we think about it right now," he said.
Additional reporting by Hanna Chornous and Daria Sipigina in Ukraine
What is being asked in the 'referendums'?
In the self-declared, unrecognised Luhansk and Donetsk "people's republics", people are being asked whether they "support their republic's accession to Russia as a federal subject"
In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they are being asked if they "favour the region's secession from Ukraine, creation of an independent country and subsequent accession to Russia as a federal subject"
In Luhansk and Donetsk, ballots are printed in Russian only
In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the ballot is in Ukrainian and Russian
Ukrainians have reported armed soldiers going door-to-door in occupied parts of the country to collect votes for self-styled "referendums" on joining Russia.
"You have to answer verbally and the soldier marks the answer on the sheet and keeps it," one woman in Enerhodar told the BBC.
In southern Kherson, Russian guardsmen stood with a ballot box in the middle of the city to collect people's votes.
The door-to-door voting is for "security", Russian state media says.
"In-person voting will take place exclusively on 27 September," Tass reported. "On the other days, voting will be organised in communities and in a door-to-door manner."
One woman in Melitopol told the BBC that two local "collaborators" arrived with two Russian soldiers at her parents' flat, to give them a ballot to sign.
"My dad put 'no' [to joining Russia]," the woman said. "My mum stood nearby, and asked what would happen for putting 'no'. They said, 'Nothing'.
"Mum is now worried that the Russians will persecute them."
The woman also said there was one ballot for the entire household, rather than per person.
Although the evidence is anecdotal, the presence of armed men conducting the vote contradicts Moscow's insistence that this is a free or fair process.
Experts say the self-styled referendums, taking place across five days, will allow Russia to claim - illegally - four occupied or partially-occupied regions of Ukraine as their own.
In other words, a false vote on annexation, seven months into Russia's invasion.
The self-styled "annexation" could lead to Russia claiming that its territory is under attack from Western weapons supplied to Ukraine, which could escalate the war further.
British Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK had evidence that Russian officials had already set targets for "invented voter turnouts and approval rates for these sham referenda".
Mr Cleverly said Russia planned to formalise the annexation of the four regions - Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - by the end of the month.
Reuters
A source in Kherson told the BBC there was no public effort to encourage voting, apart from an announcement on the Russian news agency that people can vote at a port building, which had been disused for 10 years.
Another woman in Kherson said she saw "armed militants" outside the building where the vote seemed to be taking place. She pretended to forget her passport, so she didn't have to vote.
The woman said all her friends and family were against the referendum. "We don't know how our life will be after this referendum," she said. "It is very difficult to understand what they want to do."
Kyiv says the referendums will change nothing, and its forces will continue to push to liberate all of the territories.
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Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent mobilisation of at least 300,000 extra troops has caused many Russian men of fighting age to flee.
One young Russian man who left St Petersburg for Kazakhstan to avoid the draft told BBC World Service's Outside Source programme that that most of his friends were also on the move.
"Right now, I feel like it's a total collapse. I know only maybe one or two folks that don't think about exile right now," he said.
He said some, like him, are travelling across the border, whereas others have gone to small Russian villages to hide.
"The big problem of Russia is that we didn't think about the war in Ukraine in February as we think about it right now," he said.
Additional reporting by Hanna Chornous and Daria Sipigina in Ukraine
What is being asked in the 'referendums'?
In the self-declared, unrecognised Luhansk and Donetsk "people's republics", people are being asked whether they "support their republic's accession to Russia as a federal subject"
In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, they are being asked if they "favour the region's secession from Ukraine, creation of an independent country and subsequent accession to Russia as a federal subject"
In Luhansk and Donetsk, ballots are printed in Russian only
In Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the ballot is in Ukrainian and Russian
KCNA via Reuters
