By Hyunsu Yim
SEOUL (Reuters) -North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;fired a&nbsp;short-range&nbsp;ballistic&nbsp;missile&nbsp;towards the sea off the east coast of the&nbsp;Korean Peninsula on Sunday,&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;and Japan said, in the latest of a series of tests carried out by the nuclear-armed state since the start of this year.
The&nbsp;missile, launched from the Dongchang-ri site on the west coast around 11:05 a.m. (0205 GMT), flew some 800 km (500 miles) before hitting a target, a&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean military statement said. Japan's Defence Ministry said the&nbsp;missile&nbsp;flew as high as 50 km (30 miles).
Soon after the launch on Sunday,&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea's Ministry of National Defence said the U.S. deployed a B-1B strategic bomber to a joint air drill, which Seoul and Washington say they are holding to strengthen deterrence.
The deployment of the bomber was planned in advance and unrelated to the latest&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korean launch,&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korean news agency Yonhap reported, citing the military.
Japan and the U.S. also conducted joint air and sea military exercises over the sea between the&nbsp;Korean peninsula and Japan for a third straight day on Sunday, Japan's local media reported.
Seoul has condemned&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's&nbsp;ballistic&nbsp;missile&nbsp;launches as a "clear violation" of a U.N. Security Council resolution.
In a statement on Sunday, G7 foreign ministers said they "deeply regret" inaction by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) against the&nbsp;North&nbsp;caused by some members&rsquo; "obstruction".
No country was named, but China and Russia have blocked attempts at the United Nations to respond to&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's series of&nbsp;missile&nbsp;tests.
'UNACCEPTABLE' THREAT TO INTERNATIONAL PEACE
The launches have prompted criticism from Tokyo and Washington, as well as from Seoul.
"North&nbsp;Korea's behaviour threatens international peace and security, and is unacceptable," Japan's State Minister of Defence Toshiro Ino told a news conference, adding that Japan had protested strongly via&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's embassy in Beijing. &nbsp;
The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Sunday's launch did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or its allies. But the&nbsp;missile&nbsp;launches highlight the destabilising impact of Pyongyang's unlawful weapons of mass destruction and&nbsp;ballistic&nbsp;missile&nbsp;programmes, it said in a statement.
The&nbsp;North&nbsp;on Thursday fired a suspected intercontinental&nbsp;ballistic&nbsp;missile&nbsp;(ICBM) into the sea between the&nbsp;Korean Peninsula and Japan, hours before&nbsp;South&nbsp;Korea's president flew to Tokyo for a summit that discussed ways to counter the&nbsp;North.
Pyongyang said Thursday's ICBM launch was a warning against the U.S.-South&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;military drills, state media KCNA reported.
South&nbsp;Korean and U.S. forces began 11 days of drills, dubbed "Freedom Shield 23", a week ago on a scale not seen since 2017.
North&nbsp;Korea&nbsp;criticised the U.S. and U.N. Secretary-General Ant&oacute;nio Guterres, KCNA reported on Sunday, for raising the issue of its human rights abuses at an informal meeting of the UNSC, describing it as a "serious challenge" to its sovereignty.
"The U.S. launched a human rights campaign against the DPRK in the U.N. arena while staging the aggressive joint military exercise which poses a grave threat to our national security,"&nbsp;North&nbsp;Korea's Permanent Mission to the U.N. was quoted as saying by state media.
(Reporting by Hyunsu Yim; Additional Reporting by Kevin Buckland, Mariko Katsumura; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, William Mallard, Lincoln Feast and Barbara Lewis)

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