North Korea: UN has 'exhausted' its options and America may hand issue to Pentagon, Nikki Haley says

The US ambassador to the United Nations says the UN Security Council has run out of options to contain North Korea's nuclear program, adding Washington may have to turn the matter over to the Pentagon.

Key points:
Ms Haley says if North Korea continues it "will be destroyed"
Donald Trump calls Kim Jong-un "rocket man" and praises sanctions effects
Security adviser HR McMaster says preparing a military option is becoming necessary
"We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we can do at the Security Council at this point," Nikki Haley told CNN, adding that she was perfectly happy to hand the North Korea issue over to Defence Secretary James Mattis.

As world leaders head to the United Nations headquarters in New York for the annual General Assembly meeting this week, Ms Haley's comments indicated the US was not backing down from its threat of military action against North Korea.

On Thursday, North Korea launched a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean in defiance of new UN Security Council sanctions banning its textile exports and capping imports of crude oil.

China has urged the US to refrain from making threats to North Korea, but when asked about President Donald Trump's warning last month that the North Korean threat to the US will be met with "fire and fury", Ms Haley said "it was not an empty threat".