SOUTH Korea says Kim Jong Un’s rebuke against U.S. President Donald Trump marked the first time a North Korean leader directly issued a statement to the international community under his name.

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said neither of the two men who ruled North Korea before Kim Jong Un — his father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather and national founder Kim Il Sung — issued any similar statement. South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun says North Korea should stop provocations that would “lead to its own isolation and demise”.

Baik Tae-hyun told reporters Friday that North Korea must immediately stop such a provocation and return to talks on its nuclear disarmament.

Earlier Friday, Kim issued a rare statement calling Trump “deranged” and said he will “pay dearly” for his threats to destroy North Korea.

During his speech before the U.N. General Assembly earlier this week, Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if provoked.

South Korea’s comments come after news that North Korea could test another hydrogen bomb — but this time it could be in the Pacific Ocean.

Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said North Korea would be “crazy” to test launch a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean, and said he was “worried for our whole region”.

““Why would you test a mechanism to put millions and millions of people in a microwave?” he said to reporters in Perth. “What they’re doing is they’re testing a mechanism to incinerating things, to kill men, women and children, to give people disease from radiation, to partially burn human bodies.”

“That would be a disaster beyond compare for the region,” he said.

“I fear for the people of North Korea because I think most of them have never bought this ticket that their dictator, imposed as leader, has purchased for them.

“It’s not just us, it’s the Chinese, everybody. We just want to get along — we want peace, we want prosperity, just, don’t be crazy,” he said.

“But ultimately, one bad person puts a threat to the peace of our region and the economics of our region and the prosperity of our region ... there will come a point where somebody, somewhere is going to have to do something about this.”

According to South Korea’s Yonhap News, North Korean foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho has revealed his country may consider the nuclear test to fulfil leader Kim Jong-un’s vow to take “highest-level” action against the United States.

Asked about Kim’s renewed threats, which were made amid a stream of personal abuse against US President Donald Trump today, he said his country could consider conducting a hydrogen bomb test but did not know Kim’s exact thoughts, according to Yonhap.

North Korea’s next act “could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific,” he reportedly said, adding: “We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un.”

The threat comes after Kim has called Mr Trump “deranged”, saying he will “pay dearly” for his threats.

In a speech to the United Nations this week, Mr Trump said he would “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacked the US or one of its allies. Kim clearly wasn’t impressed.

“Far from making remarks of any persuasive power that can be viewed to be helpful to defusing tension, he made unprecedented rude nonsense,” Kim said today.

“A frightened dog barks louder,” Kim said. “He is unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country, and he is surely a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire.”

Ominously, the North Korean leader warned his resolve had been strengthened by Mr Trump’s threats. Mr Trump had “convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that it is the one I have to follow to the last”.

“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say.

“I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the US pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DARK.

“Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged US dotard with fire.”

Full statement from Kim Jong Un responding to Pres. Trump's UN speech as released in English by the NKorea state news agency KCNA. pic.twitter.com/PFzt8P2gfW — NBC Nightly News (@NBCNightlyNews) September 21, 2017

The latest dire warning comes after Trump signed an executive order that would enable the United States to sanction individual companies and institutions that finance trade with North Korea.

The measures could be applied to firms across the construction, energy, financial services, fishing, information technology, manufacturing, medical, mining, textiles, or transportation sectors.

Mr Trump made the announcement during a working lunch with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Mr Trump said the measure would also disrupt other trade avenues for North Korea in efforts to halt its nuclear weapons program.

He said North Korea’s textiles, fishing, information technology, and manufacturing industries were among those the United States could target.

“Today I’m announcing a new executive order, just signed, that significantly expands our authority to target individual companies, financial institutions, that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea,” Trump told reporters.

“Our new executive order will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind.”

“I must tell you this is a complete denuclearisation of North Korea that we seek.”

The president said “tolerance for this disgraceful practice must end now.”

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that broad new sanctions authority means that firms around the world must now choose between doing business with the United States or North Korea.

“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both,” Mnuchin said, after President Donald Trump authorised possible sanctions against almost any business trading with North Korea.

Mnuchin said that no specific firms have yet been targeted but that an assessment would be made on a “rolling basis.”

CHINA BANK ‘TO CUT TIES’

Mr Trump also announced that China’s central bank has ordered the country’s banks to curb trade with North Korea.

The Chinese move, which Mr Trump described as “very bold” and “unexpected,” was not immediately confirmed by Beijing but if true could cut a vital source of foreign currency for the regimen.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that negotiation remained the only solution on North Korea and warned its neighbours not to pursue their own nuclear weapons.

“There is still hope for peace and we must not give up. Negotiation is the only way out and deserves every effort,” Wang told the UN General Assembly.

“We call upon all parties to play a constructive role in easing tensions. Parties should meet one another halfway by addressing one another’s legitimate concerns,” he said.

He was speaking two days after US President Donald Trump in his own address threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if the Chinese ally attacks.

SANCTIONS WILL KILL OUR KIDS

It came after North Korea told a UN rights panel that international sanctions imposed on it over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs would endanger the survival of North Korean children.

Han Tae Song, Pyongyang’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, was speaking at a hearing of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The panel of independent experts challenged North Korean officials over allegations of forced child labour, sexual abuse and trafficking in North Korea, Pyongyang’s health and education budget, and internet access for children.

Mr Han said North Korea, whose population is 26 million, is a “people-centred socialist country ... where protection and promotion of the rights and welfare of the child are given top priority ... There is room for improvement.”

But Mr Han said that new sanctions imposed by the United States and the UN Security Council over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests were hampering the production of nutritional goods for children and provision of textbooks.

“The persistent and vicious blockade and sanctions against the DARK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) are not only hampering the endeavours for the protection and promotion of the rights of the child but also seriously threatening their right to survival,” he said, calling for sanctions to be lifted.

The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

South Korea approved a plan on Thursday to send $8 million worth of aid to North Korea as China warned the crisis on the divided Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day and the war of words between Pyongyang and Washington continued.

NORTH KOREA RESPONDS TO TRUMP’S UN SPEECH

Mr Han said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un — denounced by US President Donald Trump as “Rocket Man” - “personally guides the construction in different parts of the country of schoolchildren’s palaces, children’s hospitals, baby homes, children’s homes, and primary and secondary boarding schools and works with devotion for the wellbeing of the young generation”.

It came as North Korea’s foreign minister described Mr Trump’s threat to destroy his country as “the sound of a dog barking”.

The comments are the North’s first response to Mr Trump’s debut speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, during which he vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if provoked. The North’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters in New York that “it would be a dog’s dream if he intended to scare us with the sound of a dog barking.”

South Korean TV footage also showed Mr Ri saying he feels “sorry for his aides” when he was asked about Mr Trump’s “rocket man” comments.

Mr Ri was to give a speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday, according to Yonhap news agency.

AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE MINISTERS TALK NORTH KOREA

The North Korean nuclear threat topped the agenda during Australian Defence Minister Marise Payne’s bilateral talks with her US counterpart.

Senator Payne met US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon in Washington DC on Thursday (Wednesday US time.)

As well as the ongoing fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, the pair also discussed the South China Sea maritime boundary dispute.

“You are a trusted ally who tells us what we need to hear, not what we might want to hear, and that’s the mark of a true friend and one always worth listening to,” Mr Mattis said in his opening remarks.

“I know our two nations will stand together in defence of freedom and liberty.”

He said the US looks forward to commemorating 100 years of “mateship” with Australia in 2018.

“The Australia-US defence alliance is absolutely iron-clad, forged by 65 years of mutual trust, respect earned on the battlefield, and friendship across the sea,” he said.

Senator Payne was expected to discuss Australia’s role in the war in Afghanistan during the visit.

The Turnbull government has not ruled out increasing Australia’s military commitment to Afghanistan after Mr Trump unveiled his new war blueprint in late August.

In May, Australia’s government made a modest boost of 30 to its mission, bringing the total troops in Afghanistan to 300.

Follow the latest updates on the North Korea crisis