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North Korea has released new propaganda posters featuring its nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, state media reported on Tuesday, doing so for the first time in years and after the country codified its nuclear policy in law last week.

Two posters featuring the missiles were among those in a series released to encourage North Koreans to implement goals outlined by leader Kim Jong Un in a policy speech last week, state news agency KCNA reported.

North Korea has enshrined the right to use preemptive nuclear strikes to protect itself in a new law Kim said makes its nuclear status "irreversible" and bars denuclearisation talks, KCNA reported on Friday.

The posters underscored the need to "make the armed forces of the Republic more powerful by giving top priority to the building of the national defence capacity," KCNA said.

It was the first time in about five years that new posters have featured nuclear weapons, according to the website NK News, which tracks North Korea.

In 2018, North Korea removed many anti-American and military themed posters as Kim engaged in summits with then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders.

Since diplomacy stalled in 2019, historical anti-American themes have crept back into public displays.

Photos released by KCNA show the posters do not mention the United States, but display a number of North Korea's latest missiles, including its Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

The posters include slogans calling for national defence to be a top national priority, and that missiles show the country's prosperity.

This year North Korea resumed testing ICBMs for the first time since 2017, and international observers say it appears to be readying for a nuclear test.

Other posters featured a range of economic sectors including forestry, fishing, construction and consumer goods. (Reuters)

At least 49 Armenian soldiers and an undisclosed number of Azeris were killed on Tuesday in the deadliest fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia since a 2020 war, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for calm.

Armenia and Azerbaijan each blamed the other for the renewed fighting which began overnight at several points along their border, raising fears of another major conflict in the former Soviet Union while Russia's military is tied up in Ukraine.

Russia has peacekeeping troops in the Azeri-Armenian conflict zone as guarantor of an agreement that ended a six-week war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh two years ago.

Yerevan said Azerbaijan had shelled towns near the border including Jermuk, Goris and Kapan, forcing it to respond. Baku said Armenian sabotage units had sought to mine Azeri positions and began the shooting.

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.

"It is difficult to overestimate the role of the Russian Federation, the role of Putin personally," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

"The president is naturally is making every effort to help de-escalate tensions at the border."

UKRAINE AND CAUCASUS

Russia's war in Ukraine has undermined its status as a security guarantor in the region, leaving room for Azerbaijan to make more claims, according to Laurence Broers, associate fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme of Chatham House think tank.

Azerbaijan, which is politically and cutlturally linked to Turkey, made significant territorial gains in 2020, reclaiming land it had lost to ethnic Armenians in an earlier war over Nagorno-Karabakh 30 years before.

"Since February, we also have been seeing the collapse of Russia's reputation as a security patron and a provider of security in the region," Broers said. "That has created a window of opportunity for Azerbaijan, recalling that the outcome of the second war in 2020 left unfinished business."

The CSTO, a Russian-led military alliance of former Soviet states which includes Armenia but not Azerbaijan, was meeting on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

Turkey reiterated its support for its ally, with Defence Minister Hulusi Akar quoted by his ministry as saying that Turkey "will continue to stand by it (Azerbaijan) in its just causes."

"Responsibility for the provocation, clashes and losses lies with the military-political leadership of Armenia," Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said. "Any actions against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Azerbaijan will be resolutely prevented."

BORDER FIGHTING

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of attacking Armenian towns because it did not want to negotiate over the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave which is inside Azerbaijan but mainly populated by ethnic Armenians.

He said the intensity of hostilities had decreased but attacks from Azerbaijan continued.

Azerbaijan, which accused Armenia of carrying out intelligence activity along the border and moving weapons, said its military positions came under attack by Armenia. It said it sustained losses but did not disclose the number of casualties.

Azerbaijani media reported that a ceasefire agreement had been broken almost immediately after being enforced early on Tuesday.

Both Russia and the United States, at loggerheads over the Ukraine war, called on Baku and Yerevan to observe restraint.

"As we have long made clear, there can be no military solution to the conflict," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. "We urge an end to any military hostilities immediately."

The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan "should be resolved exclusively through political and diplomatic means".

The defence ministers of Armenia and Russia spoke on Tuesday morning and agreed to take steps to stabilise the situation on the border. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu held talks with his Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov and called for Armenia to "cease its provocations".

Charles Michel, president of the European Council, also urged the sides to de-escalate. Michel met with Pashinyan and Azerbaijaini President Ilham Aliyev last month in Brussels for talks on the normalisation of ties between the countries, humanitarian issues and the prospect of a peace treaty over Nagorno-Karabakh.

EU Special Representative Toivo Klaar was set to travel to both countries to support efforts to curb the violence.

France will bring up the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the U.N. Security Council, the office of President Emmanuel Macron said, adding that Macron continued to urge both sides to stick to a ceasefire. (Reuters)

Philippines leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Tuesday defended his late father's imposition of martial law when in power, saying it was necessary because he was simultaneously fighting communist and separatist rebellions at that time.

Marcos, son of Ferdinand Marcos Sr who was overthrown in a 1986 popular uprising, said his father declared martial law not to stay in power but because the "government had to defend itself."

"Martial law was declared because of the wars, the two wars we were fighting on two fronts," Marcos said in his first interview since his landslide victory in a May election.

"Those were the dangers, the perils the country was facing," Marcos said, as various groups including victims of human rights abuses, prepare to mark the 50th anniversary of the declaration of martial law on Sept. 21.

His remarks are likely to bolster the concerns of critics that Marcos Jr has no intention of distancing himself from the tenure of his father and that this could pose risks to democracy in the Philippines.

In his televised interview, Marcos Jr denied accusations that he and his family were distorting history.

During the campaign, critics said his presidential bid was an attempt to rewrite history by whitewashing corruption and authoritarianism associated with his father's 20-year rule.

The elder Marcos and his family fled the uprising against his rule after he had overseen what many historians have described as one of the worst examples of a kleptocracy in Asia.

Marcos Sr died in exile in Hawaii in 1989, but his family later returned to launch a comeback that culminated in his son's election victory in May.

Decades later, more than 11,000 victims of martial law have received reparations from Philippines authorities paid for using billions of dollars of recovered wealth plundered by Marcos Sr.

Wiping away tears as he spoke, Marcos recalled visiting his father's grave a day after winning the election and calling on him for help. "I will use everything I learned from you to continue your work," Marcos recounted telling his late father.

Bonifacio Ilagan, who was jailed and tortured during martial law, said the late leader stayed in power for 14 years after imposing martial law, dismissing any suggestion it was due to an emergency situation.

"Marcos Jr became president on the wings of false narratives and negative historical revisionism," Ilagan said. (Reuters)

The impacts of climate change are "heading into uncharted territories of destruction", U.N. secretary-general António Guterres warned on Tuesday on the release of a multi-agency scientific report reviewing the latest research on the subject.

The report, led by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), warns that the world is "going in the wrong direction" on climate change.

With greenhouse gas concentrations continuing to rise in the atmosphere and world leaders failing to adopt strategies to hold global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperatures, the earth is inching closer to dangerous climate tipping points, the United in Science report says.

Already, extreme weather events are more frequent and more intense. 

"Heatwaves in Europe. Colossal floods in Pakistan...There is nothing natural about the new scale of these disasters," Guterres said in a video message.

Despite a dip in emissions during coronavirus lockdowns, planet-warming emissions have since soared beyond pre-pandemic levels. Preliminary data reveal that global carbon dioxide emissions in the first half of this year were 1.2% higher than during the same period in 2019, the report finds.

The past seven years were the warmest on record.

The global average temperature has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average. And scientists expect the annual average could be anywhere between 1.1C and 1.7C warmer up to 2026 - meaning there's a chance we could pass the 1.5C warming threshold in the next five years.

By the end of the century, without aggressive climate action, global warming is estimated to reach 2.8C.

But even at the current level of warming we could pass several climate tipping points. 

The ocean current that moves heat from the tropics into the northern hemisphere, for example, is now at its slowest in 1,000 years - jeopardizing historic weather patterns, says the report, which includes contributions from the U.N. Environment Programme and U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.

Nearly half the world's population is considered highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change -- floods, heat, drought, wildfires, and storms.

By the 2050s, over 1.6 billion city-dwellers will regularly swelter through three-month average temperatures of at least 35C (95F).

To help communities cope, the WMO has promised to put every person on earth under the protection of an early warning system within the next five years. (Reuters)