Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he would not resign after Members of Parliament (MPs) in his party overwhelmingly passed a motion of no confidence in his leadership.
Corbyn lost a confidence vote on Tuesday, with 172 of his Labour Party's lawmakers voting against him and 40 in favour.
The motion was tabled in the wake of Britain's vote to leave the European Union and backed by many who felt he had not campaigned hard enough to keep the country inside the EU, and would not be able to win a future election.
The result, which was expected after days of heavy criticism from within his party, has no formal consequence and does not automatically trigger a leadership election.
"I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60 percent of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning," he said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. "Today's vote by MPs has no constitutional legitimacy," he added.
North Korea has test-fired two mid-range ballistic missiles from its eastern coast, says South Korea.
The first launch was considered to have failed, travelling about 150km (90 miles) before landing in the sea.
The second, launched hours later, flew about 400km. Military officials in the South said both were intermediate-range Musudan missiles.
A confirmed successful test would mark a step forward for North Korea after four failed launches in recent months.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said Seoul and the US were "carrying out an in-depth analysis" of the second launch, and did not say whether it was considered a success.
North Korea, which is developing nuclear weapons, is banned by UN resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology.
South Korea's presidential office announced that it would hold a national security meeting to discuss the launch.
Analysis: Stephen Evans, BBC News, Seoul
North Korea has tested these medium range missiles six times now in three months. Outside experts and intelligence agencies believe the first five launches were certainly failures, but aren't sure about the sixth (today's second launch).
It seems to have gone about 400km (250 miles), far short of its maximum range. That may be because it failed or it may be because a decision was taken not to send it over Japan which had said it would shoot any missile down.
So why is North Korea conducting tests so frequently?
Some Western scientists say that the more conventional way of testing is to conduct the test, and if it fails, to go away and work out why before trying again some months or even a year later.
If this steady method over a long period isn't being followed by North Korea, it may be because of intense pressure from the top, a pressure the scientists on the ground will no doubt feel.
'Provocative actions'
The US State Department has strongly condemned the launches, with spokesman John Kirby saying the tests would only increase efforts to stop North Korea's weapons programme.
Image copyrightEPAImage captionNorth Korea has yet to conduct a full flight test of a Musudan missile
"We intend to raise our concerns at the UN to bolster international resolve in holding [North Korea] accountable for these provocative actions," said Mr Kirby in a statement.
North American Defense Command (Norad), which tracked the missiles, determined they did not pose a threat to North American territories.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has said such tests "clearly cannot be tolerated".
The Musudan is believed to have a range of about 3,000km (1,800 miles), enough for it to hit South Korea, Japan and the US territory of Guam in the Western Pacific.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionSouth Korea's presidential office has announced that it would hold a national security meeting to discuss the launch
North Korea is thought to have dozens of them but has never successfully tested one.
The four other missiles tested in the last two months either exploded mid-air or crashed.
Surrounding countries had detected preparations for a launch in the past few days and warned that it was about to happen.
The Musudan missile
The Musudan, also known as the Nodong-B or the Taepodong-X is an intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Estimates differ dramatically on its range, with Israeli intelligence putting it at 2,500km and the US Missile Defense Agency estimating about 3,200km. Other sources put its upper limit at 4,000km.
The lower range of the Musudan will enable it to hit the whole of South Korea and Japan. At its upper range it would be able to target US military bases on Guam.
Its payload is unknown, but is estimated at 1.0-1.25 tonnes, according to AFP news agency.
THE world’s first comprehensive survey of wild plants suggests
that more than a fifth of species are threatened with extinction.
Farming, logging and land development account for over 60% of the
threat, according to “The State of the World’s Plants 2016”, published today by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
The
report’s authors trawled through the world’s botanical records,
reconciling species names and deleting duplicates. They estimate that
science knows of 391,000 species of vascular plant (things botanical
that are not algae or mosses). Of these, 369,000 are flowering plants.
The rest are conifers, cycads, ferns and so on, whose heydays were back
in times like the Carboniferous or the Jurassic, before the flowering
plants really got going in the Cretaceous.
According to the
report, the first of what it is hoped will become an annual series,
about 31,000 plant species have documented uses. More than 17,000 are
employed medically and 9,000 are food for humans or fodder for animals.
One recent discovery mentioned in the report is the stuff of nightmares—a carnivorous plant 1.5 metres tall. Drosera magnifica
is a giant sundew, part of a group that trap insects and other
unfortunate small animals on leaves covered with droplets of sweet and
sticky goo. It is possibly the first botanical find made via Facebook.
That
could be the harbinger of a new approach to taxonomy. Botanists in
Brazil have recently set up “DetWeb”, a website that collects images of
plants from social media so that they can be more easily screened by
experts. In the near future, a new generation of citizen scientists
armed with smartphones could help to fill in the plant world’s taxonomic
blanks.
