North Korea's state media ramped its bellicose rhetoric up another notch Thursday, warning of a "thermonuclear war" as the UN Security Council prepared to vote on new sanctions against the isolated state. Following Tuesday's announcement by the military that it would rip up the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War, the North Korean ruling party's official mouthpiece, Rodong Sinmun, warned of an imminent conflict. "With the armistice nullified, it would be no surprise if a global thermonuclear war breaks out," the newspaper said. "The war will not be confined to the Korean peninsula," it said, reiterating Pyongyang's claims to have rockets capable of striking the US mainland.