The South Korean military is reporting that North Korea appears to be back test-firing missiles off its coast.
North Korea has fired several unidentified short-range missile from its eastern coast, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said Saturday. South Korean and U.S. authorities are “analyzing the details of the missile,” the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff told state-run news site Yonhap.The firing Saturday comes amid a diplomatic breakdown that has followed the failed summit earlier this year between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over the North’s pursuit of a nuclear arsenal that can target the U.S. mainland.The Joint Chiefs of Staff says the North’s missile was fired from Wonsan on the east coast.
Details about the launch are now being revealed.
The projectiles flew 70 to 200 kilometers (43 to 125 miles) before crashing into the sea, officials said, adding that both South Korean and US authorities were analyzing details for further insight. The launch took place around at 9:06 a.m. (8:06 p.m. ET Friday).”At present, our military has intensified surveillance and vigilance to prepare for North Korea’s additional launches,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, adding that Seoul and Washington were “working closely together and maintaining their full preparedness.”…It comes a few weeks after North Korea said it conducted a tactical guided weapons firing test, according to state media.
Our last report on North Korea on a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin showed that the meeting may be an indication of how desperate the nation has become, due the successful imposition of unrelenting sanctions by the U.S.
The desperation is likely to increase, as there are reports that North Korea has had its worst harvests in a decade.
Four in ten North Koreans are chronically short of food and further cuts to already minimal rations are expected after the worst harvest in a decade, the United Nations said on Friday.Official rations are down to 300 grammes – under 11 ounces – per person per day, the lowest ever for this time of year, the U.N. said following a food security assessment it carried out at Pyongyang’s request from March 29 to April 12.It found that 10.1 million people were suffering from severe food insecurity, “meaning they do not have enough food till the next harvest,” U.N. World Food Program spokesman Herve Verhoosel said.North Korea’s population is around 25.2 million, according to its Central Bureau of Statistics, the report said.Verhoosel said the word “famine” was not being used in the current crisis, but it might come to that in a few months or years. “The situation is very serious today – that’s a fact.”
The new round of missile tests may be Chairman Kim Jong Un’s testing President Donald Trump’s resolve on the sanctions. If so, I suspect this approach is full of fail.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY