North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile Into The Sea: Seoul
News reports from South Korea announce that North Korea has "fired a ballistic missile" into the sea. The missile flew 800 kilometers (500 miles) before it crashed off the east coast in the North on Friday, say South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Thought to be a Rodong model, the missile flew about 500 miles over North Korea, Yonhap said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had launched tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles that could transport warheads and had also managed a simulated test of a re-entry vehicle to return a nuclear warhead back into the air from space when the missile was launched.
Seoul analysts surmised that Pyongyang would probably fire a missile to assess the "re-entry technology" needed to develop a long-range nuclear missile.
The missile launch came after the U.S. on Wednesday placed new sanctions on the authoritarian regime. The sanctions were a response to the launch of another ballistic missile by North Korea on Feb. 7,2016 as well as a nuclear test on Jan. 6, 2016 the White House said.
"The U.S. and the global community will not tolerate North Korea's illicit nuclear and ballistic missile activities, and we will continue to impose costs on North Korea until it comes into compliance with its international obligations," was Wednesday's announcement.
meanwhile, the North Korean state media reported last week that Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un had slammed the U.S. and South Korea's joint military exercises.
"We remain unperturbed in face of the enemies' any dangerous saber-rattling under our eyes, but if they destroy even a single tree or a blade of grass in our inviolable territory, I will issue a prompt order to launch attack with all military strike means including nuclear weapons and strike the Park regime and hordes of the puppet military with deadly baptism of fire so that they may not exist any longer," he had said, according to North Korean state media.
He took a pose with a mock-up of a "miniature nuclear warhead."
