Norks fire a missile…again

The New York Times reports this morning that North Korea announced that it successfully fired off an intercontinental ballistic missile towards Japan. US experts tells us that it’s really an intermediate-range missile and not an ICBM, as if that makes much difference to our allies in the Pacific Crescent.

The missile took off from the Banghyon airfield in the northwestern town of Kusong and flew 578 miles before landing in the sea between North Korea and Japan, the South Korean military said in a statement.

The Japanese government said the missile landed in its so-called exclusive economic zone off its western coast. It was the first missile test by the North since it launched land-to-sea cruise missiles off its east coast on June 8. Under a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions, North Korea is prohibited from developing or testing ballistic missiles.

From ABC News, President Trump criticized the hermit kingdom;

President Donald Trump criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after that country’s latest missile launch, asking, “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?”

Trump wrote on Twitter late Monday that it’s “Hard to believe that South Korea … and Japan will put up with this much longer.”

And he urged North Korea’s biggest ally, China, to “put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!”

The New York Times also reports that President Trump called China Sunday night;

President Trump, frustrated by China’s unwillingness to lean on North Korea, has told the Chinese leader that the United States is prepared to act on its own in pressuring the nuclear-armed government in Pyongyang, according to senior administration officials.

Mr. Trump’s warning, delivered in a cordial but blunt phone call on Sunday night to President Xi Jinping, came after a flurry of actions by the United States — selling weapons to Taiwan, threatening trade sanctions and branding China for human trafficking — that rankled the Chinese and left little doubt that the honeymoon between the two leaders was over.

Category: North Korea