NORTH KOREA FIRES ANOTHER BALLISTIC MISSILE: Pyongyang’s nuclear destruction threat crap won’t stop until it’s stopped. (Intentionally crude paraphrase of the classic Instapundit paraphrase of Herb Stein’s Law, to whit, “if something can’t go on forever, it won’t.”)
North Korea launched a ballistic missile Wednesday into the East Sea, South Korea’s military said, just two days ahead of summit talks between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.
“North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the East Sea from a site in the vicinity of Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, at around 6:42 a.m.,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. “The flight distance is about 60 kilometers.”
The projectile is estimated to be “a type of KN-15 medium-range ballistic missile,” also known as Pukguksong-2, and the maximum altitude of its flight was 189 km, a senior JCS official later told reporters.
“It’s still premature to conclude whether the test-firing was a success or failure,” he added. “It was detected by South Korean Navy’s Aegis ship operating in the East Sea and the Air Force’s ballistic missile warning system.”
He said the North seems to have aimed to test the technology of its ballistic missile technology and also considered the timing just before the U.S.-China summit.
Citing an initial assessment, the US Pacific Command also said the projectile seems to be a KN-15 ballistic missile fired from a land-based facility.
It flew nine minutes, added the Hawaii-based command.
More:
In an interview with the Financial Times, Trump warned that the US will take unilateral action to get rid of the North’s military threats unless China does its part.
Yes. Here’s some deep context which will help readers understand current events on the Korean peninsula.