North Korea fired a medium-range missile on Sunday, its second such test within a week, the South Korean military said. The missile was launched from Pukchang and landed 310 miles away in the sea to the east of the country.
State news agency KCNA said the country’s leader Kim Jon-Un supervised the testing of the Pukguksong-2 missile, and that he “expressed his great satisfaction over them [the launch], saying it is perfect”. Pukgusong-2 uses solid rocket fuel and is similar to the country’s main submarine launch missile, though this one is fired from land, CNN reported.
Sunday’s test brings the count of North Korea’s missile launches this year to eight. On May 14, the reclusive country had fired another ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan days after the new South Korean president Moon Jae-in was voted to power. The missile flew for half an hour and reached an unusually high altitude – indicating that it may be a new type of weapon – before landing in the sea, the militaries of South Korea, Japan and the United States had said.
With North Korea intensifying its show of military might in the past few months, countries around the world are concerned that warfare might break out with two volatile leaders at the helm of two major nuclear powers – Kim and United States President Donald Trump. Trump, who is currently visiting ally Saudi Arabia on his first trip abroad since assuming office, has repeatedly claimed that the situation was North Korea is tense. He has been prodding China to rein in Kim, though he claims if Beijing is not able to “solve North Korea, the US will”.
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