North Korea fires another missile over Japan, deepens regional tensions

Seoul – North Korea has fired a missile that
flew over Japan’s northern Hokkaido into
the Pacific Ocean on Friday, South Korean
and Japanese officials said, deepening
tensions after Pyongyang’s recent test of its
most powerful nuclear bomb.
“The missile flew over Japan and landed in
the Pacific about 2,000 km east of
Hokkaido,’’ Japanese Chief Cabinet
Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Warning announcements about the missile
blared around 7 a.m. in parts of northern
Japan, while many residents received alerts
on their mobile phones or saw warnings on
TV telling them to seek refuge.
U.S. Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis said
the launch “put millions of Japanese into
duck and cover.”
The residents in northern Japan appeared
calm and went about their business as
normal after the second such launch in less
than a month.

According to the South Korea’s military, the
missile reached an altitude of about 770 km
(480 miles) and flew for about 19 minutes
over a distance of about 3,700 km (2,300
miles).
It said that the missile was far enough to
reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.
The U.S. military said soon after the launch
it had detected a single intermediate range
ballistic missile but the missile did not pose
a threat to North America or the U.S. Pacific
territory of Guam, which lies 3,400 km
(2,110 miles) from North Korea.
Pyongyang had previously threatened to
launch missiles toward Guam.
“The range of this test was significant since
North Korea demonstrated that it could
reach Guam with this missile,” the Union of
Concerned Scientists said in a statement.
However, it said the accuracy of the missile,
still at an early stage of development, was
low so it would be difficult to destroy the
U.S. Andersen Air Force Base on Guam.
U.S. officials repeated Washington’s
“ironclad” commitments to the defence of its
allies.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for
“new measures” against North Korea and
said the “continued provocations only
deepen North Korea’s diplomatic and
economic isolation”.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in echoed
that view and said dialogue with the North
was impossible at this point.
He ordered officials to analyse and prepare
for possible new North Korean threats,
including electro-magnetic pulse and
biochemical attacks, a spokesman said.

Source: punchng