North Korea Launches Five Missiles

Global Security Newswire: A week after indicating it was ready to resume nuclear negotiations, North Korea yesterday launched five short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, the Washington Post reported. Two ground-to-ship weapons were fired from an east coast launch site. . . . They might be followed by additional missile tests in coming days. Among the weapons that are set for launch are the Scud-B, which can fly more than 200 miles, and the Rodong missile, which has a range of more than 800 miles but might be restricted to roughly 250 miles in this instance, according to the South Korean JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.

Tday's launches came as U.S. officials were in China in hopes of persuading leaders in Beijing to aggressively enact the latest penalties against North Korea. China, meanwhile, hopes to persuade its neighbor to return to the nuclear negotiations. The recent actions could be North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's attempt to display authority as he prepares to hand power over to his youngest son, observers say. . . .

There is no indication that North Korea is preparing to soon carry out its reported plan to launch an ICBM that could hit U.S. territory, according to the South Korean television network YTN (Chang, Associated Press). Two U.S. scientists said that North Korea could hit much of the United States with a modified version of the rocket launched in April. "North Korea has conducted two nuclear tests, but it isn't thought to have designed a nuclear warhead that could be delivered by a missile. Such a first-generation plutonium warhead could have a mass of 1,000 kilograms or more," according to Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Theodore Postol and physicist David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists. . . . [Full Story]

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