North Korea yesterday fired multiple ballistic missiles in a defiant show of force that coincided with a visit to Seoul by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a Summit for Democracy.
North Korea fired three ballistic missiles toward waters off its east coast that reached a maximum altitude of about 50km and flew about 300km to land outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, the Ministry of Defense in Tokyo said.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a text message to reporters about the launch that several short-range ballistic missiles were fired from about 7:44am from near Pyongyang that flew about 300km.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The US, South Korea and Japan all condemned North Korea’s first ballistic missile test in about two months, calling it a threat to regional security and a contravention of UN Security Council resolutions.
It is unclear what was in the barrage. North Korea, which often comments on missile launches the following day, has been known to engage in provocations designed to coincide with high-profile political events involving the US, South Korea and Japan.
The launches followed the conclusion of US and South Korean joint military drills on Thursday last week, which included training on land, sea and in the air against contingencies posed by North Korea.
Photo: AFP
Pyongyang’s propaganda apparatus slammed the ideals advanced by the US ahead of the Summit for Democracy, which was launched under US President Joe Biden’s administration as a way for leaders to show solidarity.
US-style democracy is the “sinister intention of imperialists” to consolidate power around US-led Western forces, North Korea’s main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said in an article over the weekend ahead of the summit.
Hours after the missile launches, South Korean Minister of National Defense Shin Won-sik told a news conference that Pyongyang has shipped about 7,000 containers filled with munitions and other military equipment to Russia since last year to help support its war in Ukraine.
Shin said that after initially relying on ships, the North has been increasingly using its rail networks to send arms supplies to Russia through their land border.
In exchange for sending possibly several million artillery shells and other supplies, North Korea has received more than 9,000 Russian containers likely filled with aid, Shin said.
He raised suspicions that Russia could be providing North Korea with fuel, possibly in defiance of UN Security Council sanctions that tightly cap the country’s imports of oil and petroleum products.
Taiwan aims to open 18 representative offices and seven Taiwan Tourism Information Centers worldwide by next year to attract international visitors, the Tourism Administration said on Saturday. The agency has so far opened three representative offices abroad this year and would open two more before the end of the year, it said. It has also already opened information centers in Jakarta, Mumbai and Paris, and is to open one in Vancouver next month and in Manila in December, it said. Next year, it would also open offices in Amsterdam, Dubai and Sydney, it added. While the Cabinet did not mention international tourists in its
EYES AT SEA: Many marine enthusiasts have expressed interest in volunteering for coastal patrols, which would help identify stowaways and illegal fishing, the CGA said Six thousand coastal patrol volunteers are to be recruited for 159 inspection offices to enhance the nation’s response to “gray zone” conflicts, Coast Guard Administration (CGA) sources said yesterday. Volunteer teams would be established to increase the resilience of coastal defense systems in the wake of two unlawful entries attempted by Chinese over the past three months, Ocean Affairs Council Minister Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said. A former Chinese navy captain drove a motorboat into the Tamsui River (淡水河) in Taipei on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival in June, while another Chinese man sailed in a rubber boat into the Houkeng
NEXT LEVEL: The defense ministry confirmed that a video released last month featured personnel piloting new FPV drone systems being developed by the Armaments Bureau Taipei and Washington are pushing for their drone companies to work together to establish a China-free supply chain, the Financial Times reported on Friday. A delegation of high-level executives and US government officials were yesterday to arrive in Taipei to discuss with their Taiwanese counterparts collaboration on drone technology procurement and development, the report said. The executives represent 26 US manufacturers of drone and counter-drone systems, while the officials are from the US Department of Commerce and the US Department of Defense’s Defense Innovation Unit, along with Dev Shenoy, principal director for microelectronics in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
‘ANONYMOUS 64’: A national security official said that it is an attempt by China to increase domestic anti-Taiwanese sentiment and inflame cross-strait tensions The Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM) yesterday denied accusations by China that it had undermined regional security by carrying out cyberattacks against targets in China, adding instead that Beijing was responsible for raising tensions and undermining regional peace. The Chinese Ministry of State Security on WeChat accused a hacker group called “Anonymous 64” of targeting China, Hong Kong and Macau starting earlier this year through frequent cyberattacks. The group carried out cyberattacks to seize control of Web sites, outdoor electronic billboards and video-on-demand platforms in China, Hong Kong and Macau, it said, adding the hackers’