Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
N. Korean missiles ‘can now reach US’
Independence Day rocket stunt gets ridiculed by Trump
NORTH Korea claims to have conducted its first successful test of a long-range missile that can reach “any part of the world”.
The rocket, in a trial ordered by the rogue nation’s leader Kim Jong-un, reached an altitude of 1,741 miles, according to Korea Central Television. The country boasted it was now “a fullfledged nuclear power that has been possessed of the most powerful intercontinental ballistic rocket capable of hitting any part of the world”. A statement added the Pyongyang regime could “put an end to the US nuclear war threat and blackmail” while defending the Korean peninsula. But the US and Russia insisted the Hwasong-14 rocket, which landed in the Sea of Japan after allegedly travelling a distance of 580 miles, was medium range and presented no threat to them. The launch, the 11th by North Korea in 2017, provoked Donald Trump to ask: “Does this guy have anything better to do with his life?” He added: “Hard to believe that South Korea and Japan will put up with this much longer.” But US sources later admitted that if the two-stage missile’s trajectory had been different it could have hit Alaska. And the US requested a meeting of the 15-member United Nations Security Council on the missile launch, asking for it to be held behind closed-doors. A spokesman for the US at the UN said it was likely to be held today. Kim appeared to have timed the launch for political effect, giving the order to fire the alleged intercontinental ballistic missile on American Independence Day. The fear is Pyongyang may develop, or ay have already developed, a nuclear warhead to go on a long-range missile. Defence expert Bruce Bennett said North Korea had aimed high to limit the distance travelled and avoid an international incident. He added: “If they were to shoot it on a normal trajectory, it’s probably going to go out 6,000km (3,720 miles). Anything over 5,500km (3,400 miles) is an ICBM.”