S. Korea says North failed again with mid-range missile test
SEOUL: North Korea yesterday tried and failed in what appeared to be its second attempt in two weeks to test a powerful, new medium-range ballistic missile, South Korea’s defence ministry said.
A ministry official said the North had fired what was understood to be a Musudan missile at around 6.40am from Wonsan on the east coast, but it plunged back to earth seconds after launch.
“It is believed to have failed,” the official told AFP.
There had been widespread intelligence reports in recent days that the North was preparing for another flight test of a Musudan, which is capable of striking US bases on the Pacific island of Guam.
North Korea initially launched a Musudan on April 15 — the birthday of founding leader Kim Il-Sung — but the exercise ended in what the Pentagon described as ‘fiery, catastrophic’ failure, with the missile apparently exploding just after take-off.
The failed tests come as the country is gearing up for a rare and much-hyped ruling party congress next month, at which Kim Jong-Un is expected to take credit for pushing the country’s nuclear weapons programme to new heights.
There is growing concern that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct a fifth nuclear test in the run-up to the event which opens May 6.
In recent months the North has claimed a series of major technical breakthroughs in developing
North Korea video appeal by family of ‘kidnapped’ daughter Australia data shows gun controls a huge success 20 years after mass shooting The government strongly condemns this additional ballistic missile launch ... which is a clear violation of UN resolutions and an act of provocation.
SEOUL: North Korea has released a video appeal by the parents of one of 12 waitresses that Pyongyang insists were kidnapped by South Korean agents from the restaurant where they were working in China.
In the footage, uploaded Wednesday to the North’s propaganda website Uriminzokkiri, the parents wept and demanded the South return their daughter, So Gyong-A.
So and 11 other waitresses from the same restaurant arrived in South Korea earlier this month, along with their manager.
North Korea claims the manager tricked them into defecting and that they were effectively abducted with the collusion of the South’s spy agency.
Seoul insists they all defected voluntarily.
In the video, So’s father So DaeSong lashed out at South Korean President Park Geun-Hye ‘and her clique who lured and kidnapped’ his daughter. — AFP SYDNEY: Australia yesterday marked the 20th anniversary of a mass shooting which led to strict gun controls that have in turn led to a huge decline in gun murders, undermining claims in the United States that such curbs are not the answer.
The chances of being murdered by a gun in Australia plunged to 0.15 per 100,000 people in 2014 from 0.54 per 100,000 people in 1996, a decline of 72 percent, a Reuters analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed.
In 1996, Australia had 311 murders, of which 98 were with guns. In 2014, with the population up from about 18 million to 23 million, Australia had 238 murders, of which 35 were with guns.
It was the April 28, 1996, shooting deaths by a lone gunman of 35 people in and around a cafe at a historic former prison colony in Tasmania that prompted the government to buy back or confiscate a million firearms and make it harder to buy new ones. — Reuters what it sees as the ultimate goal of its nuclear weapons programme — an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to targets across the continental United States.
The achievements trumpeted by Pyongyang have included miniaturising a nuclear warhead to fit on a missile, developing a warhead that can withstand atmospheric re-entry and building a solid-fuel missile engine.
Last Saturday, it successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and was promptly criticised by the UN Security Council.
Existing UN resolutions forbid North Korea from the use of any ballistic missile-related technology, and South Korea said it would push for fresh penalties to be imposed on Pyongyang.
“The government strongly condemns this additional ballistic missile launch ... which is a clear violation of UN resolutions and an act of provocation,” the foreign ministry in Seoul said in a statement.
It said it would work with other UN members to “try to put the North’s regime under more sanctions.”
The Musudan is believed to have an estimated range of anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometres.
The lower range covers the whole of South Korea and Japan, while the upper range would include US military bases on Guam.
The missile has never been successfully flight-tested.
Two failures in swift succession will be seen as an embarrassment for the leadership, especially ahead of the party congress which is meant to celebrate the country’s achievements.
Speaking last weekend during a visit to Germany, US President Barack Obama warned that North Korea was making dangerous progress even when its efforts fell short of outright success.
“Although, more often than not, they fail in many of these tests, they gain knowledge each time,” Obama said.
“We take it very seriously, so do our allies and so does the entire world,” he added.
Anxiety has been high on the divided Korean peninsula since Pyongyang conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and a rocket launch a month later that was widely seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.
The UN Security Council responded with its toughest sanctions to date, angering the North, which has since made repeated threats of attacks targeting the South and the United States. — AFP
Statement by foreign ministry in Seoul