NEWS: North Korea
The country tests banned intercontinental missile.

On 16 March North Korea fired a mis­sile, which the US said was a test for land of an ICBM sys­tem
. North Korea has test­ed a banned transcon­ti­nen­tal bal­lis­tic pro­jec­tile (ICBM) for the first time since 2017, South Korea and Japan say.

Japan­ese pub­lic ser­vants said it flew km (684 miles) and fell in Japan­ese waters after fly­ing for over an hour.

ICBMs, designed for nuclear arms deliv­ery, could extend North Kore­a’s strike range as far as the US landmass.

The test is being seen as a major esca­la­tion by the North and has been con­demned by its neigh­bours and the US.

North Korea has launched a flur­ry of pro­jec­tile tests in recent weeks.

The US and South Korea have said some of those tests, which Pyongyang claimed were satel­lite launch­es, were in fact tri­als of cor­ri­dor of an ICBM sys­tem.
“The door has not closed on diplo­ma­cy, but Pyongyang must right now cease its desta­bil­is­ing actions,“White House spokes­woman Jen Psa­ki said.

Out­go­ing South Kore­an Pres­i­dent Moon Jae-in con­demned what he said was a” breach of the sus­pense of multi­na­tion­al bal­lis­tic bul­let launch­es promised by Chair­man Kim Jong-un to the transna­tion­al community”.

The Kim gov­ern­ment is deter­mined not only to keep South Korea hostage to mil­i­tary dan­gers that can escape Seoul’s mis­sile defences and­pre-emp­tive strike capa­bil­i­ties, but also aims to expand its nuclear reach over the Amer­i­can coun­try to dis­suade Wash­ing­ton from com­ing to the defence of US back­ers.
North Korea is nowhere near ini­ti­at­ing aggres­sion on the scale of Rus­si­a’s irrup­tion of Ukraine. But Pyongyang’s inten­tions like­wise exceed tone-defence as it wants to cap­size the­p­ost-war secu­ri­ty order in Asia.

The effec­tive­ness of being war­rants is wan­ing due to lax enforce­ment by some coun­tries.
Giv­en Chi­na and Rus­si­a’s lack of co-oper­a­tion on the UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil, the US and its abet­tors will prob­a­bly need to con­sent more inte­gers in those coun­tries and away that are sup­port­ing North Kore­a’s arms programmes.

The incom­ing Yoon admin­is­tra­tion in South Korea can be hoped to increase defence exer­cis­es with the Unit­ed States and secu­ri­ty co-oper­a­tion with Japan.

The Unit­ed States and South Korea had alert­ed in recent weeks that North Korea may be prepar­ing to test- fire an ICBM at full range for the first time since 2017.
On 16 March, North Korea launched a sus­pect­ed bul­let that appeared to explode short­ly after lift-off over Pyongyang, South Kore­a’s armed forces said.

The UN pro­hibits North Korea from bal­lis­tic and nuclear arms tests, and has charged strict war­rants after for­mer tests.
In 2017 North Korea car­ried out a num­ber of ICBM tests, the last of which involved a Hwa­song-15 bul­let that reached an alti­tude of km ( miles).

Experts esti­mat­ed the Hwa­song-15 could have trav­elled fur­ther than km ( miles) if it had been fired on a stan­dard line, which meant it could reach any part of the inter­na­tion­al Unit­ed States.
The ulti­mate launch is allowed to be the North’s largest ever ICBM test, and involved an indeed more impor­tant bul­let, con­ceiv­ably the new Hwa­song-17 unveiled in 2020 but untest­ed up to now.

In 2018 Kim Jong-un put in place a dol­drums on long- range bal­lis­tic pro­jec­tile and nuclear tests, fol­low­ing speech­es with also US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.
But in 2020, Mr Kim declared he was no longer bound by this pledge.

Thurs­day’s launch also comes as satel­lite images showed North Korea fir­ing up activ­i­ty at its nuclear test­ing instal­la­tion in Pung­gye-ri ahead this month, adding fears that the North would renew test­ing nuclear arms and long- range mis­siles.
The instal­la­tion, locat­ed in the north-east of the coun­try, had been blown up in 2018 after Mr Kim promised to halt all nuclear tests.