North Korea’s latest ballistic missile test has flown further and higher than it’s last, posing a ‘”grave threat” to Japan. The missile was launched yesterday in defiance of calls to rein in its weapons program, days after a new leader in its old rival South Korea came to power pledging to engage it in dialogue. The US Pacific Command said it was assessing the type of weapon used but it was “not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile”.

Japanese Defence Minister Tomomi Inada said the missile could be of a new type altogether. The missile flew 430 miles and reached an altitude of more than 1,245 miles, according to officials in South Korea and Japan, further and higher than an intermediate-range missile North Korea successfully tested in February from the same region of Kusong, northwest of its capital, Pyongyang. CONTINUE


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