North Korea is deploying a new missile which may be able to strike the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, a report in Jane's Defence Weekly says yesterday.
In the most alarming and detailed picture yet painted of Pyongyang's deterrent force, the authoritative military publication said the navy had customized a dozen scrapped Russian submarines to launch ballistic weapons of mass destruction.
Rumors have been circulating for several years that North Korea is developing an intercontinental missile -- the Taepodong 2 -- but the latest report suggests that the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, may also have ordered his military to attempt a short cut.
If confirmed, North Korea would join an exclusive club capable of covertly launching atomic weapons from submarines. Only the five permanent members of the UN security council -- the US, UK, France, China and Russia -- and possibly Israel possess such a strategic advantage.
The article, which appears in this week's edition of Jane's, says North Korea's new systems appeared to be based on a decommissioned Soviet submarine-launched ballistic missile, the R-27.
It notes that several Russian missile experts from Chelyabinsk, a city in the Urals, were blocked in an attempt to enter North Korea in 1992, but others succeeded in subsequent years.
Much of the technology was reportedly transferred in the form of scrap in 1993, when a Japanese trading firm sold 12 decommissioned Foxtrot and Golf II class submarines to North Korea. Although many key mechanisms were removed, the magazine said the vessels still contained launch tubes and stabilising sub-systems. By customizing these devices, it said, North Korea had developed and deployed a land-based missile with a range of 2,500km to 4,000km, as well as a sea-based missile with a range of 2,500km.
The version of the missile capable of being launched from submarines or ships "is potentially the most threatening," Jane's said. "It could finally provide its leadership with something that it has long sought to obtain -- the ability to directly threaten the continental US."
North Korea's nuclear and missile programs have long been a concern to the world.
Although the country has never successfully tested a nuclear weapon, it is thought to have reprocessed sufficient plutonium for one to eight warheads.
According to the South Korean military, North Korea has 600 Scud missiles with a range of 600km and 100 Nodong missiles with a range of 1,300km. It also test-fired a multi-stage Taepodong 1 rocket over Japan in 1998.
A second-generation Taepodong capable of hitting Hawaii, Alaska and possibly the western seaboard of the US is under development.
Although the CIA believes that North Korea possesses an arsenal of biological and chemical weapons, Jane's news editor, Ian Kemp, said there was no doubt that the new missiles were primarily designed to carry nuclear warheads.
But Japanese military analysts are sceptical that North Korea possesses the miniaturization technology to fit a nuclear warhead into a missile.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to