SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The BBC is reporting that North Korea has fired another missile:
North Korea has fired a missile eastwards from its capital, Pyongyang, towards Japan, media reports say.
Japan said that the missile likely passed over its territory and has warned residents to take shelter, local media report.
South Korea and the US are analysing the details of the launch, the South's military said.
Al Jazeera reports:
The projectile was launched at 6:57am (21:57GMT Thursday) and flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido before falling into the Pacific Ocean - 2,000km east of Cape Erimo, said Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga.
"Japan protests the latest launch in the strongest terms and will take appropriate and timely action at the United Nations and elsewhere, staying in close contact with the United States and South Korea," Suga told reporters.
South Korea's defence ministry said the missile travelled about 3,700km and reached a maximum altitude of 770km - both higher and further than previous tests.
Just more saber rattling? Another step in escalation? What's next?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday September 15 2017, @02:16AM (3 children)
Bullshit. In the past couple of decades NK did not have a possible hydrogen bomb an order of magnitude greater than the ones dropped on Japan. Pretty sure Japan has not forgotten, and NK will hit them with MORE power.
Now they keep going on about missile tests and how they can place the nuclear weapons on them. Things are different when there is an actual chance of them possessing the weapons *and* *decades* of making threats.
Are they probably still posturing and engaging in Juche Theater? Maybe. But let's not pretend these events are normal. The past few decades was just foreplay while NK amassed weapons and constantly evolved their weapon tech despite pretty much constant sanctions, etc.
At some point we're going to suspect they are real, and when that day happens, war.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @02:46AM (1 child)
Can we try to aim for some minimal accuracy? Japan was attacked with two atomic bombs. Kim claims to have hydrogen bombs. The difference between the two is probably similar to the difference between a standard firecracker, and a stick of dynamite.
Yes, I realize that I'm not being especially accurate here, but the point is, Japan wasn't attacked with a modern nuclear device. As devastating as an atomic bomb is, it's still pretty primitive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Friday September 15 2017, @06:38AM
Well, seismic data has them placing the recent nuke at 120 ktons, and Fat Man was 20 ktons. An order of magnitude of difference. That was from another article and I basically paraphrased it.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Friday September 15 2017, @06:13PM
They still don't have a hydrogen bomb, at best a boosted fission bomb, if that. Heck, Ivy King was half a megaton and that was pure fission, you don't need anything exotic to get to 120kt.
Which they are nowhere near doing. There's a difference between firing an empty nose cone a few thousand km and miniaturising a warhead, placing it in a missile, and firing it a few thousand km. NK is decades away from the latter. They just don't have the resources or technology to do it.