Anchor: North Korea waited all of two days to conduct another cruise missile test, with the third launch in under a week. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said that the North appears to be conducting the tests as part of efforts to accelerate the performance of the missiles.
Tom McCarthy has more on the latest provocation.

Report: North Korea launched another cruise missile toward the Yellow Sea on Tuesday.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced that the launch was detected at around 7 a.m., believed to be of the recently unveiled Pulhwasal-3-31 strategic missile from around Pyongyang.

South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are analyzing the details of the unidentified weapons, while the JCS said surveillance of the North has increased in collaboration with the U.S.

The JCS has speculated that the series of tests are part of efforts to advance the capabilities of the missiles to be launched from land as well as both above and below sea with nuclear warheads mounted.

Military officials in Seoul estimate that the missiles have a range of two-thousand kilometers.

The firing is the second in only two days, and the third in under a week after North Korea announced last Thursday that it conducted the first test-launch the day before the all-new Pulhwasal-3-31.

Pyongyang again claimed on Monday to have tested the missiles the previous day, this time that they were submarine-launched cruise missiles, although the assertion was dismissed as highly unlikely by the JCS based on the requisite technical developments.
Tom McCarthy, KBS WORLD Radio News.