{"id":490758,"date":"2026-01-04T02:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/490758\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T02:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T02:20:09","slug":"north-korea-has-fired-ballistic-missile-towards-the-sea-of-japan-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/490758\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea \u2018has fired ballistic missile towards the Sea of Japan\u2019 | North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Korea has fired a ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast, according to South Korea\u2019s military leaders.<\/p>\n

The South Korean joint chiefs of staff said: \u201cThe North has launched an unidentified ballistic missile toward the East Sea,\u201d referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.<\/p>\n

Japan\u2019s defence ministry also said it had detected a suspected ballistic missile launch.<\/p>\n

The leader of North Korea<\/a>, Kim Jong-un, called for more than double the production of tactical guided weapons on his latest visit to a munitions factory, state media reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n

A long-range surface-to-air missile is test-fired near the Sea of Japan on 24 December 2025. Photograph: KCNA\/Reuters<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, Kim has made a series of visits to factories that build weapons, as well as to a nuclear-powered submarine, and has overseen missile tests ahead of next year\u2019s Ninth Party Congress of the Workers\u2019 Party, convened to set out major policy goals.<\/p>\n

North Korea staged a ballistic missile test in November, after the US president, Donald Trump, approved South Korea\u2019s plan to build a nuclear-powered submarine.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang has significantly stepped up missile testing in recent years.<\/p>\n

Analysts said this drive is aimed at improving precision strike capabilities, challenging the United States as well as South Korea and testing weapons before potentially exporting them to Russia.<\/p>\n

Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Korea has fired a ballistic missile towards the sea off its east coast, according to South Korea\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":490759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-490758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115834442482481830","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}