North Korea fires two ballistic missiles, flew 250 km: Seoul
Seoul: Pyongyang fired two ballistic missiles on Wednesday, Seoul said, days after a similar launch that the nuclear-armed North described as a warning to the South over planned joint military drills with the United States.
The two devices were fired from the Wonsan area on the east coast at dawn and flew around 250 kilometres (155 miles), said South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"We stress a series of missile launches do not help ease tensions in the Korean Peninsula and urge the North to refrain from such acts," they said in a statement.
The North is banned from ballistic missile launches under UN Security Council resolutions but it was the second such firing in less than a week, despite a meeting between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump last month.
Pyongyang and Washington are engaged in a long-running diplomatic process over the North's nuclear and missile programmes that has seen three high-profile encounters between their leaders in the space of a year.
They agreed to resume talks during their impromptu June encounter in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, but that working-level dialogue has yet to begin.
Pyongyang has warned the negotiations could be derailed by Washington and Seoul's refusal to scrap the annual manoeuvres between their forces.
The North has defied years of isolation and sanctions to develop its arsenal and has not given up any of its weapons, while proving itself adept at dragging out discussions.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that the talks were taking "a little bit longer" than expected to start.
There was no immediate comment from Pyongyang on the latest launch, but Harry Kazianis of the Center for the National Interest in Washington said it was a warning to the two security allies to stop the exercises "or we will continue to show off our own offensive military capabilities and raise tensions to a slow boil over time".
The North will carry out more launches before the drills begin next week and again afterwards, he predicted. "The only question is: would the Kim regime dare test an ICBM, or a long-range missile, that could hit the US homeland?"
Pyongyang said last Thursday's launches were of newly designed "tactical guided weapons" that were a "solemn warning to the South Korean warmongers" over the planned military drills with the US.
Washington stations nearly 30,000 troops in the South to defend it from its neighbour, which invaded in 1950.
The devices were widely described as ballistic missiles, including by the US-South Korean Combined Forces Command and the government in Seoul.
But Trump -- who has repeatedly touted his relationship with Kim, whose regime is widely accused of human rights abuses -- brushed off the North's bellicose language, saying it was warning Seoul rather than Washington.
"He didn't send a warning to the United States," Trump said. "They have their disputes, the two of them have their disputes." The Korea Times condemned what it called the US president's "willful ignorance" in an editorial Tuesday, before the latest launches.
Trump "gives the impression that he doesn't mind its missile launches as long as they are short-range, and not threatening the US", it said.
"Such a way of thinking is frustrating -- and dangerous," it added. "Most of all, he can give the wrong signal to the North that the US will not step in as long as it does not target the US mainland. What about US allies in Asia?"
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Confident we are going to win Kerala: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Thursday expressed confidence in the victory of the United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala, saying the Congress-led alliance will win more than 75 seats out of the total 140 in the state.
Tharoor, who hails from Kerala, said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls, most of which predicted a victory for the UDF that has been out of power for 10 years in the state.
"We have been on the ground. I have campaigned in 59 constituencies across 12 districts out of 14. I was very confident we are going to win.
"Everything that I have picked up from not just my party colleagues and workers but also from other observers, media and others have always convinced me that we were going to score a comfortable win of above 75 seats. And all the (exit) polls have confirmed the same thing," he told reporters here.
The Thiruvananthapuram MP said he was not surprised to see the results of the exit polls but in general he was not a big fan of exit polls in India.
"Because ours is not purely a homogenous society. We have to take into account gender issue, caste issue, class issue, regional disparities. You never get a convincingly large enough sample to give an accurate poll and now there is the additional complication that we have heard about in West Bengal this year that many people are unwilling to answer the questions of the pollsters," he said.
The Congress leader said normally, it used to be below 10 per cent that people said that they would not answer.
"Even if you are a reputable exit pollster, in Bengal, one polling company has said 60 per cent of people refused to answer. So, what is the worth of a poll where 60 per cent of your respondents have not answered," he said.
Several exit polls on Wednesday predicted a comeback by the Congress-led UDF in Kerala after 10 years, dethroning the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF).
Polling for the 140-member Kerala assembly was held on April 9. Results of assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam, Puducherry, besides Kerala, will be announced on May 4.
