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North Korea Launches Barrage of Short Range Ballistic Missiles Following Trump Overture

evening · · thread: North Korea Condemns NATO Fuel Network Modernization as War Preparation

14 sources across 8 countries · 1 of them is linked to a state

Who reported this

  • Asahi Shimbun Japan · Centre-left · Asahi Shimbun Company (family and employee held)
  • Kyodo News Japan · Centre · Non-profit publisher cooperative
  • The Japan Times Japan · Centre · News2u Holdings
  • The Guardian United Kingdom · Centre-left · Scott Trust Limited
  • Financial Times United Kingdom · Centre · Nikkei Inc.
  • Reuters United Kingdom · Centre · Thomson Reuters Corporation
  • Der Spiegel Germany · Centre-left · ~50% staff-owned
  • Deutsche Welle Germany · Centre · Public · German federal public-law corporation
  • Yonhap South Korea · Centre · State-affiliated · Cooperative; statutory national agency with state subsidy
  • The Korea Herald South Korea · Centre-right · Herald Corporation (Yeongpoong Group)
  • France 24 France · Centre · Public · France Medias Monde (French state holding)
  • South China Morning Post Hong Kong · Centre-right · Alibaba Group
  • Corriere della Sera Italy · Centre-right · RCS MediaGroup (Cairo Communication)
  • El Pais Spain · Centre-left · Grupo PRISA

What the colours mean

  • Left
  • Centre-left
  • Centre
  • Centre-right
  • Right
  • A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.

Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.

Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.

The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.

North Korea launched approximately 10 to 12 short range ballistic missiles from the Pyongyang area toward the East Sea on Thursday, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff. The missiles traveled roughly 300 to 320 kilometers and reached a maximum altitude of about 90 kilometers. Japan's Defense Ministry also detected the launches and confirmed that the projectiles fell outside Japan's exclusive economic zone. This event marks North Korea's third ballistic missile launch this month, following previous tests on August 6 and August 12.

The launches occurred shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump announced his intention to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later this year. President Trump also ordered a significant reduction in the scale and duration of the ongoing Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercises with South Korea, which are now scheduled to end this Friday. Trump described the exercises as too costly and as sending an inappropriate and hostile signal to Pyongyang, citing his good relationship with Kim Jong Un.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un, dismissed the reduction of the military drills in a statement, asserting that the move does not change the provocative and offensive nature of the exercises. She also denied Trump's claims that there had been recent communication between the two leaders. During a press availability, President Trump claimed that North Korea possesses 57 very powerful nuclear weapons, while South Korean sources estimate the stockpile to be between 80 and 120 weapons.

South Korea's presidential national security office convened an emergency meeting to review the response and assess the impact on national security. The South Korean military stated it is maintaining a full readiness posture and is coordinating information with the United States and Japan. Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi instructed government agencies to ensure the safety of aircraft and vessels and to provide accurate updates to the public.

How each side framed it

Centre-left
These outlets emphasized the contradiction between Trump's diplomatic overtures and North Korea's continued aggression, while noting the potential for the situation to be a diversion from other foreign policy crises.
Centre
These outlets focused on the technical details of the launches and the official government responses from South Korea and Japan.
Centre-right
These outlets framed the missile launches as a direct rejection of an American olive branch and highlighted the alarm felt by Asian allies regarding Trump's unilateral decisions.

Sources

100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.