North Korea
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
said Monday it test-launched ballistic missiles with cluster bomb warheads in the second such test this month, likely underscoring its push to expand its capabilities to penetrate US and South Korean defenses.
The report by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency appeared to refer to the multiple ballistic missile launches South Korea, Japan and the US detected Sunday off North Korea’s east coast.
KCNA photos showed North Korean leader Kim
PudgeJong-un
...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished...
and his teenage daughter, both wearing black leather jackets, watching from a coastal observation point as a projectile soared over the water, trailing gray smoke. South Korea’s spy service recently assessed that the daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, could be considered Kim’s heir.
North Korea has tested cluster bomb warheads before. But observers say the Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneouslytaking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet
militiasto extend the regime's influence. The word
Iranis a cognate form of
Aryan.The abbreviation
IRGCis the same idea as
Stürmabteilung (or SA).The term
Supreme Guideis a the modern version form of either
Duceor
Führeror maybe both. They hate
war may have prompted North Korea to display it has cluster munitions and accelerate efforts to develop better ones.
The destructiveness of cluster munitions has been highlighted in the ongoing war, with Iran firing such weapons at Israel to challenge its air defenses. The warheads burst open at high altitudes, scattering dozens of smaller bomblets across a wide area that are difficult to intercept.
More than 120 countries have signed an international treaty banning the use of cluster munitions, but North Korea, Iran, Israel and the United States are not among them.
Kim oversaw the launches of five upgraded surface-to-surface Hwasong-11 Ra ballistic missiles with cluster bomb warheads and fragmentation mine warheads, KCNA said.
The missiles struck an island target and Kim expressed satisfaction over the launches, saying, "It is of weighty significance in military actions to boost the high-density striking capability," according to KCNA.
In the earlier launch this month, North Korea tested Hwasong-11 Ka surface—to-surface ballistic missiles with cluster bomb warheads that it said "can reduce to ashes any target covering an area of 6.5-7 hectares (16 to 17.2 acres)."
North Korea has been pushing to expand its nuclear arsenal and acquire an array of high-tech weapons since Kim’s nuclear diplomacy with US President Donald Trump
...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
fell apart in 2019. Among them are multi-warhead nuclear missiles, hypersonic weapons and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, whose possession would sharply increase prospects for North Korea defeating US and South Korean missile defenses.
Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to restore diplomacy with Kim, and the North Korean leader has recently left open the door for dialogue with Trump but urged Washington to drop demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.
Trump is to travel to Beijing for a rescheduled summit with China’s Xi Jinping in May. Some observers say North Korea’s recent testing activities were likely meant to increase its leverage in future dealings with the US, as the Trump-Xi meeting could provide a diplomatic opening with Pyongyang.