Pat Dollard | Young Americans

BREAKING NEWS — South Korean media report that North Korea has test-fired two short-range missiles.

Yonhap news agency reported Thursday the North fired two ground-to-ship missiles from its eastern coast.

“One was fired at 5:20 p.m. and the other at 6:00 p.m. from Sinsang-ni” near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, South Korean defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told Yonhap.

The report gave no further details.

News cable channel YTN carried a similar report.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff could not immediately confirm the reports.

North Korea had earlier issued a no-sail zone in waters off its east coast through July 10, viewed as a prelude to such missile tests.

New missiles launches seriously exacerbate the tensions running high since Pyongyang’s May 25 nuclear test and a series of missile firings. The U.N. Security Council adopted a tough sanctions resolution last month to punish the communist regime.

The North also threatened in April to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile. Last month, a Japanese newspaper reported that the North could test-fire a long-range missile toward Hawaii as early as around July 4. The U.S. has beefed up defenses around Hawaii.

The missile launches come after a North Korean ship — suspected of possibly carrying illicit weapons — changed course and was heading back the way it came after remaining under U.S. surveillance for more than a week.

The North Korean ship is the first vessel monitored under the new U.N. sanctions that seek to clamp down on Pyongyang’s trading of banned arms and weapons-related material by requiring U.N. member states to request inspections of ships suspected of carrying prohibited cargo.

The North has said it would consider interception of its ships a declaration of war. On Wednesday, North Korea’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper renewed the warning.

“Touching our ships constitutes a grave military provocation against our country,” the paper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. “These acts will be followed immediately by self-defensive military countermeasures.”

(AP)