
North Korea tests missile as South Korea prepares to launch new submarine
CNN
North Korea has fired a projectile presumed to be a short-range missile into waters off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, according to statements from South Korean officials -- just hours before Seoul was due to launch a new submarine.
The missile was fired around 6:40 a.m. local time Tuesday, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement, adding the South Korean military is "maintaining a readiness posture" for potential "additional launches."
In a briefing Tuesday, South Korea's Defense Ministry's spokesman Boo Seung-chan said Pyongyang's test was "regrettable for happening at a time when political stability on the Korean peninsula is very critical."

More than two decades ago, on January 24, 2004, I landed in Baghdad as a legal adviser, assigned an office in what was then known as the Green Zone. It was raining and cold, and my duffle bag was thrown into a puddle off the C-130 aircraft that had just done a corkscrew dive to reach the runway without risk of ground fire. Young American soldiers greeted me as we piled into a vehicle, sped out of the airport complex and then along a road called the “Highway of Death” due to car bombs and snipers.












