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North Korea Fires Ballistic Missile as South Hosts Democracy Conference

by Reuters

   Seoul, South Korea --

   North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Monday for the
   first time in two months, at a time when U.S. Secretary of State Antony
   Blinken was visiting Seoul to attend a conference hosted by President
   Yoon Suk Yeol on advancing democracy.

   South Korea's military said the missile was fired to the east of the
   Korean peninsula. Japan's coast guard also reported the launch of what
   it said appeared to be a ballistic missile by North Korea and specified
   that it has already fallen.

   Japan later said it detected what appeared to be a second ballistic
   missile launch by the North, also falling outside its exclusive
   economic zone area.

   North Korea's military has been conducting exercises using conventional
   weapons in recent weeks, often personally overseen by the isolated
   state's leader Kim Jong Un.

   The show of force by Pyongyang comes as the militaries of South Korea
   and the United States carried out large-scale annual joint military
   drills for 10 days ending last Thursday.

   On Sunday, the South Korean military also mobilized marines, attack
   helicopters and amphibious assault vehicles in drills aimed at surging
   troop numbers to reinforce western islands near the sea border with
   North Korea, which had been bombed by the North in 2010.

   Blinken is among senior officials from around the world attending the
   Summit for Democracy conference hosted by South Korea, which opens on
   Monday. He will also meet his South Korean counterpart

   The summit is an initiative of U.S. President Joe Biden aimed at
   discussing ways to stop democratic backsliding and erosion of rights
   and freedoms worldwide.

   At its last ballistic launch on Jan. 14, North Korea fired what it said
   was an intermediate-range hypersonic missile using solid fuel on to
   test new booster engines and a maneuverable warhead.

   A month later, it launched multiple cruise missiles off its east coast
   including what it said was a new surface-to-sea missile in the latest
   of a series of such tests.

   Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson
   Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's
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