Irish Examiner view: Alert after North Korea test-fires cruise missiles

US president Joe Biden has not had a happy debut in matters of foreign affairs and his next challenge may be about to arrive

North Korea says it successfully test-fired newly developed long-range cruise missiles over the weekend. Picture: Lee Jin-manAP

Whether it is goose-stepping thousands of soldiers wearing orange hazmat suits in front of the Dear Leader for the 73rd anniversary of the founding of North Korea, or test-firing new long-range radar-beating cruise missiles, Kim Jong-un’s taste for a coup de theatre remains undiminished.

North Korea was the third member of George Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ (alongside Iran and Iraq) and while the world has been dealing with the pandemic, it appears, according to the UN atomic agency, to have restarted its plutonium-producing reprocessing reactor at Yongbyon.