On July 19, North Korea fired three ballistic missiles that flew between 500 km and 600km into the sea off its east coast. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described the launch as a ”grave threat” to Japan and said Tokyo “strongly protested”. North Korea had threatened a “physical response” against the deployment decision. The North later said the launches were part of an exercise simulating preemptive strikes against South Korean ports and airfields used by the US military. The South Korean statement referred to just one launch, although the US Strategic Command said it had detected two missiles, one of which it said exploded immediately after launch.

Source: The Telegraph August 03, 2016 05:03 UTC