North Korea says US space shield is ‘nuclear war scenario’

PYONGYANG (Reuters) — North Korea’s foreign ministry has criticized the U.S. Golden Dome missile defense shield project as a “very dangerous threatening initiative”, state media said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on May 20 said he had picked a design for the Golden Dome missile defense system and named a leader of the ambitious $175 billion program.

The Golden Dome plan “is a typical product of ‘America first’, the height of self-righteousness, arrogance, high-handed and arbitrary practice, and is an outer space nuclear war scenario,” said the Institute for American Studies of North Korea’s foreign ministry, according to state KCNA news agency.

The aim is for Golden Dome to leverage a network of hundreds of satellites circling the globe with sophisticated sensors and interceptors to knock out incoming enemy missiles after they lift off from countries like China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.

China last week said it is “seriously concerned” about the project and called for Washington to abandon its development.

By REUTERS

Reporting by Ju-min Park; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

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John F. McCarthy is a veteran journalist in the Caribbean, writing from the "Decision Space" where survival meets the surreal. His reporting steel was tempered by a lineage of legendary editors and broadcasters, including Ed Wynn Brant (The Bomb), Owen Eschenroder (Ann Arbor News), Lynelle Emanuel (BVI Beacon), and Charles Thanas (WSVI-TV). Alongside longtime colleague Kenneth C. "Casey" Clark, McCarthy has navigated the front lines of the territory’s history—from the 1997 volcanic "snow" to every major hurricane since Hugo. Known for leaning out of doorless helicopters to capture the "money shot," McCarthy now edits the V.I. Free Press, providing the essential link between the island's colonial past and its SpaceX future.