Russia supplies KH-35 cruise missiles to North Korea

North Korea appears to have acquired a sea-based copy of a Russian cruise missile, the latest step in an effort to enhance its maritime strike capability, a US think-tank said Tuesday.

A state propaganda film disseminated on social media sites, including YouTube, provides a very brief glimpse of the missile being launched from a naval vessel.

Writing on the closely watched 38 North website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis said the missile would mark "a new and potentially destabilising addition" to North Korea's military arsenal.

Lewis identified the weapon as a copy of the Russian-produced KH-35, a sea-skimming anti-ship cruise missile developed during the 1980s and 90s.

Although the range and payload of the KH-35 fall below the threshold set by the Missile Technology Control Regime, any export of cruise missiles to North Korea would be a violation of UN sanctions.

"Although direct sale from Russia seems most likely, it is possible that North Korea obtained them from a third party like Myanmar," said Lewis, who is director for East Asia at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

As well as Myanmar, Russia has exported sea- and land-based cruise missiles to Algeria, India, Vietnam and Venezuela.

"The possibility that North Korea might sell KH-35 technology to others ... is not a happy thought," Lewis said.

The development of the North's conventional weaponry has largely been overshadowed by concerns over its nuclear weapons programmes.

Last month, 38 North published satellite photos showing two new North Korean warships, the largest it has constructed in 25 years.

The website said the two helicopter-carrying frigates represented an "important wake-up call" about the effectiveness of sanctions.

The flip-side of the North's naval capability was shown in pictures released Monday by the official KCNA news agency, showing supreme leader Kim Jong-Un riding in the turret of a rusted Romeo-class submarine developed by the Soviets in the 1950s.

"The submarines that our Navy holds are far superior," commented South Korean Defence Ministry spokesperson Kim Min-Seok.

Rare Image: The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey

Researchers working in Northern Myanmar have captured the first photographs of the recently discovered Myanmar snub-nosed monkey.

"These images are the first record of the animal in its natural habitat," said Ngwe Lwin, the Burmese national who first recognised the monkey as a possible new species.

"It is great to finally have photographs because they show us something about how and where it actually lives."

"The Myanmar snub-nosed monkey was described scientifically in 2010 from a dead specimen collected from a local hunter," said Frank Momberg of FFI, who organised the initial expeditions that led to the monkey's discovery. "As yet, no scientist has seen a live individual," he added.

Picture: FFI/BANCA/PRCF/REX FEATURES

"Stateless" Mynamar Boy Comes 3rd in Japan Paper Airplane Contest

Mong Thongdee, a 12 -year-old stateless who was born in Thailand to Myanmar migrants, competes during the team indoor flight duration competition at the All-Japan Origami Airplane Contest in Makuhari, near Tokyo, on Saturday.

A Mynamar boy who the Thai Government claim is "Stateless" and has no 'official nationality' even though he lives in Thailand, has captured third place in a Japanese paper airplane contest on Sunday. Only after he made extensive tearful pleas to be allowed to attend the contest, did the authorities decide to grant him a rare 'temporary' passport for the event.

Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper airplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo.

Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, is the son of Myanmar migrants and they have officially been declared 'stateless', by the Thai Government and therefore have no legal right to travel abroad.

His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after national media coverage of him quietly sobbing after the refusal captured the hearts of many Thais, he was granted a temporary passport.