scud

North Korea is preparing to fire multiple short-range rockets around the opening of the Chinese Communist Party’s twice-a-decade congress on Oct. 18, the Seoul-based Asia Business Daily reports, citing an unidentified person. According to the newspaper, the U.S. and South Korean militaries have recently spotted about 30 Scud rockets being moved from Hwangju, south of the capital Pyongyang, to a missile maintenance facility in the western coastal city of Nampo.

More from the report, google translated:

North Korea's nuclear program has gathered serious and frightening momentum over the past few months, culminating in the isolated regime test-firing a missile over Japan in August and detonating a hydrogen bomb last Sunday. As diplomatic efforts stall, Statista's Niall McCarthy points out that eyes are turning to the region's missile-defense technology.

The USDJPY and 10Y yields snapped lower and gold kneejerked higher following the latest North Korea-related headline out of Bloomberg, according to which:

• NKOREA STARTS MOVING ICBM FOR POSSIBLE LAUNCH BEFORE SAT.:DAILY

Bloomberg references a just released article in the Asia Business Daily, according to which North Korea started moving the ICBM-class missile, produced at a new Pyongyang research center, on Monday following Sunday's thermonuclear test.

With the Carl Vinson carrier group steaming toward the Korean Penninsula (it is expected to arrive some time over the weekend), in an unexpected overnight development less than a week after his first meeting with China's president, Donald Trump called President Xi on the phone to discuss trade and the developing North Korean situation. According to China's state television, Xi stuck with his objective of "denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula, and called for a peaceful resolution of rising tension.

Long before Kim Jong-Un launched his latest ballistic missile test in February, prompting an angry response from not only the US, Japan and various other countries, most notably China, which banned North Korean coal imports in retaliation and unleashed what may be a political crisis in Pyongyang, former president Barack Obama was already engaged in a cyberwar with North Korea.