France, Russia test missiles

France and Russia successfully carried out missile tests on Thursday.

France carried out a first test on its new M-51 ballistic missile which is to carry submarine-based nuclear weapons, the Defence Ministry said. The unarmed missile was fired over the Bay of Biscay from a launch test centre on France’s southern Atlantic coast. The M51, with a range of some 8,000 kilometres (5,000 miles), is to replace France’s existing submarine-based missiles by 2010. “This test flight was carried out ... in conformity with all France’s international commitments concerning safety, transparency and non-proliferation,” a ministry statement said.

Meanwhile, the Russian military test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile as part of regular efforts to check the readiness of Soviet-built missiles, a military spokesman said.

The RS-18 Stiletto missile, also known as the SS-19 in the West, blasted off from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and its warhead hit a designated target on the Kura testing range on the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia’s Far East, Space Forces spokesman Alexei Kuznetsov said in a statement. Agencies

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