Defense News:

North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament has passed a budget that sustains a high level of defense spending, despite the country’s economic troubles as leader Kim Jong Un pushes for an aggressive expansion of his nuclear arsenal.

State media reports indicated Kim didn’t attend the Supreme People’s Assembly’s two-day session that ended Wednesday. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency didn’t mention any comments by assembly members toward the United States or South Korea in Thursday’s report on the meetings.

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