North Korea fired a short-range projectile towards the sea off its east coast Monday in the latest of a series of missile and rocket tests, military officials said.

The projectile was launched at 10:30 am (0130 GMT) at a site northeast of Pyongyang towards the Sea of Japan (East Sea), a spokesman for the South's joint chiefs of staff said.

"The projectile flew about 220 kilometres (130 miles), but we have no information yet on its type," he told AFP.

Monday's exercise came as cross-border military tensions run high following a series of missile, rocket and artillery launches in July and August.

Three weeks ago the North fired five short-range rockets into the sea just as Pope Francis arrived in Seoul for a five-day visit.

The North often fires missiles and rockets as a show of force or to express anger at perceived provocations, but the frequency of the recent tests is unusual.

UN resolutions bar North Korea from conducting any launches using ballistic missile technology.

But the North has defended the missile launches as a legitimate exercise in self-defence and a response to US war manoeuvres.

N. Korea slams UK TV show on its nukes as 'hideous farce'
Seoul (AFP) Aug 31, 2014 - North Korea Sunday slammed a new British TV drama series revolving around its nuclear weapons programme, urging the British government to scrap the "slanderous farce" if it wants to maintain diplomatic ties.

"Opposite Number" -- a series commissioned by Channel 4 -- features a British nuclear scientist captured in the North during a covert mission and forced to help weaponise its nuclear technology.

The 10-part series will take viewers inside the "closed worlds of North Korea" with "opposing CIA and MI6 agents secretly deployed on the ground in Pyongyang, as the clock ticks on a global-scale nuclear crisis", Channel 4 said on its website.

The TV show is "nothing but a slanderous farce" to insult and distort the North's nuclear capability, said the country's top military body, the National Defence Commission (NDC).

The North is already armed with "unimaginably powerful nuclear weaponry" and has no need to steal foreign technology to further develop it, the NDC spokesman said in a statement carried by the state news agency.

"Those who are talking about 'illegal acquisition of nuclear technology' are no more than blind fools and idiots bereft of even elementary ability to discern the truth," said the official.

The impoverished but nuclear-armed state has staged three atomic tests, most recently in 2013, and has often threatened nuclear strikes against major foes Seoul and Washington.

"No matter how desperately the producers of the above-said TV channel, hooligans and rogues under the guise of artistes, may work to falsify the reality, they can never hide the truth," said the official.

He also accused Downing Street of conniving at the perceived provocations, urging it to "throw reactionary movies... into a dumping ground without delay and punish the chief culprits".

"This would help...preserve the hard-won diplomatic relations between the (North) and Britain," the spokesman said.

The isolated Stalinist state always bristles at foreign movies mocking its system or leadership, especially the Kim family that has ruled the country for some six decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.

In June the North denounced a new Hollywood film about a bid to assassinate its leader Kim Jong-Un as a "wanton act of terror" and warned of a "merciless response" unless the US government banned the film.

"The Interview" stars Seth Rogen and James Franco as two tabloid TV reporters who land an interview with Kim in Pyongyang and are then tasked with killing him.

The North's United Nations envoy lodged a formal protest at the UN against the movie, calling it "the most undisguised sponsoring of terrorism".