Kim Jong-eun, North Korea’s youthful leader, has used his first publicly televised speech to dismiss US suggestions that Pyongyang should stop wasting money on weapons, even though its latest long-range rocket disintegrated shortly after blast-off on Friday.

Barack Obama, US president, said North Korea’s leaders should spend money on the starving population rather than ballistics. “They don’t seem real good at it,” he quipped to the Spanish-language Tele-mundo network after Pyongyang failed to put a satellite in orbit for the third time.

Mr Obama’s laconic tone was bound to sting a leadership that defines itself through an ideology of “military first” as it celebrated yesterday’s 100th anniversary of the birthday of Kim Il-sung, founder of the nation and Kim Jong-eun’s grandfather. The rocket launch was supposed to be the centrepiece of the festivities, the most important in the country’s history.