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South Korea warns that North Korea has developed rockets that can reach the US mainland

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By David Piper

South Korean officials say analysis of debris from the latest North Korean rocket shows it has the ability to reach the US mainland.

At a news conference in Seoul on Sunday, Defense Ministry officials made the announcement after their experts looked at parts of the rocket that fell in the sea after Pyongyang’s successful launch on Dec. 12.

They have only recovered part of the first stage of the rocket from the Yellow Sea off South Korea‘s West Coast.

But that has shown them, they believe, that North Korea now has the ability to fire it.

Their estimate comes from analyzing an oxidizer container, which stored red fuming nitric acid to fuel the first-stage propellant.

“Based on our analysis and simulation, the missile is capable of flying more than 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) with a warhead of 500-600 kilograms,” a defense ministry official told reporters.

South Korean missile experts believe the use red fuming nitric acid shows it was an intercontinental missile test.

“Red fuming nitric acid was used in missiles developed by the Soviet Union,”
said a member of the South Korean Defense Ministry team.

“Because it used red fuming nitric acid as an oxidizer, which can be stored for a long time at normal temperature, the team concluded that (the rocket) was intended for testing (the North’s) ICBM technology, rather than developing a space launch vehicle.”

The analysis will give support to the argument by America and its allies that they believe North Korea the rocket launch was an attempt to test an inter-continental ballistic missile rather than, as Pyongyang maintains, part of a space program.

South Korean Defense officials say though its impossible to determine if North Korea has developed re-entry capability, a key element of an inter-continental ballistic missile, until they recover parts of the second and third stages of the rocket.

Defense experts believe Pyongyang has shown with the successful launch of an object into space via a three-stage rocket that it has moved a major step forward in developing inter-continental missile technology.

“In technological terms, the launch moves North Korea a major step closer to developing an inter-continental ballistic missile. It demonstrates the successful development of a three-stage rocket design, which, although not a ballistic missile,” James Hardy, Asia Pacific Editor, IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly told Fox News.

Its widely thought that it will be many years before North Korea can develop a long-range missile that can carry a nuclear warhead but it has surprised many by its ability with its latest rocket launch.

Even if a nuclear threat to the US West Coast may be far in the future there is a real danger now that Pyongyang will press ahead with an attempt to develop a shorter range missile that can carry a nuclear warhead.

Jim O’Halloran, a weapons analyst with IHS Jane’s, told Fox News that “this particular missile bears no direct threat to the US continent and indeed will be some time, probably many years, before this could happen.”

“It will on the other hand give rising concern to North Korea‘s neighbors in that they must now start addressing their previous concerns about how long it will take the North Koreans to develop long-range missile technology into some kind of intermediate/long-range ballistic missile that can carry a warhead that can threaten those countries.”

While there were mass celebrations in North Korea following the successful rocket launch it only raised tensions in the region that was already reeling from rows over disputed islands between China, Japan and South Korea.

Even the celebration of Christmas has now become part of the tense Korean standoff.

About 100 Christians attended the ceremony to light up a giant Christmas tree this weekend near the border with North Korea.

It was an annual ritual that was stopped back in 2003 to try to improve relations between the two countries.

But it has now resumed following a deadly artillery attack by North Korea on a South Korean island.

Pyongyang says the tree is psychological warfare and has nothing to do with Christmas and could cause more conflict.

Source: Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

Both SKorean presidential hopefuls promise change

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The liberal son of North Korean refugees faces the conservative daughter of a late dictator in South Korea‘s presidential election Wednesday. For all their differences, they’ve made remarkably similar campaign promises.

Liberal Moon Jae-in and conservative Park Geun-hye both want to extend a hand to rival North Korea, fight widespread government corruption, strengthen social welfare, help small companies, close growing gaps between rich and poor, ease heavy household debt to boost consumption, create jobs and rein in big corporations that have grown so powerful they threaten to eclipse national laws. They differ mainly in how far they want to go.

Polls showed the candidates in a dead heat ahead of elections to lead Asia‘s fourth-largest economy and an important U.S. security bulwark in the region.

One reason for their unusual degree of consensus: Park has had to tack to the center because voters are deeply dissatisfied with current conservative President Lee Myung-bak.

There’s deepening worry about the economy and disgust over the alleged involvement of aides close to Lee in corruption scandals. Many voters blame Lee’s hardline views for encouraging North Korea to conduct nuclear and missile tests — including Pyongyang’s rocket launch last week. Some also blame the chill in North-South relations for two attacks blamed on Pyongyang that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010.

The effort to create distance with Lee has been difficult for Park, whose popularity rests on a staunchly conservative base.

On North Korea, both candidates propose pulling back from Lee’s insistence that real engagement be linked to so-far-nonexistent nuclear disarmament progress by Pyongyang. Park, however, insists on more conditions than Moon, who wants to restore large-scale government aid.

Moon is a former chief of staff to Lee’s predecessor, the late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who championed the so-called “sunshine policy” of no-strings-attached aid for Pyongyang.

Moon said on the eve of the election that he envisions a “politics that integrates all people. Politics that does not divide.”

A Moon election could lead to friction with Washington if new engagement with Pyongyang comes without any of the reciprocal nuclear disarmament progress that Washington demands from the North.

Moon also wants to drastically expand welfare, while Park seeks more cautious improvement in the system, out of concern that expanding too much could hurt the economy, according to Chung Jin-young, a political scientist at Kyung Hee University in South Korea.

Both candidates also have promised to strengthen the traditional alliance with the United States while boosting economic ties with booming China.

Park is aiming to make history as the first female leader in South Korea — and modern Northeast Asia. But she also works under the shadow of her father, Park Chung-hee, who imposed his will on South Korea as dictator for 18 years until his intelligence chief killed him during a drinking party in 1979.

“I will become a president of the people’s livelihoods, who thinks only about the people,” Park was quoted Tuesday by the Yonhap news agency. “I will restore the broken middle class.”

Park’s father is both an asset and a soft spot. Many older South Koreans revere his strict economic policies and tough line against North Korea. But he’s also loathed for his odious treatment of opponents, including claims of torture and snap executions.

“Nostalgia for Park Chung-hee still runs deep in our society, particularly in the older generation,” Chung said.

A Park win would mean that South Korean voters believe she would evoke her father’s strong charisma as president and settle the country’s economic and security woes, Chung said.

Moon, on the other hand, was a young opponent of Park Chung-hee. Before working for Roh, whom Lee replaced in 2008, Moon was a human rights lawyer. He also spent time in jail for challenging the government of Park.

Moon’s parents lived in the North Korean port city of Hungnam before fleeing to South Korea aboard a U.S. military ship in December 1950, six months after the Korean War broke out. They were among an estimated 100,000 North Korean refugees transported by the United States from Hungnam to South Korea in daring evacuation operations that month.

Moon’s parents lived in an interim shelter on South Korea‘s southeastern Geoje Island and later moved to a nearby village where Moon was born in 1952. Moon’s father, a former agriculture official at Hungnam city hall, did manual labor at the camp while his mother peddled eggs.

A Moon win would be a clear judgment against the Lee government, said Hahm Sung Deuk, a political scientist at Korea University in Seoul. Moon’s appeal is that he “appears to be nice, honest and clean.”

With South Korea‘s economy facing a 2 to 3 percent annual growth rate for this year and the next, the presidential candidates have focused on welfare and equality and fairness issues. Neither, however, has matched Lee’s campaign promise to boost South Korea‘s economy by an ambitious 7 percent growth annually, apparently aware of the global economic challenges that beset the country’s export-driven economy.

Economic worries may be the focus of many voters, but North Korea has forced itself as an issue in the closing days of campaigning with its rocket launch last week, which the United States and others call a cover for a banned test of technology that could power a missile to the U.S. mainland. North Korea says it sought only to put a peaceful satellite into orbit.

The launch won’t be a major election influence, but it will consolidate conservative votes in favor of Park, said Hahm. He said the launch will remind South Korean voters that “the North Koreans are unpredictable and belligerent.”

The rocket launch could make it harder to quickly mend relations with North Korea, especially if Park wins.

“She has a firm stance on national security, but she has few ideas on how to establish a peace regime and lacks the determination to do so,” said Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea analyst at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. “If Park becomes president, South-North relations would get better, but a big improvement in ties would be difficult.”

___

AP writer Youkyung Lee contributed to this story.

Source: Fox World News

News, Politics, Government

North Korea displays embalmed body of Kim Jong Il one year after his death

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North Korea unveiled the embalmed body of Kim Jong Il, still in his trademark khaki jumpsuit, on the anniversary of his death Monday as mourning mixed with pride over a recent satellite launch that was a long-held goal of the late authoritarian leader.

Kim lies in state a few floors below his father, national founder Kim Il Sung, in the Kumsusan mausoleum, the cavernous former presidential palace. Kim Jong Il is presented lying beneath a red blanket, a spotlight shining on his face in a room suffused in red.

Wails echoed through the chilly hall as a group of North Korean women sobbed into the sashes of their traditional Korean dresses as they bowed before his body. The hall bearing the glass coffin was opened to select visitors — including The Associated Press — for the first time since his death.

North Korea also unveiled Kim’s yacht and his armored train carriage, where he is said to have died. Among the personal belongings featured in the mausoleum are the parka, sunglasses and pointy platform shoes he famously wore in the last decades of his life. A MacBook Pro lay open on his desk.

North Koreans paid homage to Kim and basked in the success of last week’s launch of a long-range rocket that sent a satellite named after him to space.

The launch, condemned in many other capitals as a violation of bans against developing its missile technology, was portrayed not only as a gift to Kim Jong Il but also as proof that his young son, Kim Jong Un, has the strength and vision to lead the country.

The elder Kim died last Dec. 17 from a heart attack while traveling on his train. His death was followed by scenes of North Koreans dramatically wailing in the streets of Pyongyang, and of the 20-something son leading ranks of uniformed and gray-haired officials through funeral and mourning rites.

The mood in the capital was decidedly more upbeat a year later, with some of the euphoria carrying over from last Wednesday’s launch. The satellite bears one of Kim Jong Il‘s nicknames, Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star,” a moniker given to him at birth according to the official lore.

And with the death anniversary came a hint that Kim Jong Un himself might soon be a father.

His wife, Ri Sol Ju, was seen on state TV with what appeared to be a baby bump as she walked slowly next to her husband at the mausoleum, where they bowed to statues of Kim’s father and grandfather.

There is no official word from Pyongyang about a pregnancy. In addition, Ri is shown wearing a billowing traditional Korean dress in black that makes it difficult to know for sure.

North Koreans are reluctant to discuss details of the Kim family that have not been released by the state. Still there are rumors even in Pyongyang about whether the country’s first couple is expecting.

To honor Kim’s father, North Koreans stopped in their tracks at midday and bowed their heads as the national flag fluttered at half-staff along streets and from buildings.

Pyongyang construction workers took off their yellow hard hats and bowed at the waist as sirens wailed across the city for three minutes.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans gathered in the frigid plaza outside, newly transformed into a public park with lawns and pergolas. Geese flew past snow-tinged firs and swans dallied in the partly frozen moat that rings the vast complex in Pyongyang’s outskirts.

“Just when we were thinking how best to uphold our general, he passed away,” Kim Jong Ran said at the plaza. “But we upheld leader Kim Jong Un. … We regained our strength and we are filled with determination to work harder for our country.”

Speaking outside the mausoleum, renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the military’s top political officer, Choe Ryong Hae, said North Korea should be proud of the satellite, calling it “a political event with great significance in the history of Korea and humanity.”

Much of the rest of the world, however, was swift in condemning the launch, which was seen by the United States and other nations as a thinly disguised cover for testing missile technology that could someday be used for a nuclear warhead.

The test, which potentially violates a United Nations ban on North Korean missile activity, underlined Kim Jong Un‘s determination to continue carrying out his father’s hardline policies even if they draw international condemnation.

Some outside experts worry that Pyongyang’s next move will be to press ahead with a nuclear test in the coming weeks, a step toward building a warhead small enough to be carried by a long-range missile.

Despite inviting further isolation for his impoverished nation and the threat of stiffer sanctions, Kim Jong Un won national prestige and clout by going ahead with the rocket launch.

At a memorial service on Sunday, North Korea‘s top leadership not only eulogized Kim Jong Il, but also praised his son. Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of North Korea‘s parliament, called the launch a “shining victory” and an emblem of the promise that lies ahead with Kim Jong Un in power.

The rocket’s success also fits neatly into the narrative of Kim Jong Il‘s death. Even before he died, the father had laid the groundwork for his son to inherit a government focused on science, technology and improving the economy. And his pursuit of nuclear weapons and the policy of putting the military ahead of all other national concerns have also carried into Kim Jong Un‘s reign.

In a sign of the rocket launch’s importance, Kim Jong Un invited the scientists in charge of it to attend the mourning rites in Pyongyang, according to state media.

The reopening of the mausoleum on the anniversary of the leader’s death also follows tradition. Kumsusan, the palace where his father, Kim Il Sung, served as president, was reopened as a mausoleum on the anniversary of his death in 1994.

Source: Fox World News

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North Korea stages rally to celebrate young leader's rocket launch

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A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home, the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He denied the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

In response, the tens of thousands of North Koreans who packed snowy Kim Il Sung Square clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un‘s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea‘s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.

To his people, the launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea‘s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim’s suit in defiantly shrugging off the international condemnation of the launch.

Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd Friday that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim, and rallied North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Un‘s late father, Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, making the successful launch a fitting mourning tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”

But it is the son who will bask in the glory of the accomplishment, as well as face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation in our near future.”

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions against a country with what the United Nations calls a serious hunger problem.

“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as inheritor of his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea‘s political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse as U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, a rocket launch was followed up just weeks later by an atomic explosion.

North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S. , China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang, Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.

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South Korea says North Korea rocket appears to be orbiting Earth, as North releases photos of its feat

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South Korea said Thursday a rocket successfully launched into orbit by North Korea appears to be orbiting the Earth normally, but the country says it does not know whether the rocket is functioning properly.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters that the satellite is orbiting at a speed of 4.7 miles per second but it’s not known what mission it is performing. He says it takes two weeks to determine whether a satellite works successfully after liftoff.

The news comes after a defiant North Korea released images and control room footage of the feat, which the U.S. and other nations have labeled a “provocative” act.

The rogue regime fired the long-range rocket into space Wednesday, defying international warnings and taking a major step forward in its quest to develop a nuclear missile. While the stated purpose was to put a weather satellite into orbit, the three-stage rocket’s deployment also demonstrates the nation’s ability to send a nuclear warhead as far as California, and raises the stakes in the international standoff over North Korea‘s expanding atomic arsenal.

“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news reader announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says.”

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) later confirmed that the nation had “deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit.”

Video and photos released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency showed the launch from snowy terrain and its fiery flight skyward, mission control workers in a monitoring room, jubilant government workers and citizens and stern-looking government officials huddled around a conference table. The photos appear to have been intended as a follow-up to the launch itself – a defiant thumb in the eye of the world.

North Korea is banned from developing nuclear and missile-related technology under U.N. resolutions. But its defiance continues under Kim Jong-un, who rose to power a year ago after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il.

The White House called the launch a “highly provocative act that threatens regional security,” and even the North’s most important ally, China, expressed regret. The U.N. Security Council on Wednesday condemned North Korea‘s successful rocket launch, saying it violated a 2009 council resolution banning “any launch using ballistic missile technology.” The U.N.’s most powerful body said in a brief statement after closed consultations that it will consider “an appropriate response.”

In Pyongyang, however, pride over the scientific advancement outweighed the fear of greater international isolation and punishment. North Korea, though struggling to feed its people, is now one of the few countries to have successfully launched a working satellite into space from its own soil; bitter rival South Korea is not on the list, though it has tried.

“It’s really good news,” North Korean citizen Jon Il Gwang told The Associated Press as he and scores of other Pyongyang residents poured into the streets after a noon announcement to celebrate the launch by dancing in the snow. “It clearly testifies that our country has the capability to enter into space.”

Wednesday’s launch was North Korea‘s fourth bid since 1998. An April launch failed in the first of three stages, raising doubts among outside observers whether North Korea could fix what was wrong in just eight months, but those doubts were erased Wednesday.

The Unha rocket, named after the Korean word for “galaxy,” blasted off from the Sohae launch pad in Tongchang-ri, northwest of Pyongyang, shortly before 10 a.m., just three days after North Korea indicated that technical problems might delay the launch.

A South Korean destroyer patrolling the waters west of the Korean Peninsula immediately detected the launch. Japanese officials said the first rocket stage fell into the Yellow Sea and a second stage fell into the Philippine Sea hundreds of miles farther south.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command confirmed that “initial indications are that the missile deployed an object that appeared to achieve orbit.”

In an indication that North Korea‘s leadership was worried about the success of the launch, the plan was kept quiet inside North Korea until a special noon broadcast on state TV declared the launch a success. Pyongyang was much more open during its last attempt in April, and even took the unusual step of inviting scores of foreign journalists for the occasion, but that rocket splintered shortly after takeoff.

At one hotel bar Wednesday, North Koreans watched raptly, cheering and applauding at the close of the brief broadcast. As vans mounted with loudspeakers drove around the capital announcing the news, North Koreans bundled up in parkas ran outside to celebrate.

Pyongyang did not immediately release images of the launch, but hours later Associated Press reporters at the Pyongyang satellite command center viewed a playback showing the rocket blasting off against a snowy backdrop in the northwest. The white rocket was emblazoned with the name “Unha-3” and the North Korean flag.

Director Kim Hye Jin said the satellite was broadcasting “Song of Gen. Kim Il Sung” and “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il” in space. He reiterated North Korea‘s intention to keep launching satellites in the future.

Space officials say the rocket is meant to send a satellite into orbit to study crops and weather patterns.

But the launch could leave Pyongyang even more isolated and cut off from much-needed aid and trade.

The U.N. imposed two rounds of sanctions following nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and ordered the North not to conduct any launches using ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang maintains its right to develop a civilian space program, saying the satellite will send back crucial scientific data.

The White House condemned what National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor called “yet another example of North Korea‘s pattern of irresponsible behavior.”

“The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and fully committed to the security of our allies in the region,” Vietor said in a statement. “Given this current threat to regional security, the United States will strengthen and increase our close coordination with allies and partners.”

Vietor said the international community must “send a clear message that its violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions have consequences.”

China expressed its unhappiness but called for a moderate response from the United Nations.

“We express regret at (North Korea‘s) launch in spite of the extensive concerns of the international community,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters. He added that China “believes U.N. Security Council reaction should be prudent and moderate and conducive to maintaining stability and avoiding escalation of the situation.”

Hong said dialogue and negotiations are the way forward.

North Korea‘s Foreign Ministry accused the U.S. of overreacting to the launch “out of hostile feelings.”

“We hope that all countries concerned will use reason and remain cool so as to prevent the situation from developing to undesirable direction,” the official Korean Central News Agency quoted a ministry spokesman as saying. The spokesman said the country will “continue to exercise our legitimate right to launch satellites.”

But North Korea also defends its need to build nuclear weapons, citing the U.S. military threat in the region, and rocket tests are seen as crucial to advancing its technology.

Pyongyang is thought to have a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs. It followed up a failed 2009 launch with a nuclear test, and announced it would begin enriching uranium, which would provide a second source of atomic material.

Experts believe the North lacks the ability to make a warhead small enough to mount on a missile that could threaten the United States, but Wednesday’s launch marks a milestone in its decades-long effort to perfect a multistage, long-range rocket capable of carrying such a device.

This launch will help the North Koreans map out what kind of delivery vehicle they would need for a nuclear warhead, said retired Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton, a weapons expert and intelligence analyst.

There are concerns as well that Pyongyang may sell its technology to other nations such as Iran, which has rockets bearing a striking similarity to those made by North Korea, according to the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.

A senior Iranian military commander, Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazzayeri, congratulated North Korea on the successful launch on Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.

Chae Yeon-seok, a rocket expert at South Korea‘s state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said North Korea is now likely to focus on developing bigger rockets with heavier payloads. “Its ultimate aim will be putting a nuclear warhead on the tip.”

For North Koreans, Wednesday’s launch caps a heady year of milestones: the centenary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the nation’s founder, and the inaugural year of leadership under his grandson, Kim Jong Un. And on Dec. 17, North Korea will mark the anniversary of the death of leader Kim Jong Il.

“How happy would our General (Kim Jong Il) have been,” Pyongyang resident Rim Un Hui said. “I’m confident that our country will be stronger and more prosperous under the leadership of Kim Jong Un.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: Fox World News

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North Korea considers delaying rocket launch

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North Korea may postpone the controversial launch of a long-range rocket that had been slated for liftoff as early as Monday, North Korean state media said Sunday.

Scientists have pushed forward with preparations for the launch from a west coast site but are considering “readjusting” the timing, a spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology told North Korea‘s state-run Korean Central News Agency.

It was unclear whether diplomatic intervention or technical glitches were behind the possible delay. The brief statement cited “some reasons” but provided no further details.

North Korea announced earlier this month that it would launch a three-stage rocket mounted with a satellite from its Sohae station southeast of Sinuiju sometime between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. Pyongyang calls it a peaceful bid to send an observational satellite into space, its second attempt this year.

The United States, Japan, South Korea and others have urged North Korea to refrain from carrying out the launch, calling it a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions on nuclear activity because the rocket shares the same technology used for firing a long-range missile. China noted its “concern” and called for calm while citing North Korea‘s right to develop its space program.

Past launches have earned North Korea international condemnation and a host of sanctions.

Commercial satellite imagery taken by GeoEye on Dec. 4 and shared Friday with The Associated Press by the 38 North and North Korea Tech websites showed the Sohae site covered with snow. The road from the main assembly building to the launch pad showed no fresh tracks, indicating that the snowfall may have stalled the preparations.

However, analysts believed rocket preparations would have been completed on time for liftoff as early as Monday.

The unexpected launch announcement was issued Dec. 1 as North Koreans began mourning late leader Kim Jong Il, who died on Dec. 17, 2011.

An April launch from the same new launch pad was held on April 13, two days before the centennial of the birth of his father, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. That rocket broke up just seconds after liftoff.

The U.S. and other nations see the launches as covers for illicit tests of missile technology. North Korea has unveiled missiles designed to target U.S. soil, and has tested two atomic bombs in recent years, but has not shown yet that it has mastered the technology for mounting a nuclear warhead to a long-range missile.

Six-nation negotiations to offer North Korea much-needed aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament have been stalled since 2009.
Source: Fox World News