Foiled Again!.... Wow... what protection we have! Korean Rocket Fails!

 

Thursday, April 12, 2012

North Korea launches long-range rocket

Japan says North Korean rocket fell into ocean 1 minute after flight.

   

 

PYONGYANG, North Korea, April 12 (UPI) -- North Korea fired its much-anticipated long-range rocket over international objections Friday only to have it fail to reach space, officials said.

 

South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported it appeared the 7:30 a.m. rocket launch had ended in failure.

 

The Los Angeles Times reported U.S. officials said the rocket broke apart shortly after launch. The officials said its trajectory was southward on a course 150 miles east of Shanghai. They said the second stage was expected to splash down east of the Philippines.

 

CNN reported a U.S. official, using data collected by the United States, concluded no part of the rocket reached space.

 

"This was supposed to be associated with [Kim Jong Un's] ascension to power. So for this thing to fail ... is incredibly embarrassing," Victor Cha, former director of Asian affairs for the U.S. National Security Council who is now a Georgetown University professor, told CNN.

 

The launch of the Unha-3 rocket came on the second day of a five-day window of opportunity. The North said the rocket's only mission was carry a satellite into space, but the South, the United States and others worried it was a cover to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

 

Many analysts had thought the launch would be Saturday, the eve of the centennial birth celebrations of the North's late founder Kim Il Sung, grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un, Yonhap said.

 

Several Western countries said they think the launch was really a test of North Korea's ballistic missile technology, which would violate several U.N. resolutions.

 

The United States was preparing a response to the launch, which includes suspension of a food aid agreement announced six weeks ago, a senior official told The New York Times. The United States also plans to bring together international condemnation of the launch.

 

The United States won't seek more U.N. Security Council sanctions because North Korea already is heavily sanctioned and the United States must preserve its political standing with China and Russia to secure their backing for any future U.N. measures against Syria and Iran, the official told the Times. More likely, the source said, would be a statement from the U.N. Security Council president.

 

Administration officials said they were concerned the launch could be the first in a series of provocations that may include testing of a nuclear bomb possibly fueled by highly enriched uranium.

 

"North Korea should stop engaging in these types of provocative and destabilizing actions," Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told the Times. "We'd like to see nations that have close relations with North Korea consider what else they could do to send a clear signal to this new leadership that it's time for them to move in a different direction."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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