North Korea launches rocket: Fears country is testing missile to strike US

South Korea retrieved a piece of debris believed to be a part of the missile Sunday morning, a Defense Ministry official told CNN.

The UN Security Council is to hold an emergency meeting later following North Korea’s launch of a long-range rocket.

Its pre-orbital flight arc was planned to traverse the Yellow Sea and further south to the Philippine Sea, with both South Korea and Japan threatening to shoot it down if it encroached on their territory.

The U.N. Security Council is meeting Sunday to discuss the North Korean rocket launch at the request of the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye called the launch a “challenge to world peace”.

But the launch breached multiple United Nations resolutions aimed at preventing North Korea from acquiring a missile capable of carrying out a long-range strike, in addition to its suspected quest to build a nuclear arsenal. There was no reported damage in South Korea.

“Everything we have seen is consistent with a successful repeat of the 2012 (launch)”, said USA missile technology expert John Schilling, referring to a previous launch of what the North said was a communications satellite.

The Japanese government announced it had lodged a “serious protest” at the action via its embassy. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to “take action to totally protect the safety and well-being of our people”.

At present, North Korea is believed to have one satellite in orbit, the Kwangmyongsong 3-2, though doubts have been raised about whether it is functioning. “The state agency on space exploration, following the policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea on giving priority to science and technology, will continue to launch more man-made satellites”, the embassy said in a statement, according to Interfax.

That would put Australia, much of Western Europe, and the U.S. West Coast in range of a North Korean warhead. Isolated North Korea had initially given a Feb 8-25 time frame for the launch but on Saturday changed that to Feb 7-14, apparently taking advantage of clear weather on Sunday.

“There will eventually be a sanctions resolution”, the diplomat said.

In response to threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs, Seoul and Washington agreed to begin negotiations for the deployment of an advanced USA missile defense system for US military in South Korea.

They were also reportedly told that North Korea has the technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles and is preparing a fifth nuclear test, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

“The U.S. and China are at loggerheads over how stringent any potential new sanctions on North Korea should be”.