North Korea satellite ‘tumbling in orbit’

Russia’s United Nations ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, whose country is also a North Korean ally, said: “It has to be a weighty resolution, but it also has to be a reasonable resolution” that doesn’t lead to North Korea’s economic or humanitarian collapse, or further heighten tensions.

China expressed regret and concern over Sunday’s rocket launch, which employed ballistic missile technology.

The rationale was a clear necessity to upgrade the defence posture of the South Korea-US military alliance “against North Korea’s advancing threats”, said Yoo Jeh-Seung, Seoul’s deputy defence minister for policy.

“As to whether or not it achieved North Korea’s goals, you can ask the North Koreans, but there’s nothing about this test that surprises us, and so in that sense, again, it’s consistent with what we’ve seen previously from the North Koreans”, he said.

Sanctions already in place against Pyongyang ban it from working with nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, blacklist certain figures and organizations and prohibit the import of luxury goods.

The official said Washington and Beijing remained in close touch on how to respond to North Korea.

“This (rocket launch) is a serious provocation that poses tremendous threat to the peace and safety of Japan and the region, as well as the global society”, it said.

Isolated North Korea’s last long-range rocket launch, in 2012, put what it called a communications satellite into orbit, but no signal has ever been detected from it.

Since its January 6 nuclear test, which the North claimed was a powerful hydrogen bomb, despite outside skepticism, China and the United States have been negotiating the text of a new Security Council sanctions resolution.

The UN Security Council condemned the launch in an emergency meeting on Sunday, and vowed to take “significant measures” in response to Pyongyang’s violations of UN resolutions, Venezuela’s UN ambassador said.

“There are some things that haven’t yet been touched upon, like North Korean labor exported overseas, which brings in a lot of foreign currency for the North Korean government”, she said.

South Korea has released the first images of debris believed to be from a long-range rocket fired by North Korea on Sunday. “Japan does not tolerate this, and strongly protests against North Korea and condemn its actions”.

He then reaffirmed that the USA remains firmly committed to the defense of South Korea.

Seoul, which hosts 28,500 USA forces, has been reluctant to initiate talks on the system that could hurt its improving relations with Beijing.

Experts say the sanctions are expected to largely restore those Japan lifted in 2014 when North Korea pledged to reinvestigate the fate of the Japanese abductees.

Marcus Noland, an expert on North Korea at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that measure could implicate state-owned Chinese companies which trade with North Korea. It has so far proven effective against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.

Chinese companies helped supply the equipment for the world-class Masikryong Ski Resort in North Korea, which opened in 2013, according to The New York Times.