UN experts: North Korea continues to evade UN sanctions

North Korea has been under United Nations sanctions since 2006 because of its multiple nuclear tests and missile launches.

The rocket was based on engines taken from its massive stockpile of mid-range missiles based on Soviet-era technology and electrical parts too rudimentary to be targeted by a global missile control regime, the experts said.

Japan’s government is eyeing three options for imposing new sanctions on North Korea for its recent rocket launch: under a United Nations Security Council Resolution, in coalition with other nations, or on its own. Clapper said that “North Korea has been operating the reactor long enough so that it could begin to recover plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel in a matter of weeks to months”.

North Korea said in September that Yongbyon was operating and that it was working to improve the “quality and quantity” of weapons which it could use against the USA at “any time”. The first one spun off into space in 2012. The panel also recommended adding drones and related technology to the list of items banned from trade with North Korea. Chinese U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi appears to have reiterated this position at a Security Council emergency meeting on Sunday, the day the North launched what it claimed was a satellite-bearing rocket.

A South Korean defence ministry official said on condition of anonymity that the latest rocket was similar to the Unha-3 launched in December 2012 but was believed to have an enhanced range of some 12,000 kilometres (7,500 miles).

A North Korean patrol ship on Monday entered South Korean waters leading to increased tension, an official here said.

A Dandong taxi driver with the surname Sun said the North’s provocations were causing the two countries to become increasingly distant, and that Pyongyang’s actions were diminishing hopes of residents who had anticipated Dandong could become a “second Shenzhen”, a hub of economic growth that could develop should North Korea choose a path of reform.

South Korea’s navy has been put on high alert and has stepped up surveillance near the NLL, the spokesperson said.

Timed both to coincide with lunar new year celebrations and the Super Bowl in the United States, the Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 satellite flew over the San Francisco Bay area just an hour after the end of Super Bowl 50. The Kwangmyŏngsŏng-4 satellite, an “earth observation satellite” ostensibly for monitoring agricultural output, apparently reached orbit.