North Korea launches a long-range rocket into space

The UN has said it will speed up work on a sanctions resolution in response to what it called “these risky and serious violations”.

“As a Korean it is sad and most pathetic to watch the staged celebrations on the streets of Pyongyang as I know that the cost of this launch alone, estimated to be close to one billion USA dollars, would have fed the entire North Korean population for a whole year”, he said. No damage from debris was reported. Shortly after its long-range missile launch, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting, in which they “strongly” and unanimously condemned its act and restated their intent to develop significant new sanctions against North Korea. It vowed more such launches.

Seoul said it will begin talks with the U.S. on a new missile-defence system.

Because this latest provocation occurred while the UN and individual nations were in the midst of conferring over sanctions on North Korea for the nuclear test, the missile launch also indicates the regime’s unwillingness to yield to the worldwide community. U.S. National Security advisor Susan Rice accused DPRK of flagrantly violating several U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The Seoul envoy said it was clear the denuclearization dialogue with Pyongyang has only given it time to advance its nuke capabilities and “the current level of sanctions can not put a brake on North Korea’s nuclear weapons development”.

“So-called space launch vehicles are the same technology as ballistic missiles, which are expressly prohibited by multiple Security Council resolutions”.

President Park Geun-hye discussed North Korea’s latest nuclear test and missile launch with U.S. President Barack Obama and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the phone on Tuesday.

The nuclear tests are also powerful messages for domestic consumption, proof of how North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, like his father and grandfather before him, had developed the country’s military technology to withstand the ever-looming threats of South Korea and the United States.

South Korea and the United States said they would explore whether to deploy an advanced missile defense system in South Korea “at the earliest possible date”.

The Foreign Ministry in China expressed “regret that, disregarding the opposition from the worldwide community, the (North) side obstinately insisted in carrying out a launch by using ballistic missile technologies”.

Every new defiance by North Korea’s government forces its neighbours to take a stance and give a response.

“Juche is a North Korean philosophy focusing on self-reliance; the Day of the Shining Star refers to the February 16 birthday of Kim Jong Un’s father, former dictator Kim Jong Il”. North Korea has previously staged rocket launches to mark important anniversaries.

David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said that while THAAD could not shoot down the type of rocket launched on Sunday its deployment could reassure the South Korean public. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency later backed away, without elaborating, from a report that said the rocket might have failed.