North Korea’s mobile missile launcher seen moving: Japan’s NHK

In diplomatic terms, it was yet another sign of…

Pyongyang has announced it will launch a satellite-bearing rocket sometime between February 8-25, which is around the time of the birthday on February 16 of late leader Kim Jong-Il, father of current leader Kim Jong-Un.

North Korea’s plan to launch a satellite will give the outside world one useful outcome: a fresh opportunity to assess the secretive state’s potential missile threat. “With China’s hands also tied, it’s going to find itself in a situation where it’s strongly recommended that the USA pursue a peace agreement with North Korea”, he added.

( _Korean) “The North’s public announcement of its launch shows a resolute drive, behind which there’s the decision of its leader Kim Jong-un himself”.

The spokesman said South Korea will intercept any North Korean missile and debris if it falls in South Korea’s land, sea or air territory.

However, the website said it was impossible to tell from the satellite imagery whether a space launch vehicle was present.

The UN Security Council is working on a new sanctions draft resolution to punish North Korea after it carried out a nuclear test on January 6, but a US-drafted text has run into resistance from Beijing.

“The only way to stop North Korea’s misjudgment is to make North Korea realize that it can not survive unless it abandons its nuclear program”, Park insisted. “It will try to allow certain sanctions to pass in certain circumstances, but China continues to be North Korea’s protector on the UN Security Council and really tough sanctions against North Korea have never been able to pass because of the Chinese Security Council veto”.

South Korea and Japan on Wednesday echoed United States warnings that a harsh price would be exacted from North Korea if it went ahead with a planned rocket launch just weeks after conducting its fourth nuclear test.

South Korea told commercial airliners to avoid flying in areas of the rocket’s possible flight path during the period.

“In view of the announcement, I have put the Self-Defense Force’s Aegis destroyers and our PAC-3 units on alert and issued an order to shoot down any ballistic missile threat”, Japan’s defence minister, Gen Nakatani, said.

According to the coordinates the North provided to global agencies, its multi-stage rocket, if it is fired from the northwestern Dongchang-ri launch site, will initially fly over the West Sea, drop the first stage there, and pass over the East China Sea before shedding the second stage in the Philippine Sea.

North Korea has spent decades trying to develop operational nuclear weapons along with missiles capable of striking the mainland United States.

Some analysts now claim that the renovations on North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station indicate preparations for a rocket more powerful than any that the country has tested so far.