North Korea launches rocket

[Lovelee]

Isolated and impoverished North Korea has launched its second long-range rocket of 2012 in what it said was a bid to put a satellite into space.

The North launched the rocket close to the first anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong-il and as elections loom in South Korea and Japan.

The launch, reported by South Korean media, was confirmed by South Korea's Defence Ministry.

Pyongyang says it is entitled to launch a satellite into space but critics say the rocket development is aimed at nurturing the kind of technology needed to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.

North Korea is banned from conducting missile and nuclear-related tests under UN sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

The latest launch comes after a failed attempt in April that fizzled less than two minutes after blast-off.

Japan and South Korea put their armed forces on alert prior to the launch. The rocket is scheduled to pass between the Korean peninsula and China, with a second stage splashing down off the Philippines before launching the satellite into orbit.

Most political analysts believe the launch is designed to bolster the credentials of new leader Kim Jong-un as he cements his rule over the country of 22 million people.

A government official in Seoul said recently that the transition of power to Kim Jong-un did not appear to be going as smoothly as anticipated and there were signs that the regime was concerned over the possibility of rising dissent.

Kim is the third of his line to rule North Korea, whose national output is around one-fortieth of that of prosperous South Korea.

Plans for the launch has drawn criticism from South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States as well as NATO and the United Nations.

The North's only major diplomatic ally, China, has expressed "deep concern" over the launch but is thought unlikely to back any further sanctions against its ally.

- Reuters

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8070435/North-Korea-launches-rocket

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

I wonder if the satellite is going “beep....beep....beep” over our heads like a Russian Soviet satellite was in 1957? 

[akadaka]

i can feel a song coming on

[reality]

I am happy in the knowledge that North Korea will never be in the position to be able to launch nuclear weapons at other countries...we have powerful friends

[Lovelee]

 United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has strongly condemned North Korea’s missile launch and expressed concern that it could negatively impact prospects for peace and security in the region.

The rocket, the second to be sent up this year, was launched just before 10am Korean time (2pm NZT) and overflew the Japanese island of Okinawa. An April rocket launch was aborted after less than two minutes flight.

North Korea launched the rocket close to the first anniversary of the death of former leader Kim Jong-il and as elections loom in South Korea and Japan.

‘‘The Secretary-General deplores the rocket launch announced by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea),’’ Ban’s spokesman Martin Nesirky said in a statement.

‘‘It is a clear violation of Security Council resolution 1874, in which the Council demanded that the DPRK not conduct any launch using ballistic missile technology,’’ the statement said.

Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said the three-stage Unha-3 rocket delivered a satellite into orbit and constituted "a perfect success for North Korea."

He said that based on his own calculations, an object identified by US space command as "39026, 2012-072A" was from the North Korean satellite.

Both South Korea and Japan called meetings of their top security councils after the launch. Japanese television station NHK said the second stage of the rocket had crashed into seas off the Philippines as planned.

Japan has confirmed that rocket debris fell in seas off Japan, Philippines  and Korean Peninsula.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that it had tracked North Korea’s rocket launch along a southern trajectory from the North Korean peninsula, the Interfax-AVN military news agency reported.

‘‘Early warning missile systems monitored the North Korean rocket. Its flight took a southern course from the North Korean peninsula. It posed no threat to Russia,’’ Interfax-AVN quoted an unnamed Defence Ministry source as saying.

Pyongyang says it is entitled to launch a satellite into space but critics say the rocket development is aimed at nurturing the kind of technology needed to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range missile.

North Korea is banned from conducting missile and nuclear-related tests under UN sanctions imposed after its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

Most political analysts believe the launch was designed to bolster the credentials of new leader Kim Jong-un as he cements his rule over the country of 22 million people.

A government official in Seoul said recently that the transition of power to Kim Jong-un did not appear to be going as smoothly as anticipated and there were signs that the regime was concerned over the possibility of rising dissent.

Kim is the third of his line to rule North Korea, whose national output is around one-fortieth of that of prosperous South Korea.
Ad Feedback Advertisement

Plans for the launch had drawn criticism from South Korea, Russia, Japan and the United States as well as NATO and the United Nations.

North Korea's only major diplomatic ally, China, has expressed "deep concern" over the launch but is thought unlikely to back any further sanctions against its ally.

- Reuters

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/8070435/North-Korea-rocket-UN-deplores-launch

[reality]

Yes..good to see that even China, North Koreas closest friend..has expressed ..."deep concern"

[Lovelee]

The object that North Korea sent into space early Thursday appears to be “tumbling out of control” as it orbits the earth, U.S. officials told NBC News.


The officials said that it is indeed some kind of space vehicle but they still haven’t been able to determine exactly what the satellite is supposed to do.
In a statement, the White House said the rocket launch was a highly provocative act that threatens regional security and violates U.N. resolutions.
The United Nations Security Council on Thursday condemned the launch, calling it a "clear violation" of U.N. resolutions. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he "deplores" the launch.
North Korea is banned from conducting missile and nuclear tests, under the terms of U.N. sanctions imposed after a series of nuclear weapons tests in 2006 and 2009.
Missile warning systems detected the launch at 7:49 p.m. ET Wednesday. North American Aerospace Defense Command officials said in a statement that the initial indications were that the first stage fell into the Yellow Sea and the second stage fell into the Philippine Sea. Japan's NHK television network said the rocket's second stage fell minutes after passing near the southern islands of Japan.
North Korea said Wednesday's launch was an attempt to place a satellite into a pole-to-pole orbit. Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said that the rocket was fired from the Sohae Satellite Launch Center on the secretive country's west coast, and that the Kwangmyongsong weather satellite went into orbit as planned.

KCNA via Reuters
North Korean scientists work as a screen shows the Unha-3 (Milky Way 3) rocket being launched at the satellite control center in Cholsan county, North Pyongan province.

But U.S. officials say the launch was a thinly veiled attempt to test a three-stage ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead as far as the West Coast.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/12/15866530-north-korean-satellite-tumbling-out-of-control-us-officials-say

[Lovelee]

North Korea now has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States, as demonstrated by their successful launch and orbiting of a satellite on Dec. 12. Certain poorly informed pundits among the chattering classes reassure us that North Korea is still years away from being able to miniaturize warheads for missile delivery, and from developing sufficiently accurate missiles to pose a serious nuclear threat to the United States. Philip Yun, director of San Francisco’s Ploughshares Fund, a nuclear disarmament group, reportedly said, “The real threat from the launch was an overreaction that would lead to more defense spending on unnecessary systems. The sky is not falling. We shouldn’t be panicked.”
In fact, North Korea is a mortal nuclear threat to the United States— right now.
North Korea has already successfully tested and developed nuclear weapons. It has also already miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery and has armed missiles with nuclear warheads. In 2011, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. General Ronald Burgess, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for ballistic missiles.
North Korea has labored for years and starved its people so it could develop an intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States. Why? Because they have a special kind of nuclear weapon that could destroy the United States with a single blow.
In summer 2004, a delegation of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon — a Super-EMP warhead.
Any nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and could collapse the electric power grid and other critical infrastructures — communications, transportation, banking and finance, food and water — that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300 million Americans. All could be destroyed by a single nuclear weapon making an EMP attack.
A Super-EMP attack on the United States would cause much more and much deeper damage than a primitive nuclear weapon, and so would increase confidence that the catastrophic consequences will be irreversible. Such an attack would inflict maximum damage and be optimum for realizing a world without America.
Both North Korean nuclear tests look suspiciously like a Super-EMP weapon. A Super-EMP warhead would have a low yield, like the North Korean device, because it is not designed to create a big explosion, but to convert its energy into gamma rays, that generate the EMP effect. Reportedly South Korean military intelligence concluded, independent of the EMP Commission, that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop a Super-EMP warhead. In 2012, a military commentator for the People’s Republic of China stated that North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear warheads.
A Super-EMP warhead would not weigh much, and could probably be delivered by North Korea’s ICBM. The missile does not have to be accurate, as the EMP field is so large that detonating anywhere over the United States would have catastrophic consequences. The warhead does not even need a re-entry vehicle, as an EMP attack entails detonating the warhead at high-altitude, above the atmosphere.
So, as of Dec. 12, North Korea’s successful orbit of a satellite demonstrates its ability to make an EMP attack against the United States — right now.
The Congressional EMP Commission estimates that, given the nation’s current unpreparedness, within one year of an EMP attack, two-thirds of the U.S. population — 200 million Americans — would probably perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse.
Thus, North Korea now has an Assured Destruction capability against the United States. The consequences of this development are so extremely grave that U.S. and global security have, in effect, gone over the “strategic cliff” into free-fall. Where we will land, into what kind of future, is as yet unknown.
Nevertheless, some very bad developments are foreseeable. Iran will certainly be inspired by North Korea’s example to persist in the development of its own nuclear weapon and ICBM programs to pose a mortal threat to the United States. Indeed, North Korea and Iran have been collaborating all along.
If North Korea and Iran both acquire the capability to threaten America with EMP genocide, this will destroy the foundations of the existing world order, which has since 1945 halted the cycle of world wars and sustained the global advancement of freedom. North Korea and Iran being armed with Assured Destruction capability changes the whole strategic calculus of risk for the United States in upholding its superpower role, and will erode the confidence of U.S. allies — perhaps to the point where they will need to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Most alarming, we are fast moving to a place where, for the first time in history, failed little states like North Korea and Iran, that cannot even feed their own people, will have power in their hands to blackmail or destroy the largest and most successful societies on Earth. North Korea and Iran perceive themselves to be at war with the United States, and are desperate, highly unpredictable characters. When the mob is at the gates of their dictators, will they want to take America with them down into darkness?


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/19/north-korea-emp-attack-could-destroy-us-now/#ixzz2FezcK52X

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

[reality]

US, China oppose North Korea nuke test

4:21 PM Saturday Jan 26, 2013 


Washington and Beijing have agreed that a nuclear test by North Korea would lead to its further isolation and set back efforts to restart regional talks on its nuclear disarmament, a US envoy said.

After talks in Beijing with senior Chinese officials, US envoy for North Korea Glyn Davies said both sides are opposed to any nuclear test by North Korea and said ridding it of nuclear weapons remains a condition for bringing stability to the region.

"We reached strong consensus that a nuclear test will be troubling and will set back efforts to de-nuclearise the Korean Peninsula. De-nuclearisation is a necessary precondition to peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula," Davies told reporters.

He said North Korea can choose to test and further isolate itself or return to disarmament talks that involve South Korea, Japan and Russia as well as the US and China.

"We judge North Korea by its actions, not its words," he said.

Davies' Beijing talks come amid visits to South Korea and Japan to discuss what to do about North Korea. His tour also comes as tensions are rising and China is showing signs it wants to rein in its North Korean ally. Beijing fell into rare agreement with Washington this past week, allowing the UN to tighten sanctions against North Korea as punishment for a rocket launch last month.

In response, the North Korean defence Commission, which commands the military, said it is prepared to conduct a nuclear test and made clear its missiles are capable of reaching the United States.


Another nuclear test by North Korea would pose a challenge to newly installed Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, unsteadying South Korea, Japan and the United States. Relations between the three and Beijing are strained, and their trade and investment help to keep the buoyant Chinese economy growing.

Asked about Davies' visit, China's Foreign Ministry said that given the current tensions, all sides need to keep calm. "The current situation of the peninsula is complicated and sensitive. We hope the relevant sides can stay calm, strengthen dialogue, avoid any acts that will escalate tension and jointly maintain peace and stability of the peninsula," ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a routine daily media briefing.

China provides most of North Korea's fuel and a good deal of its food and accounts for an increasing share of its trade and investment. But in more than a decade of recurring missile launches, two nuclear tests and other provocations by North Korea, China has been reluctant to use its economic leverage, fearing it could destabilize its neighbor.

-AP

..thanks America

[Kiwithrottlejockey]

Hmmmmmmm....I wonder how many nuke tests have been carried out by China and the USA over the years?

[reality]

.. ...alot I hope....

what ...do you wish no one to have nukes...oh shit yeah...you want wars....there would be plenty...and as luck would have it..you would be one of the first called up to go and fight in the trenches...living on the edge

...so what do you think the action should be regarding North Korea??....nothing...yeah great ..they could try out a long range nuclear missile on a low value target ...that no one cares about...along way from anywhere

[Lovelee]

I reckon we NEED a war ... its not about wanting one.

We waste more food than we grow, almost.  The other 5 billion people all want fridges and microwaves, the world cannot afford the materials if we carry on with the number we are looking at in 20 yrs.

We NEED a war.  It is believed that if you have a job, roof over your head, fridge, microwave, car and food in that fridge, you are better off than 75% of the rest of the world.

We NEED a war!!

[reality]

ok i'm in..i'll follow right behind ya

[Lovelee]

ok i'm in..i'll follow right behind ya

c'mon then 'urry up!

[reality]

who we gonna smash...and whats out excuse/reason for smashing them??

[Lovelee]

anyone who looks funny and just cos

[reality]

...mm..ok...a country we can be sure of beating ...ok now its getting hard

[AnFaolchudubh]

ok i'm in..i'll follow right behind ya

Pfft! you couldn't fight your way outta a wet environmentally friendly paper bag!

[reality]

Jeeez...look what the cats dragged in

[AnFaolchudubh]

Jeeez...look what the cats dragged in
[/quote)

But look at who it spat out in Australia

[reality]

Long time ..no post....reeeeaallly happy to see you back

[AnFaolchudubh]

Long time ..no post....reeeeaallly happy to see you back

I've been busy some of us work hard for a living not like some who live off the hard work of others like some businessmen and dole bludgers

[reality]

Faol...."I've been busy some of us work hard for a living not like some who live off the hard work of others like some businessmen and dole bludgers"

..yes...I agree...some businessmen and dole bludgers should be outlawed 

[Lovelee]

...mm..ok...a country we can be sure of beating ...ok now its getting hard

Ohh thats not even difficult ... has to be a high population country, India will do!