North Korea (DPRK)- News and Discussions

rock45

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NK moves MiG-23 squadron -- between 12 to 24 planes

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Yonhap news agency, quoting a government source, said the North has moved a MiG-23 squadron -- between 12 to 24 planes -- to the northeast, where the Musudan-ri launch site is located.
N.Korea vows to attack Japan if rocket intercepted
http://news.sg.msn.com/topstories/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3015816

I'm sure Japan's F-15s pilots are afraid of these Mig-23s, nothing a few F-4E couldn't handle. The North Korean pilots are saying and praying please use cruise missiles.
 
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the fear is not if Japan will win or lose but the outcome of what happens when a rational country fights an irrational nuclear armed rival.
 

VayuSena1

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According to Wikipedia Article 9 of Japan's pacifist constitution talks about renunciation of war, and even it closed the option of maintaining land, sea and air force and as I am quoting from the Wikipedia as it states :"Renunciation of war: Under Article 9 of the constitution the "Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes". To this end the article provides that "land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained"." (Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Japan).

Now intercepting North Korean Missile/Rocket which ever thing it may be, shooting down it , I think can be regarded by N. Korea as an Act of War, however on the other hand any unmanned flying object which passes through the Areal border of a sovereign country without the prior permission then the country has the rights to shoot it down , if the Rocket or Missile gets out of the flight path and neither can be self destructed and fells in a civilian area, killing and wounding civilians of that country (Japan) who will be responsible , N.Korea, will they take their responsibility.

Since, I fear a hostility can be born through the test firing of this Rocket / Missile over Japan, and I agree with LF , and also think that N.Korea does not care whether the USA is behind Japan, since in 1950, they did not care.
This is the worst thing I would expect from a country that gave birth to the brave and fearless samurai warriors. A nation that has a history of turning the odds in their favor through clean and honorable fighting suddenly turn into a pacifist state is something that is disgusting and shameful. I appreciate their economic development however this is something at the cost of self-defence; a birthright of any human being. Attacking someone without reason is irrational and crime; not defending oneself from an unslaught is something completely foolish and illogical (Does Gandhian principle of Ahimsa have any relevance here?)

In my perspective, I don't think that North Korea will dare to attack Japanese because this would mean incurring US wrath. The communist North Koreans are well known for their sabre-rattling and warmongering at every step taken, towards their peaceful neighbors both South Korea and Japan. According to what I am aware of about North Korean government's foreign policy, they have been neutral to both People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War's famous Sino-Soviet split and in the process, have obtained equal economic and military help from both of them. This neutrality therefore will make the Chinese government think twice about weighing the benefits of militarily defending their North Korean comrades, or risk incurring American forces' fury upon their own lands for the sake of some other country.
 

rock45

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I don't think North Korea going to start chucking nukes at Japan. I say just take out the missile right now it would be a good thing for Iran to notice.
 

Pintu

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According to BBC the NKorea says that they will launch the rocket soon.

The link and the report of BBC follows herewith:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7982835.stm



N Korea 'ready for rocket launch'
Satellite image of the North Korean launch pad at the Musudan-ri base in Hwadae (11/03/2009)
The launch pad on the north-east coast has been picked up on satellite images

Preparations in North Korea for a satellite launch are complete and lift-off will take place "soon", state media has reported.

A rocket was ready to lift an experimental communications satellite from a base on the country's east coast, state news agency KCNA said.

Pyongyang's neighbours suspect the launch is a cover for a missile test and have urged it not to go ahead.

Correspondents say it remains unclear when exactly the launch will be.

North Korea has told international organisations it will carry out the launch between 4 and 8 April, during the hours of 1100 to 1600 (0200 to 0700 GMT).
See satellite images of North Korea's launch pad

Observers say North Korea is very likely to stick to this commitment, firing the rocket at the first sign of good weather conditions during the given times.

Monitoring equipment had been set up at the launch pad, indicating the rocket could be fired within hours, South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted officials as saying.

South Korea said it had convened a meeting of a special task-force, while security chiefs in Japan were said to be on stand-by.

Japan's government at one point said that North Korea was believed to have launched a rocket, but later retracted the statement saying the information was incorrect.

'Stern response'

"Preparations for launching Kwangmyongsong-2, an experimental communications satellite, by carrier rocket Unha-2 have been completed at the satellite launching ground in the east coastal area of the DPRK (North Korea)," KCNA said.

"The satellite will be launched soon," it added.

An undated photo of North Korean missile test

North Korea's missile programme

In recent days satellite images have shown activity at the Musudan-ri site and the rocket positioned upright on the launch pad.

North Korea says it is pursuing peaceful space development, but its neighbours believe it could be planning to test a new long-range weapon.

They suspect the launch is a cover for a test of the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile, which could put parts of the US within reach of the communist state.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have all criticised the launch plan, which would violate UN resolutions.

Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak said a "stern, united response" would follow any rocket launch by North Korea.

Japan, meanwhile, has said it will shoot down the rocket if it misfires and endangers Japanese territory. It has sent two destroyers equipped with missile interceptor technology into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).

North Korea's military has threatened immediate retaliation if "even the slightest effort" is made to intercept its rocket.

The secretive country first test-fired a Taepodong-2 missile in July 2006. The missile failed shortly after launch and crashed into the sea.

Three months later it carried out a nuclear test. Talks between North Korea and five other nations - China, Russia, South Korean, the US and Japan - on an aid-for-disarmament deal are currently stalled.

Graphic
 
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http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53314H20090404



Japan red-faced over mistaken N.Korean rocket report
Sat Apr 4, 2009 1:44pm BST



TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's government apologized on Saturday for mistakenly announcing that North Korea had launched a rocket, as the nation's military remained on alert for the expected move by Tokyo's secretive communist neighbor.

North Korea has said it would launch a communications satellite between April 4-8 between 10:00 p.m. EDT to 3:00 p.m. EDT.

The United States, South Korea and Japan say the launch is a disguised test of the Taepodong-2 missile designed to carry a warhead capable of reaching Alaska and violates U.N. resolutions.

"We caused a great deal of trouble to the Japanese people. This was a mistake in the transmission of information by the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces," Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters, using the formal name for Japan's military. "I want to apologize to the people from my heart."

The mishap could be an embarrassment for Prime Minister Taro Aso's administration, which is struggling with low support rates ahead of an election that must be held by October.

A fundraising scandal plaguing the main opposition leader has given Aso and his ruling party a bit of a boost, but his public ratings are still only around 25 percent.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura also apologized for the error, which he said originated after Japanese military radar had detected "some sort of flight path."

But he dismissed any suggestion that the mistake would affect Aso's public support, which has been undermined by a series of gaffes and policy flip-flops since he took office last September.

"The people are the most interested in how we will deal with a projectile from tomorrow," Kawamura told reporters.

"We are strongly urging (the North) to refrain from launching a projectile which will hurt peace and stability in the Asia region, as it is against the (U.N.) Security Council resolution. This stance of the government remains unchanged."

Japan has deployed land and sea-based missile interceptors and ordered its military to shoot down any dangerous debris that threatens to fall on its territory if the rocket launch goes amiss, although officials say such a scenario is unlikely.

Kyodo news agency said the mistaken report occurred after data picked up by the Japanese military's ground-based radar was conveyed to the air force, then mistaken for an early warning of a satellite launch from the U.S. military and passed along to the government's crisis management center.
 

Pintu

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They have mistaken, so what for the Satellites are ?
 
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a mistake like this in a war could be deadly, especially coming from a high tech country like Japan?
 

Pintu

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True, even they have plan to built at least 5 spy satellites.
 

Pintu

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Auberon can you provide the link? Can n't find any thing .
 

Pintu

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North korea defies usa

The New York Times reports that North Korea defies USA and launches Rocket.

The link and the report from The New York Times attached herewith:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/asia/05korea.html?hp

North Koreans Launch Rocket Over the Pacific

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By CHOE SANG-HUN and DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 4, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea defied the United States, China and a series of United Nations resolutions by launching a rocket on Sunday that the country said was designed to propel a satellite into space, but that much of the world viewed as an effort to prove it is edging toward the capability to shoot a nuclear warhead on a longer-range missile.

The launching took place at 11:30 a.m. local time, said an official at the Foreign Ministry of South Korea who spoke on condition of anonymity until the government makes a formal announcement.

The motivation for the test appeared as much political as technological: After acquiring the fuel for six or more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration, and negotiating a halt of its main nuclear reactor in return for aid, North Korea’s recent statements appear to be a bid for attention from the Obama administration.

Over the years the North has sometimes conducted tests as a gambit to extract concessions for more aid and fuel and to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities.

Manufacturing a nuclear warhead that is small enough, light enough and heat-resistant enough to be mounted atop a missile is far more complex than building a basic nuclear device — and intelligence officials and outside experts believe North Korea is still years from that accomplishment. Typically, it takes many years of experimentation for a nation to learn how to shrink an ungainly test device into a slim warhead.

Nonetheless, the series of tests in recent years — in 2006 and 1998 — is prompting fears of North Korean proliferation among Japanese, Chinese and Western leaders. North Korea’s missiles have ranked among its few profitable exports — Iran, Syria and Pakistan have all been among its major customers. If this long-range test ends up a success, it would presumably make the design far more attractive on the international black market.

The launching provides one of the first tests of Mr. Obama’s reaction to a provocation, on the weekend that he is scheduled to lay out for the first time, in a speech in Prague, his strategy to counter proliferation threats.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ruled out any effort to shoot down the missile if the mission appeared to be a serious effort to launch a satellite. Rather, Mr. Obama’s top aides said during last week’s Group of 20 summit meeting in London that if the missile were launched, they would seek additional sanctions against the country in the United Nations Security Council, perhaps as early as this weekend.

President Bush pressed for similar sanctions after the North’s nuclear test in October 2006, but those sanctions had little long-term effect.

“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” Mr. Obama said Friday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Strasbourg, France. Mr. Obama took the issue up on Wednesday in London with President Hu Jintao of China.

While Washington has signaled calm, the Japanese response has been unusually strong. Japan deployed ships into the Sea of Japan and suggested it would try to shoot down any “debris” from the launching that threatened to hit the country. While that seemed unlikely, the gesture raised concerns that Japan could seek a nuclear capability of its own if it doubted American resolve to disarm North Korea.

With the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly recovering from a stroke last summer, the missile test may also be an effort by him — or some in the military — to demonstrate that someone is firmly in control and that the country’s missile and nuclear programs are forging ahead. In recent times top American intelligence officials have told Congress they believe Mr. Kim is back in charge of the country, but they admit considerable mystery surrounds the question of whether he has regained all of his faculties.

Analysts say the satellite accomplishment will help North Korea claim a kind of technical legitimacy that can inspire fear and respect, giving a modicum of reassurance to a battered people who know they are much poorer than their brethren in the South.

Stephen W. Bosworth, Mr. Obama’s special envoy on North Korea, told reporters that while the United States would seek to punish the North for the test, it was also prepared to resume six-nation talks with North Korea to persuade it to give up its nuclear weapons program. ”We must deal with North Korea as we find it, not as we would like it to be,” Mr. Bosworth said. “What is required is patience and perseverance.”

In addition to Japan, South Korea, which is in easy reach of North Korean missiles, deployed navy ships with missile tracking radar near North Korea. “We favor sending out a very strong and stern message to the North Koreans that the international community does not condone nor will it accept North Korea engaging in such actions,” President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea told a small group of reporters in London on Friday.

But he, too, emphasized that the six-party talks should resume.

North Korea tried and failed to loft satellites in 1998 and again in 2006.

Western aerospace experts said the new North Korean rocket appeared to be fairly large — much bigger than the one Iran fired in February to launch a small satellite, and about the same size as China launched in 1970 in its space debut.

David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., said the North Korean rocket might be able to lift a small satellite of 220 pounds into an orbit some 250 miles high. If used as a ballistic missile, he added, the rocket might throw a warhead of 2,200 pounds to a distance of some 3,700 miles — far enough to hit parts of Alaska.

Western analysts agree that North Korea’s missile launching is a military endeavor, despite its payload of an experimental communications satellite and its cocoon of North Korean propaganda. Starting with Sputnik in 1957, most of the world’s intercontinental ballistic missiles began life as satellite launchers.

Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, told reporters in March that “North Korea is attempting to demonstrate an ICBM capability through a space launch.”

While many analysts have looked at the launching through a military lens, some say another perspective involves political rivalries on the Korean peninsula. For years, South Korea has been gearing up to fire a satellite into orbit and join the space club. Its spaceport of Oinarodo is nearly ready, but a launching scheduled for this month was delayed, giving North Korea an opening.

“They’re racing to beat the South Koreans,” said Tim Brown, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, a private group in Alexandria, Va.

Choe Sang-Hun reported from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from London. William J. Broad contributed reporting from New York.
 

pyromaniac

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NKorea launches rocket, defying world pressure

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea defiantly carried out a provocative rocket launch Sunday that the U.S., Japan and other nations suspect was a cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.

Liftoff took place at 11:30 a.m. (0230GMT) Sunday from the coastal Musudan-ri launch pad in northeastern North Korea, the South Korean and U.S. governments said.

Japan immediately called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

The multistage rocket flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean, the Japanese broadcaster NHK said, citing its government.

"Our primary concern is to confirm safety and gather information," Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso told a news conference at his Tokyo office Sunday.

The launch was a bold act of defiance against Aso, President Barack Obama, Hu Jintao of China and other leaders who pressed Pyongyang in the days leading up to liftoff to call off a launch they said would threaten peace and stability in Northeast Asia.

The U.S., South Korea, Japan and others suspect the launch is a guise for testing the regime's long-range missile technology — one step toward eventually mounting a nuclear weapon on a missile capable of reaching Alaska and beyond.

They earlier vowed to take North Korea to the U.N. Security Council for a launch they said violates a 2006 resolution barring the regime from ballistic missile activity.

South Korea's presidential Blue House called the launch a "reckless" move that poses a "serious threat" to stability on the Korean peninsula.

"We cannot contain our disappointment and regret over North Korea's reckless act," presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters Sunday. He said the launch of the long-range rocket "poses a serious threat to security on the Korean peninsula and the world."

Obama said Friday the launch would be "provocative" and said the U.S. would "take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can't threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity."

The launch "will prompt the United States to take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it cannot threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity," State Department spokesman Fred Lash said in Washington.

Security Council diplomats said Friday that a draft resolution in circulation could reaffirm and tighten enforcement of the demands and sanctions of a resolution passed after North Korea conducted a nuclear test on 2006.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/as_nkorea_missile
 

Pintu

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This is a simply very bad thing going to happen. North Korea does the provocative , we all know before you go for that(space exploration) you should test sound rockets, as Iran did, every country in this earth pass through that test, you can not jump to the top of stair without covering staircase. This is ridiculous. I repeat this , this is ridiculous.
 

Pintu

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Need for Japan to review their Pacifist Constitution. Art. 9 should be removed, otherwise the Island Nation will be risking its existence in this changing world scenario.They should learn Adaption. Every country did this. Time to wake up for Japan.
 

Pintu

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Here is the another report on same from BBC.

The link and the report are followed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7982874.stm


North Korea 'has launched rocket'
Satellite image of the North Korean launch pad at the Musudan-ri base in Hwadae (11/03/2009)
The launch pad on the north-east coast has been picked up on satellite images

North Korea has launched a rocket, despite international appeals not to go ahead.

The rocket blasted off from the Musudan-ri launch site in the northeast of the country at 0230 GMT. It passed over Japan to the Pacific, Tokyo said.

North Korea says it is sending a satellite into orbit, but its neighbours suspect the launch is a cover for a long-range missile test.

Japan, South Korea and the US condemned the launch as a provocative act.

America would take "appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it cannot threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity", a US state department spokesman said.

Japan says it is seeking an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

No intercept

The rocket blasted off just before midday North Korean time, within a pre-announced launch window.

It flew over Japan towards the Pacific, with two booster stages dropping into the ocean to the east and west of Japan.

Japan said it did not try to intercept the rocket, as it had indicated it would if its territory was threatened.

North Korea says that the launch is part of what it calls peaceful space development.

An unidentified South Korean official told Yonhap news agency that the rocket did appear to be carrying a satellite. It is not clear whether a satellite was successfully put into space.

But Pyongyang's neighbours believe the real aim of the launch was to test long-range missile technology for the Taepodong-2 weapon.

They say the launch violates United Nations resolutions.
 

Pintu

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Japan says that they did not intercept the rocket, and there is CNN report saying that Japan has asked for Emergency UNSC meeting. Also the USA says that they will have 'punitive action'.
 

pyromaniac

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Japan says that they did not intercept the rocket, and there is CNN report saying that Japan has asked for Emergency UNSC meeting. Also the USA says that they will have 'punitive action'.
Okay so this is what is gonna happen. The US will try to push for some serious export bans and trade bans on N.Korea and will push it through the UN. China and Russia will block the moves and the US will go back to square one. That is the grim reality now...unless Obama can somehow charm the pants off the Russian President and the Chinese premier.
 

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