North Korea launches rocket by Jean H Lee AP

N. Korea launches rocket, defying world pressure

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By JEAN H. LEE The Associated Press Sunday, April 5, 2009; 12:29 AM

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. The multistage rocket hurtled toward the Pacific, reaching Japanese airspace within seven minutes, but no debris appeared to hit its territory, officials in Tokyo said.

The U.N. Security Council approved an emergency session for Sunday afternoon in New York, following a request from Japan that came minutes after the launch.

The South Koreans called it "reckless," the Americans "provocative," and Japan said it strongly protested the launch.

The launch was a bold act of defiance against President Barack Obama, Japanese leader Taro Aso, Hu Jintao of China and others 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.

South Korea's presidential Blue House said the launch poses a "serious threat" to stability on the Korean peninsula and that it would respond to the provocation "sternly and resolutely." President Lee Myung-bak ordered the military to remain on alert, the Blue House said.

"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."

North Korea claims its aim is to send an experimental communications satellite into orbit in a peaceful bid to develop its space program.

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.

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20090405 North Korea launches rocket by Jean H Lee AP

Kevin Dayhoff www.kevindayhoff.net http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/