- Feb 22, 2007
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Just saw this on MSNBC. They said the North Korean Missile that everyone has been talking about is now on the launch pad and preparing for fueling. Looks like they were not just bluffing after all.
Couple quotes from different sites from yesterday and today :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29875242/
Couple quotes from different sites from yesterday and today :
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29875242/
WASHINGTON - North Korea has positioned a Taepodong-2 missile on the launchpad at its facility in Musudan in the east of the country, U.S. officials told NBC News on Wednesday.
Pyongyang has said it intends to use the missile to launch a satellite into space. The North Koreans issued an international notice that the launch may occur sometime between April 4 through the 8th.
According to the U.S. officials, while two stages of the missile can be seen, the top is covered with a shroud supported by a crane.
But now that the missile is on the pad, the launch itself could come within a matter of days, a likelihood that has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity as the event would be in violation of a U.N. ban prohibiting the country from ballistic activity. Some fear the launch is a cover for the test-fire of long-range missile technology.
North Korea has described the pending launch a "peaceful space launch," but U.S. officials and experts say it would employ the very same technology used to launch ballistic missiles, and if successful it would be the first proof that North Korea would have the ability to launch a ballistic missile against at least Alaska or Hawaii.
Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair testified before Congress that a successful test of a three-stage rocket would demonstrate North Korea's ability to reach the continental United States with a ballistic missile.
The Commander of U.S. Pacific Command Admiral Timothy Keating warned recently that the U.S. has the ability to shoot down the missile should it threaten either the United States or its allies, but Pentagon and military officials believe that scenario is highly unlikely.
Japan, on the other hand, has said it is prepared to shoot down the missile with its Patriot anti-missile defense systems acquired from the United States.
The last such test of a Taepodong-2 in 2006 was a spectacular failure when the missile started to cartwheel almost immediately after liftoff and was either destroyed by ground controllers or simply flew apart from the centrifugal force.
SEOUL, March 24 (Reuters) - North Korea said on Tuesday any attempt by the U.N. Security Council to punish it for trying to put a satellite in space would mean the collapse of international disarmament talks aimed at ending its nuclear programme.
North Korea has said it would launch a satellite between April 4 and 8. Regional powers see the launch as a disguised test of its longest-range missile and a violation of U.N. sanctions forbidding the reclusive state from firing ballistic missiles.
"It is perversity to say satellite launch technology cannot be distinguished from a long-range missile technology and so must be dealt with by the U.N. Security Council, which is like saying a kitchen knife is no different from a bayonet," state media quoted a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.
The unidentified spokesman said "such an act of hostility" would be in defiance of the Sept. 19 joint statement, a disarmament-for-aid deal the impoverished North reached with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
"Two Americans were detained on March 17 while illegally intruding into the territory" of North Korea by crossing its border with China, said a report Saturday in the official state news agency. "A competent organ is now investigating the case."
No matter what charges are made against the journalists, North Korea will probably use them -- and the timing of their release -- as leverage in negotiations with the United States and other countries over aid, nuclear weapons and, most urgently, the planned test launch in early April of a long-range missile, several analysts said.
"They do become bargaining chips," said Andrei Lankov, a professor of North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. The two journalists interviewed Lankov shortly before they traveled to the North Korean border.
"North Korea will send them home, but it will not happen quickly," Lankov said. "The North Koreans want to show the world that illegally crossing their border will not be tolerated and they want to squeeze political and financial concessions from the United States."
In recent weeks, North Korea has alarmed its neighbors by announcing plans to launch, sometime between April 4 and 8, what it calls a "communications satellite." Japan, South Korea and the United States have all protested the launch, calling it "provocative" and describing it as a pretext for testing a new long-range ballistic missile that might be able to hit Alaska.
The announced flight plan of the launch would send it high over northern Japan, where the government has warned that it might try to shoot down any missile that threatens to hit its territory. U.S. military officials have said they would also be ready to shoot down the missile, if it appeared to present a threat.
North Korea, meanwhile, has warned that it would go to war if the missile that it says is part of a peaceful research project was destroyed by hostile fire. If the United States seeks United Nations sanctions against North Korea after the missile launch, Pyongyang threatened this week, North Korea would unilaterally cancel a 2005 agreement to abandon nuclear weapons in return for aid and security guarantees.