Sunday 5 April 2009


DESPITE WARNINGS, NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES ROCKET

Bill Powell, Stephen Kim / Seoul and Michael Scherer / Prague

Time, April 5, 2009

When it comes to sticking a finger in the rest of the world's eye, Kim Jong Il is always as good as his word. For days, the U.S. and North Korea's neighbors in east Asia kept insisting that Pyongyang stand down from plans to test an intercontinental rocket. But on Sunday morning, North Korea launched it anyway — as it pledged to — saying the rocket bore nothing more than a communications satellite. With six U.S. cruisers equipped with Aegis anti-missile systems deployed in the region — to watch and gather intelligence, not fire on the rocket, Pentagon officials had said late last week — North Korea sent the Taepodong II rocket over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. That, by itself, meant the launch for Pyongyang was a success: two years ago, an earlier version of the same long-range rocket broke up shortly after the launch. "It means they have a long-range rocket that works," says retired U.S. Lt-Gen. Henry Obering. "This has been a long-term effort for them, and they've succeeded. Nothing the outside world has done — not diplomacy or sanctions — has deterred them."

American diplomats and their partners in East Asia privately regarded the launch as a fait accompli. U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, has said that launch or no launch, Washington hoped to push on with talks aimed at getting the North to give up its nuclear weapons program — even hinting that the direct U.S.-North Korean talks Pyongyang has always wanted were possible.

The launch complicates that diplomacy. Tokyo in particular is furious at Pyongyang — it had earlier in the week threatened to shoot the missile down — and immediately after the launch asked for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to take place on Sunday. Both Tokyo and the South Korean government believe the rocket launch was an explicit violation of a 2006 U.N. resolution that insisted the North "not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile." But North Korea insists it has the right to place communications satellites into orbit, and the U.S. military on Sunday confirmed that the payload atop the latest rocket was, indeed, a satellite — which failed to leave the Earth's atmosphere, instead plunging into the Pacific.

(...) [artículo aquí]

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