Word: launchful
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...timing of the launch, just hours before a major address on ridding the world of nuclear weapons, was either fortuitous or terrible for Obama, at once highlighting the issue of proliferation and showing just how hard it will be to tame an unruly world. In his speech before a crowd of about 20,000 at the Prague Castle compound Obama opted to use the launch as a teaching moment. "Just this morning, we were reminded again of why we need a new and more rigorous approach to address this threat," he said. "This provocation underscores the need for action...
...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...
...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. (See pictures of the rise of Kim Jong...
...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...
...North has successfully tested a long-range rocket, in defiance of UN resolutions. Though the Taeodong II does not have the range to hit the continental United States, and the North has not yet mastered the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead that could fit on the rocket, the launch is, as Obama said, a "provocative act." To be seen as rewarding Pyongyang by engaging in direct talks is, for now, unlikely...