Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...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...
...will agree to further sanctions. "The best [Seoul and Tokyo] can hope for is a statement from the Security Council that condemns the test," says Chol Jinwook, director of North Korean Studies at the Korean Institute for National Unification. (See pictures of the New York Philharmonic's performance in Pyongyang...
...hissy fit." On April 5, the North made good on its plan to launch a Taepodong II rocket, an armament with a range of about 2,500 miles to 2,800 miles (4,000 km to 4,500 km), which would bring Hawaii within its reach. On March 31, Pyongyang announced that it will charge two young American journalists with "hostile acts," claiming that they strayed into North Korean territory from northeastern China. And despite a worsening economy, the regime said it would toss out international-aid workers who were delivering desperately needed food rather than accede to demands from...