Word: pyongyang
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...also pleased to see how President Obama has handled this challenge from the reclusive autocracy in Pyongyang. When confronted with the reality of the North Korean launch, the President renewed his calls for continued nonproliferation efforts, based on the reduction of current nuclear stockpiles, the prevention of further proliferation, and the securing of loose fissile material. In the days prior to the crisis, Obama had also deployed two AEGIS-capable destroyers to the East Sea—which can track and shoot down missiles if needed—in order to demonstrate American resolve. These actions demonstrated a combination...
...regime he heads can live without subjecting North Koreans to revolutionary ditties from space. Yesterday's launch, from the North's standpoint, was an almost unequivocal success, even if the satellite now sleeps with the fishes. Diplomatic and intelligence sources in Seoul and Tokyo contend that Pyongyang's biggest aim was to increase the range of its Taepodong II rocket. In 1998 it launched a predecessor that traveled about 1,060 miles (1,700 km). On July 4, 2006, another long-range rocket broke apart shortly after launch. Yesterday's rocket flew more than 2,175 miles...
...roused to work on a pleasant spring Sunday. In effect, Beijing said, Let's move along, folks - nothing to see here. The Foreign Ministry, in fact, issued a statement calling on other nations not to do or say anything that would upset international "peace and stability" - as if Pyongyang's launch had not already done...
...North Korea, the successful firing of the Taepodong II likely had two purposes: at a moment when the Obama administration has indicated it is willing to engage with hostile regimes - Iran and Syria specifically - Pyongyang "just threw a big rock at the White House, and said, 'We're here, too,'" says one Western diplomat in Seoul. Internally, the launch comes at a critical moment. Kim Jong Il had a stroke late last summer, and there is intense speculation as to the state of Kim's health and his level of control over his regime. "The launch says to North Koreans...
...opening gambit to test a new administration in Washington, Pyongyang is being typically audacious. The North Korean government probably noted with interest that in its immediate reaction, the White House insisted that the North "abandon the development of weapons of mass destruction." It said nothing about destroying the small arsenal of nuclear weapons the North already possesses. Analysts in Seoul wondered whether that was deliberate - a signal that Washington not only still wanted to talk, but that it might be flexible about how the North can stand down its weapons program. Because at some point, new talks, despite the launch...