Word: rocketings
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...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 (3,500 km) - about twice the distance of the '98 launch. "That...
...Washington stood shoulder to shoulder with its allies and declared that the rocket launch was a direct violation of U.N. resolutions 1718 and 1695, which applied sanctions against Pyongyang in the wake of its 2006 missile and nuclear tests and whose language is unequivocal in its opposition to further ballistic-missile tests. But news accounts say that some Security Council members are not convinced the Sunday launch violated the resolutions, presumably because the payload was a satellite, not a weapon. That's the position in both Beijing and Moscow, diplomatic sources tell TIME. Indeed, after the talks...
...inter-Korean military hotline that had been set up. The Japanese, for their part, have been in a rage ever since Kim conceded that North Korea had abducted several of their citizens in the 1970s to train as spies. While there is some relief in Japan that yesterday's rocket flight didn't drop dangerous debris onto the country, there is also disgust at the rocket's blatantly provocative flight path: right over Japan. (See pictures of the New York Philharmonic's performance in Pyongyang...
...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...
...Then, from Washington's standpoint, the road becomes tricky. In practical terms, U.S. diplomats say that whether the rocket carried a satellite or not means little: the 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...