{"id":476,"date":"2012-04-13T03:48:36","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T03:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/praag.org\/?p=476"},"modified":"2012-04-13T03:50:56","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T03:50:56","slug":"north-korean-rocket-crashed-into-the-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praag.org\/?p=476","title":{"rendered":"North Korean rocket crashed into the sea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A soldier stands guard in front of the North Korean rocket prior to its launch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Reuters) – North Korea’s much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch on Friday, U.S. and South Korean officials said, dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished state as well as to its new leader.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang had defied international pressure from the United States, the United Nations and others to push ahead with the launch timed to celebrate the 100th birthday of Kim Il-sung, the deceased founder of the state.<\/p>\n

Even close ally China had warned against the launch and South Korean intelligence officials have said North Korea may be ready to follow it up with a third nuclear test as it did after a rocket launch in 2009.<\/p>\n

“South Korean and U.S. intelligence understand that North Korea’s missile launch failed,” a spokesman for the South’s defense ministry told reporters at a briefing.<\/p>\n

North Korea said it wanted the Unha-3 rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, although critics believed it was designed to enhance its capacity to design a ballistic missile to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.<\/p>\n

The rocket crashed in a sea that separates the Korean peninsula from China off the west coast of South Korea<\/a> after flying 120 km (75 miles) from its launch site close to the Chinese border, officials in Seoul, Washington and Tokyo said.<\/p>\n

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, said the first stage fell into the sea west of South Korea, and the remainder of the satellite-carrying missile was deemed to have failed.<\/p>\n

“No debris fell on land,” NORAD said. “At no time were the missile or the resultant debris a threat.<\/p>\n

North Korea’s Space Agency said it had no information on the launch, which triggered an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.<\/p>\n

The launch was announced just weeks after a “Leap Year” deal that saw Washington agree to provide food aid. Among the promises made by Pyongyang in return was that it would not launch a long range rocket or undertake nuclear tests.<\/p>\n

The United States, South Korea and Japan<\/a> condemned the launch, with Washington, Seoul’s major backer saying it would remain vigilant after North Korea’s “provocative” action.<\/p>\n

PRICE OF FAILURE FOR “SUPREME COMMANDER”<\/p>\n

Now led by 20-something Kim Jong-un, the third of his line to hold power, North Korea had planned to make 2012 the year in which it became a “strong and prosperous nation” and the launch was part of a program to burnish its credentials.<\/p>\n

It even invited foreign media in to cover the birthday celebrations and showed them the launch site.<\/p>\n

“(There is) no question that the failed launch turns speculation toward the ramifications for the leadership in Pyongyang: a fireworks display gone bad on the biggest day of the year,” said Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n

Eyes will be on how North Korea handles the failure internally. In order to show that it remains powerful, it could undertake a third nuclear test that would again ratchet up international tensions and damage any prospects of a resumption of denuclearization and aid talks.<\/p>\n

This will be North Korea’s second consecutive failure to get a satellite into orbit, although it claimed success with a 2009 launch.<\/p>\n

Although North Korea is one of the most tightly controlled states on earth, with no free media and a tight grip on its population, such a high profile failure could trigger a backlash among the country’s elite.<\/p>\n

“This is the first crisis for the new leader that has just taken over,” said Lee Jong-won, a professor at Waseda University in Tokyo.<\/p>\n

“It is inevitable that they will look to find who is responsible for the failure, and I wonder what the treatment will be for those in the military and the hard-line officers who have pressed for the launch.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters) – North Korea’s much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch on Friday, U.S. and South Korean officials said, dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished state as well as to its new leader. Pyongyang had defied international pressure from the United States, the … Continue reading “North Korean rocket crashed into the sea”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/praag.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/north-korea-rocket.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=476"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":478,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476\/revisions\/478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}