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Argos Media

US moves warships into position for North Korean missile | World news | The Guardian - 0 views

  • The US and Japan yesterday deployed anti-missile batteries on land and sea to shoot down possible debris from an intercontinental ballistic missile North Korea is expected to test in the next few days.
  • South Korea also planned to dispatch its Aegis-equipped destroyer, according to a Seoul military official who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
  • The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said America had no intention of shooting down the missile itself, which satellite photographs show is sitting on a launch-pad in Musudan-ri. Pyongyang says the launch is intended to put a satellite into orbit, but any such ballistic missile testing or development is banned by a 2006 United Nations resolution. Two US warships armed with Aegis anti-ballistic missiles left ports in South Korea yesterday to monitor the launch, which experts say could take place as soon as Saturday.
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  • The North Korean foreign ministry said at the weekend that "even a single word critical of the launch" from the security council would be interpreted as "a hostile act".
Pedro Gonçalves

Analysis: Cold War with Iran heats up across Mideast | Reuters - 0 views

  • The Sunni-ruled states of the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, say Iran stirs up unrest in their Shi'ite communities, although many Western analysts believe blaming Iran for protests this year in those countries is an overstatement or at least oversimplification.
  • "U.S. and Western power in the region is weakening, and that is leaving a vacuum - most notably in Iraq - and you can see the main stakeholders in the region reacting to Iran's readiness to fill that vacuum," says Reva Bhalla, head of analysis at US private intelligence company Stratfor.
  • "A proxy Saudi-Iranian war in Iraq represents a very considerable threat to oil supplies," said Alastair Newton, chief political analyst at Japanese bank Nomura.
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  • Saudi or other Arab backing for the increasingly armed opposition could escalate matters further, potentially producing a sectarian civil war lasting years and spilling across borders into neighboring states.
  • This year's uprising in Syria - Iran's rare Arab friend - has created a new battlefield. Since the early days of the uprising, U.S. officials repeatedly and pointedly said they believed Assad's government was receiving support from Tehran.Assad has since been rapidly abandoned by the Arab League, in a diplomatic effort led by Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab Gulf states. Analysts and officials say that could have as much to do with pushing back against Iran as in reining in killings and rights abuses in Syria itself.
  • Some of the increased friction with its neighbors could be a symptom of a power struggle within Iran itself, Newton said."I think one of the reasons you're seeing temperature rising between Iran and others is because you're seeing temperature rising in Tehran itself."Recent events such as the embassy storming, in which Iran seemed willing to tear up the international rulebook, could be a sign of increasing clout of hardline clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders.The attack on Britain's embassy prompted widespread international condemnation and looks to have ushered in a much tighter sanctions. That too may strengthen the hardliners.
  • Last year's Stuxnet computer worm, which damaged computers used in industrial machinery, was widely believed to have been a U.S.-Israeli attack to cripple Iranian nuclear centrifuges.Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed or disappeared, and Iran blames U.S. or Israeli intelligence services.
  • Two explosions last month in Iran, one of which killed a Revolutionary Guards gunnery general and around a dozen other officers, prompted widespread speculation in Israel that its intelligence services were involved.
  • The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes it possible for Israeli jets to pass through its airspace without needing U.S. permission.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan reports rare trade deficit - 0 views

  • Japan has reported its first annual trade deficit in 28 years, with exports in the year to March down 16% from the previous year.
  • Total exports in February and March were half of what they had been a year earlier, the finance ministry said.
  • Demand in the United States and Europe for Japanese cars and electronics has remained low amid global economic woes. But analysts say a slowing of the drop in sales to China indicates Beijing's economic stimulus may be taking hold. Japan's exports fell 45.6% in March compared with a year earlier, largely in line with forecasts, while imports fell 36.7%, Ministry of Finance data showed.
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  • However, exports to China fell only 31.5% in March from a year earlier, compared to a 39.7% decline in February and one of 45.2% in January. This improvement has persuaded analysts to see signs of hope, at least within Asian trade.
  • Exports to Asia fell 39.5% in March from a year earlier, while exports to the US dropped 51.4%, and those to the European Union were down 56.1%. Japanese newspapers have reported expectations that economic growth forecasts would be lowered again, to a 3% contraction, due to the rapid deterioration in trade and production.
Argos Media

Foreign Policy: Ending North Korea's Endless Nuclear Drama - 0 views

  • the United States and its allies have had serious disagreements over North Korea. Japan is prepared to obstruct negotiations until Pyongyang comes clean on the handful of Japanese kidnapped by the North some 30 years ago. The Chinese have wanted to moderate and ultimately change North Korea through reform and sizable economic support, but have little to show for it. Many of the cognoscenti see China as the ultimate arbiter compelling North Korean cooperation. That, of course, has not happened. China has its own interest -- keeping North Korea afloat -- and that's not likely to change. The U.S. and Chinese economies are now so enmeshed that U.S. leverage on China is very limited. South Korea's "sunshine policy," which provided large-scale aid in hopes of ultimately seducing North Korea, was despised by the Bush administration. (Ironically, a new South Korean government abandoned the policy just as the United States was softening its approach to the North.)
  • The U.S. administration seems content to resume six-party talks where they left off: completing the "phase two" agreement, exchanging fuel oil for disablement of the North's plutonium facilities, and an agreement on verification, the sticking point precipitating the breakdown of negotiations. Preventing North Korea from producing more fissile material makes sense. From there, the going gets increasingly tough.
  • The weight of evidence suggests that North Korea will be unwilling to give up its nuclear weapons for a long time, if ever. The apparent North Korean interest in trading the dismantling of its plutonium facilities for light water reactors will not likely go down well in Washington. It is not much of a deal.
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  • Nuclear weapons are Kim Jong Il's trump card. They get international attention. If U.S. President Barack Obama wants to make real progress on denuclearization, he must take a more comprehensive approach with North Korea under the umbrella of the six-party talks. In addition to pursuing denuclearization, he should opt for a radical change in relations: a peace treaty for the peninsula, the normalization of all political and economic relations, and a big economic package for the North, including increasing integration into the global economy. Only a major improvement in its overall situation might lead North Korea to consider some change in course and give up its nuclear weapons.
  • There are, of course, difficulties and downsides. Heavy opposition in Washington might not be worth the cost of a highly uncertain, radically different approach. It could also be unacceptable to both South Korea and Japan, which are not eager to offer goodies to Pyongyang that might not be reciprocated. North Korea's opaqueness raises verification problems, which may be impossible to work out. And Kim Jong Il might simply not be interested in such a big-bang deal.
  • But without an approach like this, you can bank on endless, fruitless negotiations. Going down today's six-party route will also require the United States to shore up its deterrence in the area, particularly for Japan, and strengthen the antiproliferation initiative to guard against North Korean nuclear and missile exports. Enlarging the framework of negotiations looks like the only serious way of achieving a negotiated end to North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. Doing so will require lots of patience, intensive alliance management, and internal political risk with no certain result. But it's worth a shot. At a minimum, having such a package out there may be of some help should the Dear Leader depart the scene.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea 'places missile on pad' - 0 views

  • North Korea has placed what is thought to be a long-range missile on a launch pad, Japanese and US officials say. North Korea had already said it would send a satellite into orbit in early April, using a long-range missile. The US, Japan and South Korea are concerned Pyongyang will test its Taepodong-2 long-range missile instead of launching a satellite.
  • Japanese PM Taro Aso said plans were being made to shoot down any rocket that threatened to hit the country. North Korea has said it plans to carry out the controversial launch between 4 and 8 April. The Taepodong-2 missile is capable of reaching Alaska from the Musudan-ri base in Hwadae on North Korea's north-east coast. It first tested the missile in July 2006, but it failed less than a minute after launch.
  • A satellite launch and a long-rang missile test would both use the Taepodong 2, analysts say. Pyongyang has already said the rocket taking its satellite into orbit will cross over Japan, dropping booster stages to its east and west.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | N Korea confirms reporters held - 0 views

  • North Korea has confirmed the arrest of two female US journalists, saying they were detained for illegally entering North Korean territory.
  • The news came after the North restored a cross-border military hotline with South Korea severed earlier this month. The North also indicated it will reopen a border crossing which links the South with a joint Korean industrial zone, just inside the North.
  • There have been conflicting reports about where the women were detained. South Korean reports have suggested they were on Chinese territory.
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  • The now restored military hotline between the two Koreas is intended as a means of direct communication at a time of high tension. It is used to co-ordinate the movement of goods and people through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, and in its absence officials resorted to exchanging notes by hand.
  • China has voiced its concern over the growing tensions on the Korean peninsula over North Korea's planned rocket launch. The North insists it is preparing to send up a communications satellite - and that any attempt to shoot it down would result in war. The US, Japan and South Korea have all expressed concerns that the North is actually planning to test-fire a long-range missile. North Korea is banned from firing either device under a UN Security Council resolution prohibiting it from ballistic activity.
  • The border between the two Koreas has been intermittently closed since the communication lines were cut on 9 March - when the US-South Korea drill began - stranding South Korea workers at a shared industrial estate and badly affecting businesses there. The North's move came just hours after Beijing urged North Korea to restart talks on its nuclear programme.
  • Pyongyang cut the hotline in protest at an annual US-South Korean military exercise, which it said it suspected were a prelude to an invasion.
  • China has voiced its concern over the growing tensions on the Korean peninsula over North Korea's planned rocket launch. The North insists it is preparing to send up a communications satellite - and that any attempt to shoot it down would result in war. The US, Japan and South Korea have all expressed concerns that the North is actually planning to test-fire a long-range missile.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japanese opposition aide charged - 0 views

  • An aide to Japanese opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa has been charged with violating a political funds law, Japanese media has reported.
  • Japanese media said the charges put more pressure on Mr Ozawa to decide whether or not to resign. Before the scandal broke, Mr Ozawa was considered a likely victor in national elections which must be held this year.
  • Analysts had predicted Mr Ozawa stood his best chance ever of unseating the incumbent Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leader, Prime Minister Taro Aso, in the coming elections. Such a victory would end almost 50 years of unbroken rule by the LDP, which is facing huge voter discontent amid worsening economic gloom.
Pedro Gonçalves

Chinese Political Scientist Sun Zhe: North Korea's 'Calculated Chess Move' - SPIEGEL ON... - 0 views

  • The North Koreans certainly did not listen to us. They currently don't view their relations with Beijing as a strategic priority. Their policies are completely oriented toward the Americans. There, they are playing a high-stakes game of poker.
  • SPIEGEL: What do the North Koreans really want? Sun: They want to be treated as an equal partner by the US and by the other Western countries. And they absolutely want to have diplomatic relations with Washington.
  • SPIEGEL: And for that you have to detonate atomic bombs? Sun: On the face of it, it indeed seems very strange. But it is a precisely calculated chess move. The North Koreans want to be noticed;
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  • Sun: The only way to exert pressure on Pyongyang is to cut off deliveries of energy and food.
  • Sun: More than anything, Beijing wants to prevent Japan from using the situation in North Korea as an excuse for becoming a nuclear power itself.
  • Sun: President Barack Obama should resume normal relations with North Korea, send some professors to Pyongyang and do something. That's the only chance for bringing North Korea to its senses
  • We don't need hard sanctions; we need a strategy of "soft landing" for East Asia.
Pedro Gonçalves

U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The Obama administration signaled Sunday that it was seeking a way to interdict, possibly with China’s help, North Korean sea and air shipments suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology.
  • The administration also said it was examining whether there was a legal basis to reverse former President George W. Bush’s decision last year to remove the North from a list of states that sponsor terrorism.
  • So far it is not clear how far the Chinese are willing to go to aid the United States in stopping North Korea’s profitable trade in arms, the isolated country’s most profitable export. But the American focus on interdiction demonstrates a new and potentially far tougher approach to North Korea than both President Clinton and Mr. Bush, in his second term, took as they tried unsuccessfully to reach deals that would ultimately lead North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Mr. Obama, aides say, has decided that he will not offer North Korea new incentives to dismantle the nuclear complex at Yongbyon that the North previously promised to abandon.
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  • “I’m tired of buying the same horse twice,” Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said last week while touring an antimissile site in Alaska that the Bush administration built to demonstrate its preparedness to destroy North Korean missiles headed toward the United States. (So far, the North Koreans have not successfully tested a missile of sufficient range to reach the United States, though there is evidence that they may be preparing for another test of their long-range Taepodong-2 missile.)
  • In France on Saturday, Mr. Obama referred to the same string of broken deals, telling reporters, “I don’t think there should be an assumption that we will simply continue down a path in which North Korea is constantly destabilizing the region and we just react in the same ways.” He added, “We are not intending to continue a policy of rewarding provocation.”
  • While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president’s national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world’s last Stalinesque regime.
  • Now, after examining the still-inconclusive evidence about the results of North Korea’s second nuclear test, the administration has come to different conclusions: that Pyonyang’s top priority is to be recognized as a nuclear state, that it is unwilling to bargain away its weapons and that it sees tests as a way to help sell its nuclear technology.
  • While Mr. Obama is willing to reopen the six-party talks that Mr. Bush began — the other participants are Japan, South Korea, Russia and China — he has no intention, aides say, of offering new incentives to get the North to fulfill agreements from 1994, 2005 and 2008; all were recently renounced.
  • While some officials privately acknowledged that they would still like to roll back what one called North Korea’s “rudimentary” nuclear capacity, a more realistic goal is to stop the country from devising a small weapon deliverable on a short-, medium- or long-range missile.
  • In conducting any interdictions, the United States could risk open confrontation with North Korea. That prospect — and the likelihood of escalating conflict if the North resisted an inspection — is why China has balked at American proposals for a resolution by the United Nations Security Council that would explicitly allow interceptions at sea. A previous Security Council resolution, passed after the North’s first nuclear test, in 2006, allowed interdictions “consistent with international law.” But that term was never defined, and few of the provisions were enforced.
  • North Korea has repeatedly said it would regard any interdiction as an act of war, and officials in Washington have been trying to find ways to stop the shipments without a conflict. Late last week, James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, visited Beijing with a delegation of American officials, seeking ideas from China about sanctions, including financial pressure, that might force North Korea to change direction.
  • “The Chinese face a dilemma that they have always faced,” a senior administration official said. “They don’t want North Korea to become a full nuclear weapons state. But they don’t want to cause the state to collapse.”
  • To counter the Chinese concern, Mr. Steinberg and his delegation argued to the Chinese that failing to crack down on North Korea would prompt reactions that Beijing would find deeply unsettling, including a greater American military presence in the region and more calls in Japan for that country to develop its own weapons.
  • North Korea’s restoration to the list would be largely symbolic, because it already faces numerous economic sanctions.
Pedro Gonçalves

U.S. Fortifies Hawaii to Meet Threat From Korea - WSJ.com - 0 views

  • The U.S. is moving ground-to-air missile defenses to Hawaii as tensions escalate between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea's recent moves to restart its nuclear-weapon program and resume test-firing long-range missiles.
  • Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday that the U.S. is concerned that Pyongyang might soon fire a missile toward Hawaii. Some senior U.S. officials expect a North Korean test by midsummer, even though most don't believe the missile would be capable of crossing the Pacific and reaching Hawaii.
  • Mr. Gates told reporters that the U.S. is positioning a sophisticated floating radar array in the ocean around Hawaii to track an incoming missile. The U.S. is also deploying missile-defense weapons to Hawaii that would theoretically be capable of shooting down a North Korean missile
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  • "We do have some concerns if they were to launch a missile...in the direction of Hawaii," Mr. Gates said. "We are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory."
  • In another sign of America's mounting concern about North Korea, a senior defense official said the U.S. is tracking a North Korean vessel, the Kang Nam, suspected of carrying weapons banned by a recent United Nations resolution.
  • Japan's Yomiuri newspaper reported Thursday that North Korea would launch a long-range Taepodong-2 missile at Hawaii from the Dongchang-ni site on the country's northwestern coast on or close to July 4.
  • Some U.S. officials have said satellite imagery shows activity at a North Korea testing facility that has been used in the past to launch long-range missiles. On a trip to Manila earlier this month, Mr. Gates said the U.S. had "seen some signs" that North Korea was preparing to launch a long-range missile.
  • many U.S. defense officials are highly skeptical that North Korea has a missile capable of reaching Hawaii, which is more than 4,500 miles away from North Korea.
  • North Korean long-range missiles have failed three previous tests in the past 11 years. In the most notable North Korean misfire, a Taepodong-2 missile that Pyongyang launched on July 4, 2006, imploded less than 35 seconds after taking off.
  • The Obama administration, meanwhile, would have to choose whether to attempt to shoot down the missile, a technically complicated procedure with no guarantee of success. An American failure would embarrass Washington, embolden Pyongyang and potentially encourage Asian allies like Japan to take stronger measures of their own against North Korea.
  • The senior defense official said the U.S. would seek to have the North Korean ship suspected of carrying banned arms searched before it reaches its final destination, believed to be Singapore.
  • The ship left North Korea on Wednesday. The official said U.S. or allied personnel wouldn't board the ship by force and would search the ship only with the permission of its crew.
  • North Korea has said it would view any efforts at interdiction as an act of war, and some U.S. officials worry North Korean vessels would use force to prevent U.S., Japanese or South Korean personnel from searching their ships, potentially sparking an armed confrontation.
  • Pyongyang's refusal to honor its agreements has persuaded the Obama administration that North Korea was unlikely to ever voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons. That has led the administration to reject the idea of offering North Korea additional aid in exchange for new North Korean vows to abide by agreements it has repeatedly abrogated.
  • Many Obama administration officials are also skeptical of reopening the so-called six-party talks with North Korea, which also involve China, Japan, Russia and South Korea.
  • Instead, the administration is trying to persuade China to take a stronger line with North Korea, a putative ally that is deeply dependent on China. U.S. officials hope China will help search and potentially board suspicious North Korean vessels, but China has been noncommittal.
  • Asked if China had finally accepted U.S. assessments of the threat posed by North Korea, Mr. Gates demurred. "I think that remains to be seen," he said.
Pedro Gonçalves

Japan's long-ruling government braced for election defeat | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • Its leader, Yukio Hatoyama, has quietly modified early promises to end Japan's "subservience" to US foreign policy, but he remains committed to enhancing his country's Asian identity through closer ties with China and South Korea.And while he has yet to augment his antipathy to US-led "market fundamentalism" with a clear alternative, the ambiguity that is the luxury of opposition parties looks certain to keep him safe until after the election.
Argos Media

N. Korea seen as using bargaining chips - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Selig Harrison, the director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, said the North Korean announcement about restarting its nuclear facilities should come as "no surprise" to the United States. "The North Koreans had said that they were going to do this. The United States leadership made a mistake by going to the U.N. because the North Koreans said on March 26 that if we went to the U.N., they would resume their nuclear program," he said, referring to North Korea's recent decision to launch a rocket despite international opposition.
  • Harrison visited Pyongyang in January and doesn't expect North Korea to reprocess plutonium for at least a year. Nuclearization may not even be their primary goal with this latest announcement, he said. "You have to put it all into context of the North Korean situation, they want to negotiate to get economic help. All of this is a re-bargaining chip," he said. "The North Koreans are not hell-bent on nuclear weapons, this is just their opportunity, and they want to negotiate in bilateral talks with the US."
  • "The North Koreans have shut down the six-party talks, but they haven't ruled out bilateral negotiations," he said, referring to talks aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its nuclear program. The talks involved China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
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  • An additional part of North Korea's re-bargaining chip may be two detained U.S. journalists, he added.
  • Harrison said the North Koreans "are hoping the United States will agree to bilateral talks in part because of the journalists they are holding, and the U.S. knows North Korea will ask something of them for the release of those journalists."
  • One of the main reasons North Korea broke off the six-party talks was because it hasn't received the energy and aid promised by other countries, Harrison said. "Japan had promised energy to North Korea that they haven't yet delivered, and this is energy that North Korea desperately needs," Harrison said. "In all, we have delivered about one-third percent of the amount of energy we had promised the North Korea."
  • Siegfried Hecker, the co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said he believes North Korea can make bombs. "All they have to do is to extract the plutonium from the fuel rods which already exist in the cooling pool. They can now bring some of those fuel rods out and begin to take them through the reprocessing facility. It will take four to six months to reprocess all of the fuel rods. And they will be able to extract about a bomb and a half's worth of plutonium from them," Hecker explained.
  • Hecker explained that the fuel rods with the plutonium couldn't be shipped easily during the first steps of disablement of the Yongbyon plant and therefore were still intact when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors left earlier this month. "The idea was the pool holding the fuel rods would be kept under close IAEA inspection," Hecker said, "In essence, it was a pretty good hedge for the North Koreans all along...the fuel rods and the reprocessing plant were the easiest part of the Yongbyon plant to get going again," he said.
  • Hecker said restarting the reactor is a different story. Since the water cooling tower was destroyed in June 2008, Hecker said the North Koreans will likely rebuild the structure, which will take an estimated six months. He said they also need to process fresh fuel for the reactor, which will take about six months as well. "So in six months from now, they can reload the reactor. Then the reactor would have to run for about two to three years to get another two bombs worth of plutonium," he said.
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Key nations 'agree N Korea draft' - 0 views

  • Officials said the Security Council's five permanent members and Japan had agreed on the text of a presidential statement on the 5 April launch.
  • The statement is considered a weaker response than the resolution initially sought by Japan and the US. China and Russia had rejected that idea, calling on the international community to act with restraint.
Argos Media

Divisions emerge in international response to North Korean rocket launch | World news |... - 0 views

  • The Taepodong-2 rocket flew twice as far as any previous North Korean missile.
  • Although Obama described the action as a "provocation", the US and Japan have so far failed to win support from China and Russia for a statement condemning Pyongyang and tightening existing sanctions.
  • The Japanese foreign minister, Hirofumi Nakasone, today admitted there were divisions in the security council."China and Russia share the concern that this is a threat to the region, but they appear reserved and cautious as of now," he told reporters in Tokyo.
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  • North Korea claimed the Taepodong-2 rocket put an experimental communications satellite into orbit, where it is collecting data and broadcasting the Song of General Kim Il-Sung and the Song of General Kim Jong-il.
  • But US, South Korean and Japanese scientists say the only broadcasts are likely to be from the bottom of the ocean because the satellite failed to reach orbit.
  • China, a historical ally of and food supplier to North Korea, has called on all sides to remain calm."Our position is that all countries concerned should show restraint and refrain from taking action that might lead to increased tension," Zhang Yesui, the Chinese ambassador to the UN, told reporters.
  • So far, however, the US and its allies have been unable to persuade China and Russia that the act was a breach of UN security council resolution 1718, passed after long-range missile and nuclear tests in 2006.
  • The resolution bans Pyongyang from activities related to a ballistic missile programme and calls on the international community to stop trading weapons and luxury goods with North Korea.
  • The advance in North Korea's ballistic missile technology will raise concerns that the country could one day be capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the US or western Europe.It is likely to interest potential buyers from Pakistan, Iran and Syria, who have sent observers to previous launches.
  • Russia described the North Korean rocket launch as "regrettable", but stopped short of confirming whether the launch had violated existing resolutions."Before embarking on any actions, we should understand the character of this launch because, at this particular moment, we do not have a clearcut picture," Igor Scherbak, the deputy Russian permanent UN representative, said.
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