North Korea announces new rocket launch in December

Again a provocative act by North Korea  as it announced on Saturday that it would  launch another long-range rocket this month between
Dec. 10 and Dec. 22.

The launch  will bolster  the credentials  of the country's leader, Kim Jong Un as a leader , as it will  coincide with the anniversary of his father's death a year ago on 17 December.

The rocket launch  will  increase the tensions in the Korean peninsula  as  South Korea will hold its presidential election on 19 December and  and Japan plans parliamentary elections on Dec. 16.  Neither will it please the single-party state's only ally, China. Beijing has provided food and fuel aid to the North and has urged Pyongyang to launch economic reforms.

The North's reliance on China has  also increased in recent years as international sanctions over its missile and nuclear programmes have strangled its ability to secure international credit and foreign trade.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said another launch "would be a highly provocative act that threatens peace and security in the region."

It would be also in direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874, under which North Korea is barred from testing ballistic missile technology, she said in a statement.
     

While in Washington, President Obama will begin his second term in January.The rocket launch  will surely  draw stern condemnation from US and UN.

Today's announcement ended weeks of intense speculation,based on satellite image analysis, that the North was preparing a fresh launch from its Sohae satellite launch  station.

The South Korean foreign ministry condemned the planned launch as a "deeply provocative act" that defied UN resolutions and would have significant repercussions for the already isolated state.

South Korea had been warning  that  the North would seek to destabilise the situation on the Korean peninsula ahead of the South's presidential election on December 19.
   
"We sternly warn if the North goes ahead with the launch,it will face strong countermeasures from the international community," foreign ministry statement said today.

On Novermber 29, UN nuclear chief  has reported  that  North Korea has made further progress in the construction of a new atomic reactor, a facility that may extend the country's capacity to produce material for nuclear bombs.

Pyongyang "has continued construction of the light water reactor and largely completed work on the exterior of the main buildings," Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said.

It will be the North's second long-range rocket launch this year following a much-hyped but failed attempt in April.
   
In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Korean Committee for Space Technology said the new bid would be carried out between December 10 and 22.


As in April, the North said it would be a purely"peaceful, scientific" mission aimed at placing a polar-orbiting earth observation satellite into orbit.

The US and its allies insist the launches are disguised tests for an inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

North Korea carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and is under heavy U.N. sanctions for its atomic weapons programme.They say the North's Unha-3 rocket is actually a three-stage variant of the Taepodong-2 ICBM that Pyongyang has been developing for years but has never tested successfully.

NKorea's defence chief replaced by hawk

Tightening his grip over the military ,North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has replaced his defence chief with a hawkish general on November 29

Vice Marshal Kim Jong-Gak was sacked as defence minister after just seven months in office and  was replaced by Kim Kyok-Sik, a hawkish general believed to have orchestrated the North's sinking of a South Korean warship and an artillery attack on a border island in 2010, it said.
   

The re-shuffle of top-level personnel changes  was being done by Kim Jong-Un since taking over after the death of his father, Kim Jong-Il, a year ago.