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Japan and North Korea on cold War 03/04/2009
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Updated: 3rd April 2009, 1700 hrs
Seoul on top alert as NKorea rocket launch nears
South Korea has urged its people to cancel trips to North Korea as Pyongyang makes final preparations for a rocket launch.
The South Korean unification ministry, which handles cross-border ties, urged groups and individuals to avoid visiting the North from tomorrow.
Seoul's defence ministry, meanwhile, says it's strengthening monitoring and vigilance before the launch, which could come as soon as tomorrow.
The US and its allies have warned Pyongyang not to go ahead with what it calls a satellite launch, vowing a stern response.
North Korea insists it is pursuing a peaceful space programme.
But opponents say Pyongyang's real purpose is to test the launch a long-range ballistic missile.
Seoul on top alert as NKorea rocket launch nears
South Korea has urged its people to cancel trips to North Korea as Pyongyang makes final preparations for a rocket launch.
The South Korean unification ministry, which handles cross-border ties, urged groups and individuals to avoid visiting the North from tomorrow.
Seoul's defence ministry, meanwhile, says it's strengthening monitoring and vigilance before the launch, which could come as soon as tomorrow.
The US and its allies have warned Pyongyang not to go ahead with what it calls a satellite launch, vowing a stern response.
North Korea insists it is pursuing a peaceful space programme.
But opponents say Pyongyang's real purpose is to test the launch a long-range ballistic missile.
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South Koreans watch news of North Korea's rocket launch on television at Seoul railway station. Photograph: Jo Yong-Hak/REUTERS
North Korea today defied mounting international pressure when it launched a long-range rocket, with the move triggering an emergency meeting of the UN security council.
The state's official news agency said it had successfully put a satellite into orbit and said the satellite was transmitting revolutionary songs as it circled the Earth.
However, both the US military and South Korea said the satellite had failed to orbit, with the payload dropping into the sea.
The US president, Barack Obama, led international condemnation of the launch, which Washington and others see as a test of weapons technology.
The US had initially feared that Pyongyang planned to launch a Taepodong-2 missile, theoretically capable of reaching Alaska, in breach of a UN ban.
"Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through illegal weapons," Obama said in speech in Prague.
"Rules must be binding, violations must be punished, words must mean something."
The multi-stage rocket lifted off at 11.30am (2.30am GMT) from the Musudan-ri site in north-eastern North Korea.
The US northern command said stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan and the remaining stages along with the payload landed in the Pacific ocean. No debris fell on Japan.
The South Korean defence minister, Lee Sang-hee, said the satellite had failed to orbit, Japan's Kyodo news agency reported.
"Based on our judgment made so far, all first, second and third [stage] rockets fell into the ocean, and thus nothing has been put into orbit," Lee reportedly said at a parliamentary session in Seoul.
Three years ago, a Taepodong-2 test failed within seconds.
Details remain unclear, but the foreign secretary, David Miliband, described this morning's North Korean move as a "satellite launch".
He accused Pyongyang of a "hostile policy" towards the rest of the world, adding: "This action contributes directly to their ballistic missile programme."
The US, Japan and South Korea argue that the launch technology for a missile is the same as that for a satellite, but will find it harder to press their case than if a Taepodong-2 had been fired.
China and Russia called for calm and restraint on all sides.
The White House described the launch as a clear breach of UN resolution 1718, passed after long-range missile and nuclear tests in 2006, which demanded that North Korea suspend "all activities related to its ballistic missile programme".
Japan's chief cabinet spokesman, Takeo Kawamura, said: "Even if a satellite was launched, we see this as a ballistic missile test ... we are highly concerned by this matter."
South Korea called it a "reckless" act that threatened regional stability.
The EU "strongly condemned" Pyongyang's step.
Tokyo had deployed warships and Patriot missile interceptors off its northern coast to shoot down any debris which might hit its territory.
But, like the US, it had already said it would not intercept the device after Pyongyang warned that shooting it down would be an "act of war" and would prompt retaliation.
US and South Korean warships, equipped with missile interceptors, plied the waters between the Korean peninsula and Japan, while Russia reportedly scrambled fighter jets to its far east in case of debris.
Japan and the US requested an emergency meeting of the security council, which will take place in New York tonight.
UN diplomats, speaking anonymously, told Reuters no country was considering imposing new sanctions on Pyongyang – they would be almost certain to be blocked by Russia and China – but the starting point could be discussing a resolution for the stricter enforcement of earlier sanctions.
China has occasionally criticised its neighbour in the past, notably when Pyongyang tested a nuclear device in 2006, but has usually preferred to use its leverage as the North's main ally in private.
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University, in Beijing, said China had learned that tough measures did not work and cost it "crucial influence with Pyongyang at even more sensitive moments".
China will probably decide that bringing its neighbour back to the table to resume the stalled six-party talks on aid for nuclear disarmament is a greater priority.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, today called on the North to return to the talks as he warned that the launch was not conducive to peace and stability.
Many believe that Pyongyang was aiming to grab US attention as well as test and improve its missile-related technology and advertise it to potential purchasers such as Iran.
"The test represents both a calling card for North Korea to the [Obama] administration and at the same time strengthens its bargaining position," Professor Han Sung-joo, a former South Korean foreign minister, said.
He pointed out that the nuclear test in 2006 had been a hostile act but led to bilateral negotiations with the US.
Pyongyang had warned the world that it would launch the rocket between 4 and 8 April and notified agencies such as the International Maritime Organisation, which it has not done on previous occasions.
The launch will boost morale at home, particularly because South Korea has yet to put a satellite into space.
It will bolster the position of the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, who is believed to have suffered a stroke last year but is thought to be back in charge of major decisions.
The state KCNA news agency said in a report: "Our scientists and engineers have succeeded in sending satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 into orbit by way of carrier rocket Unha-2.
"[It] was developed by our wisdom and technology, and is a proud achievement made out of our battle to upgrade our country's space scientific technology".
It added that the satellite was transmitting the Song of General Kim Il-sung and Song of General Kim Jong-il.
Kim Il-Sung, the father of the current leader, is still feted as the North's "eternal president".
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By ANDY PASZTOR and SIOBHAN GORMAN
U.S. intelligence agencies are capitalizing on North Korea's weekend rocket launch to advance proposals to deploy two new spy satellite systems estimated to cost a total of about $10 billion, according to government and industry officials.
Arguing that the U.S. faces a future gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week asked the White House to approve plans to build a pair of large, cutting-edge spy satellites along with two smaller, less-expensive models commercially available today, these officials said. The aim is to get the simpler satellites into orbit first to maintain U.S. space surveillance efforts, and then develop and launch the more-capable follow-on constellation.
As part of the debate leading up to the recommendations, intelligence officials argued that commercially available imagery, by itself, wouldn't have been adequate to fully decipher North Korea's activities regarding its controversial rocket, according to officials familiar with the details. While calls for a hybrid commercial-government solution cap four years of studies and bureaucratic wrangling, North Korea's space ambitions gave the U.S. intelligence community a real-world opportunity to cinch its arguments.
"We have a gap [in imaging capabilities] in the future, and we understand that," Vice Admiral Carl Mauney, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said last week, adding that military and intelligence leaders together "have devised a plan to deal with it."
The upshot of North Korea's launch preparation efforts, one senior intelligence official said Sunday, was to "present us with material evidence to show how [imaging] systems are being used right now," and what augmented capabilities will be necessary in the future.
The proposed dual systems, a compromise between advocates of large and small satellites, pose the first major decision for President Barack Obama and his National Security Council about buying big-ticket space hardware.
Government officials haven't talked about likely contractors. But Lockheed Martin Corp. is widely seen as having the inside track to snare contracts for the two large satellites because of its position as a legacy provider of advanced imaging spacecraft.
At the same time, Pentagon brass and U.S. intelligence officials are reviving efforts to build a separate, multi-billion dollar space radar network to identify and track moving targets, regardless of terrain, weather or time of day. Air Force General Robert Kehler, the head of Air Force Space Command, told an industry conference last week that commercial technology is expected to play an important role in that proposed system, as well
Mr. Blair believes that the latest approach regarding imaging programs is the "most prudent, cost-effective plan with the least risk," said his spokeswoman Wendy Morigi. "That's what ultimately guided their recommendation." She noted that Mr. Blair made his decision after convening an independent review of senior defense and intelligence experts and consulting four years worth of additional studies of imagery needs and proposals.
Other intelligence officials stressed that the goal was to establish a comprehensive, long-term path that balances technical risks, budgets and imminent demands for more data. They said this approach aims to balance budget pressures, the need to update current capabilities, and the need to avoid repeating the mistakes of past imagery programs. One senior intelligence official called it "a compromise solution born strictly of the circumstances within which we find ourselves."
But it has already run into stiff criticism on Capitol Hill, where Missouri Sen. Christopher S. Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, wrote last month to Mr. Blair to complain the approach was too costly.
Mr. Bond argued for a more experimental system that he said could produce almost the same quality at far lower cost. He noted in his letter that an internal report from two intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites, promoted less costly alternatives. "You are asking the taxpayers to pay more for a single [satellite] than we paid for the last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier," Mr. Bond wrote. Spokesmen for the CIA and NRO declined to comment on the matter.
The senior intelligence official said that while the system Mr. Bond favors may prove successful in the future, intelligence officials supporting Mr. Blair's recommendation believed that Mr. Blair's compromise solution could be depended upon now because it uses proven technology that would provide more "long term reliability" in addition to higher-resolution images.
Launch failures, technical stumbles and congressional opposition in the last few years have combined to stall some of the U.S. intelligence community's most ambitious satellite plans. In 2005, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, Boeing Co. was stripped of a contract to produce so-called electro-optical satellites, similar to large orbiting telescopes and designed to provide clear, high-resolution pictures of small objects. Last year, the nascent space radar program imploded due to skepticism by lawmakers and persistent arguments between the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about who would run it and distribute its anticipated data.
The House Intelligence Committee in a report last year criticized the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon's intelligence chief for failing to show "an appropriate sense of urgency in charting a viable future course" for imaging satellite options.
Because the intelligence agencies have allowed the cost of spy satellites to balloon—half of them are over budget by at least 50% -- and allowed new programs to fall far behind schedule, the House panel urged the intelligence director last year to pursue lower-risk and near term solutions while developing the designs for the next generation of spy satellites.
Similarly the Senate intelligence committee last year directed the intelligence director to assess the tradeoffs between using government and commercial satellite imagery because the government "no longer holds a monopoly on satellite imagery."
U.S. intelligence agencies are capitalizing on North Korea's weekend rocket launch to advance proposals to deploy two new spy satellite systems estimated to cost a total of about $10 billion, according to government and industry officials.
Arguing that the U.S. faces a future gap in advanced, high-resolution imaging capabilities, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair and Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week asked the White House to approve plans to build a pair of large, cutting-edge spy satellites along with two smaller, less-expensive models commercially available today, these officials said. The aim is to get the simpler satellites into orbit first to maintain U.S. space surveillance efforts, and then develop and launch the more-capable follow-on constellation.
As part of the debate leading up to the recommendations, intelligence officials argued that commercially available imagery, by itself, wouldn't have been adequate to fully decipher North Korea's activities regarding its controversial rocket, according to officials familiar with the details. While calls for a hybrid commercial-government solution cap four years of studies and bureaucratic wrangling, North Korea's space ambitions gave the U.S. intelligence community a real-world opportunity to cinch its arguments.
"We have a gap [in imaging capabilities] in the future, and we understand that," Vice Admiral Carl Mauney, deputy commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said last week, adding that military and intelligence leaders together "have devised a plan to deal with it."
The upshot of North Korea's launch preparation efforts, one senior intelligence official said Sunday, was to "present us with material evidence to show how [imaging] systems are being used right now," and what augmented capabilities will be necessary in the future.
The proposed dual systems, a compromise between advocates of large and small satellites, pose the first major decision for President Barack Obama and his National Security Council about buying big-ticket space hardware.
Government officials haven't talked about likely contractors. But Lockheed Martin Corp. is widely seen as having the inside track to snare contracts for the two large satellites because of its position as a legacy provider of advanced imaging spacecraft.
At the same time, Pentagon brass and U.S. intelligence officials are reviving efforts to build a separate, multi-billion dollar space radar network to identify and track moving targets, regardless of terrain, weather or time of day. Air Force General Robert Kehler, the head of Air Force Space Command, told an industry conference last week that commercial technology is expected to play an important role in that proposed system, as well
Mr. Blair believes that the latest approach regarding imaging programs is the "most prudent, cost-effective plan with the least risk," said his spokeswoman Wendy Morigi. "That's what ultimately guided their recommendation." She noted that Mr. Blair made his decision after convening an independent review of senior defense and intelligence experts and consulting four years worth of additional studies of imagery needs and proposals.
Other intelligence officials stressed that the goal was to establish a comprehensive, long-term path that balances technical risks, budgets and imminent demands for more data. They said this approach aims to balance budget pressures, the need to update current capabilities, and the need to avoid repeating the mistakes of past imagery programs. One senior intelligence official called it "a compromise solution born strictly of the circumstances within which we find ourselves."
But it has already run into stiff criticism on Capitol Hill, where Missouri Sen. Christopher S. Bond, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence panel, wrote last month to Mr. Blair to complain the approach was too costly.
Mr. Bond argued for a more experimental system that he said could produce almost the same quality at far lower cost. He noted in his letter that an internal report from two intelligence agencies, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Reconnaissance Office, which builds and operates spy satellites, promoted less costly alternatives. "You are asking the taxpayers to pay more for a single [satellite] than we paid for the last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier," Mr. Bond wrote. Spokesmen for the CIA and NRO declined to comment on the matter.
The senior intelligence official said that while the system Mr. Bond favors may prove successful in the future, intelligence officials supporting Mr. Blair's recommendation believed that Mr. Blair's compromise solution could be depended upon now because it uses proven technology that would provide more "long term reliability" in addition to higher-resolution images.
Launch failures, technical stumbles and congressional opposition in the last few years have combined to stall some of the U.S. intelligence community's most ambitious satellite plans. In 2005, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, Boeing Co. was stripped of a contract to produce so-called electro-optical satellites, similar to large orbiting telescopes and designed to provide clear, high-resolution pictures of small objects. Last year, the nascent space radar program imploded due to skepticism by lawmakers and persistent arguments between the Pentagon and intelligence agencies about who would run it and distribute its anticipated data.
The House Intelligence Committee in a report last year criticized the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon's intelligence chief for failing to show "an appropriate sense of urgency in charting a viable future course" for imaging satellite options.
Because the intelligence agencies have allowed the cost of spy satellites to balloon—half of them are over budget by at least 50% -- and allowed new programs to fall far behind schedule, the House panel urged the intelligence director last year to pursue lower-risk and near term solutions while developing the designs for the next generation of spy satellites.
Similarly the Senate intelligence committee last year directed the intelligence director to assess the tradeoffs between using government and commercial satellite imagery because the government "no longer holds a monopoly on satellite imagery."
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