By Ju-min Park | Reuters�?�18 mins agoSEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's much hyped long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes after launch on Friday, South Korean and other officials said, dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished state.
Pyongyang had defied international pressure from the United States and others to push ahead with the launch, which even its close ally China had warned against.
According to Japanese broadcaster NHK, citing a defense ministry source in Tokyo, the rocket flew for 120 km (75 miles) and then broke up into four pieces, crashing into waters off the west coast of the Korean peninsula.
South Korea's army said debris had crashed into the sea some 200 km off the western coast of South Korea.
"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.
North Korea said it wanted the Unha-3 rocket to put a weather satellite into orbit, although critics believed it was designed to enhance the capacity of North Korea to design a ballistic missile deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.
Officials from Japan confirmed the mission had failed, while ABC News cited U.S. officials saying it had failed, although there was no immediate indication of where it fell.
The rocket's flight was set to take it over a sea separating the Korean peninsula, with an eventual launch of a third stage of the rocket in seas near the Philippines that would have put the satellite into orbit.
This will be North Korea's second consecutive failure to get a satellite into orbit, although it claimed success with a 2009 launch. There was no immediate comment on Friday's launch from North Korea's official media.
The Unha-3 rocket took off from a new launch site on the west coast of North Korea, near the Chinese border.
The launch had been timed to coincide with the 100th birthday celebrations of the isolated and impoverished state's founder, Kim Il-sung, and came after a food aid deal with the United States had hinted at an easing of tensions on the world's most militarized border.
(Additional reporting by TOKYO newsroom; Writing by David Chance and Jonathan Hopfner; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
-
North Korea Readies Long-Range Rocket�?
North Korea is continuing with preparations to launch a new Earth-observing�… Full Story��North Korea Readies Long-Range Rocket for Launch Despite Warnings
SPACE.com
Most Popular
[ [ [['Mitt Romney', 8]], 'http://yhoo.it/HPi2sz', '[Related: What questions do you have for Mitt Romney?]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A picture is worth a thousand words', 5]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/why-facebook-bought-instagram-4-theories-160400376.html', '[Related: Why Facebook bought Instagram: 4 theories]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 9]], 'http://contributor.yahoo.com/join/yahoonews_virginiabeach', '[Did you witness the jet crash? Share your story with Yahoo! News]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], 'http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj', '[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]', ' ', '630', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/', ' ', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg', '550', ' ', ' ', ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg', '630', ' ', 'AP', ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], 'http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/', 'Click image to see more photos', 'http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg', '500', ' ', 'AP', ] ]
[ [ [[' the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 4]], '28924649', '0' ], [ [['because I know God protects me', 14], ['Brian Snow was at a nearby credit union', 5]], '28811216', '0' ], [ [['The state news agency RIA-Novosti quoted Rosaviatsiya', 6]], '28805461', '0' ], [ [['measure all but certain to fail in the face of bipartisan', 4]], '28771014', '0' ], [ [['matter what you do in this case', 5]], '28759848', '0' ], [ [['presume laws are constitutional', 7]], '28747556', '0' ], [ [['has destroyed 15 to 25 houses', 7]], '28744868', '0' ], [ [['short answer is yes', 7]], '28746030', '0' ], [ [['opportunity to tell the real story', 7]], '28731764', '0' ], [ [['entirely respectable way to put off the searing constitutional controversy', 7]], '28723797', '0' ], [ [['point of my campaign is that big ideas matter', 9]], '28712293', '0' ], [ [['As the standoff dragged into a second day', 7]], '28687424', '0' ], [ [['French police stepped up the search', 17]], '28667224', '0' ], [ [['Seeking to elevate his candidacy back to a general', 8]], '28660934', '0' ], [ [['The tragic story of Trayvon Martin', 4]], '28647343', '0' ], [ [['Karzai will get a chance soon to express', 8]], '28630306', '0' ], [ [['powerful storms stretching', 8]], '28493546', '0' ], [ [['basic norm that death is private', 6]], '28413590', '0' ], [ [['songwriter also saw a surge in sales for her debut album', 6]], '28413590', '1', 'Watch music videos from Whitney Houston ', 'on Yahoo! Music', 'http://music.yahoo.com' ], [ [['keyword', 99999999999999999999999]], 'videoID', '1', 'overwrite-pre-description', 'overwrite-link-string', 'overwrite-link-url' ] ]
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-koreas-long-range-rocket-crashes-sea-002338501.html
weird world news 2011 western world newspaper coos bay world news world news 2011 world news 2011 japan
No comments:
Post a Comment