Nkorea says it will launch satellite 'soon'

North Korea has completed preparations for a satellite launch which will go ahead "soon," Pyongyang's state media reported Saturday, and Seoul's Yonhap news agency said it could happen within hours.

The North says it plans a peaceful satellite launch, but the United States and its regional allies see the exercise as a provocative test of a ballistic missile in defiance of United Nations resolutions.

The nuclear-armed communist state has so far ignored calls for restraint, however, fuelling the rocket at its Musudan-ri site in the northeast.

"Preparations for launching Kwangmyongsong-2, an experimental communications satellite, by carrier rocket Unha-2 have been completed at the satellite launching ground in the east coastal area of the DPRK North Korea," the Korean Central News Agency said.

"The satellite will be launched soon," it added, citing information from the Korean Committee of Space Technology.

The Unha-2 Galaxy-2 rocket is known in the West as the Taepodong-2, which could theoretically reach Alaska or Hawaii at maximum range.

The state news agency said previous notifications to international aviation and shipping bodies remain unchanged.

These gave notice of a launch between April 4-8, and between the hours of 11:00am and 4:00pm 0200-0700 GMT.

Yonhap said cameras had been set up at three different places around the launch site.

"Given that the fuelling work has been completed and then the monitoring cameras have been set up, it is very likely for the launch to be in several hours," it quoted a Seoul government source as saying.

Seoul's defence minsitry declined to comment.

North Korea has deployed navy vessels in the Sea of Japan East Sea ahead of the launch, Japanese media reported.

The North says the first stage of the rocket will fall in the Sea of Japan some 75 miles 47 miles from Japan's coast and the second stage will plunge into the Pacific.

The North's ships would collect data from the launch including the rocket's trajectory, and try to collect fallen parts, Yomiuri Shimbun and the Sankei Shimbun said.

Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have vowed to refer a launch to the UN Security Council, while US President Barack Obama demanded that Kim Jong-Il's regime rethink its plan.

"We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative," Obama said during a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Strasbourg.

"Should North Korea decide to take this action, we will work with all interested parties in the international community to take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that it can't threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity."

Bosworth said it was difficult to know if international diplomatic measures against North Korea would further escalate a showdown.





show by Swiss National Circus Knie. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann

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