North Korea has announced it would launch a long-range rocket next month to put a satellite into orbit, a move that would breach a United Nations...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
ban imposed after previous launches.
Blast-off will be between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung, the communist state's official news agency and state television
... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
said on Friday.
The North's last long-range rocket launch on April 5, 2009, purportedly of a satellite, brought UN Security Council condemnation and a tightening of sanctions.
Pyongyang quit six-party nuclear disarmament talks in protest at the censure and conducted a second atomic weapons test the following month.
Friday's announcement came just 16 days after the North's new leaders agreed to suspend long-range missile tests as part of a deal under which it would receive 240,000 tonnes of US food aid.
That deal, under which Pyongyang also promised to freeze its uranium enrichment plant, had raised hopes of eased tensions under the new leadership.
The North maintains that its satellite launches are for peaceful purposes while the United States and other nations say they are disguised missile tests.
A Unha-3 rocket will launch a home-built polar-orbiting earth observation satellite known as Kwangmyongsong-3, a front man for the Korean Committee for Space Technology said in a statement.