North Korea’s recent rocket launch amounted to the test of a ballistic missile capable of carrying a half-tonne payload as far as the US west coast, the South Korean defense ministry said yesterday.
North Korea launched its three-stage Unha-3 rocket on Dec. 12, insisting it was a purely scientific mission aimed at putting a polar-orbiting satellite in space.
Yesterday’s estimate was based on analysis of an oxidizer container — recovered from the rocket’s first-stage splashdown site — which stored red fuming nitric acid to fuel the first-stage propellant.
“Based on our analysis and simulation, the missile is capable of flying more than 10,000km with a warhead of 500kg to 600kg,” a South Korean defense ministry official told reporters.
The estimated range of 10,000km covers the whole of Asia, eastern Europe and western Africa, as well as Alaska and a large part of the US west coast, including San Francisco.
Without any debris from the second and third stages to analyze, the official said it could not be determined if the rocket had re-entry capability — a key element of inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology.
Most of the world saw the North’s rocket launch as a disguised ballistic missile test that violates UN resolutions imposed after Pyongyang conducted nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
The success of the launch was seen as a major strategic step forward for the North, although missile experts differed on the level of ballistic capability demonstrated by the rocket.
The debris collected by the South Koreans was made of an alloy of aluminum and magnesium, with eight panels welded manually.
“Welding was crude, done manually,” the ministry official said, adding that oxidizer containers for storing toxic chemicals are rarely used by countries with advanced space technology.
The South’s navy later recovered three more pieces of the rocket — a fuel tank, a combustion chamber and an engine connection rod — from the Yellow Sea and has been analyzing them since Friday, Yonhap news agency said yesterday.
“As additional pieces have been salvaged, we will be able to look deeper into the function and structure of North Korea’s long-range rocket,” a South Korean defense ministry official quoted by Yonhap said.
The North apparently timed the widely condemned launch to mark the first anniversary of the death of longtime North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and drum up more support for his son and successor, Kim Jong-un.
Since the launch, Pyongyang’s propaganda machine has gone into overdrive to heap praise on the ruling Kim dynasty for leading the successful mission and to urge support for the young ruler who took over a year ago. The nuclear-armed nation has awarded medals to 101 rocket scientists and technicians who worked on the launch, its official Korean Central News Agency said yesterday.
“By successfully launching satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2, they instilled great national self-esteem ... and dealt a sledge-hammer blow to the hostile forces’ desperate moves to check the advance of [North Korea],” it said.
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday said it is closely monitoring developments in Venezuela, and would continue to cooperate with democratic allies and work together for regional and global security, stability, and prosperity. The remarks came after the US on Saturday launched a series of airstrikes in Venezuela and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was later flown to New York along with his wife. The pair face US charges related to drug trafficking and alleged cooperation with gangs designated as terrorist organizations. Maduro has denied the allegations. The ministry said that it is closely monitoring the political and economic situation
UNRELENTING: China attempted cyberattacks on Taiwan’s critical infrastructure 2.63 million times per day last year, up from 1.23 million in 2023, the NSB said China’s cyberarmy has long engaged in cyberattacks against Taiwan’s critical infrastructure, employing diverse and evolving tactics, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said yesterday, adding that cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure last year increased 10-fold compared with the previous year. The NSB yesterday released a report titled Analysis on China’s Cyber Threats to Taiwan’s Critical Infrastructure in 2025, outlining the number of cyberattacks, major tactics and hacker groups. Taiwan’s national intelligence community identified a large number of cybersecurity incidents last year, the bureau said in a statement. China’s cyberarmy last year launched an average of 2.63 million intrusion attempts per day targeting Taiwan’s critical
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
RSS