South Korea and Japan vowed to shoot down any debris that falls on their territories from a long-range rocket that North Korea plans to fire this month, with Seoul yesterday saying it has detected launch preparations by Pyongyang.
North Korea has informed international organizations that it will launch an observation satellite aboard a rocket between Monday and Feb. 25.
South Korea, the US and others say such a move would be a cover for a banned test of a missile that could strike the US mainland.
Photo: AP, Kyodo News
The launch announcement follows an outpouring of global condemnation over the North’s fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6. If North Korea’s past patterns are any clue, angry warnings by Seoul, Washington and their allies probably will not dissuade a coming launch.
The South Korean Ministry of National Defense yesterday said that the North was pushing ahead with the launch plans at its west coast Tongchang-ri launch site.
Spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said South Korea is using Aegis-equipped destroyers, aircraft, sophisticated radars and other surveillance assets to monitor the North’s launch preparations, but refused to provide further details.
Recent commercial satellite images showed an increased number of vehicles at North Korea’s Sohae launch station on Monday, compared with a week earlier.
This suggests that the North is preparing for a space launch in coming weeks, according to 38 North, a North Korea-focused Web site run by the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
However, the Web site said it was impossible to tell from the satellite imagery whether a space launch vehicle was present.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday called for strong UN sanctions that would make North Korea realize it could not survive if it did not abandon its weapons programs.
However, there are questions over whether any sanctions will force real change in the North because China, the North’s last major ally and a veto-wielding UN Security Council member, is reluctant to join in any harsh punishment against the North.
In South Korea and Japan, there are fears about falling debris, although nothing landed in their territories during the North’s most recent launches.
Seoul officials estimated the first stage of the rocket would fall off the west coast of South Korea, more debris would land near the South’s Jeju Island, and the second stage would land off the Philippines’ east coast.
Moon said that South Korea would fire missiles to intercept the North Korean rocket or its fragments if they threaten to fall on its territories.
Japanese Minister of Defense Gen Nakatani on Wednesday said he issued a missile-shoot-down order and deployed Aegis destroyers and PAC-3 missile defense units to around Tokyo and Okinawa in case debris fall on the Japanese territory.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique