http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57413401/north-korea-launches-but-rocket-appears-to-fail/
North Korea launches, but rocket appears to fail
Updated 8:23 PM ET
(CBS/AP) SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has fired a long-range rocket, top U.S. and South Korean officials confirm. But a top U.S. official tells CBS News correspondent David Martin Press that the rocket "may have failed."
South Korean defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters in a nationally televised news conference that the rocket was fired at 7:39 a.m.
He said officials were trying to determine whether it was a success. He provided no further details, and declined to say how South Korea confirmed the launch in the west coast hamlet of Tongchang-ri.
Japan's Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka said, "We have confirmed that a certain flying object has been launched and fell after flying for just over a minute." He did not say what exactly was launched.
He said there was no impact on Japanese territory from the launch.
A U.S. official told Reuters Thursday: "We are confirming the rocket launched." The White House said it would release a statement on the launch shortly, and South Korean presidency was set to hold an emergency meeting.
Reuters reported that the U.N. Security Council will convene on Friday to discuss a response to the launch, according to council diplomats.
"The North Korea rocket launch is a clear provocation and a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions which prohibit this activity," Kap-soo Rim, First Secretary of the Republic of Korea Mission to the U.N., told CBS News.
"The Security Council should act decisively, and strongly," Rim said, "the Ambassador is waiting for instructions from Seoul."
CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk said that the launch probably marks the end of the food agreement with the U.S. "but it is unlikely to provoke more than a statement of alarm from the U.N. in the short term, and perhaps more extensive sanctions in the long term, particularly since the launch failed."
North Korea had announced it was planning the launch of an observation satellite to celebrate Sunday's centennial of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the country's late founder. There was no word from Pyongyang about the launch, its third attempt to send a satellite into space since 1998. North Korean officials said they would make an announcement about the launch "soon."
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