North Korea launched the rocket at 11:30 a.m. local time, or 10:30 NYTime said the office of the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak. Early reports from the Japanese prime minister’s office indicated that the three-stage rocket appeared to launch successfully, with the first stage falling into the Sea of Japan and the second stage into the Pacific. South Korea vowed a “stern and resolute” response to the North’s “reckless act.”

South Korean officials, after studying the rocket’s trajectory, said it appeared to have been configured to thrust a satellite into orbit, as the North had claimed.

No debris was reported to have fallen on Japanese land. There has been no confirmation of whether the third and final stage of the launching took place.

But what may have mattered most to North Korea was simply demonstrating that it had the ability to launch a multistage rocket that could travel thousands of miles.

The motivation for the test appeared as much political as technological: After acquiring the fuel for six or more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration, and negotiating a halt of its main nuclear reactor in return for aid, North Korea’s recent statements appear to be a bid for attention from the Obama administration.

The Japanese government strongly protested the launching over its territory and asked for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, said, “North Korea’s launch of its long-range rocket poses a serious threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world at a time when the entire world is pulling its wisdom together to overcome the global economic crisis.”

Over the years the North has sometimes conducted tests as a gambit to extract concessions for more aid and fuel and to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities.

Manufacturing a nuclear warhead that is small enough, light enough and heat-resistant enough to be mounted atop a missile is far more complex than building a basic nuclear device — and intelligence officials and outside experts believe North Korea is still years from that accomplishment. Typically, it takes many years of experimentation for a nation to learn how to shrink an ungainly test device into a slim warhead.

Nonetheless, the series of tests in recent years — in 2006 and 1998 — is prompting fears of North Korean proliferation among Japanese, Chinese and Western leaders. North Korea’s missiles have ranked among its few profitable exports — Iran, Syria and Pakistan have all been among its major customers. If this long-range test ends up a success, it would presumably make the design far more attractive on the international black market.

The launching provides one of the first tests of Mr. Obama’s reaction to a provocation, on the weekend that he is scheduled to lay out for the first time, in a speech in Prague, his strategy to counter proliferation threats.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ruled out any effort to shoot down the missile if the mission appeared to be a serious effort to launch a satellite. Rather, Mr. Obama’s top aides said during last week’s Group of 20 summit meeting in London that if the missile were launched, they would seek additional sanctions against the country in the United Nations Security Council, perhaps as early as this weekend.

President Bush pressed for similar sanctions after the North’s nuclear test in October 2006, but those sanctions had little long-term effect.

“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” Mr. Obama said Friday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Strasbourg, France. Mr. Obama took the issue up on Wednesday in London with President Hu Jintao of China.

While Washington has signaled calm, the Japanese response has been unusually strong. Japan deployed ships into the Sea of Japan and suggested it would try to shoot down any “debris” from the launching that threatened to hit the country. However, there is no evidence they tried to do so, and on Saturday, to the embarassment of the Japanese military, the country falsely reported twice that the missile had been launched.

With the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly recovering from a stroke last summer, the missile test may also be an effort by him — or some in the military — to demonstrate that someone is firmly in control and that the country’s missile and nuclear programs are forging ahead. In recent times top American intelligence officials have told Congress they believe Mr. Kim is back in charge of the country, but they admit considerable mystery surrounds the question of whether he has regained all of his faculties.

North Koreans Launch Rocket Over the Pacific

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan says North Korea will be breaking international law if it launches a long-range rocket – regardless of what is on board.

He says any North Korean launch, whether it is a missile or a satellite, will be brought to the United Nations Security Council for a possible response.

North Korea informed international agencies Thursday of launch coordinates for when Pyongyang says it will put a “communications satellite” into space sometime between April 4 and 8.

Leaders in South Korea, the United States, and Japan suspect the real motive for the launch is to test a long-range missile. They say any launch will violate a United Nations resolution imposed in 2006, after North Korea conducted long range missile and nuclear weapons tests within months of each other.

U.N. agencies have advised aircraft and sea vessels of two “danger zones” in waters northeast of North Korea, where stages of the rocket will fall at high speeds back to earth.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura says his country is ready to defend itself if the missile comes too close.

He says Japanese law and national security policy permit the shooting down of any object that looks like it might land on Japanese territory.

The United States has two Aegis naval Destroyers docked in South Korea for annual joint exercises with the South’s forces scheduled to end next week. Choi Kee-dong, the Korean-American commander of the USS Chafee, says ships like his are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles. He says he will execute whatever course of action U.S. policymakers decide upon.

“The U.S. Navy is always prepared to respond in a crisis, and we will do our utmost to make sure that we carry out our mission,” he said.

North Korea says it will consider any attempt to shoot down its missile an act of war.

Pyongyang protested the South’s annual military cooperation with the United States Friday by sealing its border to the South for the second time this week. Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded at a joint industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Hundreds of other South Koreans were unable to complete travel plans to Kaesong as scheduled.

Japan, South Korea Warn North’s Launch Will Have Consequences

Hamas security forces also reported Saturday’s strikes. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

The Israeli air force struck two “smuggling tunnels” on the southern Gaza border and one “weaponry storage site” in Gaza City, a military spokesman told CNN.

“In all strikes, a hit was identified,” the spokesman said, adding that the strikes were in response to six rockets targeting Israeli since Saturday morning.

According to the Israeli military, more than 100 rockets, mortar shells and missiles have been fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in Gaza since Hamas leaders announced a cease-fire on January 18.

Israel also announced a cease-fire and pulled its troops out of Gaza in January, ending a three-week military campaign that the Israeli military said was aimed at halting the rocket fire.

Egypt has been trying to broker a broader cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Israel is demanding that Hamas release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit before it fully reopens the border crossings with Gaza.

Hamas has rejected discussing Shalit’s release as part of any cease-fire negotiation.

Israel launches airstrikes into Gaza – CNN.com

The unusually strong warning comes as North Korea steps up its war rhetoric in anger over South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s tough stance toward the North.

The North Korean military has said it is “fully ready” for war with the South, and state-run media have warned that clashes between the two sides could break out at any time.

A lawmaker asked Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee how the South Korean military would react if the North fires artillery or missiles at its ships.

“When an enemy missile flies in, while we will take preventive measures, the point of missile launch should be attacked,” Lee Sang-hee responded, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Lee said the military would respond to any provocation but brushed off concerns that a counterattack could lead to a bigger battle.

“The military will give as much response as the enemy provoked in the shortest possible time so that it won’t develop into a full-scale war,” he said.

Choi Jin-hwan, an aide to lawmaker Rep. Hong Jung-wook, confirmed the exchange.

Lee’s comments were unusually strong. It is rare for South Korean officials to openly talk about attacking the North.

The maritime border off the peninsula’s west coast has been the scene of two deadly naval skirmishes, in 1999 and 2002, and is considered the most likely site for an armed clash if tensions continue to rise.

North Korea does not recognize the boundary, drawn by the United Nations at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and says the line should be redrawn further south.

Also Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il named top military officer and key aide Gen. O Kuk Ryol, 78, to the No. 2 post at the powerful National Defense Commission, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Kim replaced his defense minister and another top military official last week, KCNA said.

All three newly named officials are trusted hard-liners, said analyst Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. He said the appointments suggest Kim is tightening his control over the military.

Since taking office a year ago, South Korean President Lee has stopped unconditional aid to the North until it abides by a pledge to dismantle its nuclear program.

SKorea to retaliate if NKorea attacks

China expanded its arsenal last year even as tensions eased after the election of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said.

“In this period of warmth, a war won’t break out, but don’t forget China still has 1,500 missiles aimed at Taiwan — more than 1,500 — and that’s not right,” Lai said. “They’re always adding [missiles].”

The Ministry of National Defense estimated early last year that there were 1,300 missiles pointing at Taiwan.

“This is something that we keep appealing about to mainland China, to take the missiles offline,” Lai said. “If you take so many missiles and aim them at a neighbor, will he feel comfortable?”

Beijing added missiles every year as a deterrent and to update its arsenals, said Andrew Yang (楊念祖), secretary-general with the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies, a Taipei think tank.

Dong Feng 11 and Dong Feng 15 short-range ballistic missiles are believed to be based in southeast China, about 160km away.

Meanwhile, Taiwan has cut annual live-fire military drills to once every two years and reduced its defense budget for this year.

China’s defense budget for this year has not been released. Last year, the government said it would spend 418 billion yuan (US$61 billion) on defense, up 17.6 percent from the previous year.

Taipei Times – archives

The think tank made the prediction in its ‘Military Balance 2009,’ an annual assessment of global defense and military developments.

Announcing the new report on Tuesday, Mark Fitzpatrick said the threat may not necessarily as big as it sounds.

“Being able to enrich uranium is not the same as having nuclear weapons,” he said.

In addition, the report placed doubts over U.S. intelligence estimates that Iran halted its work on nuclear weapons six years ago and pointed to Tehran’s continued development of long-range ballistic missiles able to reach targets in Israel and beyond.

Russia, on the other hand, made a great show of its military last year, including naval exercises with Venezuela. But the IISS study found that Russia is much less threatening than it would like to appear.

A Times of London report on the study described the former Soviet powerhouse as a “paper tiger,” noting that study’s conclusion that Russia’s displays of its naval fleet were mere symbolic gestures.

The country was only able to deploy a small number of ships, while the rest were anchored at home — there wasn’t enough money to keep the whole fleet at sea, according to the study.

FOXNews.com

Residents near the town of Rafah fled as missiles hit tunnels through which Israel says militants smuggle arms.

The strikes came ahead of US envoy George Mitchell’s visit to promote a permanent Israel-Hamas ceasefire.

Both sides declared ceasefires on 17 and 18 January to end Israel’s three-week offensive on Gaza.

The land, air and sea assault killed about 1,300 Palestinians, including 400 children. Thirteen Israelis died.

It is not clear whether there were any casualties from the airstrikes, but the latest violence is a sign of just how fragile the truce is, says the BBC’s Bethany Bell in Jerusalem.

Push for peace

Israel had responded to Tuesday’s roadside bomb – which killed one soldier and wounded three – by immediately sending troops and tanks into Gaza backed by helicopters.

Ensuing fighting around the town of Khan Younis and the Kissufim border crossing left one Palestinian dead, medical sources said.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert threatened further strikes, saying the incursion was merely an initial reaction and that Israel’s full response was still to come, Haaretz newspaper reported on its website.

Both Mr Mitchell and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana are in the region to push for peace talks.

Mr Mitchell, newly appointed by US President Barack Obama, is to hold talks with Mr Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, although correspondents say he is not expected to meet Hamas officials.

He has already held talks in Cairo about Egypt’s mediation efforts.

Israeli and Palestinian faction representatives have visited Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials since the ceasefires came into effect.

Hamas wants an end of Israel’s punishing blockade of Gaza. Israel wants a long-term ceasefire and curbs on Hamas rearming.

During Mr Mitchell’s visit, Israelis will want to hear what ideas the US has for advancing the peace process, as well as how Washington will tackle the Iranian nuclear issue, our correspondent says. But with Israeli elections due to take place in two weeks, it is likely the US envoy will spend much of his time listening, as Mr Obama has asked him to do, our correspondent adds.

Mr Mitchell’s visit is being seen by many Israelis as a sign of US engagement, and by others as a sign of pressure.

Tunnels working

The Gaza Strip’s southern frontier is peppered with tunnels into Egypt that were pummelled by air-strikes during Israel’s offensive.

One of Israel’s stated goals was to halt the smuggling of weapons – including rockets that were being fired against Israeli towns – into the coastal enclave through the network of tunnels.

But smuggling resumed shortly after the non-negotiated cease-fires were declared.

Residents along the border say food, fuel and other goods are moving through the several dozen tunnels that are still operational.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli jets target Gaza tunnels

In Cairo, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon met Wednesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in a bid to break the diplomatic impasse. Ban said he would keep pushing Israel and Hamas to observe a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire but was not optimistic.

“We shared our feelings and frustrations and pain over the ongoing violence in Gaza,” Ban said of his meeting with Mubarak, whose government is trying to mediate a settlement between Israel and Hamas.

Meantime, three rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon Wednesday. No injuries were reported but the fusillade added to jitters in an already tense region. It was the second rocket attack on northern Israel in a week, raising fears that Lebanese militants could try to widen the conflict.

No groups asserted responsibility for the strikes. The Israeli military said it returned fire and that it viewed “the Lebanese government and military as responsible to prevent such attacks.”

The Israeli military also confirmed that it had turned away an Iranian ship that was approaching Gaza. Iran is a key backer of Hamas. Iranian officials said the ship was loaded with humanitarian goods, which it would attempt to deliver at a nearby Egyptian port, the Reuters news service reported from Tehran.

In Gaza, the Israeli military said it carried out 60 airstrikes overnight, destroying a police court in Gaza City and weapons caches. Israeli military officials said their strategy was to squeeze Hamas militarily as they try to pressure the Islamist movement into a truce that would include a long-term commitment to stop firing rockets into southern Israel.

Some Hamas leaders have said they are willing to cut a deal, but others have pledged to continue fighting.

While diplomatic efforts continued in Egypt, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden issued a new audiotape to an Islamist Web site criticizing Arab governments for not doing more to support Palestinians in Gaza, and calling on Muslims to launch a jihad to repel the Israeli offensive. The statement was 22-minutes and branched into a variety of topics, including the global economic crisis, and the transition of power in Washington, according to IntelCenter, a private company that studies terrorist groups.

Despite public vows by Israeli politicians to destroy Hamas’s military capability, Israeli officials said Tuesday that the movement had lost only a fraction of its fighters and retained a large stockpile of rockets and other armaments. A “few hundred” Hamas fighters have been killed, out of a total force of 15,000, according to a senior Israeli military official.

In a briefing for foreign journalists, the senior official said Hamas still has hundreds of rockets and other missiles. “We do not see where they have a shortage of personnel to fight,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing intelligence matters.

Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli military chief of staff, said Gaza had been pummeled by more than 2,300 airstrikes since the war began Dec. 27. “We have achieved a lot in hitting Hamas and its infrastructure, its rule and its armed wing, but there is still work ahead,” he told the Israeli parliament Tuesday.

Offensive Unlikely to Put End to Hamas, Israel Says – washingtonpost.com

There were 12 air raids – compared with as many as 60 on previous nights. At least nine rockets or mortars were fired on Israel from Gaza on Monday.

The Israeli military denied stepping up a ground offensive against Hamas, despite renewed fierce fighting.

Earlier, PM Ehud Olmert said Israel was nearing its military goals.

Reports suggest diplomatic efforts between Egypt and Hamas in Cairo are progressing.

After meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair said elements were in place for a ceasefire agreement.

“I am hopeful we can put an agreement together but it’s going to have to be worked on very hard and it’s got to be credible,” he told journalists.

At least five Palestinians including one militant were killed on Monday, bringing the total Palestinian death toll during the conflict to about 900, Palestinian medics said. Israel says 13 Israelis have died.

There were reports of fierce fighting around Gaza City. Reservists were reported to be securing areas gained in the fighting, as regular troops continued their advance.

Israel is preventing international journalists from entering the coastal strip, making it impossible to independently confirm such figures.

Israel hopes the scale of its operation will greatly reduce the number of missiles fired from Gaza into southern Israel, while eroding support for Hamas.

Militants fired more than 20 rockets on Sunday, slightly injuring three people. At least nine were fired on Monday, one on the town of Ashkelon, striking a house, and one on Kiryat Gat, but none of them caused casualties.

‘Still training’

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC Israel’s goals were “very minimalistic” and “purely defensive”.

“We refuse, we refuse to return to a reality in which the Israeli civilian population has to live in that constant fear of an incoming Hamas rocket,” he said.

Confirming the deployment of reserve soldiers, Mr Regev said reservists had been called up “a few days back” to augment Israeli forces.

The Israeli military said some were being used to refresh troops currently in action in Gaza, but that this did not yet constitute an escalation of the campaign.

Brig Gen Avi Benayahu, Israel’s chief military spokesman, said thousands more – who are to comprise a new, expanded phase in the ground operation – were still in training and had not been deployed.

On Sunday Israel dropped new leaflets into Gaza and left phone messages warning Gazans to stay away from areas used by Hamas, the Associated Press reported.

In Cairo, talks between Hamas and Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman were described by an unnamed intelligence official as “positive”, the state news agency reported, without providing details.

On Sunday, after an Israeli cabinet meeting in Jerusalem to consider the country’s next move, Mr Olmert praised the military’s “impressive gains” in Gaza and said it was time to “translate our achievements into the goals we have set”.

“Israel is nearing the goals which it set itself, but more patience, determination and effort is still demanded.”

Referring to last week’s UN Security Council call for an immediate ceasefire, Mr Olmert said “nobody should be allowed to decide for us if we are allowed to strike”.

Both Hamas and Israel have rejected the UN resolution.

Civilian patients

As the fighting continued, a spokesman for the charity Save the Children said it was impossible for aid workers to do their jobs in Gaza.

“We need the violence to stop. We need the attacks to stop. It’s only when that happens that we will be able to operate,” Benedict Dempsey said.

The territory’s main hospital is close to collapse, according to two Norwegian doctors who have been working there during the conflict.

They said patients at al-Shifa hospital were dying because of a lack of specialist doctors and basic medical equipment.

Doctors Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse said half of their patients were civilians, some of them young children with shrapnel and blast wounds.

Aid agencies say Gaza’s 1.5 million residents are in urgent need of food and medical aid.

Meanwhile, Israel’s army denied deploying white phosphorus bombs in Gaza, after Palestinian medics said they had treated patients for burns caused by the munitions.

Israel began Operation Cast Lead just weeks before parliamentary elections in the country, as a six-month truce with Hamas unravelled.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israeli raids as reserves move in

The assault on Gaza City coincided with a predawn missile barrage that set 20 homes ablaze in a southern Gaza village. Scores of residents suffered burns and gas inhalation, witnesses said. Doctors who treated the victims said they suspected Israel had fired white phosphorus shells, which can be used to illuminate the nighttime battlefield or to lay down a smoke screen.

Plumes of black smoke rose over Gaza City as Israeli ground forces backed by helicopter gunships inched into neighborhoods on the capital’s southwestern, eastern and northern edges before dawn.

Tall apartment buildings shook from the force of Israeli artillery and airstrikes, and Hamas fighters answered with mortars, automatic rifles and grenades. It was the heaviest fighting since Israel attacked the Palestinian enclave Dec. 27, saying it wanted to halt years of rocket attacks on southern Israeli communities.

Troops withdrew from Gaza City after several hours, leaving it unclear whether Israel’s leaders had ordered an all-out assault on Hamas’ central stronghold. A decision to escalate the offensive would bring in tens of thousands of Israeli reservists, who were called up late last month, into a what would likely be close combat, with sharply higher casualties.

Brig. Gen. Avi Benayahu said today that the army had begun sending some reservists into Gaza but declined to say whether a new phase of the offensive had begun.

On Saturday, Israel’s aircraft scattered leaflets over Gaza City and Rafah and sent automated calls to Palestinian cellphones warning of an escalation in attacks.

“The IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will escalate the operation in the Gaza Strip,” the messages said in Arabic. “The IDF is not working against the people of Gaza but against Hamas and the terrorists only. Stay safe by following our orders.”

The leaflets urged residents not to help Hamas and to stay away from its members.

Also on Saturday, a senior Hamas commander was killed. The army said its ground forces killed Amir Mansi, commander of Hamas’ rocket-launching teams in Gaza City, after spotting him at a launch site there. Hamas confirmed Mansi’s death.

Palestinian militants fired 15 rockets into Israel, wounding three people.

Diplomatic efforts to end the fighting sputtered as Egypt rebuffed a proposal to place international forces along its border to help prevent weapons smuggling into Gaza. Israel says the offensive is aimed at stopping rocket fire from Gaza and will continue until weapons pipelines into the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave are cut off.

Israeli ground forces invaded Gaza on Jan. 3, after eight days of airstrikes, and have moved to the outskirts of cities. Although there was no sign of an advance, the warnings heightened the panic that has gripped Gaza’s 1.5 million people since the offensive began.

On Saturday, scores of families were seen loading mattresses and other belongings into and atop their cars and moving from outlying neighborhoods of Gaza City to places of refuge closer to the center.

In Saturday’s bloodiest incident, seven members of the Abed Rabbo clan were killed in the late-morning shelling of their grocery store in a village just east of the Jabaliya refugee camp.

Ziad Barqouni, an ambulance driver, said neighbors told him that the shelling had come from an Israeli tank several blocks away. Barqouni said he saw an Israeli helicopter firing into the village as he approached.

The Israeli army denied attacking the area at the time.

Twelve other Palestinian civilians were reported killed Saturday.

Palestinian medical officials said this weekend that nearly half of the 830 Gazans killed in the offensive were civilians. Israeli news media said the army estimated that it had killed 300 militants.

Thirteen Israelis have been killed: 10 soldiers, plus three civilians hit in Israel by rocket fire.

Gaza City under attack; Israeli missiles hit village – Los Angeles Times