North Korea plans to launch a long-range rocket sometime between Dec. 10 and 22 with the excuse that it is placing a satellite in orbit. South Korean missile experts estimate that the North Korean three-stage liquid-fuel rocket has a range of about 10,000 km, capable of reaching the western part of the United States, including California.
The plan is clearly a provocation that violates two United Nations Security Council resolutions adopted in October 2006 and in June 2009, which say that North Korea must not carry out any further missile tests. The resolutions also demand that the country conduct no further nuclear tests. It would be to North Korea's benefit to cancel the launch. If it goes ahead with it, its isolation in the international community will only deepen.
North Korea takes the position that every country has a right to pursue a peaceful space development project and insists that it is following the final instructions left by the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who died Dec. 17, 2011. Apparently his youngest son, current leader Mr. Kim Jong Un, is trying to consolidate his regime by showing the North Korean people that he is following his father's final instructions. The rocket launch will likely take place on or around the first anniversary of his death.