NK is currently under a U.N. no-missile-launches sanction. A missile configured to launch a satellite is still a missile, and a "satellite launch" that falls short of orbit pretty much counts as a missile test - or maybe an attack in disguise.
Yep very true, but the UN sanctions baring missile testing is specifically targeted at ballistic missiles, not satellite launches. i can understand your point because the same missile (the Taepodong-2) is the same ICBM tested a few years ago that is to be used to launch a "satellite"
North Korea did register the launch with the UN on the 6th of March. The UN should have said something at the time of registration if they had concerns, or raise concerns about violations of breaching of sanctions. Satellite launches registered with the UN are not subject to prior inspections.
I think the whole world agrees the satellite launch is designed to test fire a ballistic missile, but the North Koreans always had a joker up their sleeve by playing the satellite launch card.
*Update*
N Korea fuelling rocket: report
North Korea has begun fuelling a long-range rocket, starting a process which means the rocket will be ready for lift-off in three to four days, CNN television says.
The US news broadcaster quoted a senior US military official as saying North Korea had begun fuelling the long-range rocket and could be ready for launch by the weekend, according to a report on its website.
Fuelling would confirm the regime was entering the final preparations for the launch, which it has announced will occur during an April 4-8 window.
North Korea has said it will send up a communications satellite over northern Japan, but the United States and its Asian allies suspect the launch is a cover for testing a long-range ballistic missile test that could - in theory - hit Alaska.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned during a visit to Tokyo that the North Korean launch would have consequences at the UN Security Council, saying: "It is an unfortunate example of provocation by the North Koreans."
On Wednesday in a statement carried by state radio, Pyongyang threatened to shoot down any US spy planes if they violate its airspace to monitor the imminent launch.
Any attempt to punish North Korea will infuriate Pyongyang, which has threatened to restart its plant that makes arms grade plutonium and also quit nuclear disarmament talks if the United Nations takes action.
The launch will be the first big challenge for U.S. President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North, whose efforts to build a nuclear arsenal have long plagued ties with Washington.
Satellite or warhead?
Recent commercial satellite pictures suggest preparations for a launch, with the removal of tarpaulins that had covered the shape of the rocket's tip, according to weapons experts.
"For quite a while, they had kept it shrouded and I think that was to deny us information on exactly what was going on and going into the missile," said Bruce Bennett, a senior defence analyst at the Los Angeles-based Rand Corporation.
"But at some point, you have to remove the shroud and get ready for a launch," he said.
The rounded shape of the rocket's nose indicated it was a satellite, as North Korea has announced, and not a warhead, Mr Bennett and another analyst said.
Mr Bennett says a warhead requires a narrower outline, resembling a sharpened pencil, to allow it to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere.
"Unless the front end of the missile as we're seeing it now is just a nose cone covering the warhead - which is a possibility - unless it's that, then it doesn't look very much like a warhead," he said.
"A warhead would not be as rounded."
A satellite can have a simpler design and "a relatively blunt nose" because it is headed into space, he said.
The latest commercial photos were "pretty grainy" but "it doesn't look like a warhead re-entry vehicle," said David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.
The United States, Japan and South Korea say they see no difference between a satellite and a missile launch because they use the same long-range rocket, the Taepodong-2, which is designed to carry a warhead as far as Alaska but exploded shortly into its only test flight in July 2006.
North Korea was hit with UN sanctions barring it from ballistic missile tests and halting its trade in weapons of mass destruction after it tried unsuccessfully to test the Taepodong-2 and conducted a nuclear test a few months later.
Several missile-interceptor ships with sophisticated radar from Japan, the United States and South Korea are expected to be in waters along the rocket's flight path but there are no plans to intercept it unless it threatens their territories.
N Korea fuelling rocket: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
