The U.N. Security Council decided to hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss North Korea's long-range rocket launch, officials said.
| Pudgy's quivering in his Guccis... |
The meeting was scheduled after South Korea's mission to the U.N. sent a letter requesting an emergency meeting to the council president, Venezuela's U.N. Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno, officials said. The United States and Japan also requested an emergency meeting, they said.
Following the North's Jan. 6 nuclear test, the 15-member council also held an emergency meeting and strongly condemned the test.
| Worked well, didn't it. Quite the deterrent... |
The North fired the rocket from its northwest Dongchang-ri launch site at 9:30 a.m. (Korean time), one month after its fourth nuclear test, sending the already-high tensions on the Korean Peninsula soaring higher. The launch, which is banned under U.N. resolutions,
| Banned? And they did it anyway? They defied the U.N.? How could that happen... |
came as the U.N. Security Council has been working on a new resolution imposing sanctions on Pyongyang for the nuclear test and is sure to spark stronger calls to punish the communist nation.
North Korea says its rocket launches are aimed at putting satellites into orbit, claiming it has the right to the peaceful use of space. But Pyongyang is banned from such launches under U.N. Security Council resolutions as it has been correctly accused of using them as a cover for testing intercontinental ballistic missiles. |