North Korea is preparing to launch a satellite, a Seoul newspaper said Tuesday, as outside observers warn that the nuclear-armed regime’s space programme is a fig leaf for weapons tests. He stressed North Korea’s right to produce and launch satellites “will not be changed just because the US denies it”. North Korea is believed to have successfully put a satellite into orbit in December 2012 after years of failures dating back to 1998 when it launched a pilot satellite and named it Kwangmyongsong-1. Earlier this month, the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaia Gazeta quoted a Russian military expert, Vladimir Khrustalev, as saying that North Korea was expected to launch two satellites — an Earth exploration satellite and a communications satellite — in the near future. Khrustalev made the remark after returning from his week-long trip to North Korea in mid-November when he met with representatives of the country’s National Aerospace Development Administration, the Russian daily said.

Source: Punch December 26, 2017 04:18 UTC