‘North Korea preparing to launch missile

North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japanese media said Thursday, following a nuclear test this month that raised international alarm and sparked a diplomatic clash between Washington and Beijing.

Imagery collected over the past several days suggested the launch from the western Dongchang-ri site could come in about a week, Kyodo News said, citing a Japanese government source. Increased movements of people and vehicles were seen around the launch site, which has now apparently been covered over, national broadcaster NHK said, citing a source familiar with Japan-South Korea relations. The United States regularly monitors North Korea from space while Japan itself began its own satellite monitoring of the country in 2003. North Korea is banned under UN Security Council resolutions from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology, although repeated small-range missile tests have gone unpunished. The development parallels events in December 2012, when Pyongyang put a satellite into orbit with its Unha-3 carrier. The reported preparation came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity over possible further sanctions against Pyongyang.

But China, North Korea’s chief diplomatic protector and economic benefactor, is reluctant, despite ties becoming strained in recent years as Beijing’s patience wears thin with its neighbour’s ambitions for nuclear weapons. US secretary of state John Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an “accelerated effort” to try to resolve their differences on a new resolution.

But Mr Kerry, who said nuclear-armed North Korea poses an “overt threat, a declared threat to the world”, acknowledged that the two had not agreed on the “parameters of exactly what it would do or say”.