North Korea to invite observers to satellite launch

Wow, this is transparency at its finest. Things have changed but only we haven't. A new leader is in place so we need to give him a clean slate. Only Japan will corrupt its relationship with the North. If you allow those old politicians to do so they will.

Every hero needs an enemy otherwise we dont see them as heroes. These old politicians, well, some of them are not business majors. In fact, some of them are good at only one thing. That'qs running their mouths and putting every one in a state of fear.

Go watch the launch. Have a cup of tea or coffee with this new kid on the block. Give yourselves a chance to judge the man. Insanity is doing the same formula over and over again thinking the results will somehow be different. Invite him to America and let him develop an image of how he could develop his country.

The son is not always like the father. He has different goals and sees his world different from the time that his father lived. It's time to heal relations with NK but some of the older Japanese politicians need to die in order to do it. They won't change and since this kid is younger than they are they'll probably expect him to bow to their every wish.

I truly feel that j'govt is going to blow opportunities to heal. All I've seen from them in the last 5 years is destruction.

@netninja, how ridiculus. Nothing has changed, only the military regime has a new figurehead, the son of the previous figurehead who passed away last year. Don't blame Japan for its dysfunctional relationship with NK, this 'country' is an international pariah and no democracy wants to normalise relations with such a disgusting, human rights denying mess. Yep, every hero needs an enemy and Japan and especially the US are seen as the mortal enemies of NK, schoolchildren in the 'people's paradise' are taught to hate these two countries and prepare for a war with them at all costs. This new 'leader' doesn't seem to be anything to change from the past. What about closing those concentration camps that hold 200,000 people for starters? You can wax lyrical about 'rockets' and 'new beginnings', but North Korea will remain a country that keeps millions of citizens mired in misery and oppression, starving, brutalised and broken down. Have fun watching the launch.

NetNinja: Every hero needs an enemy otherwise we dont see them as heroes.

Wow, I've seen this card get played often, but this is probably the first time I've seen it during a conversation about North Korea.

I understand the severity of the situation but they should go check it out before they all out try to stop them. NK is under new rule and you gotta give the guy some elbow room unless you want him to change into his father. I'm not saying just let run around aimlessly but you know at least dont jump to conclusions about a guy that hasnt even been on the job more than a few months.

Go check it out. You can even say that you are helping them.

The governments of the US,Japan,China and others that are complaining about North Korea being a closed society and evil Empire should accept this open invitation to observe the launch.. If indeed they find that North Korea is launching a satellite. If North Korea is,as it seems, offering such open access, it should be embraced . There can be no peace in this region if North Korea is not allowed to advance and improve there own society. As Ronald Reagan once stated, "Trust but confirm". There is a new,younger,and perhaps more open leader in North Korea. I hope he gets a chance to find a way to join the international community and prove himself as a positive world leader.. Bottom line..As another man once stated.."Give peace a chance".

I hope the rocket crashes and burns on take-off...embarrassing NK on the world stage no less. They build a rocket while their people starve?! The sooner this despot government is overturned, the sooner Korea can be whole again and can forget this sad episode in their national history.

and in fact, it is in the us interest n maintaining its bases here to have Japan and south Korea panicked over NK. And that is why we have deraild our own have hearted peace peace efforts many times, provoking NK, and in fact we have targetted NK on numerous occasions with our own nuclear weapons many times.

Not saying the NK gov has many redeeming values, but saying we, a democracy that props up our own depots when it wants to--we gave Saddam's gas to use against Iran and created the likes of the Taliban and Northern Alliancec as a weapon against Russia, only to bomb civilians in an effort to get Bin Ladin and then give a few measly dollars and say, "sorry about that, accidents happen-- we have our own nuclear weapons destabilizing the world...in fact, we incinerated hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and created the whole nuclear industry that gave us Fukushima.

we do not speak from the moral high ground... we make the world ripe for the likes of NK to want arms because we are seen as a threat to them. At least in South Korea, more sonin Japan, other than Okinawa,there are people who say they fear the US military because it seeks to destabilize the region and make NK a greater threat than is. While most western media last year accepted reports that the North sunk a ship, many South Koreans opined in mainstream media that South Korea and/or the US fabricated the evidence or even sabotaged their own ship in order to keep fear in the hearts of Koreans.

Whatever is true, it shows that many in South Korea recall their own fascist past, when its dictators, as always befriended by th US, declared war on South Korean dissidents and massacred so many. Whose democracy is more mature? The fact that many South Koreans are notvreadyvto buy possibly manufactured stories about the North means they know that the gov, like the Us and Japan, seeks to manipulate public opinion in order to prop up the military industries that benefit so handsomely from any tension created by a real or imagined threat.

A good source on the complex history, which does not whitewash NK behavior but does expose U.S. lies can be found at japanfocus.org

peaceful my butt, i bet there is something insidious about this they aren't telling us.

Oginome, we all know of the terrible things the people of NK have to through, this isn't a matter of educating us on those matters. You have to realize, their government is not set up even remotely like Japan's... There is not a revolving-door of prime ministers that act under the guise of "leader" for the same old politicians and government time and time again.

In NK, all the power actually DOES go to the leader. Therefore, you have no reason to believe that all the same atrocities will continue unabated for decades to come. Even in a dictatorship, change takes at least a BIT of time. Especially for one so young and inexperienced as he. We must not be prejudiced. We MUST give him the opportunity to make change. If all we give him is hate, he may turn into an enemy in reaction to that hate.

Think of the situation he was born into. Why should he be condemned for that.

Oginome, we all know of the terrible things the people of NK have to through, this isn't a matter of educating us on those matters. You have to realize, their government is not set up even remotely like Japan's... There is not a revolving-door of prime ministers that act under the guise of "leader" for the same old politicians and government time and time again.

Never said Japanese politics wasn't corrupt, but it really, really doesn't compare to what goes on in that murderous hell hole.

In NK, all the power actually DOES go to the leader. Therefore, you have no reason to believe that all the same atrocities will continue unabated for decades to come. Even in a dictatorship, change takes at least a BIT of time. Especially for one so young and inexperienced as he. We must not be prejudiced. We MUST give him the opportunity to make change. If all we give him is hate, he may turn into an enemy in reaction to that hate.

Actually, the military have been running things behind the scenes in NK for a long, long time now. Nothing has changed, the leader is certainly a figurehead. If all the power does go to the leader, and he is a compassionate individual like you all hope, then he would have closed those camps by now. Even if he became an enemy of the world, due to other countries' hatred, that still doesn't justify the living conditions the people of his country have to suffer through.

Think of the situation he was born into. Why should he be condemned for that.

With his living outside of NK, he would have come to realise what his home country and his father was really like. And yet, he agreed to succeed him. Didn't have to. One of Kim Jong-Il's other sons lives a life of a playboy in Macau and Hong Kong, a spoilt, overprivileged brat yes, but still a superior position to that of 'leading' this monstrous regime. Apparently Kim Jong-Un was chosen because he most resembled his father in temperament.

Give this young leader a chance to do whats right

He has a chance, and he decided to use his chance to launch a rocket. Were you talking about a second chance?

Paul Arenson: Not saying the NK gov has many redeeming values, but

Always wait for the "but."

"peaceful my butt, i bet there is something insidious about this they aren't telling us."

Maybe they're going to stuff all the foreign experts and journalists in the rocket and launch them.

I give it 50% it blows up.

I agree that this is a first very positive sign from NK, and yes observers from around the world should go. Only problem is the food aid may be there but the people are still starving? All the $$$ that could be used in a NK "space program" hahaha, should be re-directed to the people that need it. They lost out mostly because the new "dear leader" was emulated by the state with "mystical powers". Their sanity is extremely questioned.

a long-range rocket carrying the satellite between April 12-16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founding president Kim Il-Sung.

this period (4.12~16) will be better than 9.11, 26.11 or 3.11

I give it 50% it blows up.

Nah, I'd drop that down to 20%. I'd say it's got a 50/50 of going dramatically off course though, those old chinese missile specs aren't exactly prized for their manuverability at the speeds this thing would need to be going.