|
North Korea launched a rocket Wednesday morning, according to South Korean media and the Associated Press. The launch marks the second such mission this year, after a failed attempt that embarrassed the regime in April.
The rocket was fired at 9:51 a.m., according to the Yonhap news agency in South Korea.
Though North Korea describes the effort as a peaceful satellite launch, the technology used to send a satellite into orbit or launch a missile carrying a warhead is essentially the same, raising fears that a successful mission could be a stride toward putting the United States in North Korea's sights. The U.S., South Korea and other nations condemned the planned launch as a brazen provocation when it was first announced.
The April launch ended in less than two minutes. The rocket broke into pieces shortly after liftoff, a black eye for the country as it marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung. Earlier attempts to launch a satellite also failed, according to Western officials.
North Korea experts say the latest undertaking is a bid to regain face after the April effort and an attempt to bolster the leadership of Kim Jong Un, who took power late last year.
The country announced at the beginning of the month that its scientists had analyzed the errors behind the April failure, but some analysts were skeptical that it had had enough time to fix the problems.
ALSO:
U.S. blacklists Syrian rebel group for Al Qaeda ties
Egypt's political fault lines shaken by rival protests in Cairo
Mali again in turmoil after soldiers force prime minister to resign
Comments are filtered for language and registration is required. The Times makes no guarantee of comments' factual accuracy. Readers may report inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse link next to a comment. Here are the full legal terms you agree to by using this comment form.
';
shareDiv.innerHTML = templateHTML;
/* append the new div to the end of the document, which is hidden already with CSS */
document.body.appendChild(shareDiv);
/* Store the div in both a regular JavaScript variable and as a jQuery object so we can reference them faster later */
var shareTip = document.getElementById('shareTip'),
$shareTip = $('#shareTip');
/* This extends our settings object with any user-defined settings passed to the function and returns the jQuery object shareTip
was called on */
return this.each(function() {
if (options) {
$.extend(settings, options);
}
/* This is a hack to make sure the shareTip always fades back to 100% opacity */
var checkOpacity = function (){
if ( $shareTip.css('opacity') !== 1 ){
$shareTip.css({'opacity': 1});
}
};
/* Function that replaces the HTML in the shareTip with the template we defined at the top */
/* It will wipe/reset the links on the social media buttons each time the function is called */
var removeLinks = function (){
shareTip.innerHTML = templateHTML;
};
/* This is the function that makes the links for the Tweet / Share functionality */
var makeURLS = function (link, message){
/* Here we construct the Tweet URL using an array, with values passed to the function */
var tweetConstruct = [
'http://twitter.com/share?url=', link, '&text=', message, '&via=', settings.twitter_account
],
/* Then join the array into one chunk of HTML */
tweetURL = tweetConstruct.join(''),
/* Same story for Facebook */
fbConstruct = [
'http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=', link, '&src=sp'
],
fbURL = fbConstruct.join(''),
newHTML = [
''
],
shareHTML = newHTML.join('');
/* Load in our new HTML */
shareTip.innerHTML = shareHTML;
};
/* Since the shareTip will automatically fade out when the user mouses out of an element */
/* we have to specifically tell the shareTip we want it to stay put when the user mouses over it */
/* This effectively gives the user a 500 ms (or whatever) window to mouse */
/* from the element to the shareTip to prevent it from popping out */
$shareTip.hover(function(){
$shareTip.stop(true, true);
$shareTip.show();
checkOpacity();
}, function(){
$(this).fadeOut(settings.speed);
});
/* This function handles the hover action */
$(this).hover(function(){
/* remove the old links, so someone doesn't accidentally click on them */
removeLinks();
/* If there's already an animation running on the shareTip, stop it */
$shareTip.stop(true, true);
var eso = $(this),
message,
/* Store the width and height of the shareTip and the offset of the element for our calculations */
height = eso.height(),
width = eso.width(),
offset = eso.offset(),
link;
link = eso.children('a').attr('href');
message = escape( eso.find('img').attr('alt') ) || eso.attr(settings.message_attr);
if (link.search('http://') === -1){
link = 'http://www.latimes.com' + link;
}
link = encodeURIComponent(link);
/* If it's at the top of the page, the shareTip will pop under the element */
if (offset.top
North Korea launches its second rocket this year
This article
North Korea launches its second rocket this year
can be opened in url
http://variationsnews.blogspot.com/2012/12/north-korea-launches-its-second-rocket.html
North Korea launches its second rocket this year
