{Japanese public broadcaster says North Korean mobile launcher has been seen travelling near east coast.}<\/p>\n
North Korea’s mobile missile launcher has been seen moving near the east coast carrying a ballistic missile launcher, while activity has also been seen at a long-range rocket launch pad on the west coast, Japanese public broadcaster NHK has reported.<\/p>\n
International pressure has grown on North Korea to call off a planned rocket launch, seen by some governments as another missile test, since Pyongyang told United Nations agencies this week it would launch what it called an “earth observation satellite”.<\/p>\n
The NHK report on Thursday said the mobile missile launcher was thought to normally remain stationary in places such as an underground facility.<\/p>\n
Japan readies to ‘destroy’ North Korea rocket
\nNorth Korea fired two mid-range ballistic missiles, which appeared to be Rodong-class missiles, from the mobile launcher off its east coast into the sea towards Japan in March 2014, Thursday’s NHK report said.<\/p>\n
Japan has put its military on alert to shoot down any rocket that threatens its territory.<\/p>\n
“Japan’s military has been put on alert. Japan is saying it will – if any parts of this rocket come down in various stages in Japanese territory – they will shoot them down if necessary,” Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett reported.<\/p>\n
South Korea did not confirm the Japanese report about the mobile missile launcher, but defence officials said Pyongyang was preparing long-range missile at its Dongchang-ri launch site in the northwest<\/p>\n
The developments on Thursday came a day after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Pyongyang “to refrain from using ballistic missile technology”.<\/p>\n
“[These reports are] a deeply troubling development. It will further aggravate the profound concerns that the international community already has in the wake of the recent nuclear test,” Ban said in a statement, referring to North Korea’s claims of a bomb test in early January. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, United States Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday that the US military was keeping a vigilant eye on North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes, and was continually expanding its defenses against a possible missile attack by Pyongyang.<\/p>\n
Carter said the US was on track to expand the number of ground-based missile interceptors in Alaska and Hawaii to 44 from 30, but no further interceptor expansion was planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Japanese public broadcaster says North Korean mobile launcher has been seen travelling near east coast.} North Korea’s mobile missile launcher has been seen moving near the east coast carrying a ballistic missile launcher, while activity has also been seen at a long-range rocket launch pad on the west coast, Japanese public broadcaster NHK has reported. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000071942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-22971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000071942,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton22971.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000071942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22971"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=22971"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=22971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}