UN Security Council fails to agree on response to N. Korea missile firingIn the Chinese media, North Korea's launch was generally portrayed as a peaceful advance of its space program, not a military threat.
"As a member of the United Nations, North Korea has a right to explore space. What gives the United States and Japan the right to object?" wrote a blogger, Long Kaifeng, on Sina.com, one of China's largest Web portals.
Russia reported that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had a telephone conversation in connection with the North Korean launch.
"The sides spoke out in favor of joint efforts aimed at preventing the destabilization of the situation in northeast Asia, and also for the preservation of the six-side negotiation process on the nuclear problem of the Korean peninsula," said the Russian Foreign Ministry statement published on its website Sunday. "An agreement was reached to keep up close contacts and continue consultations on the issue."
So here's a question to ponder. Just as with Iran's "nuclear ambitions", we have N. Korea declaring that they are engaging in a perfectly peaceable development of their space travel capabilities. Aren't they entitled to do that, just as much as Iran is entitled to develop their nuclear energy capabilities?
