The long-range rocket that North Korea fired on December 12th appears to have put a satellite successfully into space. That is a first for the isolated dictatorship. The satellite will do little more than transmit grainy images of North Korea back to a grateful audience. Still, previous attempts at such a launch have failed. Success marks a crucial step on the road to mastering the technology required to build a working intercontinental ballistic missile-the kind that might carry a nuclear weapon to the west coast of America, for instance.
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