North Korea defied international warnings and launched a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others call a cover for a banned test of technology for a missile that could strike the US mainland.
The rocket, fired from North Korea's west coast and tracked by the governments in South Korea and Japan, came about two hours after an eight-day launch window opened Sunday morning. It follows North Korea's widely disputed claim last month to have tested a hydrogen bomb. Washington, Seoul and their allies will consider it a further provocation and will push for more tough sanctions in the United Nations.
A South Korean defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of office rules, said the launch from the North's west coast launching pad was made between 9:30 a.m. and 9:35 a.m. local time, but gave no other details.
NHK also showed footage of an object visible in the skies from the southern island of Okinawa that was believed to be the rocket.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye convened an emergency national security council meeting after the launch.
The global criticism began almost immediately.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called the North Korean rocket launch and the recent nuclear test violations of UN agreements.
"We absolutely cannot allow this," he told reporters at the prime minister's residence. "We will take action to totally protect the safety and well-being of our people."
Kim Jong Un has overseen two of the North's four nuclear tests and three long-range rocket tests since taking over after the death of his father, dictator Kim Jong Il, in late 2011. North Korea says its rocket launches are satellite missions, but the U.S., South Korea and others say they are a covert test of ballistic missile technology. The UN Security Council prohibits North Korea from nuclear and ballistic missile activity. Experts say that ballistic missiles and rockets in satellite launches share similar bodies, engines and other technology.
The Jan. 6 nuclear test has led to another push in the UN to tighten sanctions. North Korea in 2013 also did a nuclear test and then unnerved the international community by orchestrating an escalating campaign of bombast, including threats to fire nuclear missiles at the US and Seoul.
The Korean border is the world's most heavily armed and the rivals' navies occasionally trade gunfire near a disputed boundary in the Yellow Sea.
North Korea has spent decades trying to develop operational nuclear weapons.
It is thought to have a small arsenal of atomic bombs and an impressive array of short- and medium-range missiles. But it has yet to demonstrate that it can produce nuclear bombs small enough to place on a missile, or missiles that can reliably deliver their bombs to faraway targets.
Still, the North's nuclear tests and steadily improving long-range rocket launches push its nuclear aims further along.
North Korea has said that plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at its main Nyongbyon nuclear complex are in operation. The country is thought to have a handful of rudimentary nuclear bombs but there is debate about whether it is capable of building warheads small enough to mount on a missile that could threaten the United States.
North Korea has spent decades trying to perfect a multistage, long-range rocket. After several failures, it put its first satellite into space with a long-range rocket launched in December 2012.
Six-nation negotiations on dismantling North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for aid fell apart in early 2009.
Under Kim Jong Un, a February 2012 deal for the United States to provide 240,000 metric tons of food aid in exchange for a freeze in nuclear and missile activities collapsed after a rocket launch by the North that April.
