Wind may have forced North Korea to delay rocket launch

Seoul: High winds may have forced North Korea to delay its rocket launch, despite the country's insistence on Saturday that preparations were complete for the liftoff that many suspect is intended to test the country's long-range missile capabilities.

Regional powers deployed warships and trained their satellites on the communist country to monitor what they suspect will be a test for a missile capable of reaching Alaska.

Preparations for sending "an experimental communications satellite" into space were complete, North Korea's state-run media said in a dispatch Saturday morning, adding, "The satellite will be launched soon."

However, the day's stated 11am to 4pm timeframe passed without any sign of a launch. North Korea had announced last month the launch would take place sometime between April 4 and 8 during those hours.

Winds reported as "relatively strong" around the northeastern North Korean launch pad in Musudan-ri may have kept the North from launching the rocket Saturday, analyst Paik Hak-soon of the private Sejong Institute think tank said.

"North Korea cannot afford a technical failure," he said. "North Korea wouldn't fire the rocket if there's even a minor concern about the weather."

Japan again urged North Korea to refrain from a launch that Washington, Seoul and Tokyo suspect is a guise for testing the regime's long-range missile technology.

"The launch will damage peace and stability in Asia. We strongly urge North Korea to refrain from it," chief Japanese government spokesman Takeo Kawamura said Saturday.