Recent United Nations (UN) sanctions following North Korea’s provocative acts have placed additional economic pressure on Pyongyang, but that hasn’t stopped Kim’s regime from promising to sending more satellites, including a stationary one, into space.
Rodong Sinmum, North Korea’s state-run newspaper, reported the space programme developments will help the country improve its economy and the livelihoods of its citizens.
The newspaper reported: “Some countries have manipulated UN sanctions resolutions against us and hindered the sovereign country’s space development. It is not a tolerable act.
”It is a global trend that a country seeks the economic growth with the space program.”
Last month the UN unanimously voted to step up sanctions on North Korea following the country’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test, imposing a ban on the country’s textile exports and capping imports of crude oil.
It was the ninth sanctions resolution unanimously adopted by the 15-member council since 2006 over North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.
North Korea has had some success with its space program since Kim Jong-un took over in 2011.
In December 2012, the country successfully launched its first satellite after years of failures.
In February last year, North Korea claimed to have launched a long-range rocket carrying a satellite – just weeks after conducting its fifth nuclear test.
The news comes as Donald Trump prepares for his first visit to the region, with the US President set to arrive in Tokyo on Sunday for a three-day trip before he continues on to South Korea, the Philippines, China and Vietnam.
The President will be entertained by Pikotaro, the fake-moustached singer behind the Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen hit, while also enjoying a round of golf with Mr Abe and the world’s number four golfer Hideki Matsuyama.
He is also expected to meet the emperor as well as the parents of Megumi Yokata, who was kidnapped by North Korean agents in 1977 while she was walking home from school at just 13-years-old.
Last week, North Korea claimed it is now a “fully-fledged nuclear power” in a mysterious letter to Australia.
Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop revealed she had received a letter from the Kim regime in which North Korea insists it will not be brought to its knees by President Trump’s repeated nuclear threats.
Addressed to the “parliaments of different countries”, the letter condemns Trump’s speech at the UN where he boasted the US could “totally destroy” North Korea before announcing his rogue state had joined the world’s nuclear club.
The letter reads: “If Trump thinks that he would bring the DPRK [North Korea], a nuclear power, to its knees through nuclear war threat, it will be a big miscalculation and an expression of ignorance.
“The DPRK has emerged a fully-fledged nuclear power which has a strong nuclear arsenal and various kinds of nuclear delivery means made by dint of self-reliance and self-development. The real foe of nuclear force is a nuclear war itself.
“The Foreign Affairs Committee … takes this opportunity to express belief that the parliaments of different countries loving independence, peace and justice will fully discharge their due mission and duty in realising the desire of mankind for international justice and peace with sharp vigilance against the heinous and reckless moves of the Trump administration trying to drive the world into a horrible nuclear disaster.”