North Korea starts fuelling rocket

North Korea has said it plans to send a satellite into orbit from April 4-8 but the United States, South Korea and Japan say the launch is a disguised test of the long-range Taepodong-2 missile, which is designed to carry a warhead to U.S. territory.

The fuelling signals North Korea is in the final preparation stages for the launch, CNN quoted U.S. military officials as saying in Washington in a report monitored in Seoul on Thursday. Officials in Seoul could not confirm the report.

The launch will be the first big challenge for U.S. President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North, whose efforts to build a nuclear arsenal have long plagued ties with Washington.

In London on Wednesday, a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity on the sidelines of a G20 meeting, said Washington would respond to any North Korean launch by raising the matter in the U.N. Security Council.

"The president made clear we are deeply concerned about the prospective missile launch by the North Koreans ... There will be a reaction to it," the official said.

The United States, Japan and South Korea say they see no difference between a satellite and a missile launch because they use the same rocket, the Taepodong-2, which exploded shortly into its only test flight in July 2006.

The three and other global powers said the launch would violate U.N. Security Council resolutions imposed after the earlier exercise in 2006. North Korea has said it is putting a satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful space program.

Any attempt to punish North Korea will infuriate Pyongyang, which has threatened to restart a plant that makes arms-grade plutonium and quit nuclear disarmament talks if the United Nations takes action.

Analysts said they expect China, a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council and the closest thing Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, to block any new sanctions or attempts to tighten the enforcement of existing ones.