Ignore the spin, Pyongyang has made sobering advances

North Korea's nerve-tweaking rocket launch was yesterday caught in a vortex of official spin.

Before Sunday's spectacular, United States and South Korea officials had drummed out the message - relayed with exhausting repetition by news agencies - that it mattered little what payload the rocket carried.

A Pyongyang satellite sparkler would merely be cover for a test of a long-range ballistic missile designed to carry a warhead.

But yesterday those countries' officials were busy trying to deflate North Korea's fizz, emphasising the Stalinist state's "failure" to hoist anything into the heavens.

The rocket, including whatever payload it carried, "apparently fizzled into the Pacific", AP reported.

The US Northern Command said the first stage of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan and the rest landed in the Pacific. South Korea said the rocket appeared to be carrying a satellite and its Defence Minister Lee Sang Hee said it failed to orbit.

However, regardless of the ending, something ominous was achieved: Japan said it stopped monitoring the rocket after it had passed 2100km east of Tokyo and Chosun Ilbo said it flew 3200km. This represents an alarming military advance for Kim Jong Il's regime, considering North Korea's last test of the Taepodong-2 in 2006 was a 40-second wonder.

Pyongyang, for its part, claimed from its alternative reality universe that its satellite was in orbit "transmitting the melodies of the immortal revolutionary paeans Song of General Kim Il Sung and Song of General Kim Jong Il as well as measurement data back to Earth".

Quoting a South Korean official, Chosun Ilbo said Pyongyang - whose people largely survive on food aid - spent about US$300 million ($520 million) on the launch.

Various non-governmental experts were providing a bit of sober reflection yesterday.

Retired US general Henry Obering told CNN: "It says, first of all, they had successful first staging and [were] able to control the rocket through staging. That is a significant step forward for any missile programme because often times the missiles become unstable as they go through the staging events.

"The fact that they did not get apparent separation of the payload from the second or third stage means that they have more work to do there ... The bottom line is they are continuing to advance in their ranges and I think it's why it's important that we have the ability to defend against these types of threats."

Shunji Hiraiwa of Shizuoka Prefectural University in Japan told Reuters: "North Korea is likely to judge that its negotiating position has been strengthened now that it has both the nuclear and missile cards."

A study commissioned by the United States Congress in 2007 said North Korea had sold hundreds of ballistic missiles to Iran, Syria and Pakistan. In 2002, 15 North Korean Scud missiles were seized from a ship headed for Yemen, AFP reported.

"What is truly important about North Korea is their potential ability to export nuclear material or technology and that's a potential that cannot be ignored because it would fundamentally destabilise important regions throughout the world," William Tobey, an arms control expert at Harvard University, told Reuters.

Obering added: "The one thing in their brochure they [had] not been able to demonstrate is the long-range missile."

That is until Sunday.