Despite US warnings, N Korea set to launch missile

New Delhi: The sleepy town of Akita in Japan is getting ready for its worst nightmare, a North Korean missile falling on their land.

Pyongyang is all set to launch a rocket anytime between Saturday and Wednesday. The worry is not the rocket, but what sits on top of it. North Korea calls it a communications satellite, but the US, South Korea and Japan believe that it is the Taepodong 2 ballistic missile, capable of hitting the US state of Alaska.

And the idea has already invited Obama's wrath.

"We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative, it puts enormous strains on the six party talks and that they should stop the launch. The response so far from the North Koreans has been not just unhelpful, but has resorted to the sort of language that has led to North Korea's isolation," says US president Barack Obama.

US has already dispatched three destroyers in the region and won't hesitate to push the red button if its interceptors in Alaska determine that it is a missile on its way to hit America.

Even Japan is ready to shoot down the rocket with its destroyers in the Sea of Japan

“If the missile were to fail and to lose flight control and break up, or explode, and debris were to fall on Japanese territory that is an extremely serious event," says Senior analyst in International Crisis Group, Daniel Pinkston.

North Korea has already warned that any attempt to destroy the rocket would be seen as an act of war.

So the most likely fallout of the inevitable launch is new UN Sanctions. The United States is planning to drag Pyongyang to the UN Security Council for violating the ban on ballistic activity in case of a launch.

But North Korea's only powerful ally China have assured along with Russia that it will block all moves to impose sanctions. Whether the launch is a success or a failure after the smoke clears, all that will be seen are derailed six party talks and the lone smiling face, that of outgoing North Korean leader Kim Jong iL. who has got the whole world watching him and has kept it on the edge.