PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea fired a long-range rocket early Friday, South Korean defense officials said, defying international warnings against a launch widely seen as a provocation.
In Washington, U.S. officials said the launch may have failed.
South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters in a nationally televised news conference in Seoul that North Korea launched the rocket around 7:39 a.m.
He said officials were trying to determine whether it was a success. He provided no further details, and declined to say how South Korea confirmed the launch in the west coast hamlet of Tongchang-ri.
There was no word in Pyongyang about the launch, its third attempt to send a satellite into space since 1998.




