Fears over North Korea missile launch as country marks Kim Il-Sung's birthday

[Poll_Blind]

It's just a few minutes after noon on April 15th in North Korea. Today is Dear Leader's birthday. Also likely when they'll launch one or more of their ballistic missiles in a show of farce.

From The Telegraph:

The world will be watching North Korea today to see if fears that it plans to marks the birthday of late founder Kim Il-Sung with a missile launch are founded.

North Korea has a habit of linking high-profile military tests with key dates in its annual calendar. The centenary of Kim's birth last year was preceded by a long-range rocket test that ended in failure.

South Korean intelligence says the North has had two medium-range missiles primed and ready to fire for nearly a week, with many observers suggesting the anniversary as a likely launch date.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, currently in Japan on the last leg of a Northeast Asia tour, warned North Korea when he was in Seoul on Friday that a launch in the current climate would be a "huge mistake".

If they don't launch 'em now...I have no idea when they would. It's not like these things can sit on the launch pad forever once they're fueled and ready to go.

NOTE: BTW, I am led to believe that if there is a launch, there is a high probability it will show up as a tweet on twitter feeds like THIS before most other places. That's the crisis management office of Yokohama, which earlier mistakenly sent out a tweet that the missiles had been launched. Because Japan has been identified as being a target, US defense will likely contact them first to get the word out, possibly even before it's reported on Yonhap. I think it was the last big launch NK did, but purely by following Twitter I was able to glean details of the launch's failure about 5-15 minutes before it was mentioned on cable or the rest of the internet.

YMMV.

PB