Clinton urges NKorea not to launch rocket

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged nuclear-armed North Korea not to go ahead with its planned rocket launch if it wants a "peaceful, better future" for its people. "We are consulting closely in capitals and at the United Nations in New York and we will be pursuing appropriate action," Clinton said at a press conference with Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba, who echoed her remarks. "If North Korea wants a peaceful, better future for their people, it should not conduct another launch that would be a direct threat to regional security," the chief US diplomat said. Gemba spoke of US-Japanese cooperation if North Korea goes ahead with the launch of a rocket it says will put a satellite into orbit -- an event that most of the rest of the world sees as a disguised missile test. "The United States and Japan would cooperate with each other and the international community, including the Security Council, would take an appropriate measure," Gemba said. Neither Clinton nor Gemba explained what they meant by "appropriate" action. Both top diplomats reiterated that the launch would violate UN Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874, which ban ballistic missile activity. On April 5, 2009, North Korea launched a long-range rocket which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific in what it says was an attempt to put a satellite into orbit. US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland earlier voiced concern that the international news media might be "playing" into North Korean propaganda by covering the rocket launch. "Our concern obviously would be that the North Koreans would use this for propaganda purposes and that... news organizations that cover it extensively might be playing into that," Nuland said. "But it's obviously your call how to cover this thing," she told reporters during the daily news briefing. The usually secretive North organized an unprecedented visit for foreign reporters to Tongchang-ri space center in an effort to show its Unha-3 rocket is not a disguised ballistic missile, as claimed by the US and its allies. The launch is scheduled between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il-Sung, a significant date as Kim's youthful grandson Kim Jong-Un cements his own power.