Candor and Celebration on North Korean TV After Failed Rocket Launch As my colleagues Choe Sang-hun and Rick Gladstone report, hours after a North Korean rocket disintegrated within minutes of launching on Friday, the country's state media took the unusual step of admitting the failure. Britain's Telegraph added English subtitles to video of the announcement on North Korean state television. The three-stage rocket, which North Korea said was carrying a communications satellite but outside observers called part of a missile test, flew for just over a minute before crashing into the Yellow Sea, Japanese officials said. Later on Friday, North Korean state television returned to more regular programming, showcasing a mass celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birthday of the country's founder, Kim Il-sung, grandfather of the new leader, Kim Jung-un. The event featured the unveiling of giant statues of the country's founder and his son, Kim Jong-il, in the capital, Pyongyang, as the third member of the ruling Kim dynasty looked on. The failure of the launch was particularly embarrassing for the new leadership of North Korea because it had invited international journalists into the country to cover it. The movements of the reporters, however, were so tightly controlled that they only found out the launch had occurred from colleagues outside the country. Earlier this week, North Korea's official news agency had released video of the government showing the media a somewhat thinly staffed "satellite control center" near the launch site. One British reporter, Damian Grammaticas of the BBC, ‏reported on Twitter that his government minders appeared entirely unaware that the launch had taken place four hours after the event.