North Korea faces widespread criticism for satellite plans Such launches are widely viewed as North Korea's cover for testing its long-range missile technology and regarded as a violation of the United Nations Security Council's resolutions prohibiting the state from nuclear and ballistic missile activity. Experts believe that the launch may be a power-play by the nation's newly-annointed leader Kim Jong-un. "The window for the launch is important in terms of the domestic politics of the North," Daniel Pinkston, a specialist focusing on North Korea's weapons programs at the International Crisis Group, told The Associated Press. He said that Kim Jong-un will aim to draw together the disparate factions within North Korea, with the satellite launch demonstrating its military might. It would allow the leadership to portray the nation as the beleaguered target of belligerent foreign nations. The international community's response has been less than jubilant. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the launch announcement "highly provocative" in a statement made earlier today. Such a missile launch would pose a threat to regional security and would also be inconsistent with North Korea's recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches. The move will jeopardise the USA's agreement to send food aid to famine-stricken North Korea, according to Mr Pinkston. "I can't see how the US is going to deliver this food aid," he said. I think this is going to kill it. Briefing reporters following a United Nations Security Council meeting, the council's president, Sir Mark Lyall Grant, announced that if North Korea were to go ahead with the satellite launch, it "would be a violation of Security Council resolutions."