North Korean leader’s sister slams US for criticizing failed satellite launch

By KIM TONG-HYUNG
Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday accused the United States of “gangster-like” hypocrisy for criticizing her country’s failed launch of a military spy satellite and insisted that the North will follow with a successful launch soon. Kim Yo Jong said North Korea’s efforts to acquire space-based reconnaissance capabilities were a legitimate exercise of its sovereign right and restated the country’s rejection of U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban it from conducting any launch involving ballistic missile technology. Her comments on state media came a day after a North Korean long-range rocket carrying its first developed spy satellite lost thrust after a stage separation and crashed in waters off the Korean Peninsula’s western coast.