[EDITORIAL]Unfazed markets

The day after North Korea`s test-firing of a long-range rocket, financial markets in Korea and Japan showed perfect stability, with the KOSPI benchmark stock index climbing 1.1 percent to a new high this year and the Nikkei average rising 0.8 percent. The won was 2.4 percent stronger against the U.S. dollar. The rally continued in trading yesterday morning.

Analysts attributed the calm in the stock market to the fact that the rocket launch removed one geopolitical uncertainty and, also importantly, to the absence of any serious reaction from the concerned neighbors and the United States such as attempts to intercept the flying object. Generally, investors seem to have not been impressed by what experts assessed as the "half success" of the North`s rocket venture.

Aside from the signs of the unfazed markets, things are still not quite clear about what really happened to the Taepodong-2 (Unha-2 as the North Koreans named it) rocket and Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite supposedly installed on it, except that the object flew over Japan after dropping the first-stage booster into the East Sea about 500 kilometers from the launch pad. What we have so far is the North American Air Defense Command`s website notice, which indicated that the second- and third-stage parts plunged into the Pacific Ocean far short of the rocket`s intended target point.

This is in contrast to Pyongyang`s great fanfare about its successful launching of a carrier rocket that put a communications satellite into orbit. Chairman Kim Jong-il, who was present at a "satellite control center" somewhere near Pyongyang at the time of the launch, praised scientists and engineers there for their great achievements and took a souvenir picture with them. The (North) Korean Central News Agency reported that the communications satellite - allegedly circling the earth in an orbit that varies between 1,426 km and 490 km from Earth - was sending flight data to the control center along with revolutionary songs. The frequency of the signals was not given.

So, it may be that we are watching yet another show of great deception, stage managed by Chairman Kim, after a similar session in August 1998 when Pyongyang claimed its Taepodong-1 rocket successfully put its Kwangmyongsong-1 satellite into orbit. Surveyors confirmed that the earlier rocket flew a distance between 1,646 km and 2,500 km but spotted no DPRK satellite.

Within a few days, military experts will be able to pinpoint the spot where the North Korean rocket fell on Sunday, perhaps about a thousand kilometers or so farther out than the trace of the 1998 version. Yet, we will see little impact on the market from a reckless venture doused in lies.

[출처 : 코리아헤럴드]