North Korea Seen Preparing Rocket Launch as Soon as Next Week

North Korea has moved two sections of a long-range rocket to a launch site in preparation for a firing that may come as soon as next week, according to a U.S. university monitoring project on the totalitarian state.

Satellite photos showing activity at the Sohae site on the northwestern coast are “clear indicators that the rocket stages are being checked out before moving to the pad for an eventual launch,” said the report from the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. “If Pyongyang follows past practice in preparing for a launch, it could be ready to fire a rocket as early as the end of the first week in December.”