N Korea: Touch our rocket and 'face thunderbolt of fire'

North Korea’s military threatened immediate retaliation today if “even the slightest effort” was made to intercept a rocket it plans to launch in the next few days.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted its military as specifically mentioning Japan, the United States and South Korea, threatening a “thunderbolt of fire” if Japan took any action against what Pyongyang claimed was a launch to put a communications satellite into orbit.