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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ratcheted up his regime's militaristic rhetoric as Pyongyang threatened to retaliate against any country that intercepts a North Korean rocket booster or collects the rocket debris.

The North has vowed to launch a rocket sometime between April 12 and 16 to put an earth observation satellite into orbit, a move widely seen as a pretext to disguise a banned test of its ballistic missile technology.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea in Pyongyang warned that interception of the satellite would be "an act of war" and would cause a tremendous catastrophe.

Whoever "intercepts the satellite or collects its debris will meet immediate, resolute and merciless punishment" from the North, the committee said in an English-language statement carried by its Korean Central News Agency late Thursday.



[link to www.koreatimes.co.kr]