CPV: North Korea launched a long-range rocket over Japan on Sunday at about 11:30 a.m. local time Sunday (2:30 a.m. GMT) from the Musudan-ri launch site in the north-east of the country, drawing swift international condemnation and triggering an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

U.S. President Barack Obama, who was in Prague on a European tour, said in a statement that North Korea had violated U.N. resolutions and increased its own isolation, and he urged Pyongyang to refrain from further "provocative actions".

"With this provocative act, North Korea has ignored its international obligations, rejected unequivocal calls for restraint, and further isolated itself from the community of nations," said President Obama.

The United States, South Korea and Japan had said the launch would in reality be a test of the Taepodong-2, a ballistic missile designed to carry a warhead as far as Alaska. It is designed to fly an estimated range of 6,700 km (4,200 miles).

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters after the launch that the country's military was not forced to intercept any missile, which it had pledged to do if necessary.

Japan said it stopped monitoring the Taepodong-2 rocket after it had passed 2,100 km (1,305 miles) east of Tokyo, indicating the launch had been a success. The second appeared to fall into the Pacific Ocean. In its only previous test flight, in July 2006, the rocket blew apart less than a minute after lift-off.

Still, Kawamura said his government's position is that even a communications satellite would be in violation of the Security Council resolution, saying Japan "formally denounces" the move.

Right after the launch, the office of the South Korean president condemned the launch, calling it a "serious threat" to world peace, the state-sponsored Yonhap news agency reported.

"We cannot withhold our regrets and disappointment that North Korea has caused such a serious threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and in the world by firing a long-range rocket when the entire world is joining efforts to overcome the global economic crisis," Lee Dong-kwan, a presidential spokesman said, according to Yonhap.

Earlier Sunday, before the launch, South Korea's national security council called an emergency meeting amid concerns that a North Korean rocket launch was imminent.

Western nations fear that North Korea plans a ballistic missile test rather than a satellite launch, but the Obama administration's special envoy to the Six-Party Talks, Stephen Bosworth, said last week that it didn't matter if the North Koreans were trying to put a satellite in space or testing a ballistic missile that could threaten Japan or the United States.

"Whether it is a satellite launch or a missile launch, in our judgment makes no difference. It is a provocative act," Bosworth stressed.

There was no official word on just how far the rocket flew, and North Korea's official media was silent on the launch.

In a response, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said North Korea's actions were not conducive to regional stability, as did the European Union. The UN Security Council has approved a Japanese request for an emergency session later in the day in New York.

China, the nearest the reclusive North has to a major ally, called on all sides to maintain calm and restraint.