Danny Puff

LONDON (AP) A Pakistani girl whose defiance of the Taliban turned her into an international icon is headed toward a full recovery once she undergoes a final surgery to reconstruct her skull, doctors said Wednesday.

Dr. Dave Rosser of Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital said that 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai needs the operation to replace the bone shattered when a Taliban gunman, angered at her objection to the group's restrictions on girls' education, sent a bullet through her skull. Rosser said that Malala had made a "remarkable recovery."

"She's very lively, she's got a great sense of humor," Rosser told journalists at the hospital. "She's not naive at all about what happened to her and the situation she's looking forward to in terms of being a high-profile person, and potentially a high-profile target. She's not naive to any of that, but she remains incredibly determined, incredibly cheerful and incredibly determined to speak for her cause."

That cause has turned Malala into a symbol for a girl's right to an education.

At the age of 11, she began writing a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under the Taliban in Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, which Taliban militants briefly overran. After the military ousted them in 2009, she began publicly speaking out about the need for girls' education. She appeared frequently in the media and was given one of the country's highest civilian honors for her bravery.

Malala was shot on Oct. 9 as she headed home from school. The Taliban said they targeted her because she promoted "Western thinking," but the attempt to murder a teenage girl over her desire to go to school sent a wave of revulsion around the world. Amid a blaze of publicity over her plight, Malala was flown to England for advanced medical care and for her own protection.

There was no indication Wednesday of whether or when she would return to Pakistan, although Rosser said it would likely be a year or 18 months before she made a complete recovery.

"Anybody who's required a lengthy intensive care stay or undergone significant neurological injuries, studies tell us people don't report feeling as well as they used to for 15 to 18 months," he said.

Rosser went on to give a detailed briefing of what Malala could expect from the surgery, planned for some time within the next two weeks. He said doctors also have to remove a piece of Malala's skull that they had surgically inserted into her abdomen a common procedure intended to keep the skull fragment from getting infected. Eventually, however, surgeons opted for a titanium plate to cover the hole.

A cochlear implant is also being implanted and will be turned on in about a month's time. Rosser said it should eventually restore her full hearing.

Asked whether Malala showed any signs of brain damage such as memory loss or hormonal changes Rosser said doctors had seen none.

Barring any complications, he said the skull reconstruction should be Malala's final surgery.

"She's certainly pleased with the thought that this will be the end of it," Rosser said.

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nudists in famously tolerant San Francisco lost a bid on Tuesday to block a city ban on nakedness in public places, when a federal judge threw out a legal challenge that argued public nudity was akin to political expression.

San Francisco city leaders last month approved the ban on baring it all in streets, public plazas and the transit system to curtail public nudity, which some residents and business owners complained had gotten out of control.

The efforts to clamp down have caused a flap in the city, where men in particular are known to parade naked through the streets of the predominantly gay Castro District.

Some residents say nudists, and specifically a group known as the Naked Guys, have gone too far with their constant presence at a square in the Castro District. But nudists claim they have a right go naked in public and say politicians in San Francisco, which has often celebrated the bizarre and unconventional, should leave them alone.

Four nudist activists sued in November, even before the measure barring public nudity was passed by a slim majority of the Board of Supervisors, saying it would violate their constitutional right to free expression.

However, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen concluded that "nudity in and of itself is not inherently expressive," and denied the nudists' request for an injunction blocking the measure, which is due to go into effect on Friday.

Violators face fines of up to $100 for a first offense and $200 for a second. A third violation can bring a year in jail and a $500 penalty.

"Unlike the burning of a flag, burning of a draft card, or wearing a black armband in protest against the war, public nudity in and of itself is not commonly associated with expression of a particular message," Chen wrote in his decision.

He also noted that the law allows nudity on beaches and during certain events that require city permits, such as the gay pride parade.

The attorney for the nudists, Christina DiEdoardo, said they were still determining their next step. But she said nudists could mount a renewed challenge once the ordinance goes into effect if they are arrested while protesting the law, since they could then explicitly link their nudity to political expression.

"The judge seemed to issue an open invitation to file an amended complaint," she said.

A demonstration is scheduled for Friday outside San Franciso' City Hall.

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Christopher Wilson)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Roseanne Barr is dropping into NBC's "The Office."

The network said Barr will guest star as a talent agent named Carla Fern in scenes set to tape Wednesday. The agent agrees to help office manager Andy Barnard realize his show business dream. Series regular Ed Helms plays Andy.

Barr is taking a break from her stand-up comedy act in Las Vegas for "The Office" visit. The workplace comedy is in its final season, and producer Greg Daniels has promised a memorable end after nine years.

"The Office," adapted from the British series of the same name, ranks among NBC's most popular shows. Barr knows something about bringing a long-running hit to an end: Her sitcom "Roseanne" aired from 1988 to 1997.

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http://www.nbc.com/the-office/

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NEW YORK (AP) You want resolution on the "30 Rock" finale?

You're gonna get it. Sort of. At least, the sort befitting "30 Rock," with its loopy storytelling mixed with joy in spoofing the culture of TV.

Closure, if that's what it is, comes in a two-minute postscript on this hour episode (airing Thursday at 8 p.m. EST on NBC). But maybe you should just stop reading right now, you "30 Rock" purists who don't want to know what happens or might seem to happen, however wacked-out and ironic it may be.

Which, among other things, includes this sly touch: a reference to the snowglobe revelation with which the medical drama "St. Elsewhere" famously concluded a quarter-century ago.

But there's more. Just before the final fade-out, NBC President Kenneth the former Page (Jack McBrayer) is pitched a new comedy series taking place right there at network headquarters, 30 Rock.

Hmmm. This is no ending. It's a Mobius strip.

The comic coda suggests where many of the characters might be a year from now. But that's not the point of the finale, which mostly wants to have fun. And does.

This last yahoo of "30 Rock" after seven brilliant seasons takes delight in tracking the unraveling of its characters as the show-within-the-show, "TGS," comes to an end with its own final broadcast. After that, of course, its producer, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey), its stars, Jenna Moroney and Tracy Jordan (Jane Krakowski and Tracy Morgan) and other members of the "TGS" staff will have to leave the cozy, kooky nest of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. The prospect of doing that terrifies them all.

Meanwhile, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), the newly minted CEO of NBC parent Kabletown, is battling his own existential crisis.

He has gotten the top job he wanted all his life. And as the ultimate Republican capitalist, he has even scored a lash-out from a treasured enemy, House Republican Leader Nancy Pelosi.

"Jack Donaghy is an economic war criminal," Pelosi is seen declaring on a cable news network. "If the Democratic Party controls Congress, I will see to it that he is punished in the worst way possible: by having to come down here and listen to us."

Even with total victory under his belt, Jack still feels unfulfilled. What else can he do? He resigns from the company and begins a journey to discover what might truly make him happy.

Jack's despair includes the fear that he's lost Liz as a friend.

"I don't have that many people in my life," he sobs to Jenna. "I spend Christmas alone in the Hamptons drinking Scotch and throwing firecrackers at Billy Joel's dog."

Out of a job, Liz is miserable as a stay-at-home mom of adopted twins. Conversely, her husband, Criss (played by guest star James Marsden), hates steady employment.

"It's OK to want to work," he consoles Liz. "One of us has to. We just got it backwards: You're the dad."

"I do like ignoring your questions while I try to watch TV," Liz agrees.

(Interestingly, a year hence Liz is seen back at work producing a dumb sitcom with her children in tow. Where is hubby Criss?)

During the finale, "30 Rock" doesn't hesitate to snack on its own past.

Liz and Tracy have an awkward heart-to-heart at the strip club where Tracy lured her on their first encounter on the series' premiere.

And a high point of the episode comes when Jenna revisits the project she starred in years ago, a film with the lips-scrunching title "Rural Juror" (which inevitably comes out sounding something like "ruhr juhr").

On the farewell "TGS," Jenna performs the theme from her new musical adaptation of "Rural Juror," with, inevitably, almost nothing she sings recognizable as English.

It serves as a reminder: "30 Rock" wasn't just a brilliant comedy series. It also forged a comic language of its own.

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Online:

http://www.nbc.com

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Frazier Moore is a national television columnist for The Associated Press. He can be reached at fmoore(at)ap.org and at http://www.twitter.com/tvfrazier

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rapper Tip "T.I." Harris has seen and done it all - three Grammy Awards, a novel, time in jail, a fashion line, TV reality show, businessman and several movies.

Now the Atlanta-based singer is dipping into comedy, appearing in the film "Identity Thief" as an armed enforcer on the trail of a character played by Melissa McCarthy who is on the run from many of those she's swindled.

T.I., 32, sat down with Reuters ahead of the movie's February 8 release to talk about the film, what's left on his to-do list, and his personal views on gun control.

Q: How did you wind up in a comedic film?

A: "I met with (director) Seth (Gordon) and learned he was the director of one of my favorite comedies, 'Horrible Bosses.' I asked him how would this movie compare to 'Horrible Bosses' and he said it's going to be better. I said, 'I'm in.'"

Q: Were you OK taking a supporting role rather than a lead?

A: "I actually enjoyed the fact that all of the heavy lifting was not on my shoulders. It was Jason (Bateman) and Melissa's show, so the stage was set for me to not screw it up, you know what I mean?"

Q: Last year you appeared on television's "Hawaii Five-O" and "Boss." Do you have role models of hip-hop stars who have successfully crossed over to acting?

A: "Will Smith and Ice Cube. Looking at the roles Cube has been able to acquire, he created those opportunities for himself. So I think I could take that approach."

Q: Is there a certain perception of you out there that might hinder you from being taken seriously as an actor?

A: "I think people might wonder whether or not T.I. can be anything other than T.I., so it's constantly having to reassure people that I'm able to do what I already know I can do."

Q: For some, T.I. is a successful recording artist and for others he's someone who had several stints in jail on drugs and weapons charges. Can you confidently say that the past is the past?

A: "I'm not gonna say anything. It's day by day, you know what I'm saying? I'm saying today this is how I am, this is where I am. And tomorrow hopefully will be better than today."

Q: In 2011 after your last prison term, you showed a softer side by starring in the VH1 reality series "T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle," with your wife and six kids. Was that an attempt to right your past transgressions?

A: "Nah. I think it's a showcasing of who I am today. I don't think that it any way diminishes the mistakes of yesterday. It just makes a correction if people assume that the mistakes of yesterday are ever-present today. It gives people a stage of truth and knowledge to judge from. So if you must judge, at least you can judge from fact."

Q: You've just released your eighth album, "Trouble Man II: He Who Wears the Crown." You also have a your own urban fashion line, A.K.O.O. What else do you need to check off your to-do list?

A: "Just to remain relevant and meaningful to the cool young consumer of today. The cool kids are out there being admired by others in their peer group, so you want to find ways to continue to put yourself on their minds."

Q: How do you do that?

A: "(Social media) is a big aspect for those kids. ... So with Instagram, if you take pictures it has to be a picture worthy of showing. If you say something on Twitter, it has to be something that's worthy of listening to."

Q: With gun control being a hot-button topic today, and with your own experiences with firearms, what are your thoughts on gun ownership?

A: "I can't possess a firearm (due to previous convictions), so whether they make them illegal or not is gonna be the same thing for me. But I see a need for them. I've been in circumstances where I've had them every day and nothing happened. I've been in circumstances where I didn't have them, and I needed them. In certain areas of society, having a firearm is just as common as having bottled water."

Q: In what way?

A: "If you're a shopkeeper, a barbershop owner, a convenience store owner and you handle cash in and out of this area, if everyone knows that you don't have a firearm, then you are basically prey. In these areas, bullets are just as common as sticks of gum, you know what I'm saying? So I think I speak for those people."

(Reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Will Dunham)

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LONDON (Reuters) - Israeli forces attacked a convoy on the Syrian-Lebanese border overnight, a Western diplomat and regional security sources said on Wednesday, as concern has grown in the Jewish state over the fate of Syrian chemical and advanced conventional weapons.

The sources, four in total, all of whom declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue, had no further information about what the vehicles may have been carrying, what forces were used or where precisely the attack happened.

In the run-up to the raid, Israeli officials have been warning very publicly of a threat of high-tech anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles reaching Israel's enemies in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from Syria. They have also echoed U.S. concerns about Syria's presumed chemical weapons arsenal.

The Lebanese army reported a heavy presence of Israeli jets over its territory throughout the night.

"There was definitely a hit in the border area," one security source said. A Western diplomat in the region who asked about the strike said "something has happened", without elaborating.

An activist in Syria who works with a network of opposition groups around the country said that she had heard of a strike in southern Syria from her colleagues but could not confirm it. A strike just inside Lebanon would appear a less diplomatically explosive option for Israel to avoid provoking Syrian ally Iran.

Israeli Vice Premier Silvan Shalom said on Sunday that any sign that Syria's grip on its chemical weapons was slipping, as President Bashar al-Assad fights rebels trying to overthrow him, could trigger Israeli intervention.

Israeli sources said on Tuesday that Syria's advanced conventional weapons would represent as much of a threat to Israel as its chemical arms should they fall into the hands of Islamist rebels or Hezbollah guerrillas based in Lebanon.

Interviewed on Wednesday, Shalom would not be drawn on whether Israel was operating on its northern front, instead describing the country as part of an international coalition seeking to stop spillover from Syria's two-year-old insurgency.

"The entire world has said more than once that it takes developments in Syria very seriously, developments which can be in negative directions," he told Israel Radio, recalling that President Barack Obama has warned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of U.S. action if his forces use chemical weapons.

"The world, led by President Obama who has said this more than once, is taking all possibilities into account," Shalom added. "And of course any development which is a development in a negative direction would be something that needs stopping and prevention."

BORDER STRIKE

Whether the strike took place within Syrian territory, or over the border in Lebanon, could affect any escalation from the incident. Iran, Israel's arch-foe and one of Damascus's few allies, said on Saturday it would consider any attack on Syria as an attack on itself. During and since Israel's 2006 war with Hezbollah, there have been unconfirmed reports of Israeli strikes on convoys just after they entered Lebanon from Syria.

Israel has long made clear it claims a right to act preemptively against enemy capabilities. Alluding to this, air force chief Major-General Amir Eshel on Tuesday said his corps was involved in a covert and far-flung "campaign between wars".

"This campaign is 24/7, 365 days a year," Eshel told an international conference. "We are taking action to reduce the immediate threats, to create better conditions in which we will be able to win the wars, when they happen."

He did not elaborate on any operations, but did single out the threat Israel saw from Syria's arsenal, calling it "huge, part of it state-of-the-art, part of it unconventional".

Israel fought an inconclusive war in Lebanon with Iranian-backed Hezbollah in 2006. Its aircraft then faced little threat, though its navy was taken aback when a cruise missile hit a ship off the Lebanese coast. Israeli tanks suffered losses to rockets and commanders are concerned Hezbollah may get better weaponry.

Israeli jets regularly enter Lebanese airspace, but its forces have been more discreet about Syrian incursions.

Israel's bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007, though revealed by then U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, is still not formally acknowledged by the Israelis.

According to Bush, then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought to keep the matter quiet so as to reduce the risk of Assad feeling public pressure to retaliate. Syria and Israel are technically at war but have not exchanged fire in a significant way in decades.

A U.N. force sits on the line, north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where a ceasefire ended their last war in 1973.

Israeli media reported this week that the country's national security adviser, Yaakov Amidror, was sent to Russia and its military intelligence chief Major-General Aviv Kochavi to the United States for consultations.

Shashank Joshi of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London said that there are indications that Hezbollah is training near chemical weapons sites in Syria, with which the Shi'ite Lebanese militia has historically had a strong alliance.

"We also know that (Syria's) use of tactical ballistic missiles has been escalating - presumably as air power becomes harder to use in contested areas, and rebels seize larger targets like bases that are amenable to missile attack," he said.

Worries about Syria and Hezbollah have sent Israelis lining up for government-issued gas masks. According to the Israel post office, which is handling distribution of the kits, demand roughly trebled this week.

"It looks like every kind of discourse on this or that security matter contributes to public vigilance," its deputy director Haim Azaki told Israel's Army Radio. "We have really seen a very significant jump in demand."

(Reporting by Myra MacDonald; Writing by Oliver Holmes; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)

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BEIJING (Reuters) - China's foulest fortnight for air pollution in memory has rekindled a tongue-in-cheek campaign by a multimillionaire with a streak of showmanship who is selling canned fresh air.

Chen Guangbiao, who made his fortune in the recycling business and is a high-profile philanthropist, on Wednesday handed out soda pop-sized cans of air, purportedly from far-flung, pristine regions of China such as Xinjiang in the northwest to Taiwan, the southeast coast.

"I want to tell mayors, county chiefs and heads of big companies: don't just chase GDP growth, don't chase the biggest profits at the expense of our children and grandchildren and at the cost of sacrificing our ecological environment", Chen said.

China's air quality is closely watched as it fluctuates dramatically from day to day but in recent weeks has registered far into the unhealthy zone.

Air pollution is measured in terms of PM2.5, or particulate matter 2.5 micrometers in diameter, which are absorbed by the lungs and can cause heart and lung disease. The World Health Organisation recommends a daily PM2.5 level of 20 and says that levels greater than 300 are serious health hazards.

Beijing's air quality frequently surges past a level of 500, and on January 12 soared to 755, the highest in memory.

"I go outside, walk for about 20 minutes, and my throat hurts and I feel dizzy", Chen told Reuters in an interview on a busy Beijing sidewalk.

He handed out green and orange cans of "Fresh Air", with a caricature of himself on them saying, "Chen Guangbiao is a good man".

"Be a good person, have a good heart, do good things," reads a message along the bottom of each can.

The 44-year-old entrepreneur, whose wealth is estimated at $740 million according to last year's Hurun Rich List of China's super-wealthy, is an ebullient and tireless self-promoter.

He is something of a celebrity in China, with more than 4 million followers on Sina Weibo, China's most popular Twitter-like microblogging platform.

He concedes that his canned-air effort is tongue in cheek, but says it's a way to awaken people to the importance of environmental protection. His campaign is attracting bemusement but also plaudits from the media and from people desperate to escape the smog.

"Beijing's air really needs to improve, so we need a good man like him to appear," said a 21-year-old resident surnamed Hu. "It reminds people to use less fuel and do what they can for Beijing's air".

The cans of air were free on Wednesday, but usually sell for 5 yuan (80 cents) with proceeds going to poor regions of China, and places of historic revolutionary importance.

Sales, which had been moderate, took off after the recent streak of bad air days, with 8 million cans sold in the last 10 days, Chen said.

(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co. returned to the black for the first nine months of its business year and more than doubled its profit forecast for the full year, getting a perk from a weaker yen, despite pessimism about sales prospects.

April-December profit for the Kyoto-based maker of Super Mario and Pokemon games totaled 14.55 billion yen ($160 million), bouncing back from the 48.35 billion yen loss reported a year earlier, it said Wednesday. Nine-month sales inched up 2.4 percent to 543 billion yen ($6 billion).

Nintendo raised its profit forecast for the business year through March 2013 to 14 billion yen ($154 million) from 6 billion yen ($66 million). The dollar has strengthened about 14 percent against the yen in the past three months on expectations a new government would relax monetary policy to boost Japan's moribund economy.

But Nintendo, which didn't break down quarterly results, isn't upbeat about its sales prospects and lowered its full year sales forecast to 670 billion yen ($7.4 billion) from 810 billion yen ($8.9 billion).

Game machines have taken a beating from the proliferation of smartphones and tablets that also offer games and other entertainment, competing for people's leisure time. Some analysts say the global market for game machines is saturated with offerings from Nintendo, Microsoft Corp., Sony Corp. and others.

Nintendo spokesman Makoto Wakae said sales had gone relatively well during the key holiday shopping season late last year, but that was quickly running out of momentum. The company expects to post an operating loss for the year ending March 2013, the second straight year of operating losses, he said.

The company forecasts it will sell 4 million Wii U consoles for the fiscal year, down from its earlier estimate of 5.5 million units. The Wii U, which went on sale late last year, was the first major new game console to arrive in stores in years.

Nintendo, also behind the Donkey Kong and Zelda games, lowered its full year sales forecast for Wii U game software units to 16 million from 24 million.

Nintendo's success was rooted in its appeal to so-called casual gamers, but they may be the kind of people for whom smartphones and iPads are proving attractive alternatives.

What's coming as a godsend for Nintendo is the weakening yen, against both the dollar and the euro, as that helps raise the value of its overseas earnings. Currency gains for the period totaled 22 billion yen ($242 million), according to Nintendo.

Nintendo has a lot riding on the Wii U, which has a touch-screen tablet controller called GamePad and a TV-watching feature called TVii. Nintendo said it sold 3 million Wii U machines so far around the world.

Nintendo sank into a loss the previous fiscal year largely because of price cuts for its hand-held 3DS game machine, which shows three-dimensional imagery without special glasses. It has sold nearly 30 million 3DS machines so far.

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Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at www.twitter.com/yurikageyama

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd, the world's leading gaming company by machines sold, said it will post an operating loss for a second straight year as the sales of its Wii U, successor to the 100-million selling Wii, faltered.

The company caught investors off guard by predicting a loss of $220 million in the year to March 31, reversing a profit forecast for the same amount, putting its new guidance well short of a consensus estimate of 12.1 billion yen ($133.48 million) profit from 19 analysts.

The grim outlook came even as a weaker yen provides a boost for a company that sells almost three quarters of its products outside Japan.

"It was a somewhat negative surprise," said Yasuo Sakuma, portfolio manager at Bayview Asset Management.

Nintendo, which began by making playing cards in the late 19th century, is counting on the Wii U to revive its fortunes as sales of the six year-old Wii slacken.

The latest offering from the creator of Super Mario faces competition from Apple Inc and other makers of mobile phones and tablet PCs that are attracting gamers with cheap or free games.

"The sales of Wii U were smooth at the beginning but since the turn of the year they have been losing momentum," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told reporters in Osaka after revealing the loss forecast. He blamed the lacklustre performance on a dearth of games titles to woo players back.

"Due to delays in software development, we had to postpone sales of software products we had planned to (release) early this year, which is interrupting our sales," he said.

SOFTWARE SLUMP

Nintendo lowered its sales forecast for the Wii U, launched in the U.S. in November, to 4 million consoles by the end of March from a pre-launch estimate of 5.5 million, and cut the sales outlook for its handheld 3DS by 2.5 million machines to 15 million.

In November it launched the Wii U, its first console in 16 years to come with a dedicated Super Mario game title.

The performance of the Wii U, which features a "Gamepad" controller that functions like a tablet, and a social gaming network dubbed "Miiverse", will be closely watched by XBox maker Microsoft Corp and Playstation maker Sony Corp as both mull plans for updated versions of their consoles, say analysts.

As Nintendo's hardware business suffers, software sales are also dragging. The company slashed the annual sales forecast of Wii U software by 33 percent to 24 million units and that of 3DS software by 29 percent to 70 million units.

"We have been prepared to see weak sales forecast for Wii U as its sales performances in various regions have been widely reported. But it was negative to see a lower forecast for 3DS software as it is one of the company's main sales drivers," said Sakuma at Bayview Asset Management.

Nintendo has so far resisted offering Super Mario and its other iconic games on tablets, smartphones or other platforms.

Iwata indicated that Nintendo will stick with its in-house strategy. The company, he said, aims to return to operating profit of more than 100 billion yen in the next business year with a splurge of new software titles.

Before the earnings announcement, Nintendo's shares fell 2.1 percent to 9,350 yen, edging back toward the decade low of 8,500 yen touched early this month.

($1 = 90.6500 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Hideyuki Sano; Additional reporting by Yoshiyuki Osada and Ayai Tomisawa; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

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SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea launched its first space rocket carrying a science satellite on Wednesday amid heightened regional tensions, caused in part, by North Korea's successful launch of its own rocket last month.

It was South Korea's third attempt to launch a civilian rocket to send a satellite in orbit in the past four years and came after two previous launches were aborted at the eleventh hour last year due to technical glitches.

The launch vehicle, named Naro, lifted off from South Korea's space center on the south coast and successfully went through stage separation before entering orbit, officials at the mission control said. Previous launches failed within minutes.

South Korea's rocket program has angered neighbor North Korea, which says it is unjust for it to be singled out for U.N. sanctions for launching long-range rockets as part of its space program to put a satellite into orbit.

North Korea's test in December showed it had the capacity to deliver a rocket that could travel 10,000 km (6,200 miles), potentially putting San Francisco in range, according to an intelligence assessment by South Korea.

However, it is not believed to have the technology to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental United States.

The test in December was considered a success, at least partially, by demonstrating an ability to put an object in space.

But the satellite, as claimed by the North, is not believed to be functioning.

South Korea is already far behind regional rivals China and Japan in the effort to build space rockets to put satellites into orbit and has relied on other countries, including Russia, to launch them.

Launch attempts in 2009 and 2010 ended in failure.

The first stage booster of the South Korean rocket was built by Russia. South Korea has produced several satellites and has relied on other countries to put them in orbit.

South Korea wants to build a rocket on its own by 2018 and eventually send a probe to the moon.

(Reporting by Jack Kim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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