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Exclusive footage of the North Korea''s missile launch on Sunday, obtained by AP Television News in Pyongyang, shows the rocket blasting off in a plume of smoke and blazing through the skies over the coastal, north eastern launch pad. The world''s first glimpse of Sunday''s launch prompted some TV stations in Japan to interrupt coverage to broadcast it Tuesday. North Koreans got their first look at the launch some 40 minutes later on state TV.

Meanwhile, UN Security Council diplomats continued squabbling over how - or even whether - to punish North Korea for what President Barack Obama and other world leaders called a provocative launch and a violation of sanctions imposed after the North''s underground nuclear test in 2006.

Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone warned Tuesday that the Security Council must give a strong response or risk losing its authority.

"If violations are allowed, the UN Security Council''s authority would be threatened and trust placed upon it would be impaired,''" Nakasone told a news conference. "The UN Security Council should respond properly and teach North Korea a lesson that it has to pay for the act of provocation."

Diplomats privy to continuing talks in New York said China, Russia, Libya and Vietnam have voiced concerns about further alienating and destabilizing North Korea. China, the North''s closest ally, and Russia hold veto power as permanent members and could dilute any response.

"We should avoid making hasty decisions. It is clear that the situation does not arouse joy; it arouses concerns," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, according to the Interfax news agency.

And in Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu declined to call the liftoff a provocative act and said it wasn''t yet clear whether it was an attempt to place a satellite in orbit or test a long-range missile test. The North claims it is entitled to the peaceful use of space and says it plans to launch more satellites. The US, South Korea and Japan say the same technology applies to banned ballistic missiles.

The communist country is believed to have up to eight nuclear warheads but has not demonstrated the ability to miniaturize them enough to fit on a ballistic missile, several analysts have said.

Pyongyang''s repeated claims of success are probably linked to the opening of North Korea''s parliament on Thursday, when leader Kim Jong Il is expected to make his first major public appearance since last August. US and South Korean officials say he suffered a stroke; North Korea denies he was ever ill.

On Tuesday, state-run North Korean television broadcast a one-hour documentary showing Kim on an energetic tour of factories and farms he reportedly undertook in November and December.

It was the first time Pyongyang released video of the 67-year-old Kim taken since mid-August, when South Korean and US officials say he was believed to have been felled by a stroke. North Korea has denied Kim was ever ill, but had released only still photos in recent months.

With the launch, impoverished North Korea could have been showing off its missile technology for export. Pyongyang is suspected of sharing missile technology with Iran, and an intelligence expert with a track record of accurate information said a 15-member Iranian delegation went to the launch site last Thursday. He spoke on condition on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

"The Iranians look to be a little further ahead,''" said Tim Brown, a senior fellow at the security analyst group Globalsecurity.org. "The Iranians were successful last year in putting up a satellite, and the North Koreans weren''t."

Brown said the rocket''s second and third stages, tracked by the US and South Korea as they fell into the Pacific Ocean with the payload still attached, appeared to be the problem. "The second and third stages appear to have had trouble separating," he said, mirroring comments from other analysts. "It kind of seems like they''re stuck with the same problem. It''s much more of a loss than a success." Still, the launch was valuable.

The communist country''s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said the launch heralded victory for its plan to become a powerful nation by 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of national founder Kim Il Sung.

The successful launch is "a historic event that sounded the cannon''s roar of victory in building a ''great prosperous powerful nation,''" the newspaper said in a lengthy editorial carried Tuesday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.