Tensions remain high after the launch, condemned by the West for its nuclear-arms ramifications. North Korea declares a success. Officials elsewhere say the rocket and satellite fell into the sea.

Reporting from Seoul -- South Korea and Japan scrambled to interpret the fallout from a North Korean rocket launch today that the regime said placed a satellite into orbit -- a claim contradicted by both Washington and Seoul.

National security officials met in separate meetings in Tokyo and Seoul, where anti-Pyongyang demonstrators clashed with police for the second time in three days, this time burning a missile replica and a photograph of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.