http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSSEO14165620090601

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea could this month test-fire a long-range missile designed to strike U.S. territory and may also be gearing up for skirmishes with the South around their disputed sea border, South Korean news reports said on Monday.
North Korea last week unleashed provocations rarely seen since the 1950-53 Korean War with a nuclear test that put it closer to having a working atomic bomb, short-range missile tests and threats to attack the South. It also warned of further measures if the United Nations tries to punish it.

In another move that could further stoke tensions, North Korea plans to hold a trial on Thursday for two U.S. journalists it took into custody along its border with China several months ago after charging them with "hostile acts."

North Korea is preparing to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic (ICBM) missile with an estimated range of 4,000 km to 6,500 km (2,485 to 4,000 miles) from a west coast missile base, the daily JoongAng Ilbo cited South Korean intelligence sources as saying.

"Preparations for the launch are likely to be completed in mid-June," one intelligence source said.

Train cars carrying a missile departed from the Pyongyang area about two weeks ago for a missile base on the North's west coast, not far from its border with China, the sources said.

North Korea in April fired a rocket from its east coast Musudan-ri missile range, which was widely seen as a disguised test of its long-range Taepodong-2 missile that violated U.N. resolutions banning it from ballistic missile launches.

That rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean about 3,000 km after launch, experts said, indicating the North needed further testing to perfect its ICBM technology. The Alaskan coast is about 4,800 km from North Korea.

North Korea has not mastered the technology of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to mount on a missile, weapons experts have said.

North Korea has also declared a wide area of Yellow Sea waters off its west coast off limits until the end of July because it may be preparing for a clash with the South, a report in South Korea's biggest newspaper Chosun Ilbo said.

The two Koreas have fought deadly naval battles in 1999 and 2002 near a Yellow Sea border called the Northern Limit Line, set unilaterally by U.S.-led U.N. forces at the end of the Korean War.

The North has said the border is invalid and last week warned ships from the South it could not guarantee their safety if they sailed in that area.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun, editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Sanjeev Miglani)