Nuclear-armed North Korea yesterday marked a military anniversary with a massive conventional firing drill, Seoul said, as a US guided-missile submarine docked in South Korea amid tensions over Pyongyang’s weapons ambitions.
Speculation had mounted that the North could carry out a sixth nuclear test or another missile launch to mark 85 years since the founding of its army.
However, no such event — which usually happens in the morning — had taken place by mid-afternoon, and instead the South Korean Ministry of Defense said Pyongyang was conducting a “massive fire drill” in the eastern port city of Wonsan.
Photo: Reuters
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency cited a government source as saying the exercise was the North’s “largest ever” and presumed to have been overseen by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Washington has sent the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to the Korean Peninsula, where it is expected to arrive — after a derision-provoking delay — later this week.
Confusion had clouded the carrier’s whereabouts earlier this month after US officials indicated it was sailing toward North Korea when in fact it was heading south.
The vessel will take part in joint naval drills with the South’s forces to “demonstrate Seoul and Washington’s strong determination to punish North Korean provocations,” the South Korean Navy said.
They will take place in the East Sea, the South’s name for the Sea of Japan, it said, and the two allies will also begin joint naval exercises in the West Sea — what it calls the Yellow Sea — on Tuesday “in relation to the current security situation.”
The nuclear-powered US submarine USS Michigan yesterday made a port call at Busan in the South in another show of force.
Meanwhile, top nuclear envoys from Japan, South Korea and the US yesterday in Tokyo vowed “stern action” against any fresh North Korean provocations.
US Special Representative on North Korea policy Joseph Yun said he discussed US policy to “enhance pressure” on the North, “because we really do not believe that North Korea is ready to engage us towards denuclearization.”
The trio also agreed that China and Russia should play a bigger role in reining in the North, said Kim Hong-kyun, South Korea’s chief envoy on the issue.
“Cooperation with China and Russia is the most important for effective pressure on North Korea,” he said.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS