South Korea and the US commenced joint military exercises yesterday amid angry protests by North Korea, which denounced the maneuvers as preparations for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the communist country.
About 25,000 US troops and an undisclosed number of South Korean soldiers are participating in the annual exercises, dubbed RSOI and Foal Eagle. The weeklong maneuvers involve a computer-simulated war game with field drills aimed at improving US and South Korean forces' defense capabilities, according to the US military.
"The purpose of the drill is defensive," said Kim Yong-kyu, a spokesman for the US military command in Seoul.
Kim dismissed as "nonsense" North Korea's claim that the military exercises were preparations for an invasion.
North Korea has stepped up its anti-US rhetoric over the maneuvers, vowing to take an unspecified "strong measure of self-defense."
"War exercises are a dangerous war gamble to invade the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] as they may go over to an actual war any moment," the North's official Minju Joson newspaper said yesterday in a commentary carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
"If the US dares ignite a nuclear war in this land, the army and people of the DPRK will ... mobilize its tremendous deterrent for self-defense ... wipe out the aggressors to the last man.
Earlier this week, North Korea also suggested it had the ability to launch a pre-emptive attack on the US, and said it had built atomic weapons to counter the US nuclear threat.
About 29,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea as a legacy of the 1950-1953 Korean War, which ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war.
The number of US troops is set to decline to 25,000 by 2008 as part of the Pentagon's worldwide realignment of its forces.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of