The US and South Korean militaries will stage their second joint exercise in less than a month beginning today, fuelling tensions with the prickly North and angering China.
The annual exercise comes a week after Seoul completed its own drills near a disputed maritime border off the west coast that prompted the North to retaliate by firing a barrage of artillery shells.
Responding with the same rhetoric as it has in the past, North Korea said the latest exercise was a “dangerous act to light the fuse of a new war.”
Pyongyang has often turned to saber-rattling to make a point but analysts say it is unlikely to risk a full-blown war which would pit it against the combined might of the US and South Korean militaries.
US officials have said further provocations by the North are possible in coming months, as Pyongyang tries to build political momentum for the succession to leader Kim Jong-il, who is expected to hand power to his youngest son.
Unlike the show-of-force drills last month which involved a US aircraft carrier, this month’s exercises are lower key.
Washington and Seoul say the exercises are defensive and designed to send a message to Pyongyang that its behavior must change.
Last week’s tit-for-tat military actions occurred near the Northern Limit Line, the site of several deadly clashes since the Korean War, and the location of the torpedoing of a South Korean warship earlier this year.
South Korea blames the sinking of the Cheonan corvette, which cost 46 lives, on the North. Pyongyang denies responsibility.
“Taking into consideration the exceptionally tense security situation following the Cheonan attack, the [latest] drills this year will be conducted throughout the whole country so that it is as similar as possible to actual battle,” the South’s defense ministry said.
The exercises have also sparked regional tensions, with the North’s only major ally China, which called the US-led drills a threat to both its security and regional stability.
Following last month’s joint naval drill in the Sea of Japan off the Korean peninsula, China conducted its own heavily publicized military exercises.
ANGER: A video shared online showed residents in a neighborhood confronting the national security minister, attempting to drag her toward floodwaters Argentina’s port city of Bahia Blanca has been “destroyed” after being pummeled by a year’s worth of rain in a matter of hours, killing 13 and driving hundreds from their homes, authorities said on Saturday. Two young girls — reportedly aged four and one — were missing after possibly being swept away by floodwaters in the wake of Friday’s storm. The deluge left hospital rooms underwater, turned neighborhoods into islands and cut electricity to swaths of the city. Argentine Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich said Bahia Blanca was “destroyed.” The death toll rose to 13 on Saturday, up from 10 on Friday, authorities
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Local officials from Russia’s ruling party have caused controversy by presenting mothers of soldiers killed in Ukraine with gifts of meat grinders, an appliance widely used to describe Russia’s brutal tactics on the front line. The United Russia party in the northern Murmansk region posted photographs on social media showing officials smiling as they visited bereaved mothers with gifts of flowers and boxed meat grinders for International Women’s Day on Saturday, which is widely celebrated in Russia. The post included a message thanking the “dear moms” for their “strength of spirit and the love you put into bringing up your sons.” It
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
RSS