North Korea conducted live fire drills yesterday in two areas near a disputed sea border with South Korea that have been the scene of deadly clashes and where they fired hundreds of artillery rounds just weeks ago.
The North conducted similar drills late last month, firing more than 500 artillery rounds near the Northern Limit Line, a disputed maritime border.
More than 100 rounds landed south of the border during that drill, prompting South Korea to fire hundreds of rounds back into the North’s waters.
Photo: Reuters
The latest round of firing began at about 2pm yesterday. No rounds appeared to have landed south of the border, a South Korean military official said.
It came hours after the North notified South Korea of the areas near populated South Korean islands where it would conduct the exercise.
The Northern Limit Line is an extension of the land border between the two Koreas, stretching into the sea west of the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has refused to recognize the line as the sea border and has periodically challenged its neighbor by violating it and demanding a new border be set.
The line curves north, effectively isolating five remote, South Korean-controlled islands from the mainland. The furthest of those islands is closer to Pyongyang than Seoul.
South Korean military officials told residents to seek cover in one of many shelters around the islands, another South Korean official said.
South Korea increased its military presence on the islands after the 2010 bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island by the North, which it said was in response to South Korean artillery drills.
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS