North Korea

[KanadaHye]

Re: North Korea

Artillery fire on Korean border

That's not artillery fire... Detroit always looks like that and there is no war going on. Let's get this party started, enough threats and counter threats. There will be wars and rumours of wars. Time for Koreans to take their freedom back.

[Federate]

Re: North Korea

Artillery fire on Korean border


South Korea says it has returned fire after North Korea fired around 200 artillery shells onto one of its border islands, reportedly killing one marine.

The South's military was placed on its highest non-wartime alert after the shells landed on Yeonpyeong island.

North Korea has not yet commented on the incident, in which three marines and two civilians were also injured.

Correspondents say this is one of the most serious since the the Korean War ended without a peace treaty in 1953.

There have been occasional cross-border clashes since, but the latest incident comes at a time of rising regional tension.

North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il is believed to be ill and trying to engineer the succession of his youngest son. And on Saturday, North Korea showed off what it claimed was a new uranium enrichment facility - potentially giving it a second route to a nuclear weapon.

The move prompted the US special representative for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, to rule out the resumption of six-party talks on resolving the nuclear issue.

South Korean presidential spokesman Kim Hee-jung also said it was investigating a possible link between the artillery attack and recent maritime exercises near the western sea border earlier on Tuesday.

'Illegal firing'

South Korean officials said artillery rounds landed on Yeonpyeong island, near the disputed inter-Korean maritime border to the west of the Korean Peninsula.

"A North Korean artillery unit staged an illegal firing provocation at 1434 PM (0534 GMT) and South Korean troops fired back immediately in self-defence," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.

A resident on the island told the agency that dozens of houses were damaged, while television pictures reportedly showed plumes of smoke rising above the island.

"Houses and mountains are on fire and people are evacuating. You can't see very well because of plumes of smoke," a witness on the island told YTN television station.

"People are frightened to death," the witness added.

South Korea had deployed fighter jets to the island, Yonhap news agency said.

This western maritime border, also known as the Northern Limit Line, has been the scene of numerous clashes between the two Koreas in the past.

In March, a South Korean warship went down near the border with the loss of 46 lives.

International investigators say a North Korean torpedo sank the ship, although Pyongyang has denied any role in the incident.

Since then relations between the two neighbours have remained tense.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11818005

[Muhaha]

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/north.korea.threat/index.html?hpt=T2

North Korea vows 'merciless counterblow' to U.S., South Korea

By the CNN Wire Staff
August 15, 2010 10:14 p.m. EDT

(CNN) -- North Korea said Sunday that it will "deal a merciless counterblow to the U.S. imperialists" and to South Korean "traitors," in response to word that the United States and South Korea will begin a joint military exercise on Monday.

"The military counteraction of the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) will be the severest punishment no one has ever met in the world," a spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said in a statement carried by North Korea's official news agency.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has proposed a plan to unify the two countries, despite threats from North Korea.

On Friday, the U.S. and South Korea announced that an annual joint military exercise would begin on Monday and last for 11 days. The drill is designed to ensure that the South Korea-U.S. military alliance is "fully prepared to respond to any potential provocations," according to a statement from U.S. forces in South Korea.

Tensions between North Korea on one hand and its southern neighbor and the U.S. on the other have escalated since a May report from Seoul, South Korea, blamed the North for the sinking of a South Korean warship in March.

The report, whose findings have been endorsed by the U.S., alleged that a North Korean sub sank the ship, the Cheonan, with a torpedo, killing 46 sailors. North Korea denies it sunk the ship.

In announcing its annual military drill with the U.S., South Korea's Ministry of National Defense said that "the exercise is going to be implemented in a more actual fashion than before due to serious security concern... following North Korea's deadly torpedo attack on South Korea's corvette Cheonan in March."

North Korea's statement Sunday took direct aim at President Barack Obama.

"The Obama Administration would be well advised to cool its head heated with the moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the spokesman for the General Staff of the Korean People's Army said, "and deeply ponder over what the DPRK meant when it clarified its resolute determination and solemn declaration to defend the country and the nation."

Earlier Sunday, South Korea's state media reported that President Lee Myung-bak has proposed a plan to reunite his country with North Korea and suggested a tax to prepare for the costs expected if the two countries come together.

"Today inter-Korean relations demand a new paradigm," Lee said in a speech to mark the 65th anniversary of Korea's independence from Japanese colonial rule, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Lee said the two countries should form a "peace community," and stressed the importance of the denuclearization of North Korea, Yonhap reported.

"It is imperative that the two sides choose coexistence instead of confrontation, progress instead of stagnation," Lee said, according to Yonhap.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/08/15/north.korea.threat/index.html?hpt=T2