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The American-led United Nations Command (UNC) said military talks with North Korea to discuss the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North have been rescheduled for Thursday. The colonel-level talks were initially scheduled for Tuesday, but North Korea abruptly asked for a delay just hours before the talks were set to begin, citing "administrative reasons." Later that day, the North's military proposed the new date to the Military Armistice Commission of the UNC, and the command accepted, a UNC statement said Wednesday. The meeting "will now take place at 10:00 a.m. on July 15, according to the...

Russia plans to install new anti-missile defence systems on its border with North Korea in the wake of the international controversy over the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, the Itar-Tass news agency reported on Tuesday. The army will station two modern systems of the S-400 type near the border, an employee of the Defence Ministry was quoted as saying. He added that Russia is 'very concerned' about North Korean missile tests, noting that the test site is 'alarmingly close' to the Russian border. South Korea has blamed North Korea for the sinking of its Cheonan corvette near...

North Korea's military abruptly canceled a rare meeting Tuesday with the American-led U.N. Command that had been arranged to discuss the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang. Military officers from North Korea and the U.N. Command were to meet at the Korean border village of Panmunjom on Tuesday morning to discuss sinking that killed 46 South Korean sailors. It would have been the first such meeting since the sinking, which sharply raised tension on the divided Korean peninsula. The North, however, requested a delay in the talks for "administrative reasons," the U.N. Command said in a...

North Korea's military delayed a rare meeting set for Tuesday with military officers from the U.S.-led United Nations Command (UNC) to discuss the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the communist country, officials said. The two sides were scheduled to meet at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Tuesday morning, but the North's military requested a delay about two hours before the meeting's scheduled start, citing "administrative reasons," said an official at the UNC. A new date for the colonel-level meeting, which would be the first such meeting since the March sinking that dramatically raised tensions on...

South Korea's defense ministry said Tuesday it expects to hold joint naval exercises with the United States in July, though an exact date and location of the planned drills have yet to be set. Defense ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told reporters the two sides are still working on the details of the joint drills, which were originally scheduled for last month to deter any further North Korean provocations in the wake of Pyongyang's deadly sinking of a Seoul warship in March.Still, the date, location and methods have not been decided, but I think it's right to say the South Korea-U.S....

U.S. Ships Could Move to East Sea for Joint Drill South Korea and the U.S. are mulling a joint maritime drill in both the East and West Seas this month after China lodged a protest against a huge U.S. military presence on its doorstep. The idea is to deploy some of the bigger American ships including an aircraft carrier to the east of the Korean Peninsula instead. A government source on Monday said there is "near-consensus" for turning the planned West Sea drill into an exercise in both the East and West Seas to reflect the positions of Beijing and...

South Korea's military plans to convene a disciplinary committee meeting late this month to censure senior officers over the deadly sinking of a naval ship in North Korea's torpedo attack in March, an official said Sunday. Last month, South Korea's state audit agency, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), asked the defense ministry to reprimand 25 senior military officers, accusing them of mishandling the March 26 sinking of the warship Cheonan, which left 46 sailors dead. "We're conducting an investigation to determine the accountability of those accused by the BAI," a senior defense ministry official said on condition of...

China squawks but joint drill still on July 10, 2010 The United States will go ahead with plans for a joint military exercise with Korea in the Yellow Sea despite opposition from China, the Pentagon said Thursday. “We are still planning bilateral exercises with the Republic of Korea,” Maureen Schumann, a spokeswoman for the Pentagon, told Yonhap News Agency. Schumann was responding to remarks by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang earlier in the day that China is firmly opposed to the Korea-U.S. joint military exercises scheduled for later this month. Qin also called on relevant parties to refrain from...

The U.N. Security Council adopted a statement Friday condemning the attack that led to the sinking of a South Korean warship without directly linking North Korea to the incident. The 15-member council unanimously approved the statement one day after five veto-wielding members, including the North's major ally China, agreed to a draft statement. China succeeded in diluting the statement, as it did not point the finger at North Korea and included North Korea's denial of involvement in the incident, which killed 46 sailors in the Yellow Sea in March. "The Security Council condemns the attack which led to the sinking...

U.S. Posts Pictures of Nuclear Sub in 'Show of Force' The U.S. nuclear-powered submarine Michigan docked at a South Korean naval base in Busan from the end of June until last Friday. According to South Korean military sources on Wednesday, the Michigan, armed with 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of 1,600 km, docked in Busan for a week to get fresh supplies and allow its crew a rest following exercises in waters off the Korean Peninsula. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Navy posted a photograph of the docked submarine on its website. Hong Kong's South China Morning...

PLA Navy starts live-ammunition training in west Pacific English.news.cn 2010-06-30 19:07:39 FeedbackPrintRSS BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese military authorities announced Wednesday the People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has begun an annual routine live-ammunition training in the East China Sea. The No. 91765 unit of the Navy's East China Sea Fleet commenced the training off the coast of southeast China's Zhejiang Province Wednesday, a statement released by the ministry said. The training involves naval vessels shooting targets in China's eight fishery zones that are within China's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and also where the U.S. military has repeatedly sent ships...

South Korea and the United States will stage large-scale anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea after the United Nations takes action against Pyongyang for sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, Yonhap news agency said. "The joint drills will be carried out after the U N Security Council takes measure against North Korea," the agency quoting Col. Lee Bung Woo said. The United States’s 97,000-ton USS George Washington, an Aegis-equipped destroyer, and a nuclear-powered submarine are reportedly participating in the joint naval drills and a 4,500-ton destroyer, a submarine and F-15K fighter jets will take part from the South Korean...

US has to pay for provoking China * Source: Global Times * [03:14 July 06 2010] The widely anticipated and repeatedly postponed joint exercise between the US and South Korean navies in the Yellow Sea is still in the air. Yet the signs are that the other shoe will eventually drop in a week or two despite China's strong opposition. True, the US has the right to play its war game against the imagined threat from North Korea on the high seas. But the anxiety on the Chinese side will be huge if a US aircraft carrier enters the sea...

A report by the Council on Foreign Relations stated last week that China has not signed on to the U.S. goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and its main interest remains support for North Korea as a way to maintain regional stability. Evans Revere, an analyst at the Albright Stonebridge consulting group and member of a CFR task force on U.S. policy toward the Korean peninsula, said China is “very deeply conflicted” on North Korea. “We've seen that played out since March 26th, the sinking of the Cheonan, where the initial Chinese reaction to the sinking of that ship by...

China Rebuffs Western Criticism Over North Korea Peter Simpson | Beijing 29 June 2010 China is rejecting Western criticism that it is not doing enough to condemn North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean navel vessel. China rebuked U.S. President Barack Obama's claim that it was willfully blind to the risks posed by North Korea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said Beijing felt the dangers of a divided Korean peninsula more acutely than Washington and other western powers. President Obama criticized China over the weekend at the G20 Summit in Canada for failing to take a tough...

South Korea's Defense Ministry is seeking a sharp increase in next year's budget to improve its fighting capability due to tensions over the deadly sinking of a warship blamed on North Korea, an official said Wednesday. Defense Ministry officials have agreed to request about 31.6 trillion won ($25.8 billion) next year to introduce new weapons and improve military hardware and welfare facilities for troops, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy. The amount would represent a 6.9 percent increase from the 29.5 trillion won budgeted this year, which was a 3.6 percent increase from the year...

Kim Jong-un, the youngest son and possible heir of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was elected to the parliament of the one-party communist state in March of last year, a Western source told a small group of reporters in Seoul. “We confirmed Kim Jong-un was elected as a representative from District 216 through North Korean sources two months after the election,” the Western source said. The Supreme People’s Assembly is a rubber stamp for the Communist Party and is comprised of high-ranking Communist Party officials. The election of Kim Jong-un, 27, is further evidence that he is being groomed to...

South Korea and the United States are expected to fix dates for their joint naval exercises after assessing progress in Seoul's diplomatic efforts to rebuke North Korea at the U.N. Security Council, an official here said Monday. The two countries agreed last month to hold the drills after a multinational team of investigators blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in the Yellow Sea on March 26. The attack left 46 sailors dead. Seoul has referred the incident to the Security Council, urging its members to punish North Korea. "The dates for the joint exercises are...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is saying that the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on North Korea was not terrorism, and not enough by itself to put the Pyongyang back on a U.S. terror blacklist. The State Department said Monday that the March sinking of the frigate Cheonan was a "provocative action" and a violation of the truce that ended the Korean war. But it added that the sinking by a reported North Korean torpedo strike was the act of one state's military against another.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan are expected to ratchet up diplomatic efforts to garner international support for a UN reprimand of North Korea during this weekend’s G-20 Summit in Toronto. Seoul has asked the UN Security Council to officially condemn Pyongyang for the fatal March 26 attack on South Korean warship Cheonan, an accusation Pyongyang has furiously denied. After two Koreas held dueling briefings to push their own versions of the story to member countries at the UN Security Council, negotiations came to a temporary halt this week as the ambassadors of the member countries...