Free Republic

The Air Force stands ready to respond if hostilities between North Korea and South Korea escalate, the service's top uniformed officer said, but American fighter jets remained at their normal alert status a day after a North Korean artillery attack. The North fired artillery shells at the island of Yeonpyeong on Tuesday, killing two people and dramatically raising tensions between American-allied South Korea and the nuclear-armed north. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, in a meeting with reporters later that morning, said his service has plenty of firepower in the region and listed the bases from which the...

Typhoon Ewiniar forecast to hit South Korea on Monday By Dave Ornauer, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Sunday, July 9, 2006 CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — Like a slow-moving predator, Typhoon Ewiniar continued tracking further northwest on Friday and appeared as if it would spare U.S. bases in southwestern Japan much of its bite. But the fourth storm of the northwest Pacific’s typhoon season remained a threat to Okinawa and put another target squarely in its crosshairs: the Korean peninsula. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast Ewiniar would graze Okinawa to its west late Saturday, then make landfall along Korea’s west...