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South Korean soldiers sit on their K-9 self-propelled artillery vehicle during an exercise against possible attacks by North Korea near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea, March 11, 2013. North and South Korea staged duelling war games Monday as threatening rhetoric from the rivals rose to the highest level since North Korea rained artillery shells on a South Korean island in 2010. Enraged over the South’s joint military drills with the United States and recent UN sanctions, Pyongyang has piled threat on top of threat, including vows to launch a nuclear strike on the U.S. and to scrap the nearly 60-year-old armistice that ended the Korean War. Seoul has responded with tough talk of its own and has placed its troops on high alert. North Korea’s main newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, reported that the armistice was nullified Monday as Pyongyang had previously announced. The North followed through on another promise Monday, shutting down a Red Cross hotline that the North

North Korea has cut off: Redcross with South Korea North Korea on Friday cutted off a Red Cross hotline with South Korea as it initiated its war of words against Seoul and Washington in response to a military drill in the South and U.N. sanctions imposed for its recent nuclear test. The North had threatened to cut off the hotline on March 11 if the United States and South Korea did not abandon their joint military exercise. The Red Cross hotline is used to communicate between Seoul and Pyongyang which do not have diplomatic relations. "We called at 9 a.m. and there was no response," a government official from South Korea said. The line is tested each day. Pyongyang has also threatened to cut off a hotline with U.N. forces in South Korea, at the border "truce village" of Pammunjom. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen since the North conducted a third nuclear test on February 12, prompting new U.N. sanctions. South Korea and U.S. forces are co

North Korea Claims Nuclear Missiles 'On Standby' A leading general in North Korea claims the country has a long-range missile armed with nuclear warheads on standby. Pyongyang repeated its Thursday vow to ditch all nonaggression pacts with South Korea and again threatened a "preemptive nuclear attack" on the United States as well. The regime also announced early Friday that it plans to cut off phone hotlines between North and South Korea. It was part of a defiant response to tough new sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council. Colonel General Kang Pyo-yong was quoted in North Korea's party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, as saying his soldiers are already positioned to launch a war of reunification -- taking over South Korea -- whenever the order is given by its leaders. "Our intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other missiles are on standby position mounted with various nuclear warheads that have been developed lighter and smaller,&q

North Korean soldiers attend a military training in this picture released by the North Korea's official KCNA news agency in Pyongyang March 6, 2013. North Korea threatened the United States on Thursday with a preemptive nuclear strike, raising the level of rhetoric just before the U.N. Security Council approved new sanctions against the reclusive country. The White House said North Korea's threats would only lead to Pyongyang's further international isolation and declared that the United States was "fully capable" of defending against any North Korean missile attack. China's U.N. Ambassador Li Baodong said Beijing wanted to see "full implementation" of the new U.N. Security Council resolution that tightens financial restrictions on Pyongyang and cracks down on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo. North Korea has accused the United States of using military drills in South Korea as a launch pad for a nuclear war and has scrapped

The United Nations Security Council approved a new regimen of sanctions on Thursday against North Korea for its underground nuclear test last month, imposing penalties on North Korean banking, travel and trade in a unanimous vote that reflected the country’s increased international isolation. The resolution, which was drafted by the United States and China, was passed in a speedy vote hours after North Korea threatened for the first time to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea. “The strength, breadth and severity of these sanctions will raise the cost to North Korea of its illicit nuclear program,” the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, told reporters after the vote. “Taken together, these sanctions will bite and bite hard.” Li Baodong, the ambassador from China, which lent its support to the new sanctions to the anger of the North Korean government, told reporters the resolution was aimed at the long-term goal