Tuesday, 30 April 2013 11:43
Posted by Parvez Jabri
SEOUL: The United States and South Korea on Tuesday wrapped up military drills at the centre of soaring tensions with North Korea, as Pyongyang ignored a new overture over a flagship joint industrial zone.The two-month-long "Foal Eagle" air, ground and naval field training exercise -- which involved more than 10,000 US troops along with a far higher number of South Korean personnel -- had infuriated Pyongyang."The drill is over but the South Korean and US militaries will continue to watch out for potential provocations by the North, including a missile launch," Seoul's defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told reporters.The North is still maintaining a number of missiles and missile launchers that were recently moved to its east coast in apparent preparation for a launch, Kim added.The Korean peninsula has been in a state of heightened military tension since the North carried out its third nuclear test in February.Relations between the ...
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SEOUL: The United States and South Korea on Tuesday wrapped up military drills at the centre of soaring tensions with North Korea, as Pyongyang ignored a new overture over a flagship joint industrial zone.The two-month-long "Foal Eagle" air, ground and naval field training exercise -- which involved more than 10,000 US troops along with a far higher number of South Korean personnel -- had infuriated Pyongyang."The drill is over but the South Korean and US militaries will continue to watch out for potential provocations by the North, including a missile launch," Seoul's defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-Seok told reporters.The North is still maintaining a number of missiles and missile launchers that were recently moved to its east coast in apparent preparation for a launch, Kim added.The Korean peninsula has been in a state of heightened military tension since the North carried out its third nuclear test in February.Relations between the ...
TAIPEI: Taiwan's economy grew by a much lower-than-expected 1.54 percent in the three months to March as it was hit by sluggish exports, the government said Tuesday.The figure followed 3.72 percent expansion in the previous quarter, the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics said in a preliminary report."The growth momentum was not as strong as we had been expected," an official from the budgeting agency said, referring to a forecast of 3.26 percent growth ...
TOKYO: Four climbers died over the weekend and two others are missing on mountains including Mount Fuji in central Japan, police and news reports said Monday.Police said that on Sunday they found the body of a 56-year-old woman who had been missing since an avalanche hit a group of climbers on Mount Shirouma in Nagano prefecture the previous day."We have continued searching for two male climbers who were feared to be involved in the same ...
BEIJING: China's new leadership is seeking to dismantle a system of privilege which has allowed the drivers of military vehicles to do as they please on the roads.On Sunday the Chinese military began replacing licence plates on its cars and trucks to crack down on legions of vehicles, many of them plush luxury brands, which routinely break traffic laws and fill up with free gas.The People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department began supervising the removal ...
KABUL: Four members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were killed on Saturday when their plane crashed in southern Afghanistan, the coalition said in a statement.ISAF said there was no insurgent activity in the area when the plane went down over the volatile province of Zabul. The province's police chief Rogh Lewanai told Reuters that bad weather caused the plane to crash, in the district of Shahjoi.Zabul, wedged between Kandahar and Ghazni, has seen ...
SYDNEY: The Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed Friday it has been targeted by hackers many times, as they reportedly look to access market-sensitive information before public release.According to newly declassified documents and internal incident reports obtained by The Australian Financial Review, the ABS has been the subject of numerous attacks over the past four years.They include at least 11 incidents over seven months during 2012, involving thousands of attempts to access the government bureau's computer ...
SEOUL: South Korea confirmed Friday its candidate to head the World Trade Organisation had failed to make it to the final selection round, saying the general mood had been for a Latin American nominee.Former trade minister Bark Tae-Ho "unfortunately failed to make it to the third round", the foreign ministry said in a statement.The statement cited unconfirmed reports that Brazil's WTO ambassador Roberto Azevedo and Mexico's Herminio Blanco, a former senior trade negotiator, would fight ...
