North and South Korea are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The small bridge known as the Bridge of No Return is located within the truce village and spans the military demarcation line between the two Koreas. In August 2015, land mine blasts maimed two South Korean soldiers and caused tensions between the two Koreas to flare.
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Meanwhile, over the weekend, Australia surprised the world by being the only country to attempt to block an global ban on nuclear weapons.
The Australian government tried – and ultimately failed – to block a United Nations report for a complete global ban on nuclear weapons.
North Korea, in a vitriolic response on Saturday, claimed that the “human scum” had embezzled state funds, raped a minor and spied for the South and had fled “for fear of legal punishment for his crimes”.
The UN Command said in a statement that it “strongly condemns” any North Korean action that jeopardizes the safety of personnel in the DMZ. But it refused to speculate on the North’s possible motives.
North Korea routinely exports workers not only to China, but also to Russian Federation, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, and requires them to remit most of their earnings to the North Korean government.
Last week, South Korea announced that Thae Yong Ho, the North’s deputy ambassador in London, had defected and arrived in the South with his family, in an embarrassing blow to the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“There has been talk among North Korean public officials that the partisan guerrillas are nothing now”, he said. “And the activities of border patrol were reduced”.
The North’s military warned it will turn the cities into “a heap of ash through a Korean-style pre-emptive nuclear strike” if they show any signs of aggression towards their territory, a spokesman for North Korea’s military was quoted as saying by the country’s state media.
The source said the North Korean action “appears to be created to prevent its front-line servicemen from defecting”.
This comes as South Korea and the United States begin their annual military drills, which South Korea has described as defensive in nature.
North Korea has been blamed for planting landmines along the DMZ that detonated a year ago, maiming two South Korean soldiers patrolling the border.
The DMZ is littered with mines planted over the years but neither side is meant to lay new ones.
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Jan said the Security Council has previously “unjustifiably ignored” several North Korean requests to put the U.S. “Because the North has a history of staging armed provocations around the time of our joint exercises, such as when it sank the warship Cheonan, we need to stay vigilant”.
