SOUTH Korea has vowed to "punish the enemy" as hundreds of troops, fighter jets, tanks and attack helicopters prepared massive new drills near the heavily armed border a month after a deadly North Korean artillery attack.
Although the North backed down from its threat to retaliate over South Korean drills on Monday in waters of the west coast claimed by both countries, South Korean forces have been on high alert this week, warning of surprise attacks. The North responded to a November 23 artillery drill on South Korea's front-line Yeonpyeong Island with an artillery bombardment that killed four, including two civilians.
The North has made some conciliatory gestures in recent days - telling a visiting US governor that it might allow international nuclear inspections of its atomic programs - but Seoul appears unmoved and is bracing for possible aggression.
"We will completely punish the enemy if it provokes us again like the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island," Brigadier General Ju Eun-sik, chief of the army's 1st armored brigade, said.
South Korea's army and air force also planned joint firing drills tomorrow near the Koreas' land border.
The training - the 48th of its kind this year - will be the biggest-ever wintertime joint firing exercise that South Korea's army and air force have staged, the army said. The drill will involve 800 troops, F-15K and KF-16 jet fighters, K-1 tanks, AH-1S attack helicopters and K-9 self-propelled guns.
South Korea had planned to conduct only 47 drills of this type this year but decided to conduct one more because of continuing tension with North Korea, an army officer said on condition of anonymity citing department rules.
North Korea, meanwhile, indicated to visiting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson that it was prepared to consider ways to work with the South on restoring security along the border.
Mr Richardson praised Pyongyang for refraining from retaliation and said his visit to the North provided an opening for a resumption of negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program. North Korea pulled out of six-nation talks to provide Pyongyang with aid in exchange for disarmament in April 2009, but since has said it is willing to resume them.
The White House, however, rejected the idea, saying Pyongyang needed to change its "belligerent" behaviour first and was not "even remotely ready" for negotiations.
In Seoul, a senior South Korean government official said the military would remain prepared for the possibility of a "surprise" attack in coming days. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
South Korea's Navy began annual four-day firing and anti-submarine exercises today off the country's less-tense east coast. The east coast was used by the North as a submarine route for communist agents to infiltrate South Korea in the past.
A gun-wielding woman has burst into a US television station, forcing the evening news bulletin off the air, though no one was injured, the station said.
After a brief stand-off with a police SWAT team that surrounded the building of ABC Charlotte, North Carolina affiliate WSOC-TV, the woman was taken into custody. ABC News said she had pulled out a gun and put it to her head, though police later learned the gun was not loaded.A CBS affiliate in Charlotte, WBTV, identified the woman as Wendy Naidas.
The station went black during the incident, which interrupted its 5pm bulletin but was back on air an hour later. Employees were evacuated to the back section of a parking lot during the incident.
"Not on air. Distraught woman with gun in lobby. Police have building surrounded. Employees evacuated," WSOC-TV anchor Blair Miller said in a message on the Twitter microblog, from inside the station.
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Police chief Rodney Monroe told WBTV that Naidas threatened the receptionist and herself while they were barricaded in the building. Although police initially said Naidas had fired at least one shot, Monroe later said no shots had been fired.
