THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: America is bringing the Korean peninsula "to the brink of war" North Korea warned on Friday as tension continues to build ahead of a four-day US-South Korean joint war game that starts this weekend.
The latest broadside from the regime of Kim Jong-il was issued as a US carrier battle group led by the nuclear-powered USS George Washington steamed towards the Yellow Sea in a show of deterrent force to Pyongyang.
"The situation on the Korean peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war," warned a dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency said. "Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only." All morning North Korean state television and radio blared out martial music interspersed with official statements about the shelling of South Korean's Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday which left four people dead and destroyed houses and parts of a military base.
In a further show of US solidarity with Seoul, Gen. Walter Sharp, the US military commander in South Korea, visited the shelled island, touring burned buildings and stating again that the attack was a violation of the ceasefire that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. >>> Peter Foster, Beijing | Friday, November 26, 2010
