Korean war tensions mount as South rejects talks amid threats from North

North Korea threatened to inflict "a merciless military blow" if the naval war games the US and South Korea launched on the Yellow Sea border Sunday, Nov. 28 encroached on its waters. Hours later, for good measure, artillery fire echoed from the North Korean mainland on the island shelled last Tuesday - apparently from military practices. This added to the jitters in Seoul over the worst incident between the two Koreas in more than 50 years.

Overnight, too, Pyongyang deployed ground-to-ground and anti-air missiles on the border.

Later Sunday, South Korea rejected China's call for urgent Six-Power consultations in Beijing early next month (among North and South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the US) to help resolve the escalating crisis on the Korean Peninsula. The time isn't right, said President Lee Myung-Bak, refusing to back down - almost certainly after consultations with Washington.

Lee has warned of possible "provocative actions" in the course of the four-day war games, in which 10 warships are taking part including the USS George Washington with 75 bomber-fighters aboard. The South Korean defense minister Kim Kwan-jinis urging a tough response to any attacks by the North - "We need to hit back multiple times as hard" - and street protesters in the South have demanded action in revenge for the four people killed when North Korea shelled the border island of Yeonpyeong last Tuesday, Nov. 23.

On paper, US-South Korean armed strength on the peninsula outguns North Korea's, especially with regard to high-tech weaponry. The 10,000 sailors, flight crews and Marines aboard the US carrier augment the 28,000 US troops permanently stationed on the peninsula, while South Korea can field 700,000 soldiers backed by more than three million reservists.
North Korea maintains more than a million troops in uniform – half of them women - and 8 million reservists.

It has emplaced 70,000 heavy guns in sites pointing straight at the South Korean capital of Seoul and close enough to flatten the city in hours

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