Things are getting tense on along the 38th parallel:
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Shots were fired Saturday along the heavily armed no man’s land separating the divided Koreas as regional tensions mounted in anticipation of communist North Korea’s plan to test its first atomic bomb.
South Korean soldiers fired warning shots shortly before noon (0300 GMT) after five North Korean soldiers crossed a boundary in the Demilitarized Zone separating the two country’s forces, South Korean military officials said.
It was unclear whether the North Korean advance was intended as a provocation, an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on condition of anonymity, citing official policy. No one was hurt, and the North Koreans retreated.
“It’s not clear whether it was intentional or whether it was to catch fish,” he said, adding that four North Koreans were unarmed, and the fifth carried a rifle.
The North Korean soldiers advanced about 30 meters (30 yards) past the Military Demarcation Line separating the two armies before retreating to their own side after South Korean forces fired about 40 warning shots, the official said.
And that’s not the only problem:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council on Friday urged North Korea not to carry out a planned nuclear-weapon test and warned Pyongyang of unspecified consequences if it did.
The warning, in a formal statement adopted unanimously, came three days after North Korea’s announced it planned its first underground nuclear test, saying its hand had been forced by a U.S. “threat of nuclear war and sanctions.”
U.S. officials have said the reclusive state might detonate a device as early as this weekend, and a Chinese source said Pyongyang planned to carry out the test deep inside an abandoned mine.
A nuclear test would “jeopardize peace, stability and security in the region and beyond” and “bring universal condemnation by the international community,” said the Security Council statement, read at a formal meeting by Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima, this month’s council president.
It warned North Korea that a nuclear test would lead to further unspecified Security Council action “consistent with its responsibility under the Charter of the United Nations.”
The last time the UN acted against North Korea, we had a little thing called the Korean War.
