Asia, South Korea | featured news

The American military commander in the region is staying there instead of returning to Washington--taking no chances as North Korea continues to make threats.

American officials said new “counterprovocation” plans called for an immediate but proportional “response in kind,” hitting the source of any attack by North Korea with similar weapons.

Outsiders might hear the opening notes of a war in the deluge of threats and provocations from North Korea, but to South Koreans it is a familiar drumbeat. Separated from the North by a heavily fortified border for decades, they have for the most part lived with tough talk from Pyongyang all their lives. In annual defense drills, war alarms ring in their ears.

The US will defend itself and its "treaty ally" South Korea in the face of North Korean threats, Secretary of State John Kerry says.

North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in a continuing escalation of tough rhetoric against Seoul and Washington after coming under international sanctions for its nuclear test.

North Korea put its rocket units on standby Friday to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after repeated threats and one day after two American stealth bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a military exercise. A U.S. official warned that the isolated communist state is “not a paper tiger” and its reaction should not be dismissed as “pure bluster.”

The barrage of threats from North Korea has sparked talk from within South Korea of the need to develop its own nuclear weapons. A recent poll shows that two-thirds of South Korean citizens surveyed support the idea, especially in the wake of North Korea's third nuclear test in February.

North Korea has cut off a Red Cross hotline with South Korea as it escalates its war of words against Seoul and Washington in response to a military drill in the South and U.N. sanctions imposed for its recent nuclear test.

North Korea's third nuclear test and threats of military action are "completely unacceptable", U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in remarks published on Saturday, urging Pyongyang to feed its people and seek peace with South Korea.

North Korea has plenty of military firepower even if its threat this week of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the United States is a hollow one, with South Korea most at risk from the isolated regime's artillery and rockets.