Asia, Wars | 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.

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.”

China, long a bystander to the conflict in Afghanistan, is stepping up its involvement as U.S.-led forces prepare to withdraw, attracted by the country's vast mineral resources but concerned that any post-2014 chaos could embolden Islamist insurgents in its own territory....

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened to launch a powerful retaliatory strike against South Korea if provoked, state media said Sunday, a day before the start of annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that Pyongyang calls an invasion rehearsal.

Military officials in Pakistan announced the arrest of three men on Monday they said were senior Al Qaeda operatives who had been planning attacks on Western targets.

Chinese arms firms offered to sell weapons worth about $200 million to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's beleaguered forces in July, two newspapers reported, compounding pressure on Beijing's brittle ties with the rebels who have ousted him.

For months officials in Pakistan have been demanding an end to CIA drone strikes in the country, and the brokering of a new relationship that would make them equal partners in the pursuit of terrorist groups. Now they have an unlikely ally in their demands: the former director of U.S. intelligence agencies, Dennis C. Blair.