South Korea says the North Korea has again fired artillery shells near their sea border
Seoul, Jan 6: North Korea conducted a new round of artillery drills near the disputed sea boundary with South Korea on Saturday, officials in Seoul said, a day after the North's earlier exercises prompted South Korea to respond with its own drills in the same area.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement the North fired more than 60 rounds near the western sea boundary on Saturday afternoon. It said South Korea strongly urges North Korea to halt acts that heighten tensions.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said South Korea will take corresponding military steps if North Korea continues artillery drills that pose a threat to South Korean nationals. It said South Korea will "overwhelmingly" deal with any provocations by North Korea.
On Friday, North Korea fired about 200 artillery shells near the area, prompting South Korea to conduct its own firing drills in response. South Korea's Defence Ministry said troops on two border islands fired artillery rounds south of the sea boundary. Local media said South Korea fired 400 rounds.
Ahead of the South Korean drills, South Korean authorities asked residents on five major islands near the western sea boundary to evacuate to safe places due to worries that North Korea would fire back. The evacuation order was lifted a few hours later.
Both Koreas have abandoned a 2018 deal they struck during a brief period of rapprochement. The agreement called for a halt in live-fire exercises in front-line buffer zone. But rising animosities over the North's missile tests and its first military spy satellite launch and other issues have left the military agreement in tatters.
The Koreas' poorly marked western sea boundary was the site for bloody naval skirmishes between the Koreas in 1999, 2002 and 2009. The North's alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship killed 46 South Korean sailors in March 2010, and the North's artillery bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island killed four South Koreans in November 2010.
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Trump says he is planning to attend Jimmy Carter's funeral
Palm Beach (AP/PTI): President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he's planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.
Asked about it as he walked into a New Year's Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, "I'll be there.” Pressed on whether he'd spoken to members of Carter's family, Trump said he'd rather not say.
Funeral services honouring Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, will be held in Georgia and Washington, beginning January 4 and concluding January 9.
Trump was a frequent and fierce critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November's election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to unfavourably compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.
But the president-elect was gracious about the former president in posts on his social media site after Carter's death Sunday, writing that the nation “owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realised that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for,” Trump wrote of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”
Wearing a tuxedo as he entered the festivities, Trump took a few minutes of questions from reporters on various topics. He was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, but said only, “We're going to see what happens."
The president-elect added of hostages seized more than a year ago by Hamas, “I'll put it this way: They better let the hostages come back soon."
Trump also said he thought 2025 would be a “great year” and "we're going to do fantastically well as a country.”
“There's a whole light over the whole world, not just our country. They're a lot of happy people,” Trump said of recent weeks.
Asked about his resolutions for the new year, Trump said, “I just want everybody to be happy, healthy and well.”
Trump later took the stage to briefly address the crowd ringing in the new year at Mar-a-Lago and promised “to do a great job as your president.”
Biden, for his part, spent New Year's Eve celebrating the wedding of his niece Missy Owens in Greenville, Delaware, followed by the reception in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Biden and first lady Jill Biden cut short their traditional holiday trip to the US Virgin Islands to attend the ceremony.
