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The South Korean and US militaries have agreed to shorten their drills at the US's request, South Korean officials said Wednesday, days after President Donald Trump ordered cuts to the exercises. The allies' summertime Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises began Monday morning for an 11-day run, just after Trump ordered his Pentagon chief to "substantially reduce" them. Trump cited what he said was a good relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea's refusal to join the US war against Iran. South Korea's military said in a statement the ongoing drills with the US would end Friday, not Aug. 27 as initially planned. It said the allies also agreed to downsize some joint field training exercises. Many experts say Trump's move threatens to hurt combined US-South Korean readiness and eventually weaken their decades-long alliance. Ulchi Freedom Shield is largely a computer-simulated command post exercise meant to hone the allies' ability to deal with potential regional ...
President Donald Trump on Sunday ordered the Pentagon to scale back joint exercises with South Korea after he said it declined to help denuclearise Iran. The announcement comes days before one of two scheduled large-scale joint annual exercises between South Korean and US troops are set to begin this week . It also comes just days after North Korea resumed ballistic missile testing activities that are banned by the UN. The allies have said the 11-day exercises are meant to strengthen their readiness against threats from North Korea, and reiterated that they are defensive in nature.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi avoided Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni Shrine, apparently to prioritise diplomatic relations with China and South Korea, as Japan on Saturday marked the 81st anniversary of its surrender in World War II. However, she did not mention her country's wartime past in Asia or show remorse over it in her address. The Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates over 2.4 million people who died in wars, became controversial after including 14 convicted Japanese war criminals from World War II. China and South Korea say visits by Japanese officials to the shrine show a lack of remorse over Japan's wartime atrocities. Takaichi mourned the victims of major devastation in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa, as well as those who perished in overseas battlefronts, and thanked them for their sacrifice as the "foundation of Japan's peace and prosperity today." "Japan, since the end of the war, has consistently contributed to global peace and prosperity. We will never let
North Korea on Friday threatened to exercise its right to self-defence in a statement that slammed the upcoming US-South Korean military drills as a war rehearsal that would be more provocative than last year. The US and South Korean militaries are to start their annual large-scale drills Monday and have described the scope of this year's training as similar to past years. The allies have said the Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises are meant to strengthen their readiness against North Korean threats and reiterated that they are defensive in nature. The North Korean warning signals the country could conduct more weapons tests in coming days after its neighbors detected two ballistic missile launches off North Korea's east coast in the past week. North Korea hasn't commented on the launches, but outside experts assess they were likely meant to protest the US-South Korean drills or upgrade weapons systems. In a statement carried by state media Friday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry calle
A South Korean satellite has captured the first pictures of the moon's fresh crash scene caused by a stray SpaceX rocket. The Korea Aerospace Research Institute's Danuri spacecraft flew over the impact site soon after the Falcon 9 upper stage inadvertently plowed into the moon on Wednesday. Danuri made multiple passes, snapping photos from lunar orbit that were released by the space agency Thursday. The terrain is noticeably darker where the rocket hit and carved out a crater, sending dust and rock everywhere. Korean space officials said Danuri gathered before and after shots. NASA expects its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to fly over the crash site next week to view the aftermath. Elon Musk's SpaceX launched Danuri from Cape Canaveral in 2022. The company also sent a pair of private lunar landers to the moon last year. The upper stage from that launch is what crashed into the moon this week at 5,400 mph (8,700 kph), placed on an accidental collision course by solar activity and ..
South Korea's Kospi index jumped more than 15 per cent on Friday, tracking Wall Street gains, as artificial intelligence-related stocks bounced back after losses this week. US futures edged higher, and oil prices rose. In early Asian trading, the Kospi rose 15.3 per cent to 6,447.10. Shares of South Korean technology giant Samsung Electronics surged 21.5 per cent, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix soared 25.6 per cent. The Kospi index had plummeted more than 16 per cent on Tuesday and Wednesday on a sell-off of technology stocks in part over worries about an AI bubble and rising intensive competition from chipmaking rivals in China. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 also climbed 5 per cent in early Friday trading. Multinational investment holding company and OpenAI-investor SoftBank Group jumped 14.7 per cent, while chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron rose 9.3 per cent. Oil prices traded higher on tensions between the US and Iran, and as the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil transport, rema