International News Desk THE FTSE opened today down 34.41 points (8:37GMT) following news that north Korea has launched the "worse attack" against south Korea in twenty years, prompting fears that the north Korean communist regime is preparing for a period of hostility against its neighbour.
North Korea opened fired today using dozens of artillery shells at a South Korean island, setting buildings on fire and prompting a return of fire by the South, Seoul's military and media reports said.
Speaking to Reuters today KIM KEUN-SIK, PROFESSOR, KYUNGNAM UNIVERSITY said:
"This seems to be a highest-level military provocation. On one hand, North Korea has a uranium enrichment card to bring the United States to the negotiation table. On the other hand, by raising tensions in the West Sea, North Korea wants to threaten South Korea.
The YonHap News Agency in South Korea issued a report earlier and said:
“The North's artillery shells started falling in the South's waters off the island of Yeonpyeong around 2:34 p.m., some of them landing directly on the island, said Col. Lee Bung-woo, spokesman for the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). The South's military fired back some 80 rounds, he said.South Korea's Yeonpueong Island is engulfed in thick smoke as North Korea reportedly fired hundreds of rounds of artillery from its stronghold on the west coast toward the South Korean waters and the Island around 2:34 p.m. on Nov. 23, injuring several soldiers and citizens.
The entire military was immediately put on its highest peacetime alert, he said, noting that the Air Force has deployed fighter jets to the island.
TV footage showed plumes of smoke rising from the island. Island residents said people are being told to evacuate. A spokesman for Incheon City, the administrative district of Yeonpyeong Island, said four civilians were reportedly injured from the North's firing. Fire is spreading on a mountain on the island, some homes are still burning, and the island is in virtual blackout from the power outage, he said.
JCS officials said the South's military sent a telephone message to North Korea urging the North to stop the shelling.
JCS Chairman Han Min-koo and Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of some 28,500 U.S. troops in the South, held telephone talks and agreed to consider declaring a "joint crisis management," the JCS spokesman said.
President Lee Myung-bak told his aides to take measures to prevent the North's artillery fire from escalating into a conflict.
"(We) should carefully manage the situation to prevent the escalation of the clash," Lee was quoted as saying by his spokesman before presiding over an emergency meeting of security-related ministers at an underground bunker of the presidential office.
The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said it was looking into the possibility that the North's firing was in protest to an ongoing South Korean military drill on the western coast. The "Hoguk Exercise," one of South Korea's three major annual defense exercises, began Monday with some 70,000 troops participating.
The North sent a message to Seoul denouncing the exercise earlier in the day, Cheong Wa Dae said.
The JCS dismissed the connection, saying the North's artillery fell well south of Tuesday's drill location.
The western sea border was the scene of bloody gun battles between the navies of the two Koreas in 1999, 2002 and most recently in November of last year.”
N. Korea warns of new attacksNorth Korea will launch additional attacks on South Korea if it continues "reckless military provocation," the North's state media said Thursday.
