N. Korea Ends Pact

From the BBC:

"North Korea ends peace pacts with South"

North Korea says it is scrapping all non-aggression pacts with South Korea, closing its hotline with Seoul and shutting their shared border point. The announcement follows a fresh round of UN sanctions punishing Pyongyang for its nuclear test last month. Earlier, Pyongyang said it had a right to carry out a pre-emptive nuclear strike and was pulling out of the armistice that ended the Korean War. The US said "extreme rhetoric" was not unusual for Pyongyang. China, which is the North's only major ally, called for both North and South to show restraint and to continue talking. Beijing rarely criticises its ally, but has criticised the North's nuclear tests and has given support to the UN's sanctions. South Korea's President Park Geun-hye said the current security situation was "very grave" but that she would "deal strongly" with provocation from the North.

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The threatened pre-emptive nuclear strike seems more bluff than reality, since the North's leaders know it would be suicidal, and an attack on the US seems impracticable given the still technically rudimentary quality of the North's ballistic missile programme and the unproven state of its nuclear miniaturisation technology needed to place a nuclear warhead atop a missile. A more troubling possibility is that the North might choose - out of irritation with the UN - to precipitate a border clash with South Korea, either on land or sea, as it did before in 2010.  The two Koreas have reached a range of agreements over the years, including a 1991 pact on resolving disputes and avoiding military clashes, but the North Korean statement did not expand on what was being cancelled.  It also said it was notifying the South that it was "immediately" cutting off the North-South hotline, saying there was "nothing to talk to the puppet group of traitors about". The hotline, installed in 1971, is intended as a means of direct communication at a time of high tension, but is also used to co-ordinate the passage of people and goods through the heavily-fortified Demilitarized Zone.

Resolution 2094

• Strongly condemns North Korea's ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment programme
• Imposes new sanctions to block financial transactions and bulk cash transfers in support of illicit activity
• Strengthens states' authority to inspect suspicious cargo
• Requires states to deny port access to any North Korean vessel that refuses to be inspected
• Calls on states to deny permission to any aircraft to take off, land in or overfly their territory if the aircraft is suspected of transporting prohibited items
• Enables stronger enforcement of existing sanctions by UN member states
• Sanctions new individuals and entities

^ It seems, as usual, to be all talk. As one news reporter said it was "big talk from a little man." North Korea has repeatedly bombed South Korea, crossed the border in tunnels, kidnap civilizans since the 1953 ceasefire. Usually the US and South Korea do nothing more than talk back or create sanctions. I don't think North Korea has the military power to bomb the US, but they could invade the South again. Hopefully, China will keep its ally in line especially because now China needs the US more than North Korea (a far cry from the 1950s.) ^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21709917