Thursday, May 28, 2009

OT: North Korea Tears Up 50-Year Armistice

The US financial markets pretty much ignored this news amid constant attacks on all fronts (Treasury auction and immediate sell-off, GM bankruptcy all but certain, rumor of national sales tax, controversy over the supreme court nominee, among other 100 things), but North Korea may be really going over the edge this time.

Times London reports "North Korea threatens war as it tears up 50-year armistice".

"North Korea announced yesterday that it was abandoning the armistice that ended the Korean War 56 years ago, and threatened war if there were any attempts to search its ships for weapons of mass destruction."

It has a news video clip, in which the reporter comments that this action by North Korea is more about their internal politics, e.g. leadership change, although "accidents" can happen.

I'm not so sure it's more of the same saber rattling. They "threatened war if there were any attempts to search its ships". I think it is an act of war if the US, South Korea, China, Japan, or anybody, tries to search North Korean ships on open water. North Korea is saying they will respond to this act of war.

South Korea and Japan don't seem to be showing any heightened concern so far. Both Nikkei and KOSPI ended up for the day. I hope that everything is just a simple miscommunication because of Mercury Retrograde.

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