Let's just hope Bill Richardson does some good with the diplomatic negotiations on this front because the alternatives as Gordon Chang explained here to CNN's Don Lemon sound pretty dire to put it mildly.
Defense ministry: South Korea starts live-fire drill:
South Korea's planned live-fire military exercises started Monday afternoon, the country's defense ministry said, as fighter jets took to the sky in preparation for possible retaliation by North Korea.
North Korea has said the drill could ignite a war and that it would respond. But the country also agreed to a series of actions after former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson urged the North not to respond aggressively.
Soon after the drill began, South Korea launched fighter jets over its airspace in case the North launched an attack, the defense ministry said. It was not immediately clear how many fighter jets were in the air.
The ministry said drills typically last about two hours. The military exercises are taking place in waters just south of Yeonpyeong Island, where a North Korean shelling on November 23 killed two South Korean marines and two civilians.
The North has accused the South of provoking the attack because shells from a South Korean military drill landed in the North's waters.
On Sunday, South Korea ordered thousands to find shelter in preparation for the drill while the United Nations' Security Council wrangled for nearly eight hours over growing tensions in the Korean peninsula before ending its emergency meeting without a unified statement.
About 8,000 residents were ordered to take cover in Yeonpyeong, Baengnyeong, Daecheong, Socheong and Udo in the hours leading up to the drill.
CNN: North Korea agrees to return of UN nuclear inspectors:
North Korea has agreed with US troubleshooter Bill Richardson to permit the return of UN nuclear inspectors as part of a package of measures to ease tensions on the peninsula, CNN reported Monday.
CNN correspondent Wolf Blitzer, who is travelling with Richardson in Pyongyang, said the North Koreans had agreed to let inspectors from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency go back to its Yongbyon nuclear facility.
They had also agreed to allow fuel rods for the enrichment of uranium to be shipped to an outside country, and to the creation of a military commission and hotline between the two Koreas and the United States, Blitzer said.
A veteran negotiator with the reclusive communist state, New Mexico Governor Richardson was due to brief reporters in Beijing later Monday after concluding his five-day visit to Pyongyang.
The former US ambassador to the UN was said by Blitzer to be "disappointed" at the UN Security Council's failure late Sunday to agree a statement on the Korean situation.
Richardson believed that such a statement would have given the South Koreans "political cover" to cancel a planned live-fire military exercise on a flashpoint border island bombarded by North Korea last month, Blitzer said.
