North Korea Attacks South

North Korea fired artillery into the sea near its disputed border with South Korea for a third straight day on Friday, Seoul's military said.In a four-hour morning period the communist state fired 20 shells which landed in North Korean waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong island, a spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.Seoul's defence ministry said it is considering shipping more artillery and advanced radar to Yeonpyeong and another border island in response to the shelling, which began Wednesday near the tense frontier in the Yellow Sea.

North Korea fired artillery Wednesday near the disputed sea border with South Korea and Seoul's military returned fire, Yonhap news agency reported.The agency said the North fired several shells into the sea near the South Korean-controlled Baengnyeong Island in the Yellow Sea, following its declaration Tuesday of "no sail" zones in the area.The agency said Seoul's military fired back in response but there were no immediate further details. The defence ministry said it was checking the reports.

War on the Korean Peninsula: Why no one wants to go there again, despite the rhetoric TOKYO (AP) — As tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula, one thing remains certain: All sides have good reason to avoid an all-out war. The last one, six decades ago, killed an estimated 4 million people.

The U.S. and South Korea signed a contingency plan of action against attacks from North Korea, which this month threatened preemptive nuclear strikes against the two allies. General James Thurman, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, signed the agreement on March 22 with South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Jung Seung Jo, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said on Monday in a statement on its website.

Notwithstanding the seriousness of the situation on the Korean peninsula, if this is a 1 off event, today’s pressure on world markets should be limited after today.

South Korean troops Monday started a live-fire artillery exercise on a border island, the defence ministry said, despite threats by North Korea to hit back."The drill has started," a ministry spokesman told AFP.An AFP photographer in a bunker on Yeonpyeong island confirmed he heard the sound of artillery.After a similar drill on Yeonpyeong on November 23, the North fired some 170 shells onto or around the island, killing four people including civilians and damaging dozens of homes.

ETF Database submits: South Korea is home to one of the world’s most unique and promising economies, thriving off of its status as a tech leader as well as proximity and strong relationships with many of Asia’s rapidly-expanding emerging markets. But constantly looming over South Korea is the unstable relationship with its neighbor to the north, one of the world’s most closed and volatile regimes in North Korea.

CLICK TO ENLARGE SEOUL, South Korea — After weeks of warlike rhetoric, North Kore