The Telegraph:
Tensions on the Korean peninsula festered on Friday as North Korea held its largest-ever military drills and prepared to bring about “the most miserable doom to the U.S. imperialists and the South Korean puppet group of traitors.”
The drills were said to be part of a “simulated attack” on the Blue House, the official residence of South Korean president Park Geun-Hye.
They are also believed to be a furious reaction to mass military demonstrations held by South Korea and the US earlier in March, which regime leader Kim Jong-un perceives as a rehearsal for invasion.
Newly released images by North Korea’s state broadcaster show its Supreme Commander – who appears to have put on substantial amounts of weight since he came to power – inspecting soldiers at a massive military parade.
They also show row upon row of the secretive regime’s rocket launchers and artillery guns blasting missiles into the air from the coastline, in an apparent bid to deter South Korean forces from attempting to storm the beaches.
It comes as a Korean-American man detained by Pyongyang confessed to stealing military secrets and plotting subversion with the South Koreans.
Kim Dong Chul, who has previously described himself as a naturalised US citizen, was paraded on state media, where he admitted to “”unpardonable espionage” against the regime.
As is often the case with detainees in North Korea, it remains unclear whether he did do under duress.
“The extraordinary crime I committed was defaming and insulting the republic’s highest dignity and its system and spreading false propaganda aimed at breaking down its solidarity,” he said, according to Kim Jong-un’s state broadcaster, the Korean Central News Agency.
