South Korea to go ahead with fire drill

South Korean protesters attend an anti-war and anti-government rally in Seoul yesterday.Photo: AFP

South Korea vowed yesterday to go ahead with a live-fire drill on a border island bombarded by North Korea last month, despite the North's threat to strike back hard.
"There is no change in our stance with regards to the live-fire exercise," a defence ministry spokesman told AFP.
On Yeonpyeong, focus of the latest flare-up that has sparked regional alarm, propaganda balloons were launched yesterday -- but no artillery shells.
The one-day firing training exercise, scheduled for some time between Saturday and Tuesday, may happen early next week, when the weather is expected to improve, Yonhap news agency quoted a military source as saying.
The North Friday threatened a new and deadlier attack if the South's marines launch shells into what the communist state claims as its own waters.
Last month's bombardment of Yeonpyeong killed two marines and two civilians and damaged dozens of homes. It came after a firing drill into the sea by South Korean marines based on the island.
Pyongyang disputes the Yellow Sea border drawn after the 1950-53 war and claims the waters around Yeonpyeong and other frontline islands as its own maritime territory.
The North's latest warning sharply raised the stakes in the crisis. US politician Bill Richardson, who is visiting Pyongyang, described the situation as a "tinderbox".
Russia urged South Korea not to go ahead with the exercise and China, the North's sole major ally, called for talks to ease tensions.
Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun said Beijing was "deeply concerned and worried" about the situation on the peninsula, the state Xinhua news agency reported.
Zhang, who summoned South Korea's ambassador Yu Woo-Ik on Friday afternoon to express concern at the planned drill, said the situation was "extremely precarious, highly complicated and sensitive".
South Korea, outraged at the first shelling of civilian areas since the war, has fortified Yeonpyeong with more troops and artillery and vowed to hit back hard with air power against any attack.