North Korea today "completely scrapped" the armistice that held a tenuous peace on the peninsula for six decades, reports the Washington Post, even as American and South Korean troops began the large-scale military drills Pyongyang had warned them to abandon. The North is playing up its unpredictability, saying in a state-run newspaper today that with the armistice gone, “no one can expect what will happen next.” Further heightening tensions: The Red Cross hotline the North uses to communicate with Seoul has gone dead. "We called at 9am and there was no response," explains a South Korean official of the line, which it tries daily. The North has also threatened to cut off its hotline with UN troops—and to nuke the United States.
- North Korea, which is planning huge military exercises of its own, claims the US-South Korea drills are a move to launch a nuclear war. Analysts believe Pyongyang isn't capable of launching a nuclear strike on the US even if the regime was deranged enough to try. But some kind of attack along the disputed sea border with South Korea is seen as a more realistic possibility, reports Reuters.