North Koreans across the country are begging to join the army after the United Nations slapped the country with new sanctions.<\/p>\n
It’s the latest hyperbole coming out of the repressed country after the North reneged Monday on a 60-year-old armistice that had maintained an uneasy peace with South Korea since the Korean War in the 1950s.<\/p>\n
“All people who can take rifle are petitioning to be allowed to join or rejoin the People’s Army in all provinces and towns,” the newspaper said.<\/p>\n
For its part, South Korea said it’s keeping a close watch and making sure its combined forces with the United States are prepared for moves by the North.<\/strong><\/p>\n “There are possibilities that these activities could lead to provocations,” defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-suk said.<\/p>\n If they do, he added, “We will respond in a more resolute and destructively manner.”<\/p>\n The ever-ratcheting war of words between the two sides reached new heights after Pyongyang scrapped the agreement and then followed it up by ignoring Seoul’s calls to a military hotline the two sides set up in 2004 to ease tensions.<\/strong> The sanctions, North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party said, are “a declaration of war and an act of war.”<\/p>\n The United States followed the U.N.’s sanctions with its own Monday after North Korea scrapped the armistice agreement.<\/p>\n The new U.S. sanctions target North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank for its role in supporting the country’s weapons of mass destruction program, the Treasury Department said Monday.<\/p>\n The sanctions effectively cut the North’s primary foreign exchange bank off from the U.S. financial system.<\/p>\n ‘Break the waists of … enemies’<\/p>\n Pyongyang is also furious at joint military drills taking place between the South and the United States. The annual training exercises are scheduled to last two months.<\/p>\n Leader Kim Jong Un lambasted the drills, taking place near the Korean peninsula.<\/p>\n “As the saying goes … a guy who is fond of playing with fire is bound to perish in flames” Kim told soldiers, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency. “All the enemies quite often playing with fire in the sensitive hotspot should be thrown into a cauldron once I issue an order.”<\/p>\n “Once an order is issued,” Kim told the troops, “you should break the waists of the crazy enemies, totally cut their windpipes and thus clearly show them what a real war is like.”<\/p>\n In Washington, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Pyongyang’s “bellicose rhetoric” has raised concerns — but won’t help the North’s situation.<\/p>\n “The DPRK will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in northeast Asia,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" North Koreans across the country are begging to join the army after the United Nations slapped the country with new<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":72448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"magazineBlocksPostFeaturedMedia":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","medium_large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","1536x1536":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","2048x2048":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-highlighted-post":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-medium":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-featured-post-small":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x90.jpg","colormag-featured-image":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-default-news":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg","colormag-featured-image-large":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-block-extra-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-small-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg","colormag-elementor-grid-medium-large-thumbnail":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg"},"magazineBlocksPostAuthor":{"name":"Admin","avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"magazineBlocksPostCommentsNumber":"0","magazineBlocksPostExcerpt":"North Koreans across the country are begging to join the army after the United Nations slapped the country with new","magazineBlocksPostCategories":[],"magazineBlocksPostViewCount":151,"magazineBlocksPostReadTime":3,"magazine_blocks_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"medium":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u.jpg",113,170,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/u-113x150.jpg",113,150,true]},"magazine_blocks_author":{"display_name":"Admin","author_link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?author=1"},"magazine_blocks_comment":0,"magazine_blocks_author_image":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/53e6cdc30765aade0129f85e5aeb50124b1d3f5bb9a70373be31e4eb328371e0?s=96&d=mm&r=g","magazine_blocks_category":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/72448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\nNorth Korea said its decision was a direct response to the U.N. Security Council, which passed tougher sanctions against the country after it carried out a nuclear test last month.<\/p>\n