Seoul – North Korea threatened pre-emptive and “indiscriminate” nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States on Monday, as the two allies kicked off their annual, large-scale military exercises.

The drills always raise tensions on the divided Korean peninsula and the situation is particularly volatile this year, given the North’s recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch and its fury over tough UN sanctions imposed in response.

Participation in the joint exercises — known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle — has been bumped up this year to involve 300,000 South Korean and around 17,000 US troops, as well as strategic US naval vessels and air force assets.

In a statement issued hours before the drills began, North Korea’s powerful National Defence Commission said it was prepared for an “all-out” military counter-offensive.

Describing the exercises as “nuclear war drills” aimed at undermining North Korea’s sovereignty, the statement said the Supreme Command of the Korean People’s Army was ready to launch a “pre-emptive and offensive nuclear strike” in response.

The threat came just days after leader Kim Jong-Un ordered the country’s nuclear arsenal to be placed on standby, in response to the sanctions resolution adopted last week by the UN Security Council.

Pyongyang has issued similar, dire warnings of nuclear attack in the past, usually during periods of elevated military tensions.

While the North is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear warheads, experts are divided about its ability to mount them on a working missile delivery system.

The National Defence Commission said plans for what it called a “pre-emptive nuclear strike of justice” had been ratified by Kim Jong-Un.

The plans would come into operation in the event of “even the slightest military action” by the North’s enemies, it said.

“The indiscriminate nuclear strike… will clearly show those keen on aggression and war, the military mettle of (North Korea),” said the statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.

Targets would include operational American bases on the Korean peninsula and elsewhere in Asia, as well as the US mainland.

“If we push the buttons to annihilate the enemies even right now, all bases of provocations will be reduced to seas in flames and ashes in a moment,” the statement added.

Despite a pair of successful long-range rocket launches, most experts believe North Korea is years away from developing a genuine inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the US mainland.

In Seoul, the defence ministry cautioned the North against acting out its bellicose rhetoric.

“If North Korea launches a provocation, our military will respond sternly and mercilessly,” ministry spokesman Moon Sang-Gyun told reporters.

Pyongyang has long condemned the Foal Eagle and Key Resolve exercises, which stretch over nearly two months, as provocative rehearsals for invasion, while Seoul and Washington insist they are purely defensive in nature.

The North’s threat of a nuclear response appeared to have been prompted, in part, by South Korean media reports that this year’s drills would role play surgical strikes against key North Korean nuclear and missile facilities.

The scale of the exercises was ramped up following the North’s fourth nuclear test on January 6 and February’s rocket launch, which was seen as a disguised ballistic missile test.

A UN Security Council resolution adopted last week laid out the toughest sanctions imposed on Pyongyang to date over its nuclear weapons programme.

It breaks new ground by targeting specific sectors key to the North Korean economy and seeking to undermine the North’s use of, and access to, international transport systems.

The Philippines has already seized a North Korean cargo ship which was among 31 listed by the resolution as banned from international ports.

Pyongyang has rejected the sanctions as “unfair, illicit and immoral” and vowed to keep building its nuclear arsenal.

South Korea is set to unveil further unilateral sanctions against the North on Tuesday — a move that is likely to draw further threats of retaliation from Pyongyang.

A look at North Korea’s Kim Jong Un

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AFP, Reuters

Beijing – China’s ruling Communist Party punished nearly 300,000 of its members last year for corruption, its graft watchdog said amid a wide-ranging crackdown by President Xi Jinping on official malfeasance.

The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) said on its website that 200,000 cadres were given “light punishment” for graft, while 82,000 received “heavy punishment”.

It did not specify the difference between the penalties involved, but both categories could see individuals transferred from their positions.

With corruption widespread in China, critics say there is a lack of transparency around Xi’s campaign and it has been used for political infighting.

The graft watchdog also sent out 54,000 letters reprimanding officials, the CCDI said in its statement on Sunday.

The number of punished cadres represents just 0.3 per cent of the party’s 88 million members.

The Communist party maintains its own internal discipline mechanisms rather than automatically subjecting alleged wrongdoers to the criminal justice system.

In January a vice chief of the CCDI, Wu Yuliang, said that just 14,000 members faced legal proceedings as a result of discipline violations last year, while 336,000 were dealt with internally.

Beijing – Twelve people were killed in a coal mine accident in China, state media reported Monday, the latest incident in the country’s notoriously dangerous industry.

Coal gas flooded a colliery in Baishan, in the northeastern province of Jilin, killing the miners, the official Xinhua news service said. One was rescued and the cause of the accident on Sunday was being investigated.

Industrial safety standards are often flouted in China even though deadly incidents regularly make national news.

China is the world’s largest coal producer and colliery accidents killed 931 people in 2014, according to official data.

The government says fatalities are declining, but some rights groups argue the actual figures are significantly higher due to under-reporting.