Summary
20 December 2010
South Korea has held a training exercise with guns on Yeonpyeong Island. Four people were killed on the island last month, by a shell fired from North Korea. Pyongyang has again warned that the South was pushing the peninsula "to the brink of war".
Reporter:
Chris Hogg
South Korean marines on patrol
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Report
South Korea has gone ahead with the military drills on Yeonpyeong Island despite warnings from China and Russia that they could provoke a confrontation with Pyongyang. For South Korea, it's a matter of sovereignty.
The military says the drills are on the southern side of the island. The government in Seoul halted the live-firing exercises when North Korea attacked last month, but doesn't want to give the impression that Pyongyang can deter it from carrying out defensive manoeuvres south of the disputed border.
The United States, which carried out joint military exercises with the South at the end of last month, has defended Seoul's right to stage the drills. South Korea says it has launched fighter jets to deter any North Korean attacks.
Chris Hogg, 大象传媒 News
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Vocabulary
- gone ahead
proceeded
- drills
here, training exercises
- warnings
advice or messages of concern
- provoke a confrontation
deliberately make someone annoyed, with the aim of making them behave in an aggressive way
- sovereignty
the power that a country has to govern or rule itself
- live-firing
shooting real bullets from guns or other weapons
- carrying out
doing something or putting something into practice
- stage
organise or host
- fighter jets
military planes
- deter
here, to persuade a country not to do something
