US citizen detained by North Korea as Japanese ships join war games

Amid rising tensions between North Korea and the US, Pyongyang has detained a US citizen, officials said on Sunday, bringing to three the number of Americans now being held in the country.
As two Japanese navy ships joined a US carrier group for exercises in the western Pacific, North Korea threatened to sink a US aircraft carrier.

“Our revolutionary forces are combat-ready to sink a US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a single strike,” the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ party, said in a commentary.

The paper likened the aircraft carrier to a “gross animal” and said a strike on it would be “an actual example to show our military’s force”. The commentary was carried on page three of the newspaper, after a two-page feature about the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, inspecting a pig farm.

Donald Trump ordered the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group to sail to waters off the Korean peninsula in response to rising tension over the North’s nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack the US and its Asian allies.

 

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