US, SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN CONDUCT NAVAL DRILLS AMID RISING NORTH KOREA TENSIONS

The United States, South Korea and Japan conducted combined naval exercises involving an American aircraft carrier in their latest show of strength against nuclear-armed North Korea, South Korea's military said on Wednesday, as the three countries' senior diplomats were to meet in Seoul to discuss the deepening standoff with Pyongyang.

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The training in waters off South Korea's Jeju Island came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continues a provocative run-in weapons testing and threats that has raised regional tensions to their highest point in years.

At Pyongyang's rubberstamp parliament this week, Kim declared that North Korea would abandon its long-standing commitment to a peaceful unification with South Korea and ordered a rewriting of North's constitution to eliminate the idea of a shared statehood between the wardivided countries.