COOLING OFF? – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  The situation on the Korean armistice line is exceptionally tense.  Reporters say it's the most critical in years, with the possibility of a military action, or mistake, prominent in everyone's thinking.  But there are now attempts to cool things.  From Fox:

South Korea and North Korea agreed on Saturday to hold high-level talks at the border village of Panmunjom to defuse mounting tensions that have pushed the rivals to the brink of a possible military confrontation.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Seoul time, 30 minutes after the deadline set by North Korea for the South to take down the loudspeakers broadcasting anti-North Korean propaganda at their border. North Korea has declared its frontline troops are in full war readiness and prepared to go to war if Seoul doesn’t back down.

South Korea’s national security director Kim Kwan-jin and Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo will sit with Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army, according to the South Korean presidential office. Hwang is considered to be North Korea’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un, and Kim Yang Gon, a secretary of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea and a senior official responsible for South Korea affairs.

The meeting comes as a series of incidents, starting with the North's alleged land mine attack that maimed two South Korean soldiers and the South's resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, raised fears that the conflict could spiral out of control.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official, who didn’t want to be identified, said the South will continue with the anti-North Korean broadcasts until the end of North Korea’s deadline, but hasn’t made a decision whether to continue with them if the high-level meeting goes as planned.

In the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, businesses were open as usual and street stalls selling ice cream were crowded as residents took breaks under parasols from the summer sun. There was no visible signs of increased security measures, though the city is even under normal situations heavily secured and fortified. More than 240 South Koreans entered a jointly-run industrial complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong.

North Korea’s state-run media agency has strongly publicized its rhetoric, saying the whole nation is bracing for the possibility of an all-out war. Leader Kim Jong Un has been shown repeatedly on TV news broadcasts leading a strategy meeting with top military brass to review the North’s attack plan and young people are reportedly swarming recruitment centers to sign up to join the fight.

COMMENT:  We hope this ends peacefully, but we have to wonder why the North is so belligerent and provocative.  Could it be – I am speculating – that it senses a weakness and lack of resolve in the South's major protector, the United States? 

August 22,  2015