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North Korea has cut off: Redcross with South Korea North Korea on Friday cutted off a Red Cross hotline with South Korea as it initiated its war of words against Seoul and Washington in response to a military drill in the South and U.N. sanctions imposed for its recent nuclear test. The North had threatened to cut off the hotline on March 11 if the United States and South Korea did not abandon their joint military exercise. The Red Cross hotline is used to communicate between Seoul and Pyongyang which do not have diplomatic relations. "We called at 9 a.m. and there was no response," a government official from South Korea said. The line is tested each day. Pyongyang has also threatened to cut off a hotline with U.N. forces in South Korea, at the border "truce village" of Pammunjom. Tensions on the Korean peninsula have risen since the North conducted a third nuclear test on February 12, prompting new U.N. sanctions. South Korea and U.S. forces are co

The United Nations Security Council approved a new regimen of sanctions on Thursday against North Korea for its underground nuclear test last month, imposing penalties on North Korean banking, travel and trade in a unanimous vote that reflected the country’s increased international isolation. The resolution, which was drafted by the United States and China, was passed in a speedy vote hours after North Korea threatened for the first time to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States and South Korea. “The strength, breadth and severity of these sanctions will raise the cost to North Korea of its illicit nuclear program,” the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice, told reporters after the vote. “Taken together, these sanctions will bite and bite hard.” Li Baodong, the ambassador from China, which lent its support to the new sanctions to the anger of the North Korean government, told reporters the resolution was aimed at the long-term goal