North Korea Scraps Armistice After UN Vote, Drops Hotline

North Korea carried out its threat to scrap the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War and cancel a cross-border hotline after the UN Security Council unanimously approved tougher sanctions over a forbidden nuclear test.

The action, coupled with hostile statements reported by the state-run North Korean media, raised tensions on the divided peninsula just as 10,000 U.S. forces joined South Korea’s military for eight weeks of military exercises known as Foal Eagle 2013.