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Pentagon press secretary George Little said the U.S. sent two F-22s to participate in the annual U.S.-South Korean military drills. Little said this is the fourth time F-22s have been deployed to South Korea. He said their participation in the exercises is meant to show U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea and to the region. On Thursday, U.S. officials said two B-2 stealth bombers flew from the United States and dropped dummy munitions on an uninhabited South Korean island as part of the drills. Hours later, Kim ordered his generals to put rockets on standby and threatened to strike American targets if provoked. While analysts call North Korea's threats largely brinkmanship, there is some fear that a localized skirmish might escalate. Seoul has vowed to respond harshly should North Korea provoke its military. Naval skirmishes in disputed Yellow Sea waters off the Korean coast have led to bloody battles several times over the years. Attacks blamed on Pyongyang in 2010 killed 50 South Koreans. Under late leader Kim Jong Il, North Korea typically held a parliamentary meeting once a year. But Kim Jong Un held an unusual second session last September in a sign that he is trying to run the country differently from his father, who died in late 2011. Parliament sessions, which usually are held to approve personnel changes and budget and fiscal plans, are scrutinized by the outside world for signs of key changes in policy and leadership. At a session last April, Kim was made first chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission, the body's top post. At Monday's session, Kim Kyok Sik, North Korea's defense minister who is believed to have been responsible for deadly attacks on South Korea in 2010, was appointed to the National Defense Commission. North Korea also named Choe Pu Il, a general in the Korean People's Army, to the commission.
On Sunday, Kim Jong Un presided over a separate plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, a top decision-making body tasked with organizing and guiding the party's major projects. The meeting set a "new strategic line" calling for building both a stronger economy and nuclear arsenal. North Korea's "nuclear armed forces represent the nation's life, which can never be abandoned as long as the imperialists and nuclear threats exist on Earth," according to a statement issued by state media after the meeting. Sunday marked the first time for Kim to preside over the committee meeting. The last plenary session was held in 2010, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry, and before that in 1993.
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