ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Timeline of recent events in Northeast Asia shows major increase in threats between Pyongyang and its adversaries.

Planned trip by officials from South Korean firms with factories at Kaesong complex hangs in balance. North Korea has ignored a plea by South Korean businessmen to visit a joint industrial zone on Tuesday for talks on its future, an official in Seoul said, amid fears of a permanent closure. About 10 leaders of the group of South Korean firms with factories at the Kaesong complex sought to visit the site, the last remaining point of contact between the two Koreas. But the North has not responded to the request, making the trip impossible for Tuesday, an official at Seoul's unification ministry handling cross-border affairs told the AFP news agency. The complex, built 10km north of the tense border in 2004 as a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation, has fallen victim to a recent surge in military tensions. Pyongyang banned entry by southerners and pulled out all its 53,000 workers from the complex in early April. 'Mean-spirited trick' Seoul last week ordered all remaining

The Japanese government on Sunday for first time commemorated the day that the country ended the U.S. occupation and recovered its sovereignty in 1952 after its defeat in the World War II. The government held a ceremony, in which the Japanese Imperial Couple, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as about 390 lawmakers, prefectural governors and government officials participated. On April 28, 1952, Japan recovered its sovereignty, except Okinawa Prefecture, as the San Francisco Peace Treaty took effect, putting an end to a seven-year occupation by the U.S.-led forces. Okinawa, Japan's southernmost island prefecture that was returned by the United States in 1972, consider April 28 as "day of insult" and oppose the central government's sovereignty recovery ceremony. The prefecture's governor Hirokazu Nakaima skipped the ceremony and local assembly members also staged protests in the city of Ginowan in the prefecture, according to reports.

At least 15 people were killed and 64 others injured in attacks across Iraq on Monday, mostly in the southern Shiite provinces, an Interior Ministry source said. Two people were killed and 12 others wounded when a car bomb exploded in Karbala, some 110 km south of the capital Baghdad, the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Earlier on Monday, two cars bombs exploded in a market in Amarah, some 300 km southeast of Baghdad, killing nine people and wounding 30 others, the source said. Another car bomb struck Diwaniyah, some 160 km southeast of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding 20 others. In the northern town of Yathrib, some 40 km north of the capital, two soldiers were killed and two others wounded when unidentified gunmen attacked a check point of the Iraqi army. Violence is still common in Iraq despite the dramatic decrease since its peak in 2006 and 2007 when the country was engulfed in sectarian killings.