N. Korea artillery tests

Military officials in South Korea said on Monday that they had confirmed that North Korean land artillery units at the eastern tip of the demilitarized zone had fired around 100 rounds into the sea on its side of the two countries' maritime border.

"Dozens of shells were fired into North Korean territorial waters," a spokesman for South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

Military and defense department officials in Seoul said the shells traveled between three and 50 kilometers (1.9 to 31 miles) and that the South had not taken any action as the shells had not landed in its waters.

This came a day after the North fired two Scud missiles into the Sea of Japan, just the latest in a series of short-range ballistic missile tests conducted by Pyongyang in recent weeks, something which has led the South to place its troops on a heightened state of alert.

UN ban

Such tests are regarded as an act of provocation by Seoul and its Western allies and Pyongyang is banned from conducting them by United Nations resolutions.

Pyongyang tends to use the tests to express displeasure with the South. Sunday's missile tests came after it denounced upcoming annual South Korean-US naval exercises, which are to begin on Wednesday.

The last set of tests came ahead of Chinese President Xi Jingping's state visit to Seoul, and some saw them as an indication that Pyongyang had felt slighted by his decision to visit the South.

The tests come as the same time as the North has been urging the South to sign on to a series of proposals it says are meant to lower tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The two countries remain technically at war, as fighting in the Korean War of 1950-53 ended with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.

pfd/tj (AP, AFP)