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SEOUL, Aug. 19 (UPI) — South Korea and the United States will significantly scale down their ongoing Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Wednesday, cutting it short by almost a week following an order by U.S. President Donald Trump.

“South Korea and the United States have agreed to make partial adjustments to the exercise period and scale at the suggestion of the U.S. side,” the JCS said in a statement.

“First, it was decided to adjust the duration of this UFS exercise to run from the 17th to the 21st,” the statement said. “Second, it was decided to conduct the combined field maneuver training on a reduced scale.”

The allies are discussing specific details of the field training reduction, the JCS added.

Ulchi Freedom Shield began Monday and was originally scheduled to run through Aug. 27.

The move comes after Trump called for the drills to be “substantially reduced” in a Truth Social post Sunday, saying they are expensive and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said Wednesday morning that Seoul was not given advance notice of Trump’s directive.

“Neither our government nor officials within the U.S. government had any prior knowledge of what President Trump revealed on Truth Social,” Cho said at a parliamentary hearing. “Consequently, we were not notified beforehand.”

In his Sunday post, Trump said Pyongyang “has been unthreatening and respectful” while he has been in the White House.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump touted his personal relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying Kim had “always treated me with great respect.”

“I understand him. He understands me,” Trump said, adding that Kim had responded to his requests for talks but providing no further details.

The Wall Street Journal, citing U.S. officials, reported Tuesday that Trump is pushing aides to arrange a meeting with Kim as soon as this fall, although no official planning is underway. Trump has privately discussed holding talks during his next trip to Asia, which could come in November when world leaders gather for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China.

North Korea, meanwhile, has not publicly responded to Trump’s overture. In a commentary published earlier Wednesday, before Seoul announced the reduction, the state-run Korean Central News Agency criticized Ulchi Freedom Shield as “frantic exercises” pushing the Korean Peninsula to the “threshold of a war.”

The commentary threatened that Pyongyang would continue exercising its “right to self-defence” to counter what it called military threats from the allies.

North Korea frequently condemns U.S.-South Korean military drills as rehearsals for an invasion.

Trump similarly called for suspending or scaling back the exercises in his first term, when he pursued direct diplomacy with Kim that included summits in Singapore and Hanoi and a brief meeting at the DMZ.

After the 2018 Singapore summit, Trump surprised observers by announcing that the United States would halt what he called “provocative” joint military exercises with South Korea. That year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise was canceled, while several subsequent drills were reduced in scale.

The number of job vacancies has fallen to its lowest level in more than five years as smaller businesses cut back on recruitment, the latest official figures indicate.

Vacancy numbers dipped slightly over the May-to-July period to 707,000, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), which said small firms were citing labour and operating costs as reasons for scaling back hiring.

The ONS said the labour market was “little changed overall”, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.9%.

Growth in regular earnings – which excludes bonuses – picked up slightly, rising at an annual pace of 3.5% in the three months to June.

“The UK labour market remains stuck in a low-churn limbo, with employers reluctant to hire, fire or offer bigger pay rises as they grapple with rising costs, intensifying global headwinds and heightened policy uncertainty,” said Suren Thiru, chief economist at the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

“The persistent slide in vacancies is a red flag for the jobs market, suggesting labour demand is shrinking amid soaring employment and energy costs, while greater automation is also squeezing some entry-level roles.”

Yael Selfin, chief economist at KPMG, noted that while pay growth picked up, this was “driven by a rise in public sector wages”.

Private sector pay growth, which she said gave more accurate picture of underlying conditions in the labour market, slowed to 2.8%.

Annual military manoeuvres between South Korea and the United States are underway.

But just hours before they were due to start, the US president announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to substantially scale back the exercises.

Donald Trump says they send an inappropriate and hostile signal to North Korea and its leader, with whom he has a ‘good relationship’.

The joint drills have been held for decades.

So, does Trump’s last-minute decision mean he’s seeking talks with Kim Jong Un?

Could dialogue end one of the world’s longest-running conflicts?

Presenter: Anna Burns-Francis

Guests:

In Bum Chun – Retired South Korean Lieutenant General and military and security analyst

Jenny Town – Senior Fellow and Director of 38 North programme at the Stimson Center

Rodger Baker — Geopolitical analyst at RANE, a global centre for geopolitical intelligence and analysis

Aug. 16 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he ordered the Pentagon to scale back its joint military exercises with South Korea, saying that Seoul declined to help the denuclearization of Iran.

In a social media post, Trump said the drills scheduled to begin this week are expensive and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea. He said North Korea “has been unthreatening and respectful” white he has been in the White House.

“Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises!” Trump wrote.

The annual Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, involving 18,000 South Korean troops over 11 days, were to strengthen readiness against threats from North Korea and began Monday to run through Aug. 27.

North Korea, which has long condemned the exercises as preparations for invasion, last week denounced the scheduled drills, describing them as a provocation that would raise tensions in the region.

South Korea has yet to response to Trump’s surprise and last-minute direction.

On Saturday, Trump posted a June 2019 photo of his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Korean Demilitarized Zone. He wrote that he gets along “GREAT!” with Kim “despite the unfriendly look on this particular picture.”

Drone video shows the scale of a major wildfire in northern Spain where more than 150 square kilometres have burned across an 80-km perimeter.

The ground has been lying derelict for more than a decade.

The redevelopment has faced many years of setbacks and delays, and questions have continued over funding for the project amid increasing construction costs.

In 2011 the Northern Ireland Executive originally set aside £62.5m for the stadium.

Earlier this year, a draft multi-year budget published by Finance Minister John O’Dowd proposed an inflationary increase to more than £100m.

But the Sinn Féin minister’s budget proposals had not been agreed by other ministers in the Executive.

The GAA has previously said a reported estimate of around £270m was closer to the assumptions it was working on.

Among other bumps in the road was the matter of Euro 2028.

The UK government announced in 2024 that the estimated cost of rebuilding Casement Park had risen to more than £400m, confirming that it would not be providing funding to redevelop the stadium in time for the tournament.

In order to be ready for the tournament, Casement Park needed to be rebuilt by the summer of 2027.

Trying to cater for soccer, as well as GAA, has increased costs further, as UEFA requires a higher specification of stadium to be used in its tournaments.

However, the GAA will be hoping that even though the government has said it will not be funding a Euro 2028-compliant stadium, it may still contribute to the redevelopment whenever it happens.

The Irish government has already pledged more than £40m.