North Korea have expelled all South Koreans from the Kaesong industrial zone on Thursday, seizing their factory assets and blaming Seoul’s earlier decision to shutter the complex as being a “declaration of war”. Pyongyang has said it is placing Kaesong under military control and cutting communication lines with Seoul. Atimes.com reports: The measures mark a significant escalation of cross-border tensions that have been elevated since North Korea carried out a nuclear test last month and a long-range rocket launch on Sunday. Seoul had announced on Wednesday it was closing down operations at Kaesong, and the North said it would now experience the “disastrous and painful consequences” of that action. By shutting Kaesong, the South had killed the “last lifeline” of North-South relations and made a “dangerous declaration of war” that could bring the divided peninsula to the brink of conflict, the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said in statement. Relations between the two Koreas have always been volatile, but analysts said the current situation risked turning into a full-blown crisis. “Now we can say that all strings between the Koreas have been cut and that there are no more buffers,” said Ko Yoo-Hwan, a professor of [...]