BRIGGS: North Korea ramping up the rhetoric once again in the response to military exercises by the United States and South Korea which begin today. The Kim Jong-un regime threatening a merciless strike, the official government newspaper warning the joint exercises are quote, driving the situation into the uncontrollable phase of a nuclear war. U.S. officials say that ten-day military drills are proceeding as scheduled. CNN's Paula Hancocks live in Seoul with the latest. But Paula, these are not typical in terms of how they will appear, correct?</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dave, these particular military drills are very different to what we see in the springtime between the U.S. and South Korea. There you have thousands of troops landing on South Korean beaches. You have massive live-fire drills which are extremely dramatic -- very dramatic pictures that North Korea is provoked by. This time the ones in the autumn, in the fall, are a computer simulation. So you have, according to the U.S. military, around about 17,500 U.S. troops involved alongside South Korean soldiers, alongside soldiers from seven other countries of the U.N. command, as well. And it's according to the U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, effectively soldiers sitting over a computer. So we're not going to see those dramatic pictures that we often do with these military drills. Now of course North Korea is still reacting to them. They have said, of course as you said, that they think it's reckless behavior. It's pushing the peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war. Something they have said many times before. Dave.</s>BRIGGS: Paula Hancocks live for us in Seoul, thank you. >c</s>ROMANS: All right, 15 minutes past the hour. An international manhunt underway right now, police scouring rubble for clues. All of this part of an investigation into deadly terror attacks in Spain. We're going to go live to Barcelona next.
North Korea Warns of Merciless Strike on U.S.