South Korea and the United States on Monday launched a major joint air exercise to deter North Korean provocations amid high cross-border tensions, officials said.

The annual drill called "Max Thunder" will run through May 18 and this year involves about 60 planes including jet fighters, KC-135 refuelling aircraft and AWACS surveillance planes, the South's air force said in a statement.

The allies will display their readiness and joint air firepower in war situations, it said, adding US and South Korean pilots would train for "precision strikes on the origin of provocations by the enemy".

"This year's drill is the biggest of its kind since Max Thunder began in 2008," an air force spokesman told AFP.

Pyongyang habitually fiercely denounces annual joint exercises by US and South Korean troops but has not physically responded to them. Seoul and Washington say they are merely defensive in nature.

The North has threatened "sacred war" against the South in retaliation for perceived insults during Pyongyang's commemoration in April of the centenary of the birth of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.

Last week the North's new leader Kim Jong-Un inspected an air force unit, the latest in a series of military visits since he took over after his father died last December.

South Korean and US officials have pledged a tough response to any provocations by the North. Some 28,500 US troops are based in the South.

The South accuses the North of torpedoing a warship near the disputed Yellow Sea border in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives. The North denied the attack but shelled a South Korean border island in November that year, killing four.

Japan to cooperate with France's Hollande on EU, North Korea
Tokyo (AFP) May 7, 2012 - Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and French president-elect Francois Hollande have agreed to work together on the EU debt crisis and North Korea's nuclear programme, an official said Monday.

Noda and Hollande discussed joint approaches to the European Union's economic troubles and the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programmes during a 10-minute phone call after Hollande defeated Nicolas Sarkozy in Sunday's presidential election, a foreign ministry official told local media.

Noda congratulated Hollande and told him France is a "strategic partner" of Japan, the official said.

The two will meet at a G8 summit in the United States on May 18 and 19. Noda also invited Hollande to visit Japan soon, the official said.

The two leaders also indicated they want to work together to launch negotiations on an EU-Japan free-trade agreement, media reports said.

Earlier Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told a news conference that Japan will "carefully monitor" how Europe reacts to Hollande's election as the continent seeks to navigate a series of debt crises.

Fujimura congratulated Hollande, calling France an "important partner" for the world's third largest economy and said Japan wanted to further strengthen ties.

In a carefully worded but brief statement, Japan's top government spokesman said the health of the European economy "greatly affects" the fate of the ailing Asian economic giant.

"We believe the European debt crisis is in the process of emerging out of the critical condition it was in last year. But it does not allow for optimism," Fujimura said.

"The trajectory of the European economy greatly affects our economy," he said, adding that Japan considered discussions between France and European powerhouse Germany "important".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel worked closely with defeated French incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy to pull Europe out of its deep economic malaise.

But while Markel has pushed for austerity, Hollande has advocated growth measures.