Most Popular
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‘Gimflation’ in S. Korea as dried seaweed prices grow on rising global demand
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S. Korea's gender pay gap worst in OECD
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Yoon to resume diplomatic activity via 3-way summit with Japan, China
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South Korea unveils W26tr support program for chip industry
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SM, YG Entertainment’s K-pop groups benefit from troubles at Hybe
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S. Korea to hold rotating presidency of UN Security Council next month
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Student nabbed for biking naked 'due to stress'
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Yoon rejects Lee's proposal for pension reform talks
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Police arrest mastermind behind last year's palace vandalism
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BOK holds rate at 3.5%, ups growth outlook
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Belarus freezes bank account for violating UNSC resolution
Belarus has frozen a local bank account found to have violated the sanctions imposed under a resolution that the UN Security Council adopted in the wake of North Korea's nuclear test earlier this year, a foreign media report said Friday.This marked the first move of its kind confirmed after the Resolution 2270 was adopted in March, according to the Voice of America.The report quoted a foreign ministry spokesman of Belarus as saying that one of its banks suspended an account and has barred it fro
Oct. 14, 2016
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NK arrests scores of officials over flood damage: activist
North Korea has arrested about 20 land ministry officials to hold them accountable for extensive damage caused by floods that ravaged the northeastern part of the country, an activist claimed Friday.Security agents have arrested scores of officials stationed in North Hamgyong Province, which was recently hit hard by heavy rains in late August, according to North Korean defector Kim Yong-hwa, head of the NK Refugees Human Rights Associations of Korea.The North Korean regime views devastating land
Oct. 14, 2016
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US official warns NK leader of death if he attempts nuclear attack
The top US official on East Asia has warned North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could face death if he attempts to use nuclear weapons, stressing the nuclear program undermines his security rather than strengthening it."Put yourself in Kim Jong-un's place. That is not a good place to be. Perhaps he's got an enhanced capacity to conduct a nuclear attack and then immediately die. But that can't be plan A," Russel said during a meeting Wednesday with US defense reporters, according to an AP report.Russ
Oct. 14, 2016
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Advisory body calls for US tactical nukes as it meets with Park
President Park Geun-hye’s advisory panel on unification policy has proposed a reintroduction of US tactical nuclear weapons and the constant stationing of other advanced strategic assets on the peninsula as deterrence against North Korea’s evolving threats. In a recent paper, the National Unification Advisory Council made an array of policy suggestions, raising the need to better utilize top-notch US weapons systems such as the F-22 stealth fighter and B-2 nuclear bomber. On home ground, Seoul s
Oct. 13, 2016
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US expert calls for grand bargain with China on NK
The United States should seek a grand bargain with China that commits Beijing to use its leverage over North Korea to end its nuclear program in exchange for American concessions like the scrapping of a decision to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea, a US expert said Wednesday.Amitai Etzioni, a George Washington University professor, made the point in an article in the National Interest, stressing that the "greatest threat" to US security that the new American president will
Oct. 13, 2016
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Senior NK spy agency official defected: report
A senior official at North Korea’s spy agency defected to the South last year, a news report said Wednesday, marking the latest in a recent series of elites seeking to escape from political oppression and the crumbling economy amid a tightening sanctions network. The director-general level official of North Korea's Ministry of State Security has told Seoul officials that the popular sentiment around Pyongyang was “boiling” with discontent about leader Kim Jong-un’s ironfist rule, Yonhap News Age
Oct. 12, 2016
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35% of N. Korean defectors cite freedom as key motivation
More than a third of North Korean asylum seekers settling in the South cited freedom as the key motivation for defecting, data showed Wednesday, reflecting the deteriorating civil rights conditions under the Kim Jong-un regime.Hanawon, a facility in which defectors receive three months of resettlement education after coming to the South, said 35 percent of the defectors surveyed in 2014 said they escaped their homeland to seek liberty, marking a sharp rise from 9.6 percent tallied in 2001.The po
Oct. 12, 2016
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S. Korean aid providers offer assistance to NK flood damage
A group of South Korean private aid providers said Wednesday it has provided North Korea with $187,000 through the Red Cross to help it fight the latest floods in the country's northeast area.The Korea NGO Council for Cooperation with North Korea said it has sent the first batch of $100,000 to North Korea with the plan to send the remainder by next Tuesday in accordance with its agreement with the Red Cross."The money will be used to help displaced North Koreans in North Hamgyong Province as rel
Oct. 12, 2016
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THAAD not helpful to inter-Korean relations: Russian envoy
Moscow's top envoy to Seoul said Wednesday the deployment of an advanced US missile defense system in South Korea will not help improve inter-Korean relationships, reiterating the country's negative stance on the move.During the meeting with Lee Jung-hyun, the head of the ruling Saenuri Party, Ambassador Alexander Timonin said the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system is a part of the United States' broader missile defense system, adding Moscow is against the decision.Timonin, however, adde
Oct. 12, 2016
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Expert calls for next US president to target N. Korea's regime survival
The next US president should put unprecedented pressure on North Korea to force it to choose between regime survival and nuclear weapons, a US expert said."US policy should focus on demonstrating that America is prepared to put at risk the one thing that the DPRK holds more dearly than its nuclear weapons -- the preservation of its regime -- in order to convince Pyongyang to end its pursuit of nuclear weapons," Evans Revere, a Korea expert who served as a principal deputy secretary of state, sai
Oct. 12, 2016
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NK spy agency official defected to S. Korea last year: source
A senior official at North Korea's spy agency defected to South Korea last year, a source said Wednesday, pointing to a rise in defections by North Korean elites disillusioned with the repressive regime.An unidentified official who worked for the Ministry of State Security escaped to the South last year, the source familiar with Pyongyang's affairs said, in an unusual defection by a North Korean in charge of gathering intelligence and cracking down on ordinary people.The source said that North K
Oct. 12, 2016
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Seoul once mulled nuke armament, military action against NK: ex-FM
South Korea presented to the US the development of its own nuclear weapons and “physical action including military power” as part of its response to North Korea’s then upcoming first underground detonation in 2006, according to a former foreign minister. In his new memoir, titled “Moving the Glacier,” Song Min-soon chronicled the decision-making process on sanctions, dialogue and other moves taken during the Roh Moo-hyun administration around the so-called first nuclear crisis in 2006 and afterw
Oct. 11, 2016
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Obama blacklists North Korea again for human trafficking
US President Barack Obama has again blacklisted North Korea for human trafficking, extending a symbolic ban on provisions of US funding to the communist nation for another year.Obama designated the North, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Russia, Syria and others as countries failing to meet the minimum standards under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, according to a "presidential determination" posted at the Federal Register on Monday.US President Barack Obama (Yonhap)The designation bans
Oct. 11, 2016
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Pyongyang's GPS disruptions affect over 2,100 planes since 2010
Disruptions of GPS, believed to be conducted by North Korea, have affected a total of over 2,100 planes since 2010, a lawmaker claimed Tuesday.A total of 2,143 planes have reported damage from Pyongyang-caused GPS disruptions in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2016, Rep. Jeong Yong-ki of the ruling Saenuri Party said, citing a report from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.The report said 14 planes were affected by Pyongyang's GPS jamming in August 2010, 106 planes in March 2011 and 1,016 i
Oct. 11, 2016
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Allies stage military drills with nuke-powered carrier
South Korea and the US kicked off a large-scale joint naval drill involving a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Monday in a fresh display of force to deter North Korean provocations. The Invincible Spirit program, scheduled to run through Saturday in the waters surrounding the peninsula, came amid soaring speculation that the communist state may stage another long-range missile or nuclear test in celebration of the Oct. 10 anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers’ Party.“This drill is de
Oct. 10, 2016
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Korea to hold first policy meeting over N.K. human rights this week
South Korea's unification ministry said Monday it plans to hold its first policy meeting on North Korea's human rights with other ministries this week to discuss ways to get Pyongyang to change the way it treats people.Vice Unification Minister Kim Hyung-suk will host the consultations with senior officials from Seoul's foreign and justice ministries Tuesday to discuss Seoul's policy on North Korea's human rights.The move comes as a new law aimed at improving North Korea's dismal rights situatio
Oct. 10, 2016
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N. Korea could have up to 100 deliverable nuclear weapons in four years: US think tank
North Korea could have up to 100 nuclear weapons in as early as four years that can be delivered on long-range, road-mobile and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, a US think tank has said.The RAND Corp. made the estimate in a report released over the weekend on five major threats the United States is facing around the world, putting a nuclear North Korea ahead of the four other threats -- Russia, the Islamic State, China and cyber threats."The most recent open-source estimates suggest North
Oct. 10, 2016
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US’ UN envoy hints at expanding energy trade ban on NK
With new international sanctions in the making over North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, the upcoming resolution should be designed to block the regime from abusing exemptions such as on energy trade for livelihood purposes, said the US’ envoy to the UN Sunday. Ambassador Samantha Power said in Resolution 2270, passed last March after Pyongyang’s fourth underground blast and missile test, the Security Council member states allowed the exemptions on concerns over the “welfare of the citizens” but ha
Oct. 9, 2016
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Controversy boils over preemptive strike on NK
In the aftermath of North Korea’s fifth nuclear test, calls are rising around Washington for the need to prepare a preemptive strike on the communist state’s nuclear and missile facilities, prompting skeptics to question its viability and legitimacy. Last month’s underground blast has triggered a heated debate over ways to stop leader Kim Jong-un’s ostensibly accelerating nuclear development and unabated provocations, including dialogue and even a regime change. Some former administration offici
Oct. 9, 2016
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Increased activity detected at NK rocket launch site: 38 North
Increased activity has been detected at North Korea's rocket launch site with a concerted effort under way to conceal what is taking place, a US website monitoring the North said, amid concerns the regime could undertake renewed provocations to mark a key anniversary this week.Commercial satellite imagery taken on Oct. 1 of Sohae Satellite Launching Station in North Pyongan Province showed increased movement around the engine test facility, 38 North said Saturday.It said photos showed crates nex
Oct. 9, 2016