NK poised to test submarine-launched ballistic missile

North Korea appears to be weighing the timing to test a submarine-launched ballistic missile as part of the aggression it threatened to stage last month, a Defense Ministry think tank said Wednesday. “With an SLBM launch, Pyongyang could deliver strongest shockwaves it intends to the international community, while shunning the risk of being seen as defying the UN Security Council resolutions,” the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses said in a report. The resolutions denouncing t

July 8, 2020

Trump says open to third summit with Kim: report

US President Donald Trump said he is open for another summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, despite the North repeatedly denying any interest in it. 　 In a media interview on Tuesday (Washington time), Trump said: “I understand they want to meet and we would certainly do that. 　 “I would do it if I thought it was going to be helpful,” he was quoted as saying in a multiple US media outlets. 　 The comment came as his top envoy on North Korean affairs, US Deputy Secretar

July 8, 2020

S. Korea reacts negatively to idea of suing NK over liaison office demolition

The unification ministry reacted negatively to the idea of suing North Korea for damages for blowing up a joint inter-Korean liaison office Wednesday, a day after a Seoul court ordered Pyongyang to pay compensation to former South Korean prisoners of war. The Seoul Central District Court delivered the landmark ruling in favor of the two former POWs in a damages suit they filed against the North and leader Kim Jong-un for the forced labor they endured after they were taken to the communist nati

July 8, 2020

Leader of missile development rises to NK’s No. 5

A septuagenarian former North Korean Air Force general credited for the country’s rapid missile development in recent years has risen to the regime’s No. 5 status, showed a photo released by Pyongyang’s state media on Wednesday. The rise of Ri Pyong-chol’s status indicates that Pyongyang will push ahead with strategic weapons development, including testing of submarine-launched ballistic missiles later this year, according to North Korea experts. The photo of North Kor

July 8, 2020

NK leader visits mausoleum to mark late grandfather's death anniversary

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited a mausoleum for his late grandfather and national founder Kim Il-sung to mark the anniversary of his death, state media reported Wednesday. Kim paid tribute at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun where Kim Il-sung's body lies in state, according to the Korean Central News Agency. Also enshrined at the mausoleum is the body of late leader Kim Jong-il, father of the current leader and a son of the national founder. The visit was to mark the 26th anniversa

July 8, 2020

Biegun expected to focus on reviving talks with North

The US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun is expected to focus on the stalled denuclearization process on North Korea during his three-day visit here. But the North said it has no intention to resume dialogue with the US. 　 In a statement released through the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday, hours before the US envoy arrived in Seoul, senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official Kwon Jong-gun said Pyongyang has “no intention to sit face-to-face”

July 7, 2020

North Korea not answering call on military hotline

The military hotline between South and North Korea has remained cut since early June when the North severed all official communication channels between the two countries in protest over launches of anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets by defector groups in Seoul. According to the Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday, the North has not been answering a routine daily call from the South, despite its latest suspension of further military action against Seoul. “As far as we know, communic

July 7, 2020

N. Korea's paper says border control tightened to fight virus

North Korea is beefing up its border control to prevent an outbreak of the coronavirus, the country's state newspaper said Tuesday, after leader Kim Jong-un called for "maximum alert" against the highly contagious disease. Last week, Kim held a politburo meeting and urged people not to lower their guard against COVID-19, saying that premature easing of anti-virus measures will lead to an "unimaginable and irretrievable crisis." North Korea has "completely shut down i

July 7, 2020

NK-associated hackers steal credit card information from online US retail stores: security firm

A North Korea-sponsored hacking group has been found to have stolen credit card information of American and European shoppers from online stores of US retailers for more than a year, a Dutch cyber security firm said. Hackers associated with the "APT Lazarus/HIDDEN COBRA group" were implicated in breaking into the online stores through digital payment "skimming" from as early as May 2019, according to a report posted on the website of Sansec. Digital skimming refers to a wa

July 7, 2020

NK again rejects possibility of talks with US as Biegun set to arrive in Seoul

North Korea reiterated Tuesday it has no intention to hold talks with the United States, just hours before Washington's top nuclear envoy is set to arrive in Seoul to discuss how to break the impasse in nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. Kwon Jong-gun, the North Korean foreign ministry's director-general handling US affairs, made the remark in a statement, saying there are still people talking about brokering a meeting between the US and the North even after First Vice Foreign Minister Choe

July 7, 2020

[News Focus] S. Korea renews push to engage NK amid doubts

With a top US envoy for North Korea due in Seoul this week, South Korea is making a renewed push to restart the “peninsula peace process,” but prospects are dim with an apparently unwilling North Korea, experts said Monday. Pyongyang said Saturday it would no longer deal with Washington, which it said saw engagement as a tool to power through its political crisis, in a statement by Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. The message poured cold water on expectations in the South that

July 6, 2020

Dialogue with NK must continue under any circumstances: unification minister nominee

Dialogue with North Korea mut continue under any circumstances, South Korea's unification minister nominee said Monday, two days after Pyongyang rejected the possibility of another summit with the United States. Lee In-young, a four-term ruling party lawmaker, also vowed to seek a "creative solution" to achieve peace with the North, as he spoke to reporters upon arriving at the ministry's inter-Korean dialogue office for work for the first time since Friday's nomination. Lee also c

July 6, 2020

[Graphic News] Number of incoming N. Korean defectors hits all-time low in Q2

　The number of North Korean defectors coming into South Korea hit an all-time low in the second quarter this year due to the new coronavirus, the Unification Ministry.  　According to the ministry, 12 defectors were estimated to have entered the country from April to June this year, marking the lowest figure since 2003, when the ministry began to tally the number of incoming defectors by quarter. 　The figure represents a 96 percent drop from the same period last year when 320 North K

July 6, 2020

N. Korean state media refrain from criticizing S. Korea for nearly 2 weeks

North Korea's state media outlets have refrained from criticizing South Korea for nearly two weeks, after leader Kim Jong-un put military action plans against the South on hold in a surprise about-face after weeks of harsh threats and rhetoric. For the past 12 days, North Korean media have carried few articles and commentaries blasting Seoul, with the main newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, and its state television network, Korean Central Television, recording a zero tally in negative reports about

July 5, 2020

NK paper calls for following through with Kim's order for 'maximum alert' against virus

North Korea's main newspaper called Sunday for carrying out leader Kim Jong-un's order that the country exercise "maximum alert" against the coronavirus pandemic. Kim issued the order during a politburo meeting Thursday, warning that premature easing of anti-virus measures will lead to an "unimaginable and irretrievable crisis." The appeal was seen as a sign that the North's COVID-19 situation could be serious, though Pyongyang claims there has not been a single case. It w

July 5, 2020

WFP to resume food aid to N. Korea: VOA

The UN's World Food Program (WFP) will resume humanitarian food aid to 771,000 North Koreans, the Voice of America said Saturday, citing a WFP report. In the report, the WFP said it needs an estimated $27.5 million from July to December to help the North handle the COVID-19 pandemic, and it lacks $3 million. The WFP said there is a need to find out what impact two months of delay in North Korea's reopening of schools had on the health of children in the communist nation, given North Korean c

July 4, 2020

N. Korea says it feels no need to sit face to face with US

North Korea feels no need to meet with the United States for talks, a top diplomat of the communist nation said Saturday, accusing Washington of taking advantage of dialogue between the two countries only as "a tool for grappling its political crisis." First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui made the remark as talk of another summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gained traction recently after President Moon Jae-in said he would push for such a

July 4, 2020

Bolton says Trump could meet Kim to win reelection

US President Donald Trump could push to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for the third time in October to bolster his November reelection, said former national security adviser John Bolton. “If the president felt he was in deep, deep trouble, another meeting with his friend Kim Jong-un might look like something that could turn things upside down again,” Bolton told a video press conference hosted by New York foreign journalists Thursday. But he was doubtful whether the North wo

July 3, 2020

NK leader warns against complacency in COVID-19 prevention

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un convened a Workers’ Party Politburo meeting on COVID-19 for the first time in three months, and called for strengthened efforts to contain the epidemic, the North’s state news agency said on Friday. Pyongyang has claimed so far that there have been no confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus in the country. Nevertheless, Kim presided over the extended Politburo meeting on Friday during which the party’s top brass checked on how the government

July 3, 2020

Trump-Kim summit unlikely before US election: experts

The leaders of the US and North Korea are unlikely to push for their third summit before November, experts said Thursday, as domestic priorities override foreign policy concerns in the lead-up to the US presidential election in November. President Moon Jae-in floated the idea of a potential Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un meet at a videoconference with EU leaders Tuesday, saying they should try dialogue one more time to revive the stalled denuclearization process. The nuclear talks are stalled over

July 2, 2020