North Korea has agreed to hold talks with the South on Wednesday to settle a dispute over South Korean-owned buildings in a tourist resort in the isolated state, officials said.Korea is thus to send a team of government officials and business representatitives to the corresponding resort, according to the Unification Ministry spokesperson Chun Hae-sung.Monday, just two days before the date Pyongya

North Korea July 11, 2011

The European Union will send 50 personnel fluent in Korean to North Korea soon to tighten the monitoring of the donated food there, a U.S.-funded radio station reported Wednesday. The plan comes as the EU announced earlier this week it will send food aid worth 10 million euros, or $14.5 million, to North Korea to feed the starving people. The first batch of food will be distributed in four of Nort

North Korea July 6, 2011

The new chief of the conservative ruling party said Tuesday his party would seek to ratify the free trade deal with Washington and pass the North Korean human rights law next month regardless of opposition from rival parties. Hong Joon-pyo, who was elected the new chairman of the Grand National Party, presided over his first Supreme Council meeting Tuesday, vowing to achieve harmony between differ

Politics July 5, 2011

A base for South Korean aid workers and troops in Afghanistan was attacked by rockets again over the weekend, Seoul’s Foreign Ministry said Sunday in the 11th such report in this year alone. Two rounds of rocket-propelled grenades landed on the ground near the provincial reconstruction team camp in Charika, a city in the northern Afghan province of Parwan, at around 9:08 p.m. Saturday (local time)

Foreign Affairs July 3, 2011

A Korea-U.S. team will announce this week an interim report on the results of a ground-pollution probe into an American army base here, where U.S. veterans claim their unit buried tons of toxic chemical in 1978.The joint team said it will unveil the probe results during a Status of Forces Agreement environment committee session on this coming Wednesday or Thursday. The team has been conducting inv

Social Affairs July 3, 2011

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to visit Russia this week for a summit with President Dmitry Medvedev, Japanese news media reported Tuesday, drawing attention to the much-veiled meeting. The two former ally states are putting final touches to the summit slated for Friday in Vladivostok, Tokyo’s Mainichi Shimbun said, quoting multiple intelligence sources in Moscow.Kyodo news service sa

North Korea June 28, 2011

Red Cross officials of the two Koreas are expected to meet for the first time in nearly four months at an international meeting in China in July, a Seoul official said Tuesday. The two Koreas, who have not been talking since their last round of Red Cross talks in March, will send delegations to the “East Asian regional Red Cross leadership meeting” which will be held in China’s Ordos City from Jul

North Korea June 28, 2011

A senior South Korean official said Monday his government could temporarily put sensitive issues behind it once the stalled dialogue with North Korea resumes, hinting at growing flexibility to tackle the current stalemate. Since the latest attacks last year, Seoul has suspended aid and dialogue, with firm determination not to do the North any favors until it admits responsibility for the deaths of

Foreign Affairs June 27, 2011