Father’s Day is just around the corner!
|
By , on May 22nd, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> A special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held talks with top officials in Beijing yesterday, in the first such encounter since China joined the United States and other nations in imposing sanctions on Pyongyang over its ambitious nuclear weapons programme. The visit by Vice-Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a senior member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, comes at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before Sino-US and Sino-South Korean summits. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Kim Jong-un’s envoy arrives in Beijing to mend strained ties
By , on May 21st, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> North Korea has released 16 Chinese fishermen and their boat, Chinese state-run media said on Tuesday, after reports that armed assailants had taken the sailors hostage and demanded a ransom. “All the fishermen with the boat are safe on their way back,” China’s Xinhua news agency said, citing a Chinese embassy official in Pyongyang it said had heard the news from the shipowner. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading North Korea releases 16 detained Chinese fishermen after Beijing intervenes
By , on May 20th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> North Korea fired another short-range missile into the Sea of Japan on Monday, the latest in a series of missile drills that have been condemned by South Korea and UN chief Ban Ki-moon. The latest firing – the fifth in three days – was confirmed by a spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said it was unclear if the North was testing guided missiles or rockets from multiple launchers. “We are still checking on the precise nature of these tests,” the spokesman said. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading North Korea fires fifth missile in three days
By , on May 18th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> An aide to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe returned home from a trip to North Korea on Saturday but declined to shed any light on the reason for his mysterious visit. Isao Iijima, a senior adviser to Abe, was tightlipped when confronted by reporters in Beijing on his way home. “I won’t accept any interview on this issue,” he told reporters, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. Abe said on Saturday that Iijima would report back to chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s top government spokesman, on the visit. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Aide to Japanese PM returns from North Korea
By , on May 15th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> Increasingly tough financial sanctions, an arms embargo and other international restrictions on trade with North Korea have significantly delayed expansion of Pyongyang’s illicit nuclear arms programme, according to a confidential report by a UN panel of experts. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Financial sanctions delay North Korea’s atom bomb work, says UN
By , on May 13th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> North Korea has replaced its hard-line defence chief with a little-known army general a state media report said yesterday. Analysts called Jang Jong-nam’s appointment an attempt to install a younger figure to help solidify Kim Jong-un’s grip on the military. Kim succeeded his late father, Kim Jong-il, in 2011. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading North Korea’s Kim Jong-un appoints younger defence chief
By , on May 8th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> The United States and South Korea vowed on Tuesday to keep up their guard and not reward bad behaviour by North Korea, which US President Barack Obama said had won no benefits or prestige from recent war threats. “If Pyongyang thought its recent threats would drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States or somehow garner the North international respect, today is further evidence that North Korea has failed again,” Obama said at a joint news conference with South Korean President Park Geun-hye. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading North Korea has gained nothing from recent threats, says Obama
By , on May 7th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> Bank of China has shut the account of North Korea’s main foreign exchange bank, which was hit with US sanctions in March after Washington accused it of helping finance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme. The state-run Foreign Trade Bank had been told its transactions had been halted and its account closed, Bank of China, the country’s biggest foreign exchange bank, said in a brief statement on Tuesday. It gave no reason for the closure and the bank declined to comment further. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Bank of China closes account of key North Korean bank
By , on May 3rd, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> The US called on Thursday for North Korea to grant amnesty and immediately release a Korean-American sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour for “hostile acts” against the state. Kenneth Bae, 44, a Washington state man described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released without serving out their terms, some after trips to Pyongyang by prominent Americans, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading US calls for North Korea amnesty for sentenced American
By , on May 1st, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> South Korea said on Wednesday it was edging towards a deal with North Korea to ensure the return of the remaining workers at a joint industrial zone that has become a casualty of military tensions. The Kaesong industrial complex – built 10 kilometres north of the tense border in 2004 – was once a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation but now faces the possibility of permanent closure. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading South Korea sees progress on workers’ return from North
By , on April 30th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> Most South Koreans who had remained at an industrial park in North Korea had returned home early on Tuesday morning, officials said, leaving a final seven behind to negotiate unpaid wages for North Korean workers. The Unification Ministry in Seoul said 43 South Koreans began departing from Kaesong late on Monday night and arrived in the South just past midnight after officials arranged vehicles to carry them across the border. But it wasn’t immediately known when the wage negotiations would take place and the remaining seven South Koreans would return home. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Most South Koreans leave North Korean factory
By , on April 27th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> Roughly three quarters of the 175 South Koreans still at a shuttered factory park in North Korea began returning on Saturday after Seoul decided to withdraw them over Pyongyang’s rejection of its demand for talks on the last symbol of inter-Korean co-operation, the government said. The industrial complex in the border city of Kaesong bustled with more than 53,000 North Korean workers and 800 South Korean managers before Pyongyang pulled its entire work force out and banned South Koreans from entering it earlier this month. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Most South Korean factory workers in Kaesong to return home
By , on April 25th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> South Korea on Thursday offered North Korea formal talks to resolve the suspended operations at their joint Kaesong industrial zone, and warned of “grave action” if Pyongyang declines. “We officially propose talks between government authorities,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-Seok said, adding that Pyongyang should reply to the offer by Friday. “If North Korea rejects these proposed official talks, we would have to take grave action,” Kim said, without elaborating. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading South Korea offers North talks over Kaesong, warns on refusal
By , on April 23rd, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> South Korea’s defence minister received on Tuesday a package containing a threatening letter and suspicious powder, in what his ministry described as an attempted act of “terror”. The parcel was delivered a day after hundreds of threatening leaflets were found scattered outside Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin’s office. The leaflets condemned Kim for his perceived hardline stance against North Korea, which has made the minister a focus of Pyongyang’s more vitriolic propaganda attacks on the South. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Threatening letter, powder sent to South Korea minister
By , on April 17th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> North Korea on Wednesday barred a delegation of South Korean businessmen from delivering food and supplies to 200 of their staff inside the closed Kaesong joint industrial zone. Ten representatives of the 123 South Korean firms in Kaesong had applied for permission to visit the zone, two weeks after the North blocked all access amid soaring military tensions on the Korean peninsula. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading North Korea bars South delegation from joint zone
By , on April 15th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> South Korea voiced regret on Monday at North Korea’s dismissal of its offer for dialogue, as the South’s armed forces remained on heightened alert for an expected missile test by Pyongyang. Both President Park Geun-hye and her Unification Ministry have, in recent days, made tentative proposals for talks in an apparent bid to reduce soaring military tensions on the Korean peninsula. The North’s immediate response was negative, calling the offers “empty” and a “crafty trick” to cover up Seoul’s aggressive and confrontational policies. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading South Korea ‘regrets’ North rejection of dialogue
By , on April 13th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> Conflicting accounts from United States intelligence about the status of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme underscore just how hard it is for US spy agencies to penetrate the inscrutable regime in Pyongyang, officials and experts say. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading US spies clueless on North Korean nuclear capability and strategy
By , on April 12th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> An air raid drill has been held in a Chinese city bordering North Korea and Russia as security is heightened amid rising tensions in the Korean Peninsula. It was the first air raid drill to be held in Hunchun, Jilin province, China News Service reported yesterday. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Chinese city bordering North Korea and Russia holds emergency drill
By , on April 12th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> US Secretary of State John Kerry dismissed as “unacceptable by any standard” weeks of bellicose warnings of impending nuclear war by North Korea and said Washington would never accept the reclusive state becoming a nuclear power. Kerry, addressing reporters after talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and leaders of the 28,000-strong US military contingent in the country, also said the United States would defend its allies in the region if necessary. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading US will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea, Kerry says
By , on April 10th, 2013 <!– google_ad_section_start –> A prominent South Korean legislator says his country should consider developing its own nuclear weapons or hosting a US arsenal as a way to pressure North Korea and its ally China. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Legislator calls for South Korea’s own nuclear defence
|
Kim Jong-un’s envoy arrives in Beijing to mend strained ties
<!– google_ad_section_start –> A special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held talks with top officials in Beijing yesterday, in the first such encounter since China joined the United States and other nations in imposing sanctions on Pyongyang over its ambitious nuclear weapons programme. The visit by Vice-Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, a senior member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, comes at a politically sensitive time, just weeks before Sino-US and Sino-South Korean summits. <!– google_ad_section_end –>
Continue reading Kim Jong-un’s envoy arrives in Beijing to mend strained ties
Share this: