Tag: Korea

SEOUL - North Korea on Wednesday reopened a cross-border hotline and sought talks on strengthening business projects with South Korea, continuing apparent peace overtures made after months of high tensions.
The South stuck to its conditions for any talks - that the North take responsibility for provocations including a deadly artillery attack and confirm it is serious about scrapping its nuclear programme. "Our stance remains unchanged," said Lee Jong-Joo, spokeswoman for Seoul's

DOHA - North Korea were forced to dig deep to salvage a point against a rampant United Arab Emirates as they opened their Asian Cup campaign is less than convincing fashion Tuesday.
The Koreans withstood a barrage of UAE pressure throughout the 90 minutes at the Qatar Sports Club Stadium. After North Korea captain Hong Yong-Jo squandered an early penalty, the UAE gradually shifted into top gear, attacking a disorganised Korean side up to the half-time break.
Hong's spot

BEIJING - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned on Tuesday that North Korea could have long-range ballistic missiles within five years that would pose a direct threat to the United States, reflecting growing concerns over Pyongyang's arsenal. His comments represented a shift in the US view of North Korea's military power, describing the hardline regime in Pyongyang as making headway in its efforts to develop missiles that could potentially carry nuclear warheads. "I think North

SEOUL - The United States sought China's help in persuading its long-time ally North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons, sending its envoy to Beijing on Wednesday as part of a campaign to press the North. The US envoy for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, met South Korean officials in Seoul before heading to China. Washington hopes talks on dismantling North Korea's nuclear work can start soon, though a breakthrough may prove elusive.
North Korea issued a statement demanding

SEOUL - A South Korean man has died from swine flu, becoming the country's first reported human death from the virus this winter, health officials said Thursday.
The 30-year-old man began to show symptoms on Monday and tests showed he was infected with the A (H1N1) virus, said the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He was taken into intensive care in hospital but died on Wednesday morning, it said. "This marked the country's first death caused by the H1N1 virus

SEOUL - A North Korean crossed the tense Yellow Sea border by boat on Saturday in an apparent defection to South Korea. Yonhap news agency said the man arrived on the frontline island of Baengnyeong in the morning after drifting at sea on a unpowered barge.
The agency quoted island residents as saying the 200-ton barge is believed to be a sand carrier. A joint team of police and military officials was to interrogate the man. Baengnyeong and four other islands near the disputed

SEOUL: North Korea could carry out a third atomic test next year to strengthen the credentials of its young leader-in-waiting Kim Jong-un, a research report from a South Korean foreign ministry institute said on Friday.
The regular report was published a day after Pyongyang vowed a nuclear "sacred war" after the South vowed to be "merciless" if attacked, and held a major military drill near the border. The North, which carried out nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, has yet to show

SEOUL - North Korea warned on Thursday of a "sacred war" against the South using its nuclear deterrent as South Korean President Lee Myung-bak vowed a merciless counterattack if southern territory is attacked again.
Both sides raised the rhetoric on a day South Korea launched major land and sea military exercises, prompting North Korea, which has threatened to reduce the South to ashes on many occasions, to denounce its richer neighbour as a warmonger.
"To counter the

SEOUL: South Korea on Wednesday prepared for a major show of military strength involving fighter jets and tanks near the tense North Korean border as Washington ruled out "feel-good" talks with Pyongyang.
The live-fire exercise, planned for Thursday with self-propelled guns and 800 soldiers, follows signs of an easing of tensions on the peninsula after the North backed down from a threat to retaliate against an earlier drill.
Although similar exercises have been held at the

SEOUL - A wary South Korea stayed on guard against North Korea on Tuesday, with jet fighters and warships deployed, a day after the communist state backed off from threats of attack over a live-fire exercise.
Washington and Seoul expressed scepticism at another reported concession by Pyongyang - an agreement to reopen its nuclear sites to UN inspectors. Hours after the South defied North Korea's threats and staged Monday's artillery exercise near the disputed sea border, the

YEONPYEONG: North Korea said it would not react to "reckless" military drills by the South on Monday, despite an earlier threat to retaliate, and CNN reported that Pyongyang had agreed to the return of nuclear inspectors.
Air-raid bunkers on the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong shook during the live-fire artillery exercise, which went on for just over 90 minutes, but the North Korean guns that had shelled the island after a similar drill last month stayed silent.
"The

TOKYO: Japan's chief delegate to six-nation talks on North Korea's nuclear disarmament will visit Beijing at the weekend for talks with his Chinese counterpart, the foreign ministry in Tokyo said on Friday.
Akitaka Saiki, who heads the ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, will meet on Saturday with Wu Dawei, China's special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, amid pressure on Beijing to rein in its close ally.
Inter-Korean tensions have escalated after

SEOUL: The top US military officer accused China Wednesday of ducking its responsibility to curb its close ally North Korea in the wake of the North's "inhumane" and deadly attack on a South Korean island.
Admiral Mike Mullen also announced plans for more joint military exercises with South Korea and said the South has the right to respond as it sees fit to any future attacks.
Asked at a press conference in Seoul if he had asked the South to exclude the option of air strikes

BEIJING/SEOUL: Chinese President Hu Jintao on Monday warned US President Barack Obama that tensions on the Korean peninsula could spiral out of control if not dealt with properly, their first discussion on the issue since the North shelled the South nearly two weeks ago.
Analysts said Hu's comments showed a greater sense of urgency in the Chinese leadership over the mounting tension and also an attempt to avoid to the perception that Beijing is siding with its ally Pyongyang to

WASHINGTON: The United States and South Korea broke through a three-year deadlock to seal a sweeping free trade agreement, which President Barack Obama hoped would renew US leadership in Asia.
The agreement lifts tariffs on 95 percent of goods between the countries within five years, in what would be the largest US trade pact since the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico in 1994.
After nearly four days of talks in suburban Washington, negotiators

SEOUL: Secretive North Korea boasted advances in its nuclear programme on Tuesday, making sure it held the world's attention, saying it had thousands of working centrifuges, as pressure built on China to rein in its ally.
Nuclear-armed Pyongyang's revelations about its uranium enrichment, which gives it a second route to make a nuclear bomb, came a week after it fired an artillery barrage at a South Korean island, killing four people, including two civilians.
Experts have

SEOUL: South Korea deployed rocket launchers and extra artillery on a frontline border island bombarded last week by North Korea, as Seoul's leader vowed Monday to make Pyongyang pay for any fresh provocations. An AFP photographer saw many more soldiers on the island and multiple rocket launchers being installed, six days after the barrage which triggered fury in the South and alarm worldwide.
Military officials quoted by Yonhap news agency said the number of K-9 self-propelled