Tag: North Korea

Seoul spy agency warns N. Korea plotting attacks on embassies

SEOUL, May 3, 2024 (AFP) – South Korea’s spy agency said Friday that Pyongyang was plotting “terrorist” attacks targeting Seoul’s officials and citizens overseas, with the foreign ministry raising the alert level for diplomatic missions in five countries. The National Intelligence Service said it had recently “detected numerous signs that North Korea is preparing for terrorist attacks against our embassy staff or citizens in various countries, (such as) China, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East”. […]

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N. Korea fires ballistic missile as Blinken visits Seoul

North Korea fired a ballistic missile on Monday, Seoul’s military said, as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited South Korea to meet top officials and attend a democracy summit. Blinken is in Seoul for the third Summit for Democracy, an initiative of US President Joe Biden, which the South is hosting this week, and is set to meet his Korean counterpart on the sidelines for talks. Key security allies Washington and Seoul wrapped up […]

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Exiled ex-candidate says Nicaragua is a ‘tropical North Korea’

By Gerard MARTINEZ MIAMI, Feb 8, 2024 (AFP) – A year ago, Felix Maradiaga, who was imprisoned while running for president against Nicaragua’s increasingly authoritarian leader Daniel Ortega, was freed and exiled to the United States. The 47-year-old had been arrested along with several other opposition candidates months before the country’s November 2021 vote, while Ortega went on to claim a fourth consecutive term. Now living in Miami, Maradiaga spoke with AFP about his ordeal, […]

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Kim inspects warships as North Korea prepares for conflict

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected warships at a shipyard in a renewed drive to bolster his naval forces as his country ramps up “war preparations”, state media said Friday. In recent weeks, Kim has declared South Korea his country’s “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement. He also recently hailed the test launch of a new strategic cruise missile from a […]

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NKorea’s Kim oversaw test of cruise missiles launched from submarine: state media

By Sunghee Hwang North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hailed the test launch of a new strategic cruise missile from a submarine as a key moment in building the nation’s naval power, state media said Monday. Pyongyang has accelerated weapons testing in the new year, including tests of what it called an “underwater nuclear weapon system” and a solid-fuelled hypersonic ballistic missile. Kim expressed “great satisfaction” over Sunday’s test, state-run news agency KCNA said, […]

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Kim Jong Un celebrates North Korea’s new ‘space power’ era

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un celebrated a “new era of a space power” with scientists and his family, state media said Friday, after the North successfully put a military spy satellite into orbit. Pyongyang’s launch of the “Malligyong-1” on Tuesday was its third attempt at securing a military eye in the sky after failures in May and August. Within hours of the launch, North Korea claimed that its leader was already reviewing images of […]

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N.Korea suspends military accord with South after satellite launch

North Korea said Thursday it was suspending a five-year-old accord reached with South Korea to reduce military tensions — the latest retaliatory fallout over Pyongyang’s spy satellite launch. The angry statement from the nuclear-armed North’s defence ministry came after state media claimed leader Kim Jong Un was already reviewing images of US military bases in Guam sent by Pyongyang’s new eye in the sky. With the United States leading allies in slamming Tuesday’s satellite launch […]

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Putin accepts Kim’s invitation to visit North Korea

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to visit North Korea, Pyongyang’s state media said Thursday, as Kim Jong Un wrapped up a rare trip to meet with his ally. The isolated Kim, who seldom leaves his country and has not travelled since before the pandemic, had a “historic meeting and talks” with Putin on Wednesday, the Korean Central News Agency said. Among the results of the leaders’ summit were Russian promises of help […]

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North Korea plans satellite launch as Seoul, US hold drills

TOKYO, Aug 22, 2023 (AFP) – North Korea has informed Japan it plans to launch a satellite in the coming days, Tokyo said Tuesday, less than three months after a failed effort saw a military satellite plunge into the sea. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida urged Pyongyang to call it off, saying his country was working with South Korea and the United States to gather more information on the sanctions-busting launch. Tokyo is taking “all possible […]

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Japan says North Korea threat more serious than ‘ever’

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan said Friday that North Korea posed a more serious threat to its national security than “ever before”, as nuclear-armed Pyongyang rattles its neighbors with repeated missile tests and belligerent rhetoric. In its annual white paper — a rundown of the most pressing military threats and plans to ensure stability — Japan’s defense ministry made a case for a significant hike in domestic defense spending as the world enters “a new […]

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Kim shows off new North Korean drones, ICBMs to Russia defense minister

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Walking past huge intercontinental ballistic missiles and previously unseen military drones, Kim Jong Un gave Russia’s defense minister a tour of North Korea’s newest and most advanced weaponry Thursday, state media reported. After Washington earlier this year accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with weapons for its war in Ukraine, photographs in state media showed Kim walking Moscow’s Sergei Shoigu through a vast defense exhibition showcasing the North’s nuclear missiles and […]

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What we know after 70 years of the Korean War armistice

SEOUL, July 27, 2023 (AFP) – South and North Korea remain technically at war 70 years after fighting ended on July 27, 1953, with the signing of an armistice deal that turned into the world’s longest ceasefire. The conflict, which broke out on June 25, 1950, killed millions of people — mostly civilians — and left the peninsula divided, with the two Koreas still at loggerheads many decades later. AFP takes a look at what […]

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