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SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean state media on Wednesday showed leader Kim Jong Un at a meeting of a top committee issuing warnings about the coronavirus and a looming typhoon, following international speculation over his state of health. Kim’s comments come amid conjecture over his condition after South Korea’s spy agency said he had delegated some authority to his sister Kim Yo Jong to relieve his “governance stress”. A former aide to late […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Temperature checks, hand sanitizers, and face masks are being enforced across Pyongyang’s public transport system as North Korea intensifies its fight against the coronavirus pandemic. North Korea — whose crumbling health system would struggle to cope with a major outbreak — has long insisted it has not had cases of the disease. But it raised its state of emergency to the maximum level in July, saying it had discovered what […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected flood damage in North Hwanghae province and ordered food and supplies to help affected residents, state news agency KCNA said Friday. There have been days of heavy rain across parts of North Korea, which is vulnerable to flooding as many mountains and hills have long been stripped of vegetation, allowing water to flow downhill unchecked. The area, south of Pyongyang, is a major […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Days of heavy rain could cause flooding or landslides across North Korea, officials warned, as the South said Thursday 16 people had died in the downpours lashing the peninsula. North Korea is particularly vulnerable to sustained heavy rain as many mountains and hills have long been stripped of vegetation, allowing water to flow downhill unchecked. But the South has also suffered, with authorities saying at least 16 people had […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons guarantee its safety, state media reported Tuesday, signalling once again that it will not give up its arsenal. Kim was addressing a conference of veterans on the 67th anniversary of the 1953 armistice that ended Korean War hostilities, the official Korean Central News Agency said. Up to three million Koreans died in the three-year conflict, in which the armistice […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — A huge fleet of Chinese fishing boats has been operating illegally in North Korean waters catching hundreds of millions of dollars worth of squid, a study showed Wednesday. The competition from hundreds of larger, better-equipped Chinese vessels was forcing North Korean fishermen to poach in Russian waters, according to a group of international researchers involved in the Global Fishing Watch study. The study combined four satellite technologies to identify widespread […]
SEOUL, SOuth Korea (AFP) — North Korean authorities have imposed a lockdown on the border city of Kaesong after discovering what they called the country’s first suspected case of the novel coronavirus, state media reported Sunday. Leader Kim Jong Un convened an emergency politburo meeting on Saturday to implement a “maximum emergency system and issue a top-class alert” to contain the virus, official news agency KCNA said. If confirmed, it would be the first officially […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un berated officials for their “careless” construction of a flagship hospital in Pyongyang and ordered those responsible to be sacked, state media reported Monday. The North has long used giant infrastructure projects to try to burnish the government’s credibility, including housing developments in Pyongyang and the continuing Wonsan-Kalma tourism development, but critics say speed is often prioritised over quality. The latest scheme is the Pyongyang […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned against the “hasty” relaxation of anti-coronavirus measures, state media reported Friday, indicating the country will keep its borders closed for the forseeable future. The nuclear-armed North closed its borders in late January as the virus spread in neighboring China and imposed tough restrictions that put thousands of its people into isolation. Pyongyang insists it has not had a single case of COVID-19, the […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has suspended plans for military action against the South, state media reported Wednesday in an apparent sudden dialling-down of tensions after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office. In recent weeks, Pyongyang has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul over anti-North leaflets, which defectors based in the South send across the border — usually attached to balloons or floated in bottles. Last week […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s Unification Minister, its point man for relations with the North, resigned on Friday over heightened tensions on the peninsula, days after Pyongyang blew up its liaison office with the South. President Moon Jae-in “accepted Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul’s offer to resign”, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, without giving further details. Kim had offered to step down on Wednesday, a day after the North demolished the […]
TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Japan “can’t move ahead” with a costly US missile defense system, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday, throwing his support behind a decision to suspend deployment of the controversial program. In a surprise announcement a day earlier, Japan’s Defence Minister Taro Kono said the deployment of the Aegis Ashore system would be suspended, citing cost and time constraints. Abe’s comments appear to suggest the system, which was originally estimated to cost […]
