Latest North Korea Stories

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap [By Yoo Cheong-mo] Moscow, Sept. 29 (Yonhap) - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak [Yi Myo'ng-pak] and his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, agreed at a Kremlin summit Monday to accelerate two-way cooperation in energy, resources and industrial technologies, upgrading their bilateral relations from a comprehensive partnership to a strategic partnership, Lee's aides said. In the first tangible and unprecedented three-nation...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap [Yonhap headline: "(News Focus) Korea-Russia Summit Focuses on Economic Cooperation, Regional Security" by Yoo Cheong-mo] Seoul, Sept. 28 (Yonhap) - Embarking on his first trip to Russia as head of South Korea on Sunday, President Lee Myung-bak [Yi Myo'ng- pak] has three broad goals in mind - the upgrade of bilateral relations, energy and resource diplomacy and a constructive Russian role towards North Korean denuclearization,...

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Friday that all potentially contaminated foods should be recalled in light of an ongoing import crisis. After meeting with Health-Welfare Minister Jeon Jae-hee Korea Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Yun Yeo-pyo, Lee called for an intensification of efforts to recall all items thought to be contaminated with the toxic chemical melamin, The Korea Times said. The president's call for swift action came after the Korea Food and Drug...

Text of report in English by South Korean newspaper Choson Ilbo website on 26 September Consumers are growing anxious about the safety of their food in the wake of the announcement that snacks imported from China and sold under Korean labels contain high levels of melamine, a toxic substance that causes kidney failure. The KFDA on Thursday decided to take Haitai Confectionary's Misarang Custard, which is made in China, off the shelves and ban all foods made with Chinese dried milk and dairy...

Text of report by North Korean newspaper Nodong Sinmun on 21 September [Nodong Sinmun 21 September special article by Kim Ko'n-to: "On Population Census"] The great leader [suryo'ng] Comrade Kim Il Sung [Kim Il-so'ng] taught the following. "Statistical survey and statistical research work should be conducted in order to obtain accurate statistical data." Population census work will be conducted in our country shortly. Generally speaking, population census is a population statistics concept...

North Korea, in the midst of resuming nuclear production, says the United States is using the six-nation talks as a trick to initiate another war against it. The charge was made Wednesday in a commentary in Rodong Sinmun, the communist country's official newspaper, China's Xinhua news agency reported. Earlier, commenting on Pyongyang's latest nuclear plans, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had warned such actions would only further isolate the country. Besides North Korea and the...

World in brief VIENNA North Korea has expelled UN monitors from its plutonium plant and plans to start reactivating it next week, breaking a 2007 deal to scrap its nuclear weapons programme. The Stalinist state said last week it was working to restart the Yongbyon complex it had been dismantling since last November under a disarmament-for-aid agreement with the United States, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia. "There are no more seals and surveillance equipment in place at the...

Text of report in English by Japan's largest news agency Kyodo Washington, 19 September: North Korea has not reactivated its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon although it is moving closer to doing so, the State Department said Friday. Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a news briefing that Pyongyang is getting "to the point of operationalizing Yongbyon again," though "they haven't gotten to that point yet.""And we would urge them not to get to that point," he said. North Korea said...

North Korea rolled out its version of the red carpet this week, opening its biennial international film festival and allowing North Koreans to watch otherwise forbidden foreign films. Movies are close to the heart of the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who is a fan of Daffy Duck, Steven Spielberg and Elizabeth Taylor, and who is thought to have a library of about 20,000 films that includes all of the James Bond movies, according to intelligence sources. Kim, who is suspected of having...

Text of report in English by South Korean news agency Yonhap Seoul, 19 September: A South Korean charity group said Friday it will send a large delegation to North Korea this weekend amid sensitive inter-Korean ties and the serious illness of the North's leader. The Korean Sharing Movement said the 136-member delegation, which plans to visit for four days, will be the largest South Korean group to visit the North since early July. Seoul has been discouraging large delegations from...