North Korea has canceled plans to send a delegation headed by the leader of an all-female Western-style band to the South this weekend to prepare cultural performances during the Olympics, Seoul’s Yonhap news agency said Friday. Hyon Song-Wol, reportedly an ex-girlfriend of leader Kim Jong-Un, would have been the first North Korean official to visit the South in four years, if Saturday’s trip had gone ahead. But Pyongyang told Seoul it had suspended the plan to send a seven-member advance team to inspect venues for proposed art performances in Seoul and the eastern city of Gangneung in connection with the Pyeongchang Games, Yonhap reported, citing the South’s Unification Ministry. No reason was given for the change of plan, the ministry said, and it was not immediately clear whether the visit was permanently canceled or postponed. The nuclear-armed North agreed last week to participate in the Olympics, which will take place just 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the peninsula, easing tensions over its banned weapons programs. The two countries also agreed that the South would host two performances by the Samjiyon Orchestra, the first of their kind since 2002, when Pyongyang sent a cohort of 30 singers and dancers to Seoul for a joint pro-unification event. The Unification Ministry said the North identified Hyon, who leads the popular Moranbong band, as the head of the less well-known orchestra, which will make up much of the 140-member art troupe from the North. Hyon was the… [Read full story]
North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing one person and triggering an exchange of fire as southern armed forces went on their highest state of alert. In what appeared to be one of the most serious border incidents since the 1950-53 war, South Korean troops fired back with cannon, the government convened in an underground war room, and "multiple" air force jets scrambled. The firing came after North Korea's disclosure of an apparently operational uranium enrichment programme -- a second potential way of building a nuclear bomb -- which is causing…... [read more]
The North Korean army threatened Friday to carry out a "merciless military strike" against South Korea next week, in a serious escalation of cross-border tensions. Photo: AFP The Korean People's Army (KPA) vowed to initiate the strike if a group of North Korean defectors now living in the South went ahead with plans to scatter propaganda leaflets next Monday from balloons floated over the border. "The moment a minor movement for the scattering is captured... a merciless military strike by the Western Front will be put into practice without warning," the KPA said in a statement carried on the official…... [read more]
North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator plans a rare visit to the United States next month, a report said Friday, amid renewed efforts to bring the communist nation back to international disarmament talks. A top UN envoy on a mission to Pyongyang this week was also quoted as saying he was "very satisfied" with the outcome of his trip, the first by an official from the world body since 2004. China, which hosts six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, is trying to persuade the North to return to the negotiations which it quit last April, a month before launching its second atomic weapons…... [read more]
North Korea said Friday it would restore a hotline with South Korea and proposed holding weekend talks in a border town. South Korean military trucks drive past barricades on the road to the Kaesong Industrial zone in North Korea on June 6 (Photo: AFP) North Korea said Friday it would restore a hotline with South Korea and proposed holding weekend talks in a border town, as the two rivals sought to dial down months of soaring military tensions.The two Koreas unexpectedly reached a snap agreement Thursday on opening a dialogue, with South Korea responding to a North initiative by offering…... [read more]
Kim Yong Nam HA NOI — Kim Yong-nam, chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), arrived yesterday in Viet Nam for a three-day official visit. The visit is being made at the invitation of President Truong Tan Sang. The delegation also includes Minister of Foreign Trade Ri Ryong Nam, Minister of Mining Industry Kang Min Chol and the DPRK Ambassador to Viet Nam Kim Chang-il. Kim Yong-nam previously served as foreign minister for the DPRK from 1983 to 1998. — VNS... [read more]
