A group of South Korean companies operating at a joint-venture factory park in North Korea has filed a formal complaint that the communist country’s sudden decision to take a longer New Year’s holiday seriously hurt their business, officials said Monday.Currently, 123 South Korean firms are operating at the joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Gaeseong, producing garments and other labor-intensive products. Despite cross-border tension, the park has been running without any restri

SHENYANG, China (Yonhap News) ― North Korea is moving to give mineral resources development rights to Chinese companies in return for pledges to upgrade its backward infrastructure, sources said Monday.Sources with ties to North Korea and Chinese businesses, said Pyongyang would give resources development rights to Chinese investors if they are willing to build social infrastructure such as roads and hotels.Such moves come as the impoverished North that does not have not many manufactured goods

Despite lingering furor over North Korea’s recent rocket launch, a high-profile U.S. delegation’s visit is seen to give a boost to its leader Kim Jong-un’s budding peace offensive. Google chairman Eric Schmidt and former New Mexico governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson landed in Pyongyang late Monday for a four-day stay, dismissing Washington’s discontent about the timing. On Tuesday, they visited the elite Kim Il-sung University in the capital to see how students th

Despite Washington’s discomfort with the timing, Bill Richardson may end up playing troubleshooter for yet another American detainee in North Korea when the former New Mexico governor wraps up his trip to the communist country later this week. This time, he is bringing an even bigger carrot: Google Inc. chairman Eric Schmidt, an apostle of global Internet freedom and its role in lifting people out of poverty and persecution. In the North, precious few of the elite are granted access to the Web. 

South Korea’s execution of its inter-Korean cooperation fund remained below 10 percent last year for the fourth straight year, government data showed Sunday.Last year, the government spent 69.4 billion won ($65.2 million), or 6.9 percent of the 1.006 trillion won set aside for the inter-Korean cooperation fund, according to the data from the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs.The fund was created in 1991 to support humanitarian and economic exchanges between the divided Kor

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Google chief Eric Schmidt’s plan to visit North Korea has put the Obama administration in the awkward position of opposing a champion of Internet freedom engaging with one of the most intensely censored countries.But the Obama administration is wary for a reason: It fears Schmidt’s trip could give a boost to North Korea’s young leader, Kim Jong-un, just when Washington is trying to pressure him.North Korea in December launched a long-range rocket in violation of U.N. Security C

North Korea is stepping up its peace offensive following its leader’s New Year speech that called for an end to confrontational relations with Seoul.The communist country’s official media have churned out reports and editorials in the past week stressing the goal of national reunification and calling for inter-Korean reconciliation. The overture appears to target an expansion in industrial cooperation and resumption of food handouts and economic assistance from Seoul that are essential to prop u

A Seoul court on Thursday rejected Japan’s request to hand over a Chinese attacker of Japanese facilities in Seoul and Tokyo. Liu Qiang, 39, was immediately released and is expected to return to his homeland.He was sentenced to 10 months in jail for hurling four Molotov cocktails at the Japanese Embassy building in Seoul in January 2011. His term ended in November but remained in custody pending the court’s review of Japan’s request to repatriate him. He confessed to an arson attack in December

Seoul officials are cautiously optimistic after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signaled his willingness to prioritize economic revival and defuse tension with the South. Kim on Tuesday made the first verbal New Year’s address by a North Korean leader in 19 years.With economic recovery being the biggest task at hand, the Swiss-educated leader may try to mend ties with the incoming Park Geun-hye government for industrial cooperation and food handouts, analysts said.Seoul’s Unification Minister Yu

The shadow of his grandfather loomed large when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un gave a much-trumpeted New Year’s speech on Tuesday, calling for economic growth and the defusing of tensions with the South. It was the first verbal New Year’s address made by a North Korean leader in 19 years. Kim made his maiden live speech on April 15 when Pyongyang held a massive celebration for the 100th anniversary of the birth of national founder and his grandfather Kim Il-sung. The late Kim delivered his own

The Foreign Ministry plans to spend 6 billion won ($5.7 million) on public diplomacy efforts this year as it seeks to improve Korea’s image abroad and better protect national interests in growing diplomatic feuds with Japan.The 2013 budget approved by the National Assembly on Tuesday includes public diplomacy as a separate item in the government expenses for the first time. The ministry was allocated slightly less than 2 trillion won in the budget, up about 3.2 percent from last year.The newly a

From the intensifying threat from North Korea to a festering feud with Japan, President-elect Park Geun-hye faces a string of foreign policy challenges which will put her much-touted doctrine of “trustpolitik” to an early test.The conservative politician will take office on Feb. 25 for a five-year term, inheriting a bleak diplomatic and security landscape bequeathed by incumbent Lee Myung-bak.Inter-Korean relations spiraled downward over the past five years due to Pyongyang’s arms buildup and Se

The list of North Korean scientists and officials named national heroes for contributing to the country’s successful launch of a long-range rocket earlier this month did not include key officials in charge of a botched April rocket launch, prompting speculation over their possible purge.According to recent North Korean media reports, the communist country declared 101 scientists, officials and others national heroes and gave them medals for contributing to its widely celebrated Dec. 12 launch of

South Korea claimed an extended limit of its continental shelf in the East China Sea in a report to the United Nations on Wednesday, upping its ante in a heated race with Japan and China over fisheries and resources deposits. The Foreign Ministry submitted to the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf its claim to the edge of the country’s seabed beyond its 200 nautical mile (370 kilometer) exclusive economic zone from the baselines of its territorial waters. The formal report ma

The ambitious project to pipe Russian natural gas to South Korea across the North has been dormant for more than a year amid inter-Korean tension.A glimmer of hope is rising for one of the largest gas deal in Asia as President-elect Park Geun-hye pledged to move ahead as part of her efforts to promote peace and stabilize domestic energy supplies.But experts question the project’s outlook due to lingering tension, economic uncertainty, political risks of depending on the unpredictable North for t

The late North Korean autocrat Kim Jong-il’s deadly heart attack may have been caused by his fury over water leaks at an ambitious but poorly built water power plant north of Pyongyang, a news report said Tuesday. State media said on Dec. 19, 2011, that Kim, then 69, died from a “severe myocardial infarction along with a heart attack” while on a train for a “field guidance” tour. The Chosun Ilbo daily provided details surrounding his death citing an unnamed source familiar with the inner working

In the wake of North Korea’s rocket launch, U.S. Congress has passed a defense law modified for next year calling for tougher measures such as the possible construction of a new missile defense base and defense capability assessments. The National Defense Authorization Act contains a raft of policy and funding packages including budgets for military activities, related construction and research and development programs. Its 2013 version worth $633.3 billion requires the federal government to loo

President-elect Park Geun-hye has turned down a visit by incoming Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s special envoy, heralding a rough ride in the relations between the next governments of the two nations. Shinzo Abe of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party planned to send his congratulatory letter last weekend via former Finance Minister Fukushiro Nukaga and three other senior members of the Japan-South Korea parliamentarians’ association. But Park’s side “respectfully” declined the meeting due to

A giant Christmas tree was lit up near the tense border with North Korea on Saturday, a move that may anger the communist country.It had been an annual ritual for South Korea to light a Christmas tree on top of a hill called Aegibong near the western sector of the inter-Korean border before it was suspended in 2003 as the then liberal South Korean government sought reconciliation with North Korea.South Korea resumed the ritual in 2010 after the North’s deadly artillery attack on one of its borde

Following is the first in a series of articles on President-elect Park Geun-hye’s key advisers and close associates. ― Ed.Armed with expertise and experience, a far-flung yet focused cadre of counselors is girded up to help president-elect Park Geun-hye sail through daunting foreign policy challenges and the fast-evolving security landscape over the next five years.Fresh off a grueling election victory, she now will face the tricky tasks of tackling frigid ties with North Korea, a balancing posi