WASHINGTON (Yonhap) ― A new financial sanctions bill for North Korea, which has just passed the U.S. House of Representatives, will be as painful to Pyongyang as the banking restrictions that hit the communist regime hard in 2005, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman said.Rep. Ed Royce (R-California), who initiated the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act, made the remark in an interview with Yonhap, stressing that the only time Pyongyang paid serious attention to what the U.S. said was

Three North Korean MiG19 fighters have crashed this year, leading to the suspension of flight drills involving the aircraft, South Korea’s military sources said Wednesday.The supersonic MiG-19 aircraft is a Soviet second-generation fighter developed in 1953. Some 400 MiG variants are still in service in the communist North, accounting for about half of its fighters.“At least three of the MiG19s crashed during training missions ― one earlier this year, the others last month and earlier this month

Relations between North Korea and China face a bumpy road as Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions continue to chip away at their decades-long alliance while Beijing increasingly courts Seoul for greater strategic and economic cooperation. Their “blood alliance” born out of the 1950-53 Korean War has been eroded by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests and other military provocations in recent years. It suffered a major blow in December when the Kim Jong-un regime executed Jang Song-thaek, the leader’s

WASHINGTON (AP) ― Amid concerns about its development and testing of nuclear weapons, North Korea may be lulling the world into largely accepting its advances in missile technology, the admiral in charge of American forces in Asia and the Pacific said Tuesday.Adm. Samuel Locklear told a Pentagon news conference that he is concerned by North Korea’s frequent testing of ballistic missiles. Locklear heads U.S. Pacific Command, and his responsibilities include military relations with longtime U.S. a

Nineteen officials from six African countries pledged to spur rural reform and boost their local economies by taking a page from Korea’s development book at a seminar hosted by the Korea International Cooperation Agency on Tuesday. The state grant aid agency has been running the two-week session for officials from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda who are in charge of the Millennium Villages Project, which aims to help rural African communities shake off poverty.  Kim Young-m

A key U.S. official on sanctions policy visited Seoul on Monday as the West gears up for a further economic squeeze on Moscow in the wake of the downing of a Malaysian airliner, officials here said. Peter Harrell, deputy assistant secretary for counter threat finance and sanctions in the State Department’s economic and business affairs bureau, will hold a briefing session on Tuesday on U.S. sanctions against Russia and Iran for officials from the foreign, finance and industry ministries and bank

Citizens of 17 major nations regard South Korea as a technology powerhouse that ascended from the ashes of a devastating war, a survey showed Friday. The Foreign Ministry released results of a worldwide survey on the image of the country. It commissioned Samjong KPMG LLC, an accounting and consulting house, to poll 6,000 people aged 18 or older in countries including Germany, India, Vietnam, Mexico, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa for one month from mid-October. It excluded the U.S., China, Japan

Senior officials from China and Japan met early this month in Beijing to explore the possibility of a summit on the margins of an economic conference later this year, a news report said Thursday.The Japanese delegates from the Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau held talks with officials including Xiong Bo, a deputy director-general for Asian Affairs at Beijing’s Foreign Ministry, Kyodo News reported. The Tokyo diplomats delivered Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s hopes for a formal m

After weathering recent cabinet shake-ups, Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se is coming under pressure to improve testy relations with South Korea’s neighbors by untangling a matrix of diplomatic and geopolitical interests.Relations between Korea and Japan are at their lowest ebb in decades. An erratic Pyongyang continues to develop atomic weapons, whereas six-nation denuclearization talks remain in their sixth year of dormancy. Yet the Sino-U.S. rivalry is growing fierce, propelled by fast-evolving

North Korea executed at least 17 of its citizens in 2013 and six in the first half of this year, mostly for political motives and nonviolent crimes, a civic group said Monday, pointing to rampant breaches of human rights in the communist country. In an annual report on the death penalty, the Brussels-based rights group Hands Off Cain said at least 4,106 executions took place in 22 countries last year. Topping the list is China with at least 3,000, followed by Iran with 687, Iraq with 172, Saudi

More than 30 years after South Korea and Pakistan established diplomatic ties, a notable change took place this year marking their improving relations. In April, Chung Hong-won became Korea’s first prime minister to travel to Islamabad. This was followed by a visit by Kang Chang-hee, then speaker of the National Assembly, who led a delegation of members of both ruling and opposition parties in January. Their trips came as Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was inaugurated in June 2013, b

This is the 10th installment in a series of interviews with chiefs of United Nations offices in Korea. ― Ed.The Sewol ferry disaster in April raised global alarm over disaster prevention and crisis management. A public furor persists over the government’s flawed response, while the state auditor billed it a “man-made debacle” resulting from a concoction of official negligence, corruption and corporate greed. Despite the continuing grief and misery at the rescue scene, Korea should now work to ra

Pyongyang on Friday threatened to reconsider its plans to take part in the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon after inter-Korean talks fell apart with both sides shifting the blame onto each other. The working-level meeting in the truce village of Panmunjeom ended Thursday without any accord or date for the next gathering. Key items on the agenda were the North Korean team’s lodging, transportation and other arrangements for its stay. As the two sides struggled to reach a compromise, the North’s de

A U.N. panel has ratcheted up pressure on Japan to resolve the issue of its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women and criticized its recent attempt to undermine past apologies, Seoul officials said Thursday. The U.N. Human Rights Committee consisting of 18 independent experts from around the world held a two-day deliberation on a report monitoring Japan’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in Geneva until Wednesday.During the session, the panel called

The two Koreas held a meeting Thursday to discuss the envisioned participation by North Korean athletes and cheerleaders in the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon. A three-member delegation from each side opened the talks at about 10:15 a.m. at Freedom House on the southern part of the truce village of Panmunjeom. It was led by Kwon Kyung-sang, secretary-general of the games’ organizing committee, and Son Kwang-ho, vice chairman of the North’s Olympic Committee. The negotiations were the first spor

The newly launched panel on unification faces daunting challenges in the face of frozen inter-Korean relations, steadfast cross-border military tension and President Park Geun-hye’s rigid North Korea policy. The 50-member preparation committee set sail Tuesday with the aim of devising a unification blueprint and detailed action plans. The president will head the group, supported by former Ambassador to China Chung Chong-wook and Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae as vice chairs, as well as other

The two Koreas agreed to hold a meeting Thursday to discuss the North’s plans to dispatch a group of athletes and cheerleaders to the forthcoming Asian Games in Incheon, South Korean officials said Monday. Three officials from each side will gather at Freedom House on the southern part of the truce village of Panmunjeom. The South’s delegation is to be led by Kwon Kyung-sang, secretary-general of the event’s steering committee. Last Thursday Pyongyang offered working-level talks on Tuesday via a

Six years since operations ceased, the stalled tours to Mount Geumgangsan in North Korea are deepening the despair of program operators, shop owners and residents. Revenue sources have dried up and local communities have lost their vigor while cross-border ties are showing no sign of a thaw.Touted as an icon of inter-Korean rapprochement, the program was launched in 1998 and fetched more than 2 million visitors from the South until it was halted after a tourist was shot dead by a North Korean so

Seoul on Friday proposed working-level inter-Korean talks on July 17 to discuss the North’s plans to send a group of athletes and cheerleaders to the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon.The offer was made through a border telephone line in response to Pyongyang’s proposal a day before to meet at the peace village of Panmunjeom on July 15. President Park Geun-hye speaks at a meeting to check preparation of the 17th Asian Games Incheon 2014 at Incheon Asiad Main Stadium on Friday. (Yonhap)“We revised

North Korea on Thursday proposed working-level talks with the South next week to discuss its plans to dispatch a group of athletes and cheerleaders to the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon. Pyongyang suggested the meeting take place at the peace village of Panmunjeom on July 15, its official Korean Central News Agency said. The offer was also made through a border telephone line, the Unification Ministry said. The proposal came three days after the North said that it will send a cheering squad to