SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Volunteer programs where merchants come to residential areas early in the morning to sell soup and side dishes to busy, dual-income households are spreading across North Korea. Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, reported Sunday on the lives of joint breadwinners taking care of breakfast using the volunteer [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — A Seoul court has reversed the prison sentence delivered to a man more than 40 years ago for watching North Korean propaganda TV content and praising the communist country’s late founder, judicial sources said Saturday. The man was initially convicted of violating the now-defunct anti-communist security law and served [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea has designated restaurants, bus stops, public squares and other venues as nonsmoking areas after adopting an anti-smoking law last month, a propaganda outlet said Friday. DPRK Today, one of the North’s propaganda websites, pointed out that smoking is banned in several public spaces, including hotels, stores, restaurants, [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea appears to be enforcing home classes for elementary school students as a way to avoid classroom gatherings amid nationwide anti-coronavirus efforts, according to state media reports. Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, said that elementary school teachers in Pyongyang are visiting homes of their students every [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — A majority of South Koreans agree that Seoul should play the role of a “facilitator” to push the stalled nuclear negotiations forward between the United States and North Korea, a survey showed Friday. According to the Nov. 20-21 survey of 1,000 adults by the National Unification Advisory Council, 73.9 [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — The government decided Monday to spend 1.95 billion won (US$1.76 million) to transform a guard post on the border with North Korea into a museum underscoring inter-Korean reconciliation efforts and honoring soldiers killed during the Korean War. The guard post at Arrowhead Ridge inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korean individuals have taken to Twitter to post about their daily lives and domestic news, in a rare move by the reclusive country presumed to be aimed at reaching a broader audience through a more approachable style. It also appears to be in line with North Korea’s recent [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea’s state news agency on Wednesday highlighted the hazards of smoking, saying the habit could increase the chances of getting infected with the new coronavirus. North Korea’s media outlets have intensified calls for people to stop smoking since Pyongyang held a parliamentary meeting and adopted an anti-smoking law [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly half of South Koreans believe that there will be no major impact on inter-Korean relations when U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office early next year, a poll showed Monday. In the Realmeter survey of 500 people nationwide, aged 18 or older, conducted last Friday on prospects for Seoul-Pyongyang [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea has held a rare meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly to adopt an anti-smoking law, state media reported Thursday, amid questions whether leader Kim Jong-un, known as a heavy smoker, would kick the habit. The plenary meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA), held [...]