SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – North Korea again launched balloons likely carrying trash toward South Korea on Wednesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, marking a resumption of its trash-balloon campaign after a near monthlong halt. The JCS said an unspecified number of balloons could travel to northern Gyeonggi Province, just north of [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea has launched a nationwide vaccination campaign for children and pregnant women with the support of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), years after they missed out on essential vaccines due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The campaign aims to inoculate over 800,000 children and 120,000 pregnant women with [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea is estimated to have earned more than US$6 billion through hacking and other illicit activities over the past seven years despite facing heavy international sanctions, a state-run think tank report showed Tuesday. North Korea’s income through illegal activities from 2017 to 2023, such as smuggling out coal, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — Some foreign professors at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology have returned to North Korea after a four-year hiatus over COVID-19, Seoul officials said Monday, in the latest sign of the North’s further border opening. Late last month, an unspecified number of foreign professors at North Korea’s sole international [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has emphasized the importance of quality over speed in the construction of factories and other modern facilities as part of ongoing efforts to develop underdeveloped regions outside of Pyongyang, state media said Monday. The directive was issued during Kim’s “field guidance” to regional-industry factories [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – North Korea has sent more than 13,000 shipping containers suspected of carrying arms to Russia since mid-2022 amid deepening bilateral military ties, a lawmaker said Tuesday, citing a military intelligence report. The North delivered the shipments that could hold more than 6 million 152-millimeter artillery shells through its eastern [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea has increased funding for North Korean defectors to support their early settlement as part of its budget proposal for next year, in line with its new unification blueprint. The unification ministry’s budget proposal, which was approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, came to 1.55 trillion won (US$1.17 [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea and the United States commenced a joint live-fire aerial exercise on Monday, a move aimed at bolstering defenses against the growing threat posed by North Korea. The South Korean Air Force announced that the three-day exercise began earlier in the day over the waters off South Korea’s [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered the construction of more modern hospitals as part of ongoing efforts to develop underdeveloped regions outside of Pyongyang, state media reported Monday. The direction was issued during Kim’s visit to various regional factories currently under construction on Saturday and Sunday, where he [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea on Friday denounced the United States’ approval of a potential sale of Apache attack helicopters to South Korea as a provocative act that deliberately aims to increase security instability in the region. A North Korean foreign ministry official issued the statement after the U.S. announced a decision [...]