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, Nov. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — The dropout rate of North Korean defector students inched up over the past year, a state-run institute said Monday. The 2022 dropout rate for elementary, middle and high school defector students stood at about 1.6 percent (based on April 2021), up 0.4 percentage points from a year ago, according [...]
SEOUL, May 1 (Korea Bizwire) — A North Korea defector elected as a lawmaker in South Korea claimed Friday that he is “99 percent” sure that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un died after surgery amid speculation over his health. Unconfirmed reports about Kim’s ill health have mounted since he has not appeared in public for [...]
SEOUL, April 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Tens of thousands of South Koreans have signed a petition calling for the mandatory construction of residential flats for North Korean defectors in the ritzy district of Gangnam, southern Seoul, following a high-profile defector’s election in the constituency. In apparent derision of the Gangnam residents who elected Tae Ku-min [...]
SEOUL, April 16 (Korea Bizwire) – A high-profile North Korean defector won a constituency seat in this week’s general elections, becoming the first person hailing from the communist nation to be chosen directly by South Korean voters as their representative. Thae Yong-ho, a former No. 2 diplomat at North Korea’s Embassy in London, was elected to the [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — Thae Yong-ho, a high-profile North Korean defector, said Sunday he will run in April’s parliamentary elections under a different name, one that he has used in his passport and all other official documents to evade Pyongyang’s tracking since his 2016 defection. Thae, a former No. 2 diplomat at North [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of North Korean defectors coming to South Korea rose 15 percent on-year in the first eight months of 2016, government data showed Wednesday, as the North’s leader is tightening his iron-fisted rule on the country. In the January-August period, 894 North Koreans escaped and arrived in South [...]
SUWON, July 27 (Korea Bizwire) – A North Korean defector who has been living in South Korea for seven years was sentenced to one year in prison with two years of probation for trying to re-enter North Korea. Park Pan-gyu, a judge at the Suwon District Court, ruled that a 24-year-old female defector only referred to [...]
SEOUL, July 19 (Korea Bizwire) – Teenage North Koreans who defected to the South are experiencing barracks life first hand with the country’s special forces in a program aimed at boosting their confidence so they can better adjust to life here, the Army said Tuesday. It said 41 students from Yeomyung School in Seoul are training [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – At first glance, Park Young-ho seems like any other young South Korean struggling either to set up his own businesses or find a job amid the slump in the local job market. But he has something that sets him apart from the majority of South Koreans. He crossed the [...]