SEOUL, May 2 (Korea Bizwire) — A broadly-smiling Kim Jong-un appeared in public for the first time in 20 days, looking well without any signs of an illness, despite a wave of speculation that he might be gravely sick or even dead. Kim’s reappearance underlined the difficulty in figuring out affairs in the communist nation, [...]
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 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has been seen exerting increasing clout in Pyongyang as of late, raising the possibility of her succeeding her brother amid speculation that he may be ill, a legislative think tank assessed Wednesday. In an analysis report of the [...]
SEOUL, April 26 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea’s state media reported on leader Kim Jong-un expressing his “appreciation” for people working to build facilities in a northern border town Sunday but continued to stay silent about his public activities for two weeks amid growing rumors about his health. “Comrade Kim Jong-un sent appreciation to workers [...]
SEOUL, April 23 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea on Thursday designated a rail construction project along the east coast as an inter-Korean cooperative business as part of efforts to kick-start a long-suspended move to reconnect railways across the border with North Korea. A civilian-government committee on inter-Korean exchanges made the decision for the construction of [...]
SEOUL, April 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea resumed excavating remains on its own of soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Monday, the defense ministry said, as Pyongyang remains unresponsive to calls to work together as agreed. Under a bilateral military accord signed Sept. 19, 2018, the two Koreas [...]
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, April 11 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea has been silent on a much-anticipated meeting of the country’s rubber-stamp parliament a day after it was supposed to take place, spawning speculation the session might have been canceled or delayed amid its nationwide fight against the novel coronavirus. The Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) was to meet [...]
SEOUL, April 10 (Korea Bizwire) — North Korea’s economy has become increasingly marketized in the past two decades with the emergence of local markets and a newly affluent class of traders, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in a recent working paper. The OECD also said in the paper, titled “North Korea: The [...]
SEOUL, April 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Two more units of the Global Hawk high-altitude unmanned aircraft are expected to arrive in South Korea this month, sources said Thursday, a move expected to further boost the country’s surveillance capabilities against North Korea and beyond. Their planned arrival comes after South Korea brought in its first RQ-4 [...]