Police in South Korea confirmed on Thursday that the mayor of the nation’s capital, Seoul, had gone missing. Reports indicated that Park Won-soon had made cryptic goodbye statements to his family before vanishing on Thursday morning.
South Korea battles a new cluster of coronavirus cases spreading from the nightclubs of Itaewon, a district popular with the gay community.
Some South Korean officials on Monday asked for murder charges to be brought against Lee Man-hee, founder and leader of a religious sect called the Shincheonji Church, and 11 of his top followers because they spread the Wuhan coronavirus across the country and interfered with efforts to track infected persons. The government believes up to 60% of South Korea’s 4,335 coronavirus cases can be traced to the Shincheonji Church.
Thousands filled the streets of Seoul on Saturday night, carrying candles and signs of protest against Japan’s tighter trade restrictions on South Korea. More marches and rallies are planned every weekend as Liberation Day, the holiday commemorating the end of Japanese occupation in 1945, approaches on August 15.
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myung-gyon expressed hope on Tuesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un will follow through on his promise to visit Seoul and make the trip a “stepping stone” to his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s third summit meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, held in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, produced an offer on Wednesday for Kim to visit South Korea “in the near future.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un met with a special delegation representing South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday, continuing ongoing talks on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.
The U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) said on Tuesday it had yet to receive any orders to cease military drills with South Korea following American President Donald Trump’s post-Singapore summit pledge to halt “war games” in the Korean peninsula.
South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon warned in remarks Wednesday that, despite continued planning for a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, “quite significant” disagreements remain between the two sides.
Contents: Kim Yo-jong, the North Korean dictator’s sister, charms the Olympics; Kim Yo-jong returns to Pyongyang with fond memories and an invitation for Moon; Moon Jae-in faces some difficult decisions
South Korea’s Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon announced Wednesday that Seoul had agreed to allow a “massive delegation totaling between 400-500 people” from North Korea to attend this year’s Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
Contents: Donald Trump in Seoul issues stern warning to North Korea — and to China; Trump’s speech targeted at China
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis confirmed on Monday that the United States has discussed with South Korea the option of employing tactical nuclear weapons to defend against North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
South Korea’s Ministry of Unification has quadrupled its reward for North Korean defectors who supply classified information.
North Korea wrapped up its four-day Workers’ Party conference on Monday by declaring it would continue working on nuclear weapons — for “defensive” purposes, of course — and threatening to wipe out South Korea, if their neighbor “opts for war.”
During a visit to Seoul, South Korea, Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the North Koreans should be “inspired” to give up their nuclear weapons by the deal that was struck with Iran.
On Monday, the South Korean government confirmed that a high-ranking North Korean intelligence officer defected to the South last year.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye vowed in a speech Thursday that her nation would work to pressure North Korea to “end the tyranny that has deprived North Koreans of their freedom and human rights,” the first time she has called the communist regime in Pyongyang a “tyranny.”
“The doom of the U.S. has been sealed.” So reads a statement on North Korea’s official state media outlet, warning Pyongyang will attack the “U.S. Mainland” if American and South Korean forces complete a military drill simulating the collapse of the Kim Jong-un regime in March.
Kim Sung-woo, the chief presidential secretary for public affairs to South Korean President Park Geun-hye, warned on Thursday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is preparing a campaign of terror against the South, as tensions between the two countries over the North’s nuclear weapons program increase.
North Korea sent a patrol boat into sovereign South Korean waters just days after violating international sanctions by shooting a long-range rocket into space, allegedly to install a new satellite into orbit. South Korea’s navy forced the patrol boat to retreat, firing multiple warning shots in its direction.
“Clearly there is more that they can do,” a source described as “a senior official of the U.S. State Department” by Reuters says of China’s role in curbing North Korean belligerence, particularly following the rogue nation’s claim it had detonated a hydrogen bomb.
The weekend’s crisis on the Korean peninsula ultimately ended with North Korea expressing “regret” over the severe injury of two South Korean soldiers by land mines in the DMZ, while South Korea agreed to turn off the propaganda loudspeakers that had infuriated the North and led to declarations that it was preparing for all-out war.
Last week, South Korea blamed the North for land mine explosions that maimed two South Korean soldiers and resumed propaganda broadcasts for the first time in 11 years in retaliation. North Korea has denied the accusations and threatened to launch strikes on South Korean loudspeakers.
The government of Seoul is promising “pitiless penalty” and “a severe retaliation” against North Korea for the serious injury of two South Korean soldiers at the hands of what appear to be North Korean landmines, which the South Korean government believes were planted by North Koreans infiltrating the other side of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Seoul, the bustling capital of South Korea, is now reportedly a “ghost town” due to the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak. The disease killed over 10 people and sickened 126 others.
Contents: South Korea fears that MERS virus will break out into general population; Iran demands a nuclear agreement ‘snapback’ provision of its own
Islamic militants fired upon the South Korean embassy in Tripoli, Libya on Sunday, resulting in the death of two base guards, South Korean and Libyan officials have confirmed. In a separate attack on early Monday morning, ISIS-linked jihadis bombed Morocco’s Embassy in Tripoli.
The government of North Korea has once again threatened to attack a proposed United Nations field office planned to be built in Seoul and specialize in monitoring human rights abuses perpetrated by the Kim Jong Un regime.
The North Korean government wasted no time celebrating the act of terrorist Kim Ki Jong, who assaulted U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert in Seoul yesterday with what is being described as a “fruit knife.” North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency declared the attack “just punishment for U.S. warmongers.”
