North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs railed against United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gutérres on Thursday for issuing a mild statement calling Pyongyang cutting off communications with South Korea regrettable, suggesting that Gutérres was pretending to be “drunk.”
Roughly 40 South Korean riot police officers “rushed” to an island village on the inter-Korean border to quell “shouting and shoving matches” that erupted after South Korean villagers tried to block activists from sending care packages to North Korea via plastic bottles released into the sea, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday.
North Korea announced on Tuesday that it would “completely cut off” a phone line established with the South in 2018, meant to maintain regular communication across their border, in response to “the disgusting riff-raff” of the South sending humanitarian aid and information.
South Korea’s daily call to its jointly-run liaison office in North Korea went unanswered for the first time on Monday since its inception two years ago amid reports of a build-up in tensions between the two countries over the use of cross-border propaganda.
North Korea’s ruling party issued a statement Thursday condemning U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for issuing statements in defense of the human rights of people in China and expressed support for China’s ongoing crackdown on human rights in Hong Kong.
Roughly 440,000 South Korean students returned to school on Wednesday after coronavirus lockdowns delayed the start of the academic year by over two months, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
South Korea battles a new cluster of coronavirus cases spreading from the nightclubs of Itaewon, a district popular with the gay community.
South Korea experienced a considerable uptick in cases of the Chinese coronavirus this weekend linked to the re-opening of the nightclub district in the capital of Seoul, with many of the affected establishments catering to members of the LGBT community.
ROME (AP) – South Korea’s capital closed down more than 2,100 bars and other nightspots Saturday because of a new cluster of coronavirus infections, Germany scrambled to contain fresh outbreaks at slaughterhouses, and Italian authorities worried that people were getting too friendly at cocktail hour during the country’s first weekend of eased restrictions.
The North Korean propaganda website Meari published an article condemning South Korea’s free press for unspecified “fake news” on Tuesday following weeks of speculation over the health of communist dictator Kim Jong-un.
The government of South Korea announced plans on Monday to reopen schools next week, citing a diminished threat from the Chinese coronavirus.
North Korean troops fired several gunshots at a South Korean guard post inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday, prompting the South Korean soldiers to fire a volley of warning shots in response and broadcast a warning against further aggression. The North Korean regime did not respond to South Korea’s request for an explanation of the incident.
Two North Korean refugees elected to South Korea’s National Assembly last month issued extensive apologies for speculating that dictator Kim Jong-un was dead or suffering from a significant medical episode after North Korean state media published photos and video footage allegedly of Kim at a fertilizer plant.
Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean refugee elected to South Korea’s National Assembly in April, told the Yonhap news service on Friday he believes there is a “99 percent” chance dictator Kim Jong-un is dead.
South Korea successfully held in-person elections this month without finding evidence for a single coronavirus transmission at an election station, South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) announced this week, the Epoch Times reported on Thursday.
Newly-elected South Korean lawmaker Ji Seong-ho – who became a human rights activist there after enduring extreme brutality in his home state of North Korea – told Radio Free Asia (RFA) in an interview published Tuesday that he believed his native country would soon be reunited with his adoptive one.
Speculation about the status of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was further fueled on Wednesday by the publication of satellite photos that showed luxury boats flitting around Kim’s coastal villa, where his personal train has been parked for days.
North Korea will extend its coronavirus quarantine measures through the end of 2020, an anonymous North Korean senior official told Radio Free Asia (RFA) on Tuesday.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Trump said, asking Coronavirus Task Force Dr. Deborah Birx to clarify the numbers.
South Korea’s Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul – the official in charge of ties to North Korea – dismissed reports of communist dictator Kim Jong-un’s health failing him on Tuesday as “fake news” and insisted there is “no unusual” activity in the country.
North Korean state media outfits claimed on Monday that dictator Kim Jong-un, whose health has become the subject of animated rumors this weekend, had sent a message of thanks to construction workers in Wonsan, a seaside town he has been attempting to turn into a resort destination for years.
South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said on Friday that North Korea is stepping up readiness activities for its air and artillery units, for no apparent reason.
A Chinese source “familiar with North Korean affairs” told Korea Joongang Daily (KJD) on Sunday that dictator Kim Jong-un is not dead, but has gone into seclusion because at least one of his bodyguards tested positive for the coronavirus.
Ever since the 1948 founding of North Korea by Kim Il-sung, three things have been a certainty: regime brutality, the establishment of the Kim family’s rule, and the smooth transition of power from one generation to the next.
South Korean officials on Friday unveiled a program for “everyday life quarantine” that is essentially a two-year roadmap back to normalcy after the coronavirus pandemic.
Reports out of South Korea continued to deny on Wednesday and Thursday local time that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un’s life is in danger. The rebuttals are designed to counter American media reports that Kim could be on his deathbed or even “brain dead.”
South Korean officials told the nation’s Yonhap news agency on Tuesday that a CNN report claiming North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was “in grave danger” were “not true” and that “nothing unusual” appeared to be happening in the communist country.
South Korea has responded to claims that Kim Jong-un is in “grave condition”, stating they have not observed unusual activity in the North.
Ji Seong-ho, a North Korean exile who attended Trump’s 2018 State of the Union Address, won a seat in South Korea’s National Assembly.
South Korea’s ruling left-wing Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is projected to win a majority of parliament seats in Wednesday’s general election, held amidst the country’s ongoing efforts to contain the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus.
A report published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this week denounced China’s official coronavirus statistics as mathematically improbable and estimated the true number of infections from the epidemic in China was about 2.9 million, over a hundred times the total of 81,907 infections claimed by Beijing as of Friday.
South Korea’s National Election Commission (NEC) is in talks with the government to temporarily lift two-week quarantine rules for a few hours on April 15 to allow people in self-isolation for coronavirus to vote.
South Korea reported 47 new cases of the Chinese coronavirus Monday, the fewest daily infections since late February.
A Japanese report claimed that over 100 soldiers in North Korea have died of Chinese coronavirus in the past month, the conservative South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported on Monday.
“There’s no model right now, no reality on the ground, where we can see that 60-70 percent of Americans are going to get infected in the next 10-12 weeks,” Dr. Birx said.
The doctor behind a U.K. college study on the impact of the coronavirus that predicted a doomsday scenario absent any prevention measures and prompted the U.S. government to take action against the deadly disease is now painting a more optimistic picture that is in line with President Donald Trump’s plan to open the American economy by Easter.
Hundreds of South Koreans held in-person church services this weekend, defying government appeals to cancel large gatherings amid fears of a rise in novel coronavirus cluster infections in the country.
New clusters of Chinese coronavirus emerged in Seoul and Daegu this week, sparking fears of a resurgence in cases in South Korea.
Hundreds of Pakistanis are flooding into hospitals in Karachi with flu-like symptoms asking to be tested for Chinese coronavirus, Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported on Wednesday.
A study published last week by the University of Southampton’s WorldPop population mapping group suggested that found China could have prevented 95 percent of the coronavirus infections running wild across the world if the government had listened to the whistleblowing doctors of Wuhan instead of silencing and punishing them for daring to speak out.
