North Korea could try to improve its currently chilled relations with South Korea next year so as to strengthen its leverage in future nuclear negotiations with the United States, a state-run think tank said Tuesday. The Seoul-based Korea Institute for National Unification also said that the May-September period will be a "golden time" to make progress in stalled nuclear talks and inter-Korean ties as the Tokyo Summer Olympics could serve as a platform for resuming talks. The North i

A proposal by the incoming US administration of President-elect Joe Biden to hold working-level talks with North Korea can be a "good starting point" to resume the long-stalled nuclear negotiations, a former US intelligence official said Tuesday. Andrew Kim, who retired as the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency's Korea Mission Center in 2018, made the remark during a webinar on the South Korea-US alliance, saying the North appears to be waiting to see what the Biden camp will sa

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un condemned the country’s economic agencies for failing to carry out policies on a “scientific basis,” in a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that he chaired, the North’s state media said Monday.   　 The extended Politburo meeting held Sunday “harshly criticized economic guidance organs for failing to provide scientific guidance” and “failing to overcome subjectivism and formalism in their work,&rdq

The unification ministry said Monday that it is in talks with the World Food Programme (WFP) to redeem the money it sent for a project to provide rice assistance to North Korea after Pyongyang rejected the offer. In June last year, the ministry announced a plan to provide 50,000 tons of rice to North Korea through the WFP and sent the organization around $11.6 million to cover transportation, equipment and monitoring costs. The plan, however, has since been stalled as the North rejected the as

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has held a politburo meeting of the Workers' Party and "harshly criticized" economic agencies for failing to handle policy in a scientific manner, state media reported Monday. The criticism appears aimed at tightening discipline of economic officials ahead of a rare party congress that Kim plans to hold in early January for the first time in four years to unveil a new five-year economic development plan. During the extended politburo meeting held Sunda

North Korea said Sunday it was reinforcing border lockdown to prevent the coronavirus pandemic from spreading into its territory. The regime still claims zero COVID-19 cases. “Every effort is made to keep strong border closures and to ensure everyone stick to antivirus measures and report anything out of ordinary,” the official Korean Central News Agency, said adding it was enforcing tighter controls over the inter-Korean border. Earlier this month, a North Korean man, now in Seoul

North Korea has stepped up virus control measures along the inter-Korean border and at sea, state media said Sunday. The communist country is "firmly establishing a blockade wall in the areas near the border and the Military Demarcation Line and asking workers and residents to keep established system of action and immediately gain control of and respond to even the slightest abnormal situations," the Korean Central News Agency reported. The Korean Central Broadcasting Station also re

North Korea's main newspaper on Saturday reported on military efforts to strengthen the monitoring of coastal areas and the responsibility of front-line health care workers in a stepped-up campaign against the new coronavirus. The Rodong Sinmun published articles highlighting the importance of maintaining a strong push to prevent COVID-19 transmissions, as the virus continues to resurge around the world, including in South Korea. "Surveillance posts deployed along the coastal areas are s

North Korea’s trade with China shrank by over 70 percent this year, with the North shutting down borders with its main trade partner in January in hopes to fend off COVID-19. North Korea’s trade with Russia, on the other hand, gained 15 percent. North Korea’s trade volume with China stood at $530 million in the first nine months of this year, down 73 percent from the same period last year, according to a quarterly report on the two countries’ trade released by the Kore

North Korea has recently ordered its overseas missions not to antagonize the United States amid an ongoing power transition in Washington following the presidential election win by Joe Biden, according to Seoul lawmakers Friday. The Kim Jong-un regime also executed a big shot in the Pyongyang money change market in late October for a sudden exchange rate fluctuation and an official in August for bringing in prohibited goods amid toughened border customs control due to the new coronavirus pandem

North Korea appears to be enforcing home classes for elementary school students as a way to avoid classroom gatherings amid nationwide anti-coronavirus efforts, according to state media reports. Uriminzokkiri, one of the North's propaganda websites, said that elementary school teachers in Pyongyang are visiting homes of their students every three days for education as vacation continues. "With the vacation for kids in place, such a new schedule has been started," the website said. &q

Unification Minister Lee In-young said Thursday that South Korea should provide food and fertilizer aid to North Korea next spring at the latest to help the impoverished nation address chronic food shortages. "There are warnings that the coronavirus is crippling production and supply chains for crops, and climate change is making things worse, which will likely cause extreme famine and difficulty in securing food," Lee said at an international forum in Seoul to discuss ways to realize

Unification Minister Lee In-young tried to convey his "sincerity" about inter-Korean cooperation when he called for sharing coronavirus vaccines with North Korea, an official said Thursday, following criticism the appeal was inappropriate as South Korea has yet to secure enough vaccines. Last week, Lee said that the South should share coronavirus vaccines with the North even if the country runs short of its own supplies. The remark came under fire from conservatives as it came at a ti

North Korea faces a serious humanitarian crisis due to shortages of food, clean water and medical services aggravated by poor governance and repressive internal political measures, a Swiss international nongovernmental organization has said. According to the annual "Inform Severity Index" report compiled by the Geneva-based Assessment Capacities Project (ACAPS), North Korea faces a "very high" level of humanitarian crisis severity. This represented the highest level of a s

South Korea decided Wednesday to mass produce a new type of tactical ground-based missiles designed to destroy underground artillery bases in North Korea, officials said. During the defense project promotion committee presided over by Defense Minister Suh Wook, the government approved the plan to produce more than 200 units of the Korean Tactical Surface to Surface Missile (KTSSM) by 2025, according to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA). Under the 450 billion won ($406.14 m