North Korea's top agriculture official has embarked on a trip to Russia, Pyongyang's state media said Sunday, amid chronic food shortages in the North. A state agriculture commission delegation led by chairman Ri Chol-man, who doubles as a cabinet vice premier, left for Russia by plane Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency. In a Facebook post, the Russian Embassy in Pyongyang said Ri is scheduled to hold talks with Russia's Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev and

South Korea's envoy for North Korean human rights visited Argentina and Mexico for discussions on improving the rights situation in Pyongyang, the foreign ministry said Friday. Ambassador Lee Shin-wha met government officials, experts and activists from nongovernmental organizations during her four-day trip to the Latin American countries, according to the ministry. In Buenos Aires, she called for the international community's support and attention to the North's human rights viol

The vice foreign ministers of North Korea and Belarus, both key allies to Russia, agreed Thursday to strengthen high-level contacts and cooperation across various sectors, encompassing the economy and cultures, as well as on global affairs, North Korean state media reported on Friday. The bilateral talks in Pyongyang between North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Im Chon-il and his Belarusian counterpart took place amid closer alignment with Russia and their provision of support in its war against U

North Korea on Friday denounced the recent visit to South Korea and Japan by the top US envoy to the United Nations, calling it an "aid-begging" trip to invigorate the "weakened illegal" sanctions against Pyongyang. Late last month, the UN Security Council failed to extend the mandate of the panel of experts monitoring the enforcement of sanctions against the North's nuclear and missile programs due to Russia's veto. The operation of the panel is set to expire on Ap

North Korea recently removed streetlights and other facilities along roads connecting to the South, according to South Korean military authorities on Thursday. The South Korean military said its surveillance caught North Korea taking down streetlights lining the roads leading from the South to the Kaesong industrial park, a now-defunct inter-Korean manufacturing complex launched as a part of Seoul’s past pro-rapprochement policy, and to Kumgangsan, the mountain that is one of the North&r

South Korea's National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo stressed the need Wednesday to beef up joint deterrence efforts by Seoul and Washington to address evolving North Korean military capabilities, which he said pose a "direct" threat to the continental United States. Kim made the remarks during a forum hosted by the Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University, urging Pyongyang to cease its nuclear threats and return to the "path of denuclearization." &quo

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has attended a ceremony marking the completion of building another 10,000 new homes in Pyongyang, state media said Wednesday. Kim attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday for the completion of new apartments in the Hwasong district of Pyongyang as part of a housing project to build a combined 50,000 new homes in the capital by 2025, the Korean Central News Agency said. Kim called for workers to attain the remaining goals for the five-year project to "turn

Senior US officials discussed with Beijing officials a range of regional and global issues, including North Korea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea during their visit to China this week, the State Department said Monday. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and National Security Council Senior Director for China and Taiwan Affairs Sarah Beran met with Executive Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu and Yang Tao, director general of the North Ameri

North Korea has the capability to genetically engineer biological military products, an annual US report showed Monday, noting Pyongyang has a "dedicated, national-level offensive" biological weapons program. The State Department issued the report, titled "Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments." It was prepared in consultation with the Department of Defense, Department of Energy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff

Diplomats from South Korea and the United States held a new session of their bilateral dialogue on North Korean human rights in Washington on Monday, as the two sides see a close link between Pyongyang's weapons programs and its rights conditions. Chun Young-hee, director general for the Korean Peninsula peace regime at Seoul's foreign ministry, and Julie Turner, the US special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, led the second session of the dialogue that was relaunched in Nov

North Korean state media referred to the birthday of North Korean late founder Kim Il-sung as the Day of the Sun on Monday after stopping using the term in recent weeks while calling it "the April holiday." Kim's birthday, April 15, has been revered as the Day of the Sun in North Korea and celebrated as one of the secretive country's most important national holidays, along with the birthday of his late son and successor Kim Jong-il in February. The North's founder died

North Korea has been intensifying high-level diplomatic exchanges with China and Russia, as evidenced by the visit of China's third-highest-ranking official to Pyongyang and the dispatch of ministers to Russia this week. China's No. 3 official, Zhao Leji, who arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday for a three-day visit to the neighboring country, met for a luncheon with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday, North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported on Sunday. Th

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with China's top legislator, Zhao Leji, in Pyongyang and discussed ways to further deepen bilateral ties, the North's state media said Sunday. During the luncheon meeting held Saturday, Kim said Zhao's visit to Pyongyang is "of very weighty significance in demonstrating the invincibility of the DPRK-China friendship and further developing the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries as required by the times,&

China's top legislator Zhao Leji met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang on Saturday as they move to further strengthen bilateral ties, according to foreign news media. Zhao is the first high-ranking Chinese official to visit the North since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. In his meeting with the No. 3 official in the Chinese Communist Party, Kim said Pyongyang is "unwaveringly" committed to cementing and further developing its cooperative ties with B

High-ranking officials from North Korea and China attended the opening ceremony of the "year of DPRK-China friendship" in Pyongyang to bolster their ongoing relations, Pyongyang's state media said Saturday. Choe Ryong-hae, chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, and Zhao Leji, chairman of the National People's Congress of China, attended the ceremony at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre on Friday to mark the 75th anniversary of the