Hunger situation in North Korea this year worsened from the 1990s despite considerable amount of international aid to the communist nation, a Washington-based food institute showed Saturday.The 2012 Global Hunger Index (GHI) published by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said hunger remains a serious problem worldwide, with alarming levels in some countries.North Korea's hun

The North Korean soldier who crossed the heavily armed border to defect to South Korea last week has stated that he ran away for fear of retaliation after assaulting his superior, a South Korean lawmaker said Friday.Jo Seong-jik, commander of the front-line unit where the defector first showed up after crossing the border on Oct. 2, quoted the soldier as saying that, Rep. Kim Jin-pyo of the main o

A top North Korean military official appeared in public wearing the insignia of the four-star rank, spurring speculation that he might have been demoted from the vice marshal rank awarded to him only a few months ago.The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Wednesday carried a front-page photo showing Hyon Yong-chol, chief of the North Korean military’s general staff, wearing a uniform bearing four stars on the epaulets while saluting next to leader Kim Jong-un.They were on a visit to Pyongya

Nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan will hold trilateral talks in Tokyo next week to discuss North Korean nuclear issues, a Seoul official said Thursday. Lim Sung-nam, Seoul’s chief envoy to the six-party talks on ending the North’s nuclear weapons program, will hold talks with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts, Glyn Davies and Shinsuke Sugiyama, next Wednesday, the foreign ministry official said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the nuclear e

The stalled tour to the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang has incurred losses of more than 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion) to South Korean companies and government for the past four years, a lawmaker said Thursday.According to Rep. Jun Byung-hun of the opposition Democratic United Party, Hyundai Asan Corp., the former operator of the tour, other related firms and a local government have suffered a combined2.3 trillion won in losses since the tour program was suspended in July 2008 and North Kor

Mitt Romney, the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, supports the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program but he wants Pyongyang to stop misusing the often-troubled negotiations, a senior foreign policy adviser to the former Massachusetts governor said Wednesday."Well, his (Romney's) concern is not to let the North Korean nuclear program proceed," Dov S. Zakheim, special adviser on fo

The U.S. government issued a terse response Tuesday to North Korea’s warning that its missile can reach the U.S. mainland, saying Pyongyang should first take care of its people in need.“Well, certainly, rather than bragging about its missile capability, they ought to be feeding their own people, would be our first comment,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said at a press briefing.The communist nation “needs to understand that it will achieve nothing by threats or provocations,” she

North Korea warned on Tuesday that the U.S. mainland, as well as South Korea, Japan and Guam, are within its striking range in its first response to the recent Seoul-Washington agreement on the South’s ballistic missile range extension.In a statement, a spokesperson for the North’s National Defense Commission called the deal an attempt “to light the fuse of a war by a northbound invasion.”“Our revolutionary, strong military including the strategic rocket force accurately puts within striking ran

North Korea said Tuesday it possessed "strategic rocket forces" capable of striking the U.S. mainland, as it responded to a new U.S.-South Korean deal to extend the range of the South's missile systems.In a series of bulletins released on the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the spokesman of the National Defense Commission also said Pyongyang was ready to match any enemy, "nuclear for n

South Korea should not be swayed by demands from North Korea in its policies dealing with the communist neighbor, the unification minister said Monday, underlining the principle of denuclearization and prevention of any provocations by Pyongyang."I think that (the government) should not pursue policies that unilaterally accept demands by the North," Yu Woo-ik told a parliamentary inspection. "We h

North Korea saw its trading volume with China surge at a far higher rate than those with other trading partners last year, a parliamentary report showed Monday, indicating the communist country's rising dependency on China.Trading volume between the North and China reached US$3.54 billion in the first seven months of this year, growing 14.5 percent from the corresponding figure for the same period

 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's trade with China nearly tripled over the past five years, South Korean government data showed Sunday, underscoring the isolated North's growing economic reliance on its major ally.Trade between North Korea and China stood at US$5.63 billion last year, up 284 percent from $1.98 billion in 2007, Seoul's unification ministry said in a report to the National Assembly.North K

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called on the country’s security agency to display unshakable loyalty to the country’s sovereignty protection efforts, the state news media said Sunday. “The Ministry of State Security has a very important duty to perform to protect the sovereignty of the country and the nation,” Kim said during his visit to the security agency to pay tribute to a newly-erected statue of his father, late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA