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

A North Korean soldier on Saturday crossed the military demarcation line to defect to South Korea after shooting dead two of his superiors, officials at Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.The soldier crossed the border at around 12:06 p.m. and expressed his intention to defect to a nearby guard post just south of the heavily fortified border. He is the first to defect across the MDL since March 2010.“Our border guard found him running toward our guard post near the border. With a loudspeaker, we

 (Yonhap) -- North Korea renamed a police university after late leader Kim Jong-il under the direction of his son and current leader Kim Jong-un, state media said Saturday, the first such case since the late leader died in December last year.   The People's Security University was renamed "Kim Jong Il People's Security University," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency. The

North Korea last week test-fired one short-range missile off its west coast a day after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak presided over a meeting of security ministers, a government source said Thursday. North Korea fired a surface-to-ship missile into the Yellow Sea on Sept. 27 and the launch could be related to the security ministers' meeting, the source said on the condition of anonymity. "T

North Korea’s exports of mineral resources recorded a 33-fold jump over the past decade with China remaining the biggest importer of the North’s iron ore and coal, a report showed.North Korea’s mineral exports stood at a meager $50 million in 2001, accounting for 7.8 percent of its total exports, according to the report by Seoul’s Korea Trade and Investment Promotion Agency.The mineral exports soared to $243 million in 2005 and $1.65 billion in 2011, accounting for 59.4 percent of the North’s to

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The United States government is still waiting for assurance from North Korea that it is serious about denuclearization, an official said Tuesday.“We are urging restraint, we are calling for the DPRK (North Korea) to take steps to reassure the international community that it is serious about working with us on the denuclearization agenda,” Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department, said at a press briefing.She was responding to North Korea’s renewed threats

North Korea’s population of citizens aged 60 or over will double in the next 40 years, a U.N. agency forecast in a new report released Wednesday.The number in the age group will rise by almost two fold from 3.321 million people this year to 6.128 million in 2050, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) estimated in the report, “Ageing in the Twenty-First Century.”The report expected that the rise will push up the share of aged citizens in the country’s entire population from 13.5 percent to 2

The United States government is still waiting for an assurance from North Korea that it is serious about denuclearization, an official said Tuesday."We are urging restraint, we are calling for the DPRK (North Korea) to take steps to reassure the international community that it is serious about working with us on the denuclearization agenda," Victoria Nuland, spokeswoman for the State Department, s