North Korea has asked UNESCO to designate its southern border city of Gaeseong as a World Heritage Site, according to the U.N. body in charge of heritage.The North’s move was made public a day after the World Heritage Committee opened its 36th session in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The session is to last until July 6. The committee has a final say on whether a property is inscribed on the World Heritage List.Last year, North Korea proposed historic monuments and sites in Gaeseong for inscription o

North Korea has executed four of 44 defectors who were recently repatriated to their home country from China, a civic activist said Monday.Citing informed sources, Kim Heung-kwang, chief of North Korean Intellectual Solidarity, said the rest have been sent to political prisons. He was speaking at a seminar hosted by the online publication The Interview for discussing steps needed for the legislation of the North Korean human rights law.“According to information from North Korea, four of the 44 d

North Korea has publicly executed four citizens who were recently repatriated from China after being caught by the Chinese authorities, a North Korean defector in South Korea claimed Monday.   The four were among a group of 44 North Koreans who fled to China to avoid political oppression and chronic food shortages in the North, according to Kim Heung-kwang, the head of NK Intellectuals Solidarity,

BANGKOK (AFP) -- Police arrested 19 North Korean refugees in northern Thailand on Friday who asked to be sent to a "third country", most likely South Korea, officials said, and charged them with illegal entry.The 11 women and eight men were taken into custody on a bank of the Mekong river in Chiang Rai province, some 780 kilometers (490 miles) north of Bangkok, after they disembarked from a boat,

WASHINGTON (Yonhap News) ― The U.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday (local time) that includes a ban on giving North Korea food assistance without a presidential waiver.The five-year farm bill cuts agriculture subsidies and includes wording that prohibits North Korea from receiving food aid unless the president issues a national interest waiver. Under the amendment, which needs final approval from the Republican-led House, North Korea is only eligible for Food for Peace Act donations if the presid

The U.S. Senate passed a bill Thursday (local time) that includes a ban on giving North Korea food assistance without a presidential waiver.The five-year farm bill cuts agriculture subsidies and includes wording that prohibits North Korea from receiving food aid unless the president issues a national interest waiver.Under the amendment, which needs final approval from the Republican-led House, Nor

North Korea remains on an annual U.S. list of the nations that could face sanctions for making little effort to combat human trafficking for a 10th consecutive year, according to the State Department's report Wednesday. In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State Department ranked North Korea once again in "Tier 3" for countries with the poorest record of fighting human trafficking. A t

Human rights groups claim up to 200,000 North Koreans are held in political prison camps and penitentiaries across the country facing malnutrition, harsh labor, torture and executions.Most prisoners were confined not for dissent but for political misdemeanors such as singing South Korean songs or joining a reading club, former detainees and activists say. According to Amnesty International, 150,000 to 200,000 are incarcerated in six sprawling gulag-style prisons ― Camp No. 12 in Hoeryeong, No. 1

A severe dry spell in North Korea is expected to exacerbate chronic food shortages in the poverty-stricken nation where the U.N.'s food agency says 3 million people are in urgent need of food aid, a South Korean expert said Wednesday.  The amount of cereal crops harvested in the June-July season is forecast to sharply drop due to the unusually long drought, said Kwon Tae-jin, a senior researcher a

Calls North Korean  threat ‘unusual and  extraordinary’U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday extended economic sanctions against North Korea for another year citing North Korea’s “unusual and extraordinary threat.”Tensions on the peninsula have been high in recent months, following repeated threats by Pyongyang against Seoul and the North’s failed long-range rocket launch in April, prompting the U.N. Security Council to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang. In a statement to Congress, Obama said the e

U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday extended economic sanctions against North Korea for another year amid lingering tension over the North's nuclear and missile programs.In a statement to Congress, Obama said the extension is aimed at dealing with North Korea's "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by the existence and risk