South Korea, China and Japan will likely announce an agreement to start negotiations on a trilateral free trade agreement this year when their leaders hold summit talks on Sunday, Seoul’s trade chief said on Tuesday.Meeting with business editors of print and electronic media in Seoul, Trade Minister Bark Tae-ho said, “Our side agreed on the proposal.”To finalize the agreement and discuss other issues, trade ministers from the three Northeast Asian countries are scheduled to hold talks in Beijing

The flight of North Korea’s long-range rocket that failed on April 13 may have been terminated intentionally by the command center, a U.S. rocket expert said.According to David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, the reason for the failure is unclear from the information provided by South Korean and U.S. authorities and that its flight could have been aborted by the command center shutting down the engines after mechanical failures developed.

South Korea, the U.S. and China are stepping up their diplomatic efforts this week to prevent North Korea from proceeding with a third nuclear test.Satellite images of the North’s test site in the northeastern town of Punggye showed work under way last week. A Korean expert told reporters on Wednesday that Pyongyang appears to have finished its preparations.The U.S. government said Thursday it has not detected any clear signs of an imminent atomic test “other than the rumors.” Seoul and Beijing

The U.S. government indicated Thursday that it has not detected any clear signs that North Korea's nuclear test is around the corner."Nothing to point to, I mean, other than the rumors that we've heard in the press and elsewhere," Mark Toner, deputy spokesman for the State Department said at a press briefing.He was responding to media reports that Pyongyang seems to be all set for a third nuclear

The UN Security Council on Wednesday put three top North Korean state firms on a sanctions black list over the country's failed rocket launch.But the assets freeze against three enterprises said to have financed and organized the North's missile and nuclear programs could soon be followed by a new UN sanctions battle if the North carries out a feared nuclear bomb test.The United States, European U

Electronic jamming signals from North Korea have affected scores of civilian flights in and out of South Korea, a Seoul official said Wednesday.“We’ve confirmed the GPS (global positioning system) jamming signals have been stemming from the North,” Lee Kyung-Woo, a deputy director at the state Korea Communications Commission, told AFP.The transport ministry, in a statement and in comments to AFP, said the jamming had affected 252 flights since last Saturday but did not identify who was responsib