A think tank says North Korean and American delegations have held informal talks in Germany _ talks that come amid tensions over Pyongyang's plans for a long-range rocket launch.Charles King Mallory, the executive director of the Aspen Institute think tank in Berlin, said Sunday that the informal so-called ``track 2'' dialogue took place over the weekend.He wouldn't comment on the contents of the

The South Korean government will take countermeasures in cooperation with the international community should North Korea go ahead with its plan to launch a rocket, Seoul’s Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said Saturday.Yu, an advocate of “flexible” policies on North Korea in the Lee Myung-bak administration oft-described as “hardline,” likened the North Korean regime to a “car running down a slope with its wheels and brakes broken” in an interview with Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.“We are at the s

North Korea ratcheted up its rhetoric against President Lee Myung-bak Saturday, in an apparent bid to impact the April 11 general election.The Lee government has been seen as tough on North Korea over military provocation and food aid issues.“The South Korean people will have to sternly punish Lee Myung-bak and his groups who are behind all the misfortunes and disasters,” the North’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland was quoted by the Korea Central News Agency as saying.

After a series of party meetings countrywide, North Korea has elected new leader Kim Jong-un as a delegate to this month’s ruling party conference, the North’s state media said Sunday, in a move seen by outside analysts as another effort to consolidate Kim’s grip on power.The North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea plans to hold a special session on April 13 and is expected to appoint the young Kim, believed to be in his late 20s, to the post of general secretary of the party. The same post was h

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) -- The sprawling site, which buzzes in the shadow of a giant bronze statue of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, looks at first like a high-security military installation.   Scores of soldiers march through a zone sealed off by green mesh fencing and checkpoi

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States is talking with its allies and others about what to do if North Korea launches a long-range rocket in mid-April in defiance of repeated warnings, an official said Friday.   Mark Toner, deputy spokesman for the State Department, said it is a matter o

North Korea on Friday reiterated its commitment to launch a long-range rocket next month in the latest public rejection of international pressure.   The North has claimed that the launch set between April 12 and 16 is designed to put an earth observation satellite into orbit.   S

A U.S. House committee passed a bill Wednesday calling for bipartisan efforts to address North Korea‘s human rights violations and bring a wave of openness to the communist society.Less than five minutes after the beginning of a mark-up session, the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously approved the legislation on extending until 2017 the authority of the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2014 and passed it on to the entire House.The existing act, last reauthorized in 2008, is meant to put

Debris from a rocket launch planned by North Korea next month could cause casualties, a senior U.S. military official said Wednesday.　 Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia-Pacific Security Affairs Peter Lavoy said North Korea has indicated the rocket will be launched southward, but the U.S. lacks confidence about the rocket’s stability and where the impact will be.　 He said it is probably intended to land somewhere close to the Philippines or maybe Indonesia. He said South Korea and th

North Korea has begun fuelling a rocket for a launch that the West considers a missile test, a Japanese newspaper reported Thursday, citing a source "close to the government" in Pyongyang."The launch is coming closer. The possibility is high that the launch date will be set for April 12 or 13," the

‘It is an outrageous double standard that they ignored other serious human rights issues and mentioned our human rights.’North Korea on Wednesday strongly denounced Japan, which jointly proposed with the EU a resolution at the U.N. Human Rights Council that condemned Pyongyang’s human rights violations.The UNHRC unanimously adopted the resolution without a vote on Thursday last week, which included condemnation on the North’s abduction of Japanese nationals. “Japan’s scheme to raise our human ri