North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met with the head of an Egyptian company that provides mobile phone service in the isolated communist nation, state media reported Monday.   Naguib Sawiris, chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom Holding, has been in North Korea for a visit since Friday. The Cairo-based firm has been providing mobile phone service in the North jointly with a local company since late 20

Russia's chief negotiator for the long-stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program will visit South Korea this week, Seoul's foreign ministry said Sunday, the latest in a flurry of diplomacy aimed at seeking ways to resume the six-party negotiations.Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin will arrive in Seoul on Friday and hold talks with his South Korean counterpart Wi Sung-l

Posing in front of one of his anti-North Korea paintings ― this one depicting Dear Leader Kim Jong-il’s head atop the provocative body of Marilyn Monroe ― North Korean defector Song Byeok believes he is finally free from the communist brainwashing that has eaten into his soul.Song, 42, who escaped North Korea in 2002, had moments ago waved his hand and slipped away in refusal when he was asked to

North Korea’s state-run news agency Saturday belatedly reported the U.S.-China summit held in Washington last week but stopped short of commenting on the results of the discussions.The North’s Korean Central News Agency said Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barack Obama exchanged views on international and regional issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula.“The China-U.

South Korea plans to propose bilateral nuclear talks with North Korea, separately from the upcoming high-level defense talks, to determine whether Pyongyang is serious about giving up its nuclear programs, Seoul's foreign minister said Friday.After a series of calls for unconditional talks, North Korea offered Thursday to hold high-level defense talks with Seoul to discuss its November shelling of

Such is the Korean Peninsula’s global profile that there are overseas experts on all aspects of Korea, from politics to literature, from martial arts to cuisine.In the mountains of the U.S. state of Colorado, one man has carved a particularly arcane niche: Joseph Bermudez, 56, is possibly the world’s top non-Korean expert on the North Korean People’s Army, or KPA, which ranks as the world’s fifth

BEIJING (AFP) ― China has denied it is in discussions with North Korea about stationing Chinese troops over the border in the isolated state, state media reported Monday.“China will not send a single soldier to other countries without the approval of the U.N.,” an official at the Defense Ministry, who refused to be named, was quoted as saying by the official Global Times newspaper.The Chosun Ilbo,

North Korea has drawn up a decade-long development plan and will establish a new government body to implement projects, in a move analysts here said is designed to revive the stalled economy.The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Saturday the North Korean cabinet decided to adopt a “10-Year State Strategy Plan for Economic Development” and to set up a new agency called the State Gen

Japanese Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara said Saturday that North Korea should take concrete stepsdemonstrating its seriousness of purpose and first hold dialoguewith South Korea if six-party nuclear talks are to reopen.Maehara also said that inter-Korean dialogue should be the starting point for any talks with North Korea and urged the communist nation to take specific steps demonstrating its comm

  South Korea has blocked its people in the South from accessing Web sites using North Korea's national Web domain name, saying the sites contain "illegal information" under the nation's anti-communism and security laws, officials said Thursday.    The blockage by the South's state-run Communications Standards Commission came less than a day after an expert said North Korea had renewed the use of