HANOI/BEIJING (Yonhap) -- North Korea's point man on the United States landed in the Vietnamese capital on Wednesday for talks on the agenda of a summit between the two sides next week.Kim Hyok-chol, special representative for US affairs of the State Affairs Commission, arrived in Hanoi at around 6:20 p.m. on a plane from Beijing. North Korean working-level delegates arrive at a Vietnamese government guesthouse in Hanoi on Wednesday. YonhapHe walked out of the Hanoi international airport along w

North Korea’s cyber operations against South Korea are increasingly carried out for financial gain, whereas its espionage attacks have become more subtle and sophisticated, a report said Wednesday.“The Evolution of North Korean Cyber Threats” by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies said the North’s illegal cyber activities had shifted toward theft in the past decade. (Yonhap)Describing the trends from 2009 to 2018, the report said Pyongyang had focused on Distributed Denial of Services attacks

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had no strict timeline for North Korea’s ultimate denuclearization as negotiators from the two countries head to Vietnam for last-minute talks ahead of a second summit next week. “I’m in no rush. There’s no testing. As long as there is no testing, I’m in no rush,” Trump told reporters at the White House after a phone conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In this June 12, 2018, file photo, US President Donald Trump, right, meets wi

North Korea leader Kim Jong-un is expected to travel to Vietnam by train for his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, slated for next week, a news report said Wednesday.(Yonhap)Kim is expected to leave Pyongyang later this week for his planned arrival in the Southeast Asian nation on Monday, as it could take him at least two and a half days to travel through China, Reuters reported, citing sources with direct knowledge of security and logistics planning.Trump and Kim are set to hold t

North Korean hackers ranked second in cyberattack capabilities in terms of the speed in breaking into targeted networks, a report by a US cybersecurity firm said Wednesday.According to the Global Threat Report by CrowdStrike, North Korea was second in “breakout time” at 2 hours and 20 minutes, coming behind Russia, which recorded 18 minutes and 47 seconds. (123rf)Breakout time refers to the window of time from when the attacker first compromises the endpoint machine -- any device that has the ca

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un could visit China next month after his second summit with US President Donald Trump, a source said Wednesday. A week after the first summit with Trump, in June last year, Kim visited Beijing to brief Chinese President Xi Jinping on the results of the talks with Trump in Singapore. Kim also visited China in May before the first summit.The same pattern could repeat this time, the source said. Kim visited Beijing last month and could travel to the neighboring ally ag

The US special envoy for North Korea is traveling to Hanoi on Tuesday to prepare for next week's summit between the two countries' leaders, the State Department said.Special Representative Stephen Biegun is en route to the Vietnamese capital, the host of the second meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un planned for Feb. 27 and 28, the department's deputy spokesperson, Robert Palladino, said. (Yonhap)"He'll be continuing the United States' preparations for t

Moon says Seoul could take burden of 'corresponding measures'

South and North Korea appear to have struggled to move forward their 2018 military accord aimed at reducing tensions and building trust amid a lack of progress in denuclearization and a focus on a second summit between Washington and Pyongyang, observers said Tuesday.Since the beginning of this year, the two Koreas have held few talks over the implementation of the accord, in stark contrast to fast progress in the first three months after their defense chiefs signed it in September.Pyongyang has

North Korea's envoy for the United States arrived in Beijing on Tuesday apparently on his way to Hanoi for talks on the agenda of an upcoming summit between leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.Kim Hyok-chol, special representative for US affairs of the State Affairs Commission, is expected to visit the Vietnamese capital to meet with his American counterpart, Stephen Biegun, to nail down the details of what will be discussed in the second meeting between Trump and Kim in Hanoi on Fe

The United States and North Korea are seriously considering an exchange of liaison officers, CNN reported Monday, as the leaders of the two nations prepare for a second summit next week in Vietnam.The first step forward in establishing new US-North Korea ties could be the exchange of officers, the US broadcaster said, citing two high-level diplomatic sources.Establishing new bilateral relations was one of the commitments made by US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at th

The suspended tourism program to North Korea's Mount Kumgang will likely be the first to be resumed in a post-sanctions era, President Moon Jae-in said Monday, while also asking the country's Buddhist leaders to consider resuming an exchange program with their North Korean peers.In a meeting with the country's top religious leaders, the president said the resumption of a temple stay program at a North Korean Buddhist temple in Mount Kumgang may help restart the people's exchange with the North.

North Korea is facing a "historic turning point," the country's main newspaper said Monday, in an apparent reference to next week's summit between leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.The Rodong Sinmun made the comment as it called for greater economic development efforts."Our country is facing a historic turning point," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North's ruling party, said in a commentary. "It is time for us to tighten our shoe strings and run fast, looking for a higher tar

An American expert called for a different yardstick to measure the success of next week's summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, insisting that the US policy objective is not denuclearization but peace on the Korean Peninsula.The argument from Daniel DePetris, a fellow at the Defense Priorities think tank, appears in part to be aimed at shielding Trump from possible criticism he could face if the Feb. 27-28 summit in Vietnam's Hanoi doesn't yield concrete r

A North Korean propaganda website claimed Sunday that Pyongyang-Washington ties could experience "a major breakthrough," with the second summit between the two countries fast approaching.(Yonhap)Meari touched upon progress that the two Koreas have made over the past year or so and added, "There's no reason North Korea-US relations can't have a major breakthrough, as we have seen in inter-Korean relations."The site also said North Korea has not built or tested nuclear weapons of late, nor does it