U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon praised South Korean President Park Geun-hye and her “trustpolitik”toward North Korea on Friday, saying the policy and her principled approach to Pyongyang contributed to reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.Ban, who arrived in his native South Korea on Thursday for a home leave, made the remark during a meeting with Park, saying he came home light-hearted after Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to reopen a joint industrial complex and hold talks on setting up re

Six months in office, President Park Geun-hye’s approval ratings have reached a new high buoyed by her North Korea and security policies. Park’s approval ratings have gradually climbed since taking office in February and she now enjoys the highest approval ratings recorded by democratically elected presidents after six months in office, after President Kim Young-sam’s 83 percent. At the start of her term, a Gallup Korea polls gave Park an approval rating of 42 percent, which has climbed to 59 pe

YASNY, Russia (Yonhap News) -- South Korea’s new multipurpose satellite made contact with a ground station in the Asian country early Friday, confirming its successful deployment into its target orbit, officials in Yasny said.The first communication contact was made at 2:35 a.m. (5:35 a.m. KST), according to the officials from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI).The Korea Multipurpose Satellite-5 (KOMPSAT-5) was launched Thursday from a launch base in Yasny, located some 1,800 kilomete

South Korea on Tuesday proposed talks with the North on Sept. 25 to restart the stalled tours to Mount Geumgang after a five-year freeze in a fresh sign of thaw in cross-border relations. The surprise announcement came two days after Pyongyang accepted Seoul’s offer of talks to arrange the first reunions of separated families in almost three years and proposed a separate meeting on Thursday over the tour project. While stressing the need to deal with the two issues separately, the Unification Mi

Pyongyang on Sunday accepted Seoul’s proposal for talks on Friday to arrange the first reunions of separated families in nearly three years around Korean Thanksgiving next month in another sign of a thaw in their relations.Positively evaluating the North’s acceptance, Seoul requested that the talks be held at the Peace House on the South’s side of Panmunjeom as initially proposed. Pyongyang said it wanted to hold the meeting at Mount Geumgang so that Seoul officials could take stock of facilitie

GAESEONG -- The two Koreas agreed Wednesday to take steps to reopen the Gaeseong factory park after 133 days of suspension, as the sides compromised on the key issue of how to prevent another closure in the future. Under a five-point accord signed at the close of the seventh round of talks in Gaeseong, they will meet again “in the near future” to form a new joint committee to discuss compensation for businesses and ways to improve passage, communications and customs and how to protect South Kore