N. Korea halts GPS jamming: gov't

South Korea's ICT ministry said North Korea's disruptions of Global Positioning System signals, which started last week, stopped as of Wednesday, although they may resume soon, as the signals have been constantly lessening and increasing.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said the GPS disruptions that began Thursday were no longer detected as of 12:00 p.m. The jamming has been impacting Seoul's adjacent city of Incheon, and the surrounding Gyeonggi and Gangwon provinces.

The disruptions can cause mobile phones to malfunction and affect South Korean planes and ships that rely on GPS for navigation.

So far, 1,007 airplanes and 715 ships were affected by the disruptions that began on Thursday, although no significant damage was reported so far.

Officials said North Korea had previously launched similar jamming assaults three times between 2010 and 2012, which partly disrupted the GPS-guided navigation of some 1,000 passenger jets as well as of the military's unmanned aerial vehicles. (Yonhap)