World Food Program to resume aid to Pyongyang: Voice of America A worker walks among stacks of food at the Kumkhop Trading Co. food factory in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this March 13 photo. AP-YonhapThe U.N. World Food Program (WFP) will resume humanitarian food aid to 771,000 North Koreans, the Voice of America said Saturday, citing a WFP report. In the report, the WFP said it needs an estimated US$27.5 million from July to December to help the North handle the COVID-19 pandemic, and it lacks $3 million. The WFP said there was a need to find out what impact a two-month delay in North Korea reopening its schools had on the health of children in the reclusive state, given North Korean children usually receive 85 percent of their necessary nutrients from food provided by schools and public organizations.North Korean kindergartens and schools reopened June 3, and two months of summer vacation recently began, according to the WFP. The U.N. agency told Radio Free Asia that it is in talks with North Korea to resume extending aid to underprivileged people there. (Yonhap)Jul 4, 2020
North Korea says it feels no need to 'sit face to face with US' North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui. YonhapNorth Korea feels no need to meet with the United States for talks, a top diplomat of the reclusive nation said Saturday, accusing Washington of taking advantage of dialogue between the two countries as "a tool for grappling (with) its (own) political crisis.”First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui made the remarks as talk of another summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un surfaced recently after President Moon Jae-in said he would push for such a meeting to happen before November's U.S. presidential election.Former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton also said Trump could meet with Kim if he believes a summit would help his reelection chances. Such a meeting would be an "October surprise" just before the election, he said."Now is a very sensitive time when even the slightest misjudgment and misstep would incur fatal and irrevocable consequences. We cannot but be shocked at the story about the summit indifferent to the present situation of the DPRK-U.S. relations," Choe said inJul 4, 2020
Defectors cornered by both South and North Korea over leaflets North Korean students stage a rally in Pyongyang to criticize anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by North Korean defectors in the South, in this photo released by the Korean Central News Agency, June 6. / YonhapBy Kang Seung-wooNorth Korean defectors are seemingly becoming “enemies of the state” in both South and North Korea due to their harshly denounced distribution of anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border from the South. In the North, they are considered “human scum” working to damage the prestige of its “supreme leader” with the leaflets, while in the South, they are viewed as the cause of the current frayed inter-Korean relations.Since Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement, June 4, criticizing the propaganda campaigns by North Korean defectors and calling them “mongrel dogs,” North Korean authorities have created an anti-defector atmosphere by staging mass rallies against them. As a result, the public sentiment regarding defectors' families remaining in the North is sharply turning negaJul 3, 2020By Kang Seung-woo
Frayed inter-Korean relations dash hopes for return to Gaeseong South Korean national flags are placed near the gravestones of soldiers who died during the 1950-1953 Korean War at the National Cemetery in Seoul, Thursday, June 25, 2020. APWhen Shin Han-yong crossed the inter-Korean border into the North Korean city of Kaesong in 2018, he thought the opening of an inter-Korean liaison office could eventually lead to the resumption of a joint factory park.The liaison office in the western border city was a follow-up on an agreement that South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un reached in their second summit in April 2018."I thought that the office could improve inter-Korean relations, and the joint factory park in Kaesong could resume in the not-too-distant future," Shin said in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency at an office in Seoul about his trip to Kaesong. He was a handful of businessmen invited to the opening ceremony of the liaison office. But the euphoria is long gone.North Korea blew up the liaison office last month amid heightened tensions with South Korea over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets sent Jul 3, 2020
Bolton says Trump could meet Kim again to help reelection In this file photo taken on Feb. 27, 2019, U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un following a meeting at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi. AFPU.S. President Donald Trump could meet again with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un if he believes a summit would help his reelection chances, Trump's former National Security Adviser John Bolton said Thursday.Bolton's comment comes after President Moon Jae-in renewed his resolve to enable a fourth Trump-Kim meeting before the U.S. presidential election in November.While Trump and Kim last met in the Demilitarized Zone on the inter-Korean border in June 2019, efforts to reach a nuclear deal have stalled due to differences over the scope of North Korea's denuclearization and sanctions relief from the U.S."I think President Trump ― everybody can read the public opinion polls. He's way behind," Bolton said during a press conference with foreign reporters in New York."That doesn't mean the election is over by any stretch of the imagination, but you know we have a phrase in the United States called thJul 3, 2020
North Korean leader calls for maximum alert against virus, warns of 'unimaginable' crisis North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks at a meeting of the ruling Workers' Party in Pyongyang, Thursday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Friday. YonhapNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for "maximum alert" against the coronavirus as he presided over a politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party, warning that premature easing of anti-virus measures will lead to "unimaginable and irretrievable crisis," state media reported Friday.It was the second time in three months that the North has convened a politburo meeting to discuss the coronavirus pandemic. That suggests the North's COVID-19 situation could be serious, though Pyongyang claims there has not been a single case. The meeting held Thursday made no mention of inter-Korean relations."He stressed the need to maintain maximum alert without a slight self-complacence or relaxation on the anti-epidemic front, and rearrange and practice stricter anti-epidemic effort," the Korean Central News Agency said.Kim also made "sharp criticism of inattention, onlooking and chronic attitude getting prevalent among officialsJul 3, 2020
'Another Trump-Kim summit unlikely' U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at Panmunjeom in this June 2019 photo. They are not expected to meet each other ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, according to diplomatic experts. / Korea Times fileBy Kang Seung-wooDespite President Moon Jae-in's publicized wishes and an envisaged visit by U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun to Seoul, another summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump is not on the cards, as there is little to motivate the North toward resuming their denuclearization talks, diplomatic experts said Thursday.Trump and Kim have had three meetings ― in Singapore in June 2018, in Vietnam in February 2019 and at Panmunjeom in June 2019.According to Cheong Wa Dae, Moon recently relayed his wishful message about a summit to the White House in a bid to reactivate his “Korea peace initiative” amid the stalled diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington following the collapse of the Hanoi summit. An official added the U.S. side was “making efforts for thaJul 2, 2020By Kang Seung-woo
Head of North Korean defector group grilled over anti-Pyongyang leafleting Park Sang-hak appears at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in Seoul, Tuesday. YonhapPolice on Tuesday called in the head of a North Korean defector group over its anti-Pyongyang leafleting campaign, which Seoul views as a breach of law and Pyongyang vehemently criticizes.Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for a Free North Korea, showed up for questioning at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency at 9:30 a.m. The former defector is known to have scheduled his attendance in advance with authorities.Defying the government's warning against leafleting, Park claimed that his group sent some 500,000 leaflets carried by 20 large helium balloons over to the North on Monday last week.Cheong Wa Dae earlier warned that the government would crack down on such acts, which it said constitute a violation of laws including the inter-Korean exchange and cooperation act.The campaign to scatter leaflets that criticize the North Korean political system and the North's ruling Kim family has recently been a major source of confrontation between the two Koreas.Police plan to question him on various suspicionJun 30, 2020
Speculation about North Korean leader's health 'empty rumors': Russian envoy People watch a TV showing a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, June 24, 2020. APSpeculation about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's health is nothing more than "empty rumors" and the communist neighbor is functioning normally with the leader making major decisions, Russia's ambassador in Pyongyang said.Ambassador Alexander Matsegora also said in an interview with Russia's TASS news agency Monday that there is no reason to believe that the North Korean leader's younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, is being trained as the next leader of the communist nation.Matsegora also said that the North expressed "serious outrage" over anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets flown from South Korea because recently sent leaflets "bore a special kind of dirty, insulting propaganda, aimed at the leader's spouse.""It was all made in such a low-grade way, with Photoshop," the envoy said.Slamming Seoul for failing to stop North Korean defectors from sending such leaflets, the North cut off cross-border communication linesJun 30, 2020
Biegun planning visit to Korea as early as July U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun / APStephen Biegun, U.S. deputy secretary of state and the point man on North Korea, is planning to visit South Korea as early as next month, diplomatic sources said Tuesday. Officials in Seoul and Washington have been in talks to arrange details for the envisioned trip, taking into account various circumstances amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the sources. A local newspaper reported that Biegun plans to travel to Seoul early next month and related ministry officials in Seoul are in talks to exempt him from a two-week self-isolation as required under current quarantine rules in South Korea. "A visit by the deputy secretary has yet to be confirmed since there are a lot of factors to consider. It could be July or August," a source said. A foreign ministry official said there is nothing the ministry can confirm about the trip at this stage.Earlier this month, South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Lee Do-hoon, visited Washington and met with Biegun. The two were believed to have discussed heightened tensions with North KoJun 30, 2020
