Return of 147 soldiers' remains The remains of 147 South Korean soldiers killed in the 1950-53 Korean War are laid on seats inside an aerial tanker to be returned to Korea at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, Tuesday. The remains were part of those brought to the U.S. after joint excavation work in North Korea from 1990 to 1994 and following the summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018. Through two joint forensic reviews, South Korea and the U.S. identified 147 sets of remains as those belonging to South Koreans. The remains were repatriated to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War that falls today and will be welcomed home in an official ceremony by President Moon Jae-in. / YonhapJun 24, 2020By Kang Seung-woo
North Korea seen removing loudspeakers from border areas: sources A North Korean loudspeaker on a mountain in North Hwanghae Province's Kaepoong County on June 23 is, as seen from a South Korean observatory in Ganghwa Island, Incheon, no longer there the following day. YonhapNorth Korea was seen removing about 10 propaganda loudspeakers reinstalled recently along the border with South Korea, military sources said Wednesday, after leader Kim Jong-un ordered the suspension of military action plans against the South.The North recently set up around 20 loudspeakers in border areas after threatening to take military action against what it called "the enemy" in anger over Seoul's failure to stop defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border. "Around 10 newly installed loudspeakers near Cheorwon were being taken down from earlier today," a military source said.The move came after the communist country decided to suspend military action against South Korea during a Central Military Commission meeting presided over by leader Kim, according to the North's Korean Central News Agency."We are closely monitoring North Korean militarJun 24, 2020
Kim Jong-un suspends military action plans against Seoul North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. YonhapNorth Korea suspended "military action plans" against South Korea during a Central Military Commission meeting presided over by leader Kim Jong-un, state media reported Wednesday, raising questions about Pyongyang's intentions behind the decision.The decision came as a surprise because the North had widely been expected to convene a meeting of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party to endorse military action that its military has threatened to take against the South in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets.Leader Kim Jong-un presided over a preliminary meeting of the Central Military Commission via videoconferencing Tuesday and decided to hold off on military action plans, the official Korean Central News Agency reported without elaborating."At the preliminary meeting, the WPK Central Military Commission took stock of the prevailing situation and suspended the military action plans against the South brought for the fifth meeting of the Seventh Central Military Commission by the General Staff of the Korean People's Army," the KJun 24, 2020
Defector group sends 500,000 anti-NK leaflets A balloon carrying images of North Korean ruling Kim family members is found in Hongcheon, Gangwon Province, Tuesday. It was one of 20 balloons that were flown by a North Korean defectors' group here, Monday night. / YonhapBy Kang Seung-wooA North Korean defectors' group floated hundreds of thousands of anti-North Korea leaflets across the border, Monday night, adding fuel to the already-tense situation on the Korean Peninsula. In response, the police are set to apprehend those who were involved in the campaign that the government believes violates the Inter-Korean Exchange and Cooperation ActAccording to Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), it floated 20 balloons carrying 500,000 anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border from Paju, Gyeonggi Province. FFNK Chairman Park Sang-hak, said 500 pamphlets depicting the South's success story, 2,000 U.S. one-dollar bills and 1,000 SD cards were also sent to the North, along with the leaflets. Usually, the leaflets criticize the authoritarian regime and urge North Korean people to revolt against their leader Kim Jong-un. The distribution ofJun 23, 2020By Kang Seung-woo
The Korean War: carnage, stalemate and ceasefire A man wearing a face mask walks near the wire fences decorated with ribbons written with messages wishing for the reunification of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Thursday, June 18, 2020. APAs well as pitting North against South, the Korean War embroiled each side's communist and Western allies ― with the Soviet Union and China backing Pyongyang, and a US-led coalition under a United Nations banner supporting Seoul.AFP traces the course of the conflict, which broke out on June 25, 1950 and ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas still technically at war.- Two Koreas created -The Soviet Union declared war on Japan, Korea's colonial ruler, between the US nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and sent troops pouring into the peninsula.Washington and Moscow agreed to divide it into two occupied zones along the 38th parallel, a line of latitude that splits the territory roughly across the middle.Two rival states emerged in 1948. In Seoul, the capital of the South, the Harvard- and Princeton-educated SyngmaJun 23, 2020
North Korean defectors' group says it sent leaflets to North overnight Police remove the balloon containing anti-North Korea leaflets from the water in the valley at Hongcheon in Gangwon Province, Tuesday. YonhapA group of North Korean defectors in the South claimed Tuesday it sent anti-North Korea leaflets across the border overnight from the western border city of Paju.Police said one of the balloons used for sending the leaflets was found in a town in the mountainous eastern province of Gangwon."(We) sent anti-North Korea leaflets over (to the North) between 11 p.m. and midnight on Monday (from a town) in Paju," Park Sang-hak, chief of Fighters for a Free North Korea, said. The group picked a very dark location to avoid police surveillance, he added.According to Park, six members of the group, which has been active in anti-North Korea leafleting, sent to the North around 500,000 leaflets carried by 20 large helium balloons. Some 500 pamphlets depicting South Korea's success story, 2,000 American one-dollar bills and 1,000 SD cards were also flown to the North, along with the leaflets, he said.The covert operation by the group came as the police were Jun 23, 2020
North Korea completes setting up 20 loudspeakers along border A visitor watches the northern side from the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, Thursday, June 18, 2020. APNorth Korea has completed setting up around 20 propaganda loudspeakers in regions along the inter-Korean border, about half of which had been removed under a 2018 summit agreement with South Korea, a military source said Tuesday.The North was first seen reinstalling the loudspeakers inside the Demilitarized Zone separating the two Koreas on Sunday in the latest in a series of actions ramping up tensions on the Korean Peninsula in anger over anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent across the border by defectors and other activists here.The North could install more, as it had previously operated around 40 loudspeakers.Pyongyang is expected to resume broadcasting through the loudspeakers, along with the sending of anti-Seoul leaflets, after winning approval from the ruling Workers' Party's central military commission.Announcing its plan to take a series of retaliatory actions against the South on Wednesday, the North's military said it will present its action plans to the commission "for ratificationJun 23, 2020
Leafleting into North Korea exercise of right to freedom of expression: UN rights official In this April 29, 2016, file photo, members of a South Korean civic group send leaflets denouncing the North Korean regime in Tanhyeon, Paju, near the North Korean border. Korea Times photo by Choi Won-sukThe sending of leaflets into North Korea by defectors is an exercise of the right to freedom of expression, a U.N. official said, amid Pyongyang's threats to punish Seoul for failing to stop the launches that criticize the North Korean leader.Signe Poulsen, head of the Seoul office of the U.N. Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, made the remarks amid heightening tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the North threatened to retaliate against the South for what it called Seoul's "connivance" at the floating of anti-Pyongyang materials in large balloons.The flying of leaflets has long been a source of tensions between the two Koreas, as the leaflets contain strong criticism of the North's authoritarian regime and leader Kim Jong-un, as well as the country's poor human rights situation."It's very difficult to give information to people in North Korea. There are organizations Jun 23, 2020
North Korea reinstalling propaganda loudspeakers Loudspeakers at a North Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone is seen in the left photo taken in September 2017, while it is removed in the right photo taken May 4, 2018, after the two Koreas agreed in the April 27 Panmunjeom Declaration that year to remove their respective speakers. The North began to reinstall the speakers, Monday, as inter-Korean tension has risen recently. YonhapBy Kim RahnNorth Korea is reinstalling “propaganda loudspeakers” on the inter-Korean border, after having removed them in 2018 following an agreement reached at an inter-Korean summit, the military said Monday.The move followed Pyongyang's earlier threat to resume “activities against the enemy” ostensibly in protest of propaganda leaflets that have been sent across the border by North Korean defectors and civic activists in the South.The military detected signs, Sunday afternoon, that the North was working on the reinstallation at multiple places inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ).South and North Korea used to promote their respective ideologies and criticize each other throJun 22, 2020By Kim Rahn
N. Korea reaffirms plan for anti-Seoul leaflet campaign This captured image from the Korean Central News Agency website shows photos of President Moon Jae-in imprinted on anti-South Korea leaflets being covered with cigarette butts and dirt. YonhapBy Yi Whan-wooNorth Korea reaffirmed its plan to launch anti-South Korea leaflets, Sunday, a day after the Ministry of Unification expressed regrets over the plan and urged the North to drop it immediately. Tasked with propaganda operation, the North's United Front Department (UFD) holds the South responsible for “scrapping” a 2018 inter-Korean agreement that sought to end hostile activities at the border.“We, clearly aware that leaflet scattering is a violation of the South-North agreement, do not have any intent to reconsider or change our plan at a time when South-North relations have already been broken down,” a UFD spokesman said in a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). “The South Korean authorities must no longer talk about the agreement that has been already reduced to a dead document.”On Saturday, the unification ministry asked Jun 21, 2020By Yi Whan-woo
