S. Korea checking for possible radioactive wastewater from NK uranium plantSouth Korea sent nuclear safety experts to the country's western border island of Gangwha on Friday to collect water samples for analysis in connection with a suspected release of wastewater from a North Korean uranium refining plant, the country's nuclear watchdog said. According to the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, a team of experts from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS) collected water samples from six locations on the island. The samples will be sent to KINS laboratories for detailed examinations to detect the presence of radioactive substances, such as cesium and uranium. The move came after a recent news report that North Korea may have dumped waste from a uranium refining plant in Pyongsan County into rivers that flow into South Korea. The team plans to investigate 10 designated sites to determine whether radioactive or heavy metal contamination has occurred. Authorities aim to complete their analysis within two weeks and disclose the results to the public.Jul 4, 2025By Yonhap
HRW voices concern over probe into 6 US citizens for trying to send rice to N. KoreaHuman Rights Watch (HRW), the New York-based human rights organization, has expressed concern regarding the investigation of six U.S. citizens who attempted to send money, rice and Bibles to North Korea last week. Lina Yoon, a senior researcher on the Korean Peninsula at HRW, raised the alarm following the brief detention of the activists by South Korean police on June 27. They were accused of violating an administrative order that bans sending any materials across the inter-Korean border, a measure enacted due to safety concerns for local residents. “The South Korean authorities’ use of a disaster-safety law to stop any North Korea-related border activity could deter groups that are trying to safely provide useful information to ordinary North Koreans. The government should not be discouraging careful, quiet outreach that allows North Koreans one of their few links to the outside world,” Yoon told The Korea Times recently. Their attempt to send the materials to the North has come as the liberal Lee Jae Myung government has been seeking engagement with Pyongyang. The activists atteJul 4, 2025By Jung Min-ho
Lee briefed on N. Korean who crossed land border into S. KoreaPresident Lee Jae Myung has been briefed on a North Korean person who crossed the heavily fortified land border into South Korea, the presidential office said Friday. Presidential spokesperson Kang Yu-jung told reporters that relevant authorities were questioning the North Korean person, shortly after the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it secured the North Korean who crossed the Military Demarcation Line inside the Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas. The JCS said it has not detected unusual military movements by North Korea.Jul 4, 2025By Yonhap
N. Korea holds dog meat cooking contest, touts it as summer health foodNorth Korea hosted a dog meat cooking contest in Pyongyang to elevate culinary standards for the red meat, state media has reported, touting it as a traditional source of energy for the summer season. The "sweet meat" cooking competition, held recently at a large restaurant in the capital, drew around 200 cooks from across the city, twice the number who competed last year, the Korean Central Television reported Thursday. Sweet meat refers to dog meat in North Korea. The broadcasting network quoted a city official as touting sweet meat soup as a traditional source of summer energy, saying the competition was aimed at elevating culinary standards and sharing know-how on cooking the meat. North Korea, which suffers from a chronic food shortage, officially promotes the consumption of dog meat and, in 2022, registered sweet meat soup as a regional intangible cultural heritage. This contrasts with South Korea's law enacted last year, which will ban the breeding of dogs for food, as well as the distribution and sale of dog meat, starting in February 2027.Jul 4, 2025By Yonhap
N. Korean civilian crosses heavily fortified border in presumed defection to S. KoreaA North Korean civilian crossed the heavily fortified inter-Korean land border this week, South Korea's military said Friday, in an apparent move to defect to the South. South Korean troops secured the man late Thursday night after identifying him in early morning hours around a shallow stream running along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) in the midwestern part of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official briefed reporters. The man, who identified himself as a civilian, was unarmed and followed instructions from deployed South Korean troops, which guided him to the South's side, the official said on condition of anonymity. During the around 20-hour operation, the North Korean man mostly remained motionless during the day to apparently avoid being detected and began moving at night before South Korean troops came into contact with him. The individual has since been transferred to relevant authorities for an investigation. The military has not detected any unusual signs of North Korean troop activity, the official said, adding the U.S.-led U.N. Command monitorJul 4, 2025By Yonhap
Pyongyang slams US indictment of 4 N. Koreans in wire fraud as 'absurd smear campaign'North Korea on Friday denounced the United States' recent indictment of four North Korean nationals on charges of wire fraud and money laundering as "an absurd smear campaign." Late last month, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia charged four North Koreans in connection with a wire fraud scheme through which they allegedly stole and laundered over $900,000 in virtual currency. They were also placed on a wanted list. "The recent incident is an absurd smear campaign and grave violation of sovereignty aimed at tarnishing the image of our state," the Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesperson as saying, accusing the U.S. of continuing a "hostile move" against a non-existent "cyber threat" from Pyongyang. Working as a team in the United Arab Emirates, they allegedly posed as remote IT workers using false identities to gain employment at a blockchain development company in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Serbian virtual token firm between late 2020 and early 2021. After earning their employers' trust, they gained access to digital assets and stole cryJul 4, 2025By Yonhap
N. Korea bristles at Quad statement that demands Pyongyang's denuclearizationNorth Korea on Friday lashed out at a recent statement by the United States, Australia, Japan and India that demands the North's complete denuclearization, accusing the Quad security grouping of committing a "coercive" act to change Pyongyang's stance. North Korea's foreign ministry issued the criticism, carried by the Korean Central News Agency, days after the foreign ministers of the U.S.-led Quad reiterated their commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea in a statement adopted during their meeting in Washington. The North Korean ministry called the move a "grave political provocation," accusing the U.S. of "attempting to unilaterally change the existing situation" on the Korean Peninsula "by force or coercive way." The foreign ministry said it "strongly denounces and rejects the U.S. malicious act of clearly exposing its invariable hostile intention against" North Korea, expressing "serious concern over the negative consequences to be entailed by it." It also accused the U.S. of interfering in the sovereignty of an independent nation, stirring up confrontation and creJul 4, 2025By Yonhap
S. Korea to inspect radioactive levels over suspected NK uranium wastewater releaseSouth Korea will conduct radioactivity and heavy metal contamination tests in areas along the inter-Korean border in connection with the suspected release of wastewater from a North Korean uranium refining plant. The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, along with the oceans and environment ministries, will conduct radioactive or heavy metal contamination tests on Friday, including checks for uranium and cesium, at 10 sites near Ganghwa Island and the estuary of the Han River, both located near the North's Ryesong River, according to the unification ministry. The announcement came after a recent news report that North Korea had dumped waste into rivers from a uranium refining plant in Pyongsan County, which flow into South Korea. The Ryesong River flows into the estuary of the Han River near Ganghwa Island. It will take about two weeks to analyze the test results, which will then be "transparently" disclosed to the public, the ministry said following a response meeting attended by officials from the defense ministry, the spy agency and the three agencies conducting the tests. The goverJul 3, 2025By Yonhap
Russia training N. Korean drone pilots in Pyongyang, Wonsan: Ukrainian officialNorth Korea has established drone production with Russia's help, and Russian instructors are also training drone pilots in Pyongyang and the eastern city of Wonsan, a Russian official's Telegram showed Thursday. "As I said back in the autumn ... the production of Shahed-Geran drones in North Korea has already been established with Russia's help," Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation, said in a Telegram post uploaded the previous day. Geran is the Russian designation for the Iranian-made suicide drone, Shahed. Kovalenko also said Russian instructors are working in Pyongyang and in the Kalma airfield area of Wonsan, training North Korean drone pilots to operate both strike and combat drones. Ukraine's intelligence agency disclosed last month that Russia had agreed to transfer production technology for the Geran drone to North Korea, as Pyongyang and Moscow have strengthened their military alignment since signing the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership treaty in June last year.Jul 3, 2025By Yonhap
Border residents welcome silence as Koreas halt loudspeaker campaignsGIMPO — Just weeks ago, South Korean residents in western areas near the inter-Korean border were tormented day and night by North Korean loudspeakers, blaring noise that echoed across the Han River estuary separating the two Koreas. The noise, however, abruptly stopped June 12, a day after South Korea's military suspended its own loudspeakers along the border that had aired broadcasts of K-pop, weather forecasts and criticism of the North Korean regime. "It was like a metallic scratching sound that was unbearable," said Hwang Hyun-yk, who owns a guesthouse on Ganghwa Island, just west of Seoul. "At its worst point, I couldn't hear someone only 5 meters away. "But we don't hear it anymore; it's now very comfortable and nice," the 72-year-old said. The estuary lay quiet Wednesday as a group of reporters was given access to a Marine Corps observation post in nearby Gimpo along the estuary. A North Korean loudspeaker — faintly visible in the distance through binoculars — remained silent. Only last year, the area had been a flashpoint of inter-Korean tensions. In May, Pyongyang began lauJul 3, 2025By Yonhap
