Free Republic

Republic of Korea: For the record. Pak Ku'n-hye (Park Geun-hye) of the New Frontier Party won South Korea's presidential election on 19 December, media reported. She is the daughter of Park Chung-hee and the first woman elected to be president of the Republic of Korea. That should confound the North! North Korea-Iran: According to a Japanese news service, an Iranian lawmaker told the service that North Korea informed Iran in October of its plan to launch a satellite. The head of an Iranian parliamentary delegation to North Korea, Hamid Reza Taraghi, revealed talks took place mid-October with the North's delegates...

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea's appointment of a transport technocrat as its new prime minister is aimed at building up its economy following the international deal on scrapping its nuclear programmes, analysts said Thursday. The communist state's parliament on Wednesday sacked premier Pak Pong-Ju and replaced him with transport minister Kim Yong-Il, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. Kim Yong-Il, 62, is a career administrator in land and maritime transport. He served in the army for nine years and then graduated from the University of Marine Transport with the qualification of navigation officer. Kim served as instructor and...