Free Republic

North Korea Tuesday threatened to carry out “a new form of nuclear test” in response to US President Barack Obama’s Asia tour. “The DPRK (North Korea) will advance along the road of bolstering up nuclear deterrent, unhindered, now that the US brings the dark clouds of a nuclear war to hang over the DPRK,” Xinhua quoted a spokesperson of the North Korean foreign ministry as saying in a statement. “There is no statute of limitations to the DPRK’s declaration that it will not rule out a new form of nuclear test clarified by it in the March 30 statement. This...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea expressed outrage Monday over a rhetorical attack on President Park Geun-hye by the North Korean government that likened her to a prostitute in a tirade far exceeding even the North's often strident standards. The statement issued by the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea expressed anger over President Barack Obama's visit to Seoul last week. It said Park was like a "despicable prostitute" with Obama as her pimp. The North's officials and state-run media frequently use flourishes of inflammatory rhetoric. They have called past South Korean presidents dogs, but have shown...

North Korea has called South Korean President Park Geun-hye a "prostitute" at the hands of "pimp" Barack Obama. The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) as saying: "Park Geun-hye's recent behaviour with Obama was like a mean immature girl begging gangsters to beat up someone she does not like. Or a crafty prostitute eagerly trying to frame someone by giving her body to a powerful pimp." Although North Korean mouthpieces often make such verbal attacks against South Korea and its leaders, the latest diatribe is seen as rather unedifying by even...

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's prime minister offered to resign Sunday over the government's handling of a deadly ferry sinking, blaming "deep-rooted evils" and irregularities in a society for a tragedy that has left more than 300 people dead or missing and led to widespread shame, fury and finger-pointing.

Park Ji-young, a service crewmember who died after saving many passengers when the ferry Sewol sank off the southwest coast last week, was laid to rest on Tuesday. Dozens of people from all walks of life who had never met her showed up to pay their respects, waiting in line in front of her memorial altar over the past three days to thank and bid farewell to her. Survivors of the ferry accident and fellow students from Danwon High School also paid their last respects. The hall leading up to Park's altar was lined with wreaths sent by anonymous people....

If we are unable or unwilling to see and confront the extreme lack of character -- the dishonor -- in Captain Lee's behavior, on the grounds that "we weren't in his shoes," then we are only increasing the chances that our own response, should we ever find ourselves in similar shoes, will be as weak as his. If we rationalize his action, we are implicitly rationalizing our own. That, in fact, is likely the main reason we excuse shameful actions so easily today: we are hoping to excuse ourselves from scrutiny (including and especially self-scrutiny) regarding our own failures of...

Russia's parliament has agreed to write off about $10 billion of North Korea's Soviet-era debt, in a deal expected to facilitate the building of a gas pipeline to South Korea across the reclusive state. The State Duma lower house in Moscow on Friday ratified a 2012 agreement to excuse the bulk of North Korea's debt. It said the total debt stood at $10.96 billion as of September 17, 2012. The rest of the debt - $1.09 billion - would be redeemed during the next 20 years, to be paid in equal instalments every six months. The outstanding debt owed by...

This week, Australian justice Michael Kirby, who led the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea, is briefing members of the U.N. Security Council regarding the widespread atrocities being committed on a daily basis against innocent people by one of the world’s most repressive regimes. Given Russia’s recent actions in Ukraine and other global challenges, the report of this U.N. commission has not received the attention it deserves.

Jindo, South Korea (CNN) -- There were 46 lifeboats on the sunken South Korean ferry -- but only one was deployed, CNN affiliate YTN reported Thursday. CNN has not been able to independently confirm the report. If true, the report will add to the anger and desperation of families still waiting for word on the fate of 287 missing passengers. Video acquired by another affiliate JTBC showed at least 12 of the white survival capsules still attached to the ferry even as it was keeled over in the water. The survival capsules hold lifeboats.... At one point or another, the...

South Korean coastguard and navy divers resumed searching on Thursday for about 290 people still missing, many of them students from the same high school, after a ferry capsized in sight of land. So far 179 people have been rescued and six confirmed dead in what could be the country's worst maritime accident in 20 years. It is not known why the 6,586 metric ton vessel, built in Japan 20 years ago, sank.

Military dive teams worked the dark, cold waters of the Yellow Sea on Wednesday night in a desperate effort to find nearly 300 people who remained missing after the ferry they were taking to a South Korean island resort sank with breathtaking speed. -excerpt- The bulk of those aboard were students and teachers from Seoul's Ansan Danwon High School heading to a four-day trip to Jeju, a resort island considered the Hawaii of Korea. More than 300 students and more than a dozen teachers from the school were on board, according to officials.

SEOUL—South Korea said almost 300 people remain missing after a passenger ferry sank early Wednesday near the country's southwest coast. Rescue services raced to find survivors from the ship, which quickly rolled over and may have trapped passengers inside. Two bodies have been recovered from the site. Officials said the cause of the disaster hadn't been determined.

It has just been reported that a Korean cruise ship with 450 aboard has sunk. Only 190 are reported to have been saved- many high schoolers aboard.

The United Nations’ World Food Program failed to carry out sufficient inspections of food distribution sites in North Korea to ensure that supplies went to the country’s suffering people rather than the dictatorial communist regime, according to the U.N. agency’s own internal watchdog. ... Moreover, even WFP’s knowledge of what aid supplies it has received from abroad are based on the say-so of a regime-run company that the watchdog says may be lying about the amount of work it does, overcharging the U.N. for the work—and in any case is doing it without a contract, which keeps the relationship legally...

North Korea has the capability to deliver on its threats to carry out a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack on the United States, it has been claimed. Dr Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, has reportedly seen a long-suppressed government report that concludes North Korea is capable of using an Unha-3 rocket to carry out an attack on the U.S.. He says the U.S. would be particularly vulnerable to such an attack, as any rocket from North Korea is likely to travel over the South Pole and approach from the south - something...

WASHINGTON – A long-suppressed report prepared by the Department of Homeland Security for the Defense Department concludes that North Korea could deliver on its threats to destroy the United States with a nuclear electromagnetic pulse attack. The report remains blocked from release to the American public. However, a copy obtained by Peter Vincent Pry from sources within DHS finds North Korea could use its Unha-3 space launch vehicle to deliver a nuclear warhead as a satellite over the South Pole to attack the U.S. from the south. Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/dhs-study-north-korea-capable-of-emp-attack-on-u-s/#vd4I5JDwebgQHTta.99

Manjo Kim was turned down by 11 American universities when she wanted to do further research on the dishWhen Dr Manjo Kim told her chemistry professor that she was keen to pursue research on kimchi, he scoffed. The then-Korean marine biochemistry undergraduate at Pusan University, and later Seoul University, was interested in her country's national condiment. Undeterred, she decided to apply for PhD fellowships at 11 American universities to do research on kimchi, but was turned down. Finally, she was accepted into Leeds University in Britain, where she wrote her doctorate dissertation on the topic in the 1960s.

A senior North Korean official has been executed with a flamethrower after Kim Jong-un branded him an 'enemy of the state', it has been claimed. O Sang-hon is said to have been brutally killed for his close ties to the communist leader's uncle Jang Song-taek, who was himself publicly tried and executed in December after being found guilty of corruption and 'counter revolutionary' activities. Mr O is thought to be the latest of 11 senior Workers Party figures to have been executed this year over their links to Mr Jang, with South Korean media reporting that Kim Jong-un has plans...

When asked about the conviction of David Yonggi Cho, founder of world's largest Pentecostal congregation in South Korea, for embezzling $12 million from his church, popular pastor John Piper took the opportunity to warn pastors in the U.S. who might "love money," in a recent message."With every public dishonoring of Christ, every public dishonoring of His Word and His Gospel, and His Church, it makes me angry and it makes me sorrowful," said Piper in a recent episode of Ask Pastor John.Yonggi Cho who pastors Yoido Full Gospel Church and oversees a network of churches numbering 800,000, was found...

Japan has ordered a destroyer in the Sea of Japan to strike any ballistic missiles that may be launched by North Korea in the coming weeks after Pyongyang fired a Rodong medium-range missile over the sea, a government source said on Saturday.