Free Republic

As North Korea continues to develop both nuclear weapons and the missile technology to carry them, pressure on South Korea to take preemptive military action will gradually rise. At some point, North Korea may have so many missiles and warheads that South Korea considers that capability to be an existential threat to its security. This is the greatest long-term risk to security and stability in Korea, arguably more destabilizing than a North Korean collapse. If North Korea does not arrest its nuclear and missile programs at a reasonably small, defensively-minded deterrent, then Southern elites will increasingly see those weapons as...

You can’t see it on television, but South Korean President Park Geun-hye has a scar that runs from her right ear to her chin. In person, up close, it is just visible below her makeup, a smooth cut that follows the curve of her face. She’s had it since 2006, when she was attacked on the campaign trail by a man wielding a utility knife. On Thursday, in an eerily similar incident, the U.S. ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was slashed on the face and wrist in the South Korean capital. Photographs from the scene showed him holding the...

The U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Mark Lippert, was attacked Thursday morning (local time, late evening ET) in Seoul by an armed assailant, officials said.

U.S. envoy to Seoul Mark Lippert was seriously injured Thursday morning after being attacked by an armed assailant, official sources said. The envoy was on his way to attend a morning lecture in central Seoul when the attack took place. Lippert, bleeding heavily, was rushed to a nearby hospital, the sources said, adding that the suspect was immediately arrested although his or her identity is still not known.Image source

Flight Nurse 1953. Director: Allan Dwan. Stars: Joan Leslie, Forrest Tucker, Arthur Franz [depicts Korean War 1950]

North Korean state newspaper Rodong Sinmun released images on 7 February showing a new type of surface-to-surface missile (SSM) being fired from a surface-effects ship (SES) from the Korean People's Navy (KPN) Eastern Fleet. The images, which showed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in attendance, were accompanied by an article translated by the English-language website KCNA Watch. The article noted that the test-firing proved in a "scientific" way that the capabilities of the long-rumoured vessel and its weapons system had reached design and engineering specifications.

This was the satellite photo which shamed North Korea by showing how the people of the hermit kingdom endure inky blackness at night. But now the hermit kingdom's propaganda machine has hit back, proclaiming that the stoic workers of the People's Republic have no need for 'flashy lights'. A recent editorial in the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's tightly leashed newspaper of record, also says the photo represents the future of the U.S. - 'an old superpower that is meeting its sunset'.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un executed an army general last month following a difference of opinion as part of his latest purge of senior government officials. Gen. Pyon In Son, head of operations in the Korean People’s Army, was killed for disagreeing with the “Supreme Leader,” a South Korean official told reporters in Seoul Wednesday, but did not make clear what the two disagreed on, Bloomberg reported.

North Korea Sunday described US President Barack Obama as a "loser" over his criticism on its regime, accusing him of being obsessed with hostility towards Pyongyang. The comment from the North's foreign ministry came after Obama spoke of the eventual collapse of the regime ruling what he called "the most isolated, the most sanctioned, the most cut-off nation on Earth". "We will keep on ratcheting the pressure, but part of what's happening is... the Internet over time is going to be penetrating this country," Obama said in an interview on YouTube from the White House last week.

North Korea is attempting to put nuclear weapons to sea, according to a longtime regime watcher. Joseph Bermudez—an expert on North Korean weapons—believes the evidence is commercial satellite imagery showing a submarine with possibly two vertical launch tubes. The regime also appears to have constructed a test stand for launching sea-based ballistic missiles. The two revelations may not be directly related. For one, the vessel might not end up carrying nuclear-capable missiles. But Bermudez’s evidence is highly suggestive. And if the North is planning to put nukes aboard submarines, this would make Kim Jong Un’s atomic arsenal more survivable in...

Document ISGQ-2003-0044 ISGQ-2003-00044390 390 contains a November/27/2002 Top Secret and Urgent memo from the Baath Party Command in Fallujah and in relation to another letter from the office of the Presidential Secretariat (Saddam Hussein Personal Secretary) and it is addressed to all the People Commands in the Anbar Province (The Western Desert) asking them to watch for Americans or Zionists (Israelis) forces that can potentially bury prohibited materials, WMD, in the Anbar province so it will frame Iraq and find an excuse to punish Iraq according to the memo. The Anbar province which is the hot bed of the terrorists...

The two sides are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended only in a truce and not a peace treaty. More than 1.8 million troops are deployed on both sides of their border, one of the most heavily fortified in the world. Park also told the news conference that an anti-North law, the National Security Law, continued to remain necessary in the South. "We need the very minimum of law to ensure security in this country as we remain in a standoff with the North, and the law is enforced according to that," she said.

The Korean government will focus their efforts to promote 270 degree movies, thermoplastics, and fuel cells, according to an announcement from the third public-private meetings of the ‘Creative Economy.’ The meeting was held to draft a plan for a second flagship project. The flagship project concept was initiated by the government to accelerate private businesses that have large growth potential. The first flagship project, which dealt with carbon fiber and energy storage systems, was initiated in May 2014. According to plans for the second flagship project, the government will support the development of a new cinema system that shows movies...

BEIJING — North Korea on Sunday denounced new economic sanctions imposed by President Barack Obama in response to a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment that U.S. officials have blamed on the regime. The country's official news agency quoted an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying the new sanctions would only "harden its will and resolution to defend ... the dignity of the nation." The new penalties —which cut off access to the U.S. financial sector for 10 individuals and three government entities identified as key operatives engaged in hostile behavior, including the country's intelligence agency — add to sanctions imposed...

Kim Jong-un says North Korea is 'Open' to highest-level talks with South.

A South Korean activist said Wednesday that he will launch balloons carrying DVDs of Sony's "The Interview" toward North Korea to try to break down a personality cult built around dictator Kim Jong Un. Activist Park Sang-hak said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with the movie by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. Park, a North Korean defector, said he's partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles. **SNIP** It is not clear how effective the...

North Korea's KRT aired a new documentary showing leader Kim Jong Un at the controls of an aircraft. Kim Jong Un Shown at Aircraft Controls in New TV Documentary

Several movie theaters said they will begin showing “The Interview” Thursday, seemingly putting the comedy back in theaters after Sony Pictures Entertainment canceled its release. The Alamo Drafthouse in Texas said on Tuesday that Sony has authorized it to screen the film starting Christmas Day. Atlanta’s Plaza Theater also said it will show the film.

Following cinema chains across the US pulling Sony Pictures' The Interview, the California-based firm is now considering ways in which the controversial film can be shown online. Sites such as YouTube, Netflix and Crackle are among the options currently being discussed to make sure the film gets distributed. During an interview with CNN, Sony Entertainment boss Michael Lynton said the movie will be released, but it just needs to work out the best way of doing so.

North Korea’s already tenuous links to the Internet went completely dark on Monday after days of instability, in what Internet monitors described as one of the worst North Korean network failures in years. The loss of service came just days after President Obama pledged that the United States would launch a “proportional response” to the recent attacks on Sony Pictures, which government officials have linked to North Korea. While an attack on North Korea’s networks was suspected, there was no definitive evidence of it. Doug Madory, the director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, an Internet performance management company, said...