Free Republic

Waking supervolcano makes North Korea and West join forces Rare example of collaboration with isolationist regime's researchers helps reveal secrets of one of the world’s largest volcanoes By Andy Coghlan If it blows again, it could make Vesuvius look like a tea party. Now, in a ground-breaking collaboration between the West and North Korea, vulcanologists are gaining new insights into Mount Paektu, on North Korea’s border with China, and whether it might blow its top any time soon. If it does, the outcome could be catastrophic. Paektu’s last eruption, a thousand years ago, is the second largest ever recorded, topped...

(3rd LD) N. Korea fails 1st mid-range ballistic missile launch: military 2016/04/15 15:46 (ATTN: RECASTS headline, lead; UPDATES throughout) SEOUL, April 15 (Yonhap) -- North Korea conducted its first test-launch of the medium-range ballistic missile Musudan early Friday from its east coast, but the launch ended in failure, officials said. "North Korea seems to have tried a missile launch from the East Sea area in the early morning today, but it is presumed to have failed," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Sources said the launched missile was the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), also known as the BM-25. The...

U.S. sources: Signs of North Korea mobile ballistic missile launch By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent Updated 1807 GMT (0107 HKT) April 12, 2016 CNN) — U.S. intelligence satellites have spotted signs that North Korea may be preparing for an unprecedented launch of a mobile ballistic missile which could potentially hit portions of the U.S., CNN has learned. Opinion: Impose sanctions on North Korea's enablers Two U.S. officials told CNN that if the regime proceeds with a launch, the latest assessments are the most likely scenario is the launch of the so-called Musudan missile, which the U.S. believes could potentially...

North Korean restaurant defectors 'were in China and left legally' China has said that 13 North Korean restaurant workers who defected to South Korea last week had been working in China and had left legally. In a rare comment on such issues, a foreign ministry spokesman said the 13 had the right documents to exit China. China tends to view North Koreans who escape across its border as illegal economic migrants and sends them back. The group are now in South Korea, which provides an aid and adjustment package for all North Koreans who defect.

North Korea scolds Obama by adopting the voice of Abraham Lincoln By Anna Fifield and Yoonjung Seo April 11 at 7:51 AM  TOKYO — We don’t know what Abraham Lincoln would have made of Barack Obama, since the 16th president died 144 years before the 44th took office. But never fear. North Korea’s propagandists have taken it upon themselves to channel Honest Abe and — surprise, surprise — the report card they give the current leader of the United States is not a good one, especially not when it comes to his policy toward the regime of Kim Jong...

(2nd LD) N.K. military intelligence officer defected to S. Korea last year: Seoul 2016/04/11 14:23 (ATTN: UPDATES with more info in paras 6, 12, 15-17) SEOUL, April 11 (Yonhap) -- A ranking North Korean military officer in charge of conducting intelligence operations defected to South Korea last year, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday, as the North's leader is tightening his grip on the regime. A North Korean senior colonel, whose name has been withheld, defected in 2015 after working at the North's reconnaissance bureau tasked with carrying out espionage missions against the South, the ministry said. "(The North Korean military...

North Korea’s Largest Recent Defector Group Arrives in South Korea The group of 13 worked in a North Korean restaurant in an unidentified country By Alastair Gale Updated April 8, 2016 10:00 a.m. ET SEOUL—In one of the largest known group defections of North Koreans in recent years, 13 restaurant workers from the country have arrived together in South Korea, Seoul said. The group of one male manager and 12 female employees were based at a restaurant in an undisclosed country outside North Korea and reached South Korea on Thursday, a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. The defection...

(2nd LD) N. Korea claims success in new ICBM engine test 2016/04/09 11:04 (ATTN: ADDS photo, details in last 5 paras) SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea claimed Saturday that it has successfully conducted a ground test of a new engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the latest in a series of Pyongyang's claims of progress in its nuclear and missile programs. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued an order to conduct a "jet test of a new type high-power engine of intercontinental ballistic rocket and personally came to the Sohae Space Center to guide the test," the...

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Yonhap) -- Recent satellite imagery shows "suspicious activity" at North Korea's nuclear complex in what could be a sign that Pyongyang might be trying to harvest weapons-grade plutonium from spent nuclear fuel, a U.S. website monitoring the North said Monday. The website 38 North said in a report that the satellite imagery has shown "exhaust plumes" from a thermal plant used to heat the Yongbyon nuclear complex's Radiochemical Laboratory, where spent nuclear fuel rods are reprocessed to extract plutonium. "During the past five weeks, exhaust plumes on two, possibly three, occasions were observed at the Radiochemical Laboratory's...

Kim Jong-un's Sister Consolidates Power North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister Yeo-jong appears to have risen to a position of considerable power in the secretive regime. Kim Yeo-jong now holds a key post in the Workers Party's department in charge of promotions and appointments. A source said Kim Yeo-jong's husband is a university professor in Pyongyang and comes from an ordinary background, denying recent rumors that she is married to the son of senior official Choe Ryong-hae. Kim Yeo-jong rose quickly through the party ranks and consolidated her position, thanks to her quick wit and natural political acumen. Since September...

Are North Koreans fighting in Syria? It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. By Adam Taylor March 25 This week, representatives of Western-backed Syrian opposition delegation in Geneva told Russian state media that President Bashar al-Assad had a surprising new ally on the Syrian battlefield: militia units from North Korea. "Two North Korean units are there, which are Chalma-1 and Chalma-7," Asaad az-Zoubi, head of the High Negotiations Committee (HNC) to Syrian peace talks in the Swiss city, reportedly told Tass news agency on Tuesday. In any other context, the presence of soldiers from the internationally isolated and geographically distant...

North Korea Nukes US In Propaganda Video Kim Jong-Un lays waste to Washington with a submarine-launched nuclear missile in Pyongyang's latest menacing video. 10:20, UK, Saturday 26 March 2016 North Korea has threatened to lay waste to Washington with a submarine-launched nuclear missile in a menacing propaganda video. The four-minute film - titled Last Chance - runs through the history of US-Korea relations, including images of US prisoners of war on Korean soil. It ends with a digitally-enhanced sequence showing a missile emerging from the clouds and slamming into the road in front of the Lincoln Memorial - sending a...

North Korea’s Punggye-ri Facility Appears Ready to Support New Nuclear Tests By 38 North 18 March 2016 A 38 North exclusive with analysis by Jack Liu. Recent commercial satellite imagery indicates continued activity at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site that does not appear directed at further tunnel excavation but rather to maintain existing tunnels as well as to clean up after the January 2016 nuclear test. It is highly likely that site is capable of supporting additional tests at any time. Maintenance and Clean Up at the North Portal Commercial satellite imagery from March shows that the North Portal,...

North Korea has a missing submarine, two defense officials told Fox News Friday. One official told Fox the submarine is a 70-foot Yono class "midget" submarine that is diesel powered and has a crew of two, with room for a squad of saboteurs. It was unclear who may have been onboard. North Korea does not operate large ballistic missile submarines, such as the U.S. Navy’s Ohio-class fleet. Fox News has learned North Korea has not asked the United States to assist in search and rescue efforts. On Thursday, North Korea responded to new sanctions from South Korea by firing short-range...

North Korea fired two ballistic missiles Thursday morning, a South Korean military official said, in the latest controversial move amid U.S.-South Korean military drills that have angered the rogue state. The two missiles flew about 310 miles at about 5:20 a.m. (3:20 p.m. Wednesday ET) and were fired from North Korea's northern shore, the military official said. Analysts said they were Scud-type missiles. The apparent launch comes after heated rhetoric from North Korea in recent days that has included threats of a preemptive nuclear strike.

U.S. commanders say country has capability to make weapons small and light enough. Tokyo • North Korea has been able to make its nuclear warheads small enough to fit onto ballistic missiles, the state media claimed Wednesday in Pyongyang's latest boast about improvements in its weapons capabilities. North Korea has made the claim before and it is not known whether it is true, but the timing of the announcement is inauspicious. The United States and South Korea are conducting huge military exercises that North Korea views as a pretext for an invasion. On Tuesday, South Korea unleashed a wave of...

While North Korea keeps firing literal and figurative salvos, the world has responded with harsher sanctions -- ones that the Philippines has put into effect by detaining a ship from the reclusive East Asian nation. The Philippine government has impounded a North Korean freighter, the Jin Teng, in Subic Bay and plans to deport its crew, presidential spokesman Manuel Quezon III said in a radio interview, according to the official Philippines News Agency. This wouldn't have happened if not for Pyongyang's recent nuclear test and missile launch, and the global community's reaction to these defiant acts.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered his country's nuclear weapons made ready for use at a moment's notice, the country's official state news agency reported Friday. Kim also said his country will ready its military so it is prepared to carry out pre-emptive attacks, calling the current situation very precarious, according to the Korean Central News Agency. The threats in the statement are part of the authoritarian nation's regular propaganda effort to show strength in the face of what it sees as an effort by its enemies South Korea and the United States to overthrow its leaders; it follows...

First on CNN: U.S. student detained in North Korea confesses to 'hostile act' By Will Ripley, CNN Updated 1026 GMT (1826 HKT) February 29, 2016 | Video Source: CNN CNN)—North Korea has allowed the world to get its first glimpse of Otto Frederick Warmbier, an American student at the University of Virginia, two months after his arrest. Warmbier is accused of trying to steal a North Korean banner, containing a political slogan that was hanging from the walls of his Pyongyang hotel. /snip "I apologize to each and every one of the millions of the Korean people and I beg...

North Korea on Saturday boasted of a newly developed anti-tank weapon that its leader said was so powerful it could turn the most heavily armoured enemy tanks into "boiled pumpkin". Pyongyang's state media said leader Kim Jong-Un had watched tests of the portable, laser-guided rocket and declared it had the "longest firing range in the world", and was "as accurate as a sniper's rifle". "He noted with great satisfaction that even the special armoured tanks and cars of the enemies which boast their high manoeuvrability and striking power are no more than a boiled pumpkin before the anti-tank guided weapon",...