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The signature train belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been spotted on satellite images parked at a station on the nation's eastern coast since last week, according to a U.S. monitor, as questions swirl over the dictator's health. Since Kim missed an April 15 commemoration of the 108th birthday of his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung, unverified reports have emerged about his health. On Sunday, a key aide to the president of South Korea insisted Kim, who is believed to be 36, was "alive and well." "Our government position is firm," Chung-in Moon, foreign policy...

The South Korean government said Tuesday no unusual activity has been detected in North Korea after unconfirmed reports described leader Kim Jong Un as in fragile condition after heart surgery. The presidential Blue House says it had no information about the rumors on Kim’s health. Speculation often surfaces about North Korea’s leadership based on attendance at important state events. Kim, who is in his mid-30s, missed the celebration of his late grandfather and state founder Kim Il Sung on April 15, the country’s most important holiday. “We have no information to confirm regarding rumors about Chairman Kim Jong Un’s health...

Speculation about health builds after Kim misses key event honouring country’s founder, Kim Il-sung... Kim Jong-un underwent heart surgery earlier this month and is recovering at his private villa, according to a South Korean report, with US media citing officials as saying the North Korean leader was in “grave danger” after the procedure. If accurate, the surgery claim, made by the Daily NK website, would explain Kim’s absence from an event to mark the anniversary of the birth of his grandfather – and the country’s founder – Kim Il-sung. Kim Jong-un underwent the procedure at a hospital in the county...

Winter Olympics: N Korean cheerleaders in 'Kim Il-sung mask' row North Korea's famed cheerleading squad had found itself in the middle of a controversy over masks they put on during a women's ice hockey match at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Some local reports have said the masks resembled Kim Il-sung, the country's first leader and the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. Conservative groups in South Korea said this was an attempt by North Korea to use the Games for propaganda. South Korea's Unification Ministry has sought to play down the incident, saying the photo was just a "good-looking" man....

North Korea Joint team team cheered by North Korea "Beauty supporter", ice hockey girls

'N.Korean Officer' Says North Sank the Cheonan A North Korean Army officer has testified that the North Korean military attacked the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan before it sank in the West Sea on March 26, the head of a South Korean activist group claimed Monday. Choi Sung-yong of the Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea said, "It seems that the Cheonan was sunk in a premeditated North Korean operation." Choi published a transcript of a telephone conversation with what he says is a senior North Korean Army officer. According to the transcript, the officer says, "Thirteen commandos who left...

Military force cannot resolve tension over North Korea, China said on Thursday, while an influential Chinese newspaper urged the North to halt its nuclear program in exchange for Chinese protection. Concerns have been growing that North Korea could soon conduct a sixth nuclear test or more missile launches in defiance of U.N. sanctions and stark warnings from the United States that a policy of patience was over. With a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area in a show of force and tensions rising, fears of a confrontation have been rising. China, North Korea's sole major ally and neighbor,...

When we ran a story a while back about the cars of North Korea, one photo in particular caught my eye. In that photo was a green 1974 Volvo 144, which made me wonder if it was part of those 1000 legendary stolen Volvos I’d heard rumors about. It was, because those rumors are true. It’s around the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest state-sponsored mass carjackings in history, a fact that Newsweek commemorated with an article last week. That article stated that the total amount owed for those thousand Volvos is now up to €300 million ($393 million...

Well, sorta. Maybe it will be his last, but I wouldn't count on it.Kim Il-sung s Poster (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[/caption] Kim Il-sung was born (it is written and may even be true) on April 15, 1912. There are over 500 statues of Kim Il-sung in North Korea.[53] The most prominent are at Kim Il-sung University, Kim Il-sung Stadium, Mansudae Hill, Kim Il-sung Bridge and the Immortal Statue of Kim Il-sung. Some statues have been reported to have been destroyed by explosions or damaged with graffiti by North Korean activists.[54][55]Yeong Saeng ("eternal life") monuments have been erected throughout the country, each dedicated to the departed "Eternal Leader", at which...

North Korean Diplomats 'Sell Millions of Dollars Worth of Drugs' North Korea sent a large amount of illegal drugs to its embassy in an East European country last December and ordered diplomats there to sell it for cash by early April, a diplomatic source here claims. "South Korean intelligence obtained the information from a North Korean agent who defected recently," the source said. "Similar orders were delivered to other North Korean embassies." North Korea has ordered each diplomat to raise US $300,000 to prove their loyalty and mark the birthday of nation founder Kim Il-sung on April 15. Each North...

The larger-than-life portraits of Lenin and Karl Marx that once dominated Kim Il-sung Square have been removed, suggesting a change of direction within North Korea. The NKNews web site, which monitors developments in the secretive state, has reported that the austere images of two of the founding fathers of communism were first taken down in the summer but have never been replaced. Lenin and Marx had glared out over the square—used for military march-pasts and mass rallies in support of the regime—for decades, despite the Workers' Party of Korea revising its charter in 1980 to replace their concepts with those...

The government of North Korea recently invited dozens of foreign journalists into its secretive country to cover the 100th birthday celebration for founder Kim Il Sung on April 15. Among pageants and openings, the event drawing the most attention is the scheduled launch of a three-stage Unha-3 rocket carrying a weather satellite. The launch is already drawing criticism from Western governments: If successful, it could demonstrate North Korea's capacity to produce an intercontinental missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead. Despite their official invitation, foreign photographers are still restricted -- escorted wherever they go and unable to photograph more than...

The rise of Kim Il-sung's mini-me By Andrei Lankov SEOUL - In October last year, media worldwide reported that Kim Jong-eun, Kim Jong-il's third son, had been made a four-star general and promoted to the position of vice chairman of the Korean Workers' Party's Central Military Commission. It was taken as evidence that at long last, the Dear Leader had decided on his successor. At the time, it was often overlooked that Kim Jong-eun had not yet been officially described as "successor". Officially, he is merely a top dignitary, even though few would cast doubt on the actual meaning of...

BRUSSELS — Responding to the growing threat of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, the European Union will announce on Monday the release of about $14.5 million in emergency aid to feed as many as 650,000 North Koreans. The bloc’s executive body, the European Commission, said that after its experts witnessed evidence of a developing crisis last month during a mission to North Korea, it negotiated an agreement with the North Koreans about how to monitor the delivery of assistance. “Increasingly desperate and extreme measures are being taken by the hard-hit North Koreans, including the widespread consumption of grass,” the...

Plastic surgery to look like grandpa June 29, 2011 LONDON - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s heir apparent son, Kim Jong-un, has undergone plastic surgery six times to look more like his late grandfather and the nation’s founder, the chief of a radio station specializing in North Korean affairs claimed yesterday. Ha Tae-kyung, head of Open Radio for North Korea, cited unidentified senior North Korean officials and claimed that the North’s leader-in-waiting had the operations between 2007 and 2010 before he officially debuted as successor last September. Ha made the remarks in a speech on North Korea’s power succession during...

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China is blocking a United Nations Security Council move to condemn North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship, say diplomats familiar with the negotiations, marking a rankling divide on the issue between the Washington and Beijing. China is refusing to blame North Korea for the March sinking of the corvette Cheonan, in which 46 South Korean sailors died, and won't label the incident an "attack," according to two Western diplomats. That comes about a week after U.S. President Barack Obama drew an angry response from China for suggesting it was guilty of "willful blindness" toward North Korea....

A feature article from a Chinese magazine was struck from the Internet after news spread that it stated that the Korean War was started by North Korea’s invasion of the South. The lengthy feature in Xinhua’s International Herald Leader, timed for the 60th anniversary of the start of the war, had a time line that stated: “The North Korean military crossed the parallel on June 25th, 1950 and Seoul was taken in four days.” The article was widely distributed among Chinese news portals and agencies. After news of the story spread in Korean yesterday, the original article was found to...

GENEVA - A North Korean diplomat said Thursday that tensions on the Korean peninsula were running so high over the sinking of a South Korean warship that "war may break out at any moment." In a speech to the international Conference on Disarmament, Ri Jang-Gon, deputy permanent representative for North Korea at the United Nations in Geneva, blamed the "grave situation" on South Korea and the United States. "The present situation of the Korean peninsula is so grave that a war may break out at any moment," he said. International investigators on May 20 announced their findings that a North...

12 Died at Kim Il Sung Birthday Fireworks By Jung Kwon Ho [2010-04-23 21:58 ] Shenyang, China -- 12 people are reported to have died tragically after falling from the Daedong Bridge in Pyongyang during a rush of citizens trying to leave the fireworks display being held in Kim Il Sung Square on April 15th. The tragedy occurred at a time when a 500-meter radius around the square was crowded with people. A source from Pyongyang explained more on Friday, “After news that the General (Kim Jong Il) would not be participating in the event started circulating immediately after the...