Free Republic

Brief excerpt; The paper said the general made clear at a speech given at a rally in Pyongyang that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other rockets capable of attacking pre-set targets have been armed with various types of atomic warheads.

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea began naval drills off its west coast Thursday to strengthen its ability to counter any North Korean provocations despite Pyongyang's latest threat to retaliate against Seoul over its war games. The drills, which follow joint military exercises with the U.S. last month off the east coast, are set to run through Monday and will include exercises in areas near the disputed western sea border with North Korea. They involve about 4,500 South Korean troops, more than 20 ships and submarines, and about 50 aircraft, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Both sets of...

SEOUL, South Korea -- Like most North Koreans, Son Jong Nam knew next to nothing about Christianity when he fled to neighboring China in 1998. Eleven years later, he died back in North Korea in prison, reportedly tortured to death for trying to spread the Gospel in his native land, armed with 20 bibles and 10 cassette tapes of hymns. He was 50. His story, pieced together by his younger brother, a defector who lives in South Korea, sheds light on a little-discussed practice: the sending back of North Korean converts to evangelize in their home country - a risky...

SEOUL (AFP) – North Korea's ruling communist party said Saturday it would convene a meeting of party representatives in September to elect new leaders, Pyongyang's official media reported. The session would be "for electing its (the party's) highest leading body," said an announcement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It will be only the third such meeting of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) since the communist state was founded in 1948 and would likely designate leader Kim Jong-Il's son as his political heir, an analyst said. "The Political Bureau of the WPK Central Committee decides...

Siegfried Hecker, sitting in a cold conference room, was asked by his North Korean hosts if he would like to see their "product." "Yes," Dr. Hecker replied. "Do you mean plutonium?" Hecker, former director of the U.S. weapons lab at Los Alamos and familiar with the hazardous properties of plutonium, was surprised when two technicians carried a small red metal box into the room. Inside was a white wooden box containing two glass jars -- they looked like marmalade jars -- one containing a piece of plutonium metal, the other plutonium powder. He later asked if he could hold the...

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The United Nations slapped sanctions on three North Korean firms accused of backing missile development, in its first concrete action against Pyongyang over its April 5 rocket launch. A committee agreed on the sanctions after the Security Council condemned North Korea for its launch -- a statement that had so incensed the communist state that it stormed out of a six-nation denuclearization agreement. The move bans transactions and calls on UN member-states to freeze the assets of two defensive companies -- Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation and Korea Ryonbong General Corporation -- along with the Tanchon...

HONG KONG (AFP) - The eldest son of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il has been living the high life in southern China's casino haven Macau for most of the past three years, a media report has said. Kim Jong-nam, 35, and his family have made their home on the territory's leafy Coloane island, and he has been spotted dining in fine restaurants and gambling in the plush casinos, the South China Morning Post reported here. He has apparently been living untroubled despite a crackdown by the United States on the tiny city's financial links with the Pyongyang regime. North Korea...

WASHINGTON and TORONTO — Canadian Maurice Strong agreed to step aside Wednesday as a special envoy for the United Nations, but vowed to clear his name after being linked to Tongsun Park, a Korean lobbyist charged in connection with the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. At the same time, new details emerged about a Calgary oil company in which Mr. Strong and his son, Fred, were major investors during the 1990s together with Mr. Park -- whom the younger Mr. Strong described as "a spooky guy." Shareholders in Cordex Petroleums Inc. also included CSL Group Inc., the holding company owned by Prime...