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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If President George W. Bush wants to make progress on ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions before he leaves office next year, he first has to close the deal with Congress. The White House took a step to try to win congressional support on Thursday by laying out intelligence alleging that North Korea helped Syria to build a nuclear reactor that U.S. officials say was destroyed by Israel on September 6. The White House initially tried to keep the matter secret, fearing Damascus might be embarrassed by a public airing of the strike -- and the fact that...

WASHINGTON, April 29 (AP) - (Kyodo)—(EDS: TO BE LED) President George W. Bush said Tuesday the recent U.S. disclosure of North Korea's alleged transfer of nuclear technology to Syria was intended to sound a tough warning to Iran of its nuclear aspirations. Bush made the remarks at a White House press conference.

PANMUNJOM, Korea (AP) - A U.S. diplomat left North Korea on Saturday with boxes of documents detailing activities at the nuclear reactor that is at the heart of the communist country's nuclear weapons program. Washington plans to scrutinize the technical logs from the Yongbyon reactor to see if the North is telling the truth about a bomb program that it has agreed to trade away for economic and political rewards. Sung Kim, the U.S. State Department's top Korea specialist, returned to South Korea by land across the heavily fortified border after collecting approximately 18,000 secret papers during a three-day visit...

A starkly realistic approach to university management is now being applied by Dongguk University, which recently decided to cut down the number of students in less popular departments while letting popular departments to expand. Based on departmental evaluation under such criteria as students’ grades and employment rate of graduates, Dongguk University decided to reduce the number of students entering the departments in the bottom eight. If the accumulated score does not meet a certain level, the university will either close the department down or merge it with another. Other private universities are expected to follow suit, carrying out a rigorous...

OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — The Air Force chaplain whose unflagging efforts saved nearly 1,000 orphans during the Korean War was memorialized Thursday in a ceremony at Gwangju. Col. Russell L. Blaisdell is credited with getting nearly 1,000 children out of Seoul at a time when a communist ground offensive was expected to soon overtake the city. The rescue became the much-publicized Operation Kiddy Car in late 1950. The ceremony in Gwangju city’s social welfare hall occurred exactly one year after Blaisdell died at 96. Among those attending were members of the South Korean national assembly; a representative of...

China has secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region, it can be disclosed. Satellite imagery, passed to The Daily Telegraph, shows that a substantial harbour has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers. In what will be a significant challenge to US Navy dominance and to countries ringing the South China Sea, one photograph shows China’s latest 094 nuclear submarine at the base just a few hundred miles from its neighbours. Other images show numerous warships...

SEOUL, April 29 (AFP) Apr 29, 2008 South Korea's first astronaut Yi So-Yeon has been admitted to hospital with severe back pains caused by her rough return voyage to Earth, officials said Tuesday. The state-run Korea Aerospace Research Institute said Yi is undergoing MRI and other scans at an air force hospital to determine the exact cause of her discomfort. "She has complained of considerable back pains and will have to cancel all her appointments for the time being, including visits to the presidential office and TV interviews," a doctor at the military hospital was quoted by Yonhap news agency...

A North Korean officer fled across the heavily armed border with the South, the first officer to defect to the capitalist neighbor in about 10 years, a South Korean military official said on Monday. A Joint Chiefs of Staff official said the defection took place on Sunday. Yonhap news agency quoted a government official as saying it was near the Panmunjom truce village set up in the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that has divided the peninsula for more than 50 years. "We cannot comment on the rank or route the person used, because the officer is still under interrogation," the official...

PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — Although he retired last week after hitting the 30-year mark, a father has passed a legacy of Air Force service to his son at Kunsan Air Base. Chief Master Sgt. Owen Powell retired during a Wednesday ceremony at Kunsan’s Loring Club. During the same occasion, his son, Staff Sgt. Jon Powell, re-enlisted. “I tried to think of doing something to make my father’s last year in the Air Force a memorable one,” Jon Powell was quoted as saying in a wing news release. Service at Kunsan isn’t the only connection the two have to South Korea:...

SEOUL — The man who burned down Namdaemun, the 610-year-old gate in the heart of Seoul, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday, court spokesman Ma Yong-ju said. Prosecutors had asked the judge to sentence Chae Jong-gi, 69, to 12 years in prison for the Feb. 10 fire. Chae pleaded guilty to charges of arson and destroying a national treasure. Judge Lee Kyoung-choon said he gave Chae a heavy sentence because of the “indescribable mental pain” South Koreans experienced at the loss of the gate. The loss of Namdaemun also caused the nation’s prestige to fall, he said....

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean defectors vowed Saturday to disrupt the South Korean leg of the Olympic torch relay in protest of China's repatriation of refugees to the North where they could face execution. The demonstration would add to the chorus of protests that has dogged the torch's global tour, focusing attention on unrest in Tibetan areas of China and Beijing's human rights record. Han Chang Kwon, head of a coalition of groups representing North Korean defectors in South Korea, told The Associated Press that the protest at the Seoul relay on Sunday could become violent. He did...

The Bush administration released detailed photographic images on Thursday to support its assertion that the building in Syria that Israel destroyed in an airstrike last year was a nuclear reactor constructed with years of help from North Korea. The administration said it withheld the pictures for seven months out of fear that Syria could retaliate against Israel and start a broader war in the Middle East. The photographs taken inside the reactor before it was destroyed in an air raid on Sept. 6 clearly show the rods that control the heat in a nuclear reactor, one of many close engineering...

SEOUL — About 1,000 South Korean protesters from various civic organizations say they’ll gather in Seoul on Sunday morning to block the Olympic torch relay. One group — the Christian Accountability for Society — posted a statement on its Web site Thursday to announce its protest over the Chinese government’s violent crackdown on the Tibetan people. The protesters plan to gather in front of the Olympic Park’s Peace Gate at 11 a.m. The torch relay begins there at 2 p.m. and is supposed to arrive at Seoul City Hall by 7 p.m. Seoul officials are keeping the route — and...

Exhibit Shows Ancient Links Between Persia and Korea Cultural exchange between Korea and Persia goes back more than a thousand years. Some historians say through the Silk Road, Muslim traders put the name, Shilla, Korea's ancient dynasty, on the world map. To open a window into this intriguing past, the National Museum of Korea is hosting an exhibit of Persian artifacts. "Glory of Persia" showcases the history of Persia over a span of twelve centuries when it was one of the world's biggest empires. Shilla-period artifacts such as pottery and daggers show Persian influences in the form of artistic techniques...

<p>WASHINGTON — After seven months of near-total secrecy, the White House is preparing to make public on Thursday video evidence of North Koreans working at a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor just before it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike last September.</p>

The Bush administration said Wednesday it will not accept a North Korean nuclear declaration that does not fulfill Pyongyang's obligations under the six-party disarmament accord. U.S. intelligence officials are preparing to brief congressional leaders on North Korean proliferation activity. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department. Officials here are underscoring the administration's firm line on the declaration in advance of a briefing on Pyongyang's proliferation activity that could harden congressional opposition to the six-party accord. Pyongyang is more than three months overdue in making a full declaration of its nuclear program, including any proliferation activity, under the Chinese-sponsored six-party...

U.S. authorities arrested an American engineer on Tuesday on suspicion of giving secrets on nuclear weapons, fighter jets and air defense missiles to Israel during the 1980s, the Justice Department said. Ben-Ami Kadish, 84, acknowledged his spying in FBI interviews and said he acted out of a belief that he was helping Israel, court papers said. He was accused of reporting to an Israeli government handler who also dealt with Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American citizen serving a life term on a 1985 charge of spying for Israel. Kadish's arrest is a sign the Pollard scandal, which remains an irritant...

American troop levels to be constant for ‘foreseeable future’ SEOUL — The United States will pause the drawdown of its troops in South Korea, military officials from both countries said Monday. President Bush and new South Korean president Lee Myung-bak agreed to the pause during their Camp David visit Friday and Saturday. It was the first meeting between the two leaders, and several political experts in Seoul see the agreement as a signal of improved relations between the two countries under Lee’s leadership. Under the pause, the U.S. will maintain its current level of about 28,000 troops “for the foreseeable...

U.S. Wants N.Korea to Declare Nuclear Warheads The U.S. is asking North Korea to include a full account of the number of nuclear warheads it has produced in its declaration of nuclear programs and stockpiles. According to a South Korean government source, the U.S. has decided to allow the North to "indirectly acknowledge" its uranium enrichment program and nuclear proliferation to Syria, but the North must declare its weapons-grade plutonium. This means the U.S. wants the North to document the total amount of plutonium, the number of nuclear warheads, and the logbook of the Yongbyon atomic reactor and nuclear reprocessing...

April 22, 2008 Samsung chairman Lee Kun Hee resigns on national TV Leo Lewis, Asia Business Correspondent The chairman of Samsung, the most powerful tycoon in South Korea, has fallen on his sword after an unprecedented investigation of his business affairs. Lee Kun Hee, the reclusive 66-year old patrician who has led the family-controlled chaebol empire for two decades, appeared live on national television in Seoul this afternoon to announce his resignation. Samsung is responsible for a fifth of all South Korean exports and runs 59 operations throughout the world, from theme parks and mobile phones to memory chips and...

Soldier may have first human case of bird flu here April 22, 2008 A soldier who helped slaughter poultry infected with avian influenza might have the first human case of the disease in Korea, the Health Ministry said yesterday. “The soldier slaughtered poultry on Friday and Saturday, and his symptoms meet the criteria of a suspected avian influenza patient under the World Health Organization manual,” the ministry said in a release. “His condition, however, is close to that of a bacterial pneumonia patient, so we are closely monitoring him.” The ministry quoted the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as...

Bird flu in one way or another is wiping out poultry in South Korea Published: Monday, 21-Apr-2008 Disease/Infection News Following the announcement by officials in South Korea of another bird flu outbreak, 5.3 million birds are expected to be culled to control the spread of the deadly virus. This latest outbreak in South Korea is the 17th case of bird flu in three weeks and is the country's fastest and biggest ever outbreak of avian influenza. Officials at the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries say that the case which tested positive for the H5N1 virus, appeared on a...

Soyuz capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut lands off target in bone-jarring descent By MIKE ECKEL , Associated Press April 19, 2008 MOSCOW - A Russian capsule carrying South Korea's first astronaut touched down 260 miles off target in northern Kazakhstan on Saturday after hurtling through the atmosphere in a bone-jarring descent from the international space station. It was the second time in a row — and the third since 2003 — that the Soyuz landing went awry. Mission Control spokesman Valery Lyndin said the condition of the crew — South Korean bioengineer Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and...

N. Korea produced 30 kg plutonium: report TOKYO - NORTH Korea told the United States in December it has produced a total of around 30 kg of plutonium, about 20 kg less than what the United States estimates, a Japanese newspaper reported on Monday. The daily Tokyo Shimbun reported that North Korea's chief envoy to the talks, Kim Kye Gwan, told his US counterpart, Christopher Hill in North Korea last December the North had used about 18 kg of its plutonium stockpile for nuclear development and around 6 kg for its first and only underground nuclear test in October 2006....

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2008 – The United States will keep its current number of troops -- roughly 28,000 -- deployed to the Republic of Korea, President Bush said yesterday. During a joint news conference with his South Korean counterpart President Lee Myung-Bak, Bush said the two leaders constantly assess the need for U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula, and both agree on the necessity of maintaining present levels there. “We reached an agreement to maintain the current U.S. troop level on the peninsula. This is a mutual agreement that benefits both our nations and will strengthen our alliance,” Bush...

(GANGHWA ISLAND, South Korea) — A group of North Korean defectors sent helium balloons carrying some 60,000 leaflets condemning North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to their homeland from a South Korean island on Saturday. The leaflets also contained Bible verses as well as $1 bills in an apparent attempt to lure North Koreans into picking them up. "Our purpose is to urge North Koreans to bring down the dictatorship with their hands," said Park Sang-hak, the organizer of the campaign, as seven other defectors released balloons on Ganghwa island, near the heavily fortified western border. Park said the airborne...

North building underground runway, report says April 19, 2008 A U.S. commercial satellite has found a huge underground runway being built in eastern North Korea, a news report said yesterday. A photograph provided by “Google Earth,” a U.S. provider of satellite photos, showed that North Korea is building a 30-meter (98-foot) wide and 1,800-meter-long military runway at a site southwest of Wonsan, the U.S. government-funded radio station Voice of America said. “The cement-coated airstrip stretches southwestward from the northeast and is connected to a mountain tunnel,” the report said. “Around the runaway are stacks of soil and rocks dug out...

<p>The era of nonproliferation is over. During the first half-century of the nuclear age, safety lay in restricting the weaponry to major powers and keeping it out of the hands of rogue states. This strategy was inevitably going to break down. The inevitable has arrived.</p>

US changes tack over North Korea nuclear program Thu Apr 17, 6:26 PM ET The United States on Thursday for the first time admitted it was scaling back its demands on North Korea in a bid to break a diplomatic stalemate on ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms drive. The top Asia hand at the US National Security Council, Dennis Wilder, said North Korea was not "off the hook" on fully declaring its atomic programs, but that proliferation issues would be "handled in a different manner." And US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in an apparent concession to Pyongyang, indicated the entire...

SEOUL — As they chatted over pricey cups of coffee on the top floor of Seoul’s ritzy Shinsagae department store, Kim Eun-jun and her girlfriends were barely two miles from the largest U.S. military base in South Korea, but they were a world away. All in their mid- to late-30s, the women said they rarely think about the thousands of U.S. troops stationed at the base in the heart of the city. “We aren’t the generation that went through the war,” said Kim, a 35-year-old translator. “That may be the reason we don’t care or worry about national defense issues.”...

SEOUL — On a recent weekday evening, Pfc. David King was one of just a trickle of U.S. soldiers strolling through Itaewon, the bar and restaurant district outside the Army’s Yongsan Garrison in Seoul. And that’s a shame, the 22-year-old said. Whenever he goes off post — especially outside of Itaewon — he gets a warm welcome from South Koreans, who he believes support the U.S. military presence here. U.S. troops sometimes get a less-than-friendly greeting in Itaewon, he said, because South Koreans there see the troops at their worst — looking for women and cheap drinks. But for the...

When South Korea’s new president meets with President Bush in the United States on Friday and Saturday, he may ask for something that makes some South Koreans uneasy — that the United States pause its downsizing in South Korea. Polls show that a significant number of South Koreans want the U.S. military to eventually leave the country — as much as 55 percent, according to a survey conducted by a South Korean newspaper. Others say the 63-year U.S. presence in South Korea has allowed the country to develop and continues to deter an attack from North Korea. “They are the...

This is the first in a two-day series exploring the South Korean population’s perception of the U.S. military presence. SEOUL — When the Korea Military Academy asked its incoming cadets in 2004 to name South Korea’s main enemy, they were shocked at the answer: 34 percent said the United States while only 33 percent said North Korea. The country’s top military leaders asked that question of the 250 cadets — among the smartest university students in the nation — because they wanted to know if a 2-year-old surge of anti-Americanism had influenced the future military officers, Kim Chul-woo said. He...

President George W. Bush is fond of comparing himself to Ronald Reagan. But as he meets with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington this week, his policy regarding North Korea's nuclear weapons program looks more like something out of Bill Clinton's or Jimmy Carter's playbook. In dealing with the Soviet Union on arms control, Reagan was famous for repeating the Russian phrase, "Doveryai, no proveryai" (trust, but verify). Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev reportedly once complained to Reagan, "You use that phrase every time we meet." To which Reagan smilingly replied, "That's because I like it so much." This administration...

North Korea 'faces food crisis' North Korea is facing a humanitarian crisis caused by acute food shortages, a UN agency has warned. The situation there was "clearly bad and getting worse", a senior World Food Programme official said, and help was needed to avert serious tragedy. North Korea has been dependent on international food aid for years. But severe flooding last year compounded its problems, devastating large swathes of agricultural land and leading to a poor harvest. WFP estimates that 6.5 million North Koreans, out of a total population of 23 million, do not have enough to eat - and...

Washington Greets Deal With N.Korea With Skepticism Some U.S. government officials and congressmen have expressed opposition to a tentative deal reached with North Korea in Singapore last week regarding the North’s overdue declaration of all its nuclear programs and stockpiles. One deputy secretary in the Bush administration says the Singapore deal does not clearly specify Pyongyang's proliferation record and uranium enrichment program, which have hitherto been key sticking points in the matter. Radio Free Asia reports that there was some discontent for congressmen when U.S. chief nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill briefed the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Indication of another missile test (Kyodo News) U.S. "spotted training activities at a base near Pyongyang" According to Apr. 13 dispatch of Kyodo News, U.S. military intelligence has picked up lots of movements in a recent few days near a missile launch base at Shinori located to the N. West of Pyongyang. It reported that U.S. spy satellite has been watching over the N. Korean movements, which also spotted their training activities at the base. U.S. military has not determined what these activities are for, but some suspect that N. Korea is preparing for...

(SEOUL) -- In the Chinese city of Yanji, just a few kilometres from the North Korean border, one of the most risky journalistic endeavours ever undertaken is taking shape. A North Korean citizen is being trained in the techniques of using a hidden camera. His identity is a closely guarded secret, so he chooses to use the name Lee Jun. Mr Lee is one of a group of citizen journalists that has begun working inside North Korea, producing written reports and video footage which are then smuggled to the outside world. He has crossed the border on numerous occasions, bringing...

More bad news for North Korea's Kim Jong-il: South Korean voters have handed control of parliament to the conservative Grand National Party, six weeks after the party's flag bearer assumed office as the nation's president. Official results in Wednesday's parliamentary elections gave the GNP 153 of the National Assembly's 299 seats, while the liberal United Democratic Party associated with former president Roh Moo-hyun took 81 seats. Two conservative factions won 32 seats between them, and the rest went to smaller parties and independents. The GNP, which long accused Roh of making too many concessions in engaging the communist North, lost...

Excerpt - SEOUL, April 12 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and the United States have reached a secret deal to end the impasse in the six-nation talks to dismantle the North's nuclear weapons program, a U.S. government-funded radio station reported Saturday. Under the secret agreement, reached at a meeting of the top nuclear envoys of the two countries in Singapore early this week, the U.S. will make a declaration of North Korea's alleged uranium enrichment program and nuclear cooperation with Syria on behalf of Pyongyang, Radio Free Asia reported on its Web site, citing "multiple diplomatic sources" in Washington. In return,...

In this final year of the Bush presidency, what was once a doctrine of preemption has given way to a weird presumption that threats that Washington doesn't officially acknowledge somehoe won't hurt us. It's an alarming sign when CIA director Michael Hayden says, as he did on NBC that, personally, he believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, but officially he stands by the NIE report that maybe they aren't. So America sails on, under the fiction that nothing dramatic need be done, despite Hayden's further warning that in Iran, "the development of fissile material, the development of delivery systems, continue...

U.S. Ready to Ease Sanctions on N. Korea Pyongyang Would Have to Acknowledge Evidence About Nuclear Activities By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 11, 2008; A15 The United States is prepared to lift two key economic sanctions against North Korea under a tentative deal reached with that country this week, which requires Pyongyang to acknowledge U.S. concerns and evidence about a range of nuclear activities, U.S. and Asian diplomats said yesterday. The agreement also requires North Korea to finish disabling its main nuclear facility and provide a full accounting of its stockpile of plutonium. But, in a...

SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak’s conservative party had a slim parliamentary majority early Thursday after elections, giving Mr. Lee some political leverage to make life easier for the country’s business conglomerates but more difficult for North Korea’s rulers. With nearly all of the votes counted from Wednesday’s election, election officials and television stations said Mr. Lee’s Grand National Party had won 153 seats in the 299-member National Assembly. The current leading party in the National Assembly, the liberal United Democratic Party, appeared to have taken 81 seats, down sharply from the 136 seats it had controlled. Other seats...

SEOUL (Reuters) - The conservative party of South Korea's new President Lee Myung-bak won a majority in Wednesday's parliamentary election, according to projections by KBS and MBC TV networks. The victory for Lee's Grand National Party would give him the parliamentary support to push through sweeping tax cuts and business-friendly reforms he says are needed to revive Asia's fourth-largest economy. The TV projection gave the party between 155-178 of the 299 seats at stake.

No breakthrough in North Korea talks, U.S. says 39 minutes ago The United States and North Korea have made no breakthrough toward a final resolution for Pyongyang's declaration of its nuclear program, U.S. Secretary of State Christopher Hill said on Wednesday. Six-nation talks aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions have been held up pending a full accounting of North Korea's nuclear activities, a declaration due at the end of last year. Negotiators to the six-party talks met Chinese foreign ministry officials in Beijing on Wednesday. Hill said he had "good discussions" with his Chinese, Japanese and South Korean counterparts,...

SEOUL — South Korean defense officials will ask the United States on Tuesday for a pause in the drawdown of U.S. troops stationed here, according to numerous South Korean media reports. The reports, which cited anonymous South Korean defense officials, come less than a month after U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. B.B. Bell told a congressional committee that he expects South Korea’s new president to ask for the pause so the countries can study the future of the drawdown. Bell testified March 12 that President Lee Myung-bak could make the request as early as April, when Lee is scheduled to...

All eyes are focused on the much anticipated U.S.-North Singapore Conference, initiated by the U.S. and North Korea to address the ongoing nuclear declaration issue, scheduled to take place today. According to Israeli reports, the U.S. and Israel have agreed to take this opportunity to “pressure North Korea to cease its nuclear cooperation with Iran.” A daily internet newspaper in Israel, Haaretz, released on the 7th that “According to information obtained by Washington and Jerusalem, North Korea transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid Tehran's secret nuclear arms program.” Haaretz reported that “U.S. and Israeli officials agreed last...

South Korea's new President Lee Myung Bak and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed Monday to push ahead with efforts to link the trans-Korean railway with the trans-Siberian railway and other tripartite economic cooperation projects involving North Korea, according to local media. Lee and Putin exchanged views on the matter in a telephone conservation in which Lee also sought greater Russian efforts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, Yonhap News Agency quoted presidential spokesman Lee Dong Kwan as saying. Lee expressed appreciation for Russia's cooperation in sending the first South Korean astronaut into space aboard a...

Last update - 09:48 07/04/2008 U.S., Israel concerned N. Korean nuclear know-how reached Iran By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent Tags: Israel, North Korea, Syria The United States and Israel seek to pressure North Korea to cease its nuclear cooperation with Iran, which is one of the motives behind their agreement to disclose details on the air-force strike in Syria last September. According to foreign press reports, the strike targeted a nuclear installation built with North Korean assistance. According to information obtained by Washington and Jerusalem, North Korea transferred technology and nuclear materials to Iran to aid Tehran's secret nuclear arms...

April 6, 2008 UN pulls out of North Korea Olympic torch ceremony amid fears of propaganda coup Michael Sheridan, Far East Correspondent THE United Nations has withdrawn its staff from the Olympic torch run in North Korea amid concerns that the relay will be used as a propaganda stunt. The decision followed a heated internal debate among foreign donors, who face a constant battle with Kim Jong-il’s government in their efforts to get food and aid to impoverished people. It is believed to be the first acknowledgment by the world body that the Olympic torch relay is a political event...