Free Republic

North Korea’s economy expanded by 1.0% to $29.85 billion (£19 billion) in 2014, according to Reuters citing analysis from South Korea’s central bank. That’s just better than the 0.9% growth recorded in the Eurozone last year. The Bank of Korea (BoK) report that “the increase in economic activity was attributed mainly to growth in services and building while farming, mining and manufacturing saw slower growth.”

During U.S. President Barack Obama’s speech on Wednesday regarding a new government initiative to bring high speed internet access to low-income groups, the topic of South Korea’s education system came up. “In South Korea they pay their teachers the way they pay their doctors,” he said in front of an audience at Durant High School in Durant, Okla. “They consider education to be at the highest wrung of the professions.” The reason it came up at all had to do with South Korea’s widespread high speed internet access especially in the city’s capital of Seoul. Obama voiced a similar statement...

I was torn to lament over situations recently so I asked The Lord to explain His Grace to me and I share it for your consideration . . . Grace is sufficient is more than a statement it is an enactment for many in My Creation ask "Why"? When I have given them the gift to (( ( "DECLARE" ) )) ((( "GRACE" ))) ! And so it is with this enlightenment they "IN FACT" carry the KEY to their own Blessings and Grace ! For I AM GRACE ETERNAL and it is in this manner you must speak and...

Young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has executed 70 officials since taking power in late 2011 in a "reign of terror" that far exceeds the bloodshed of his dictator father's early rule, South Korean officials said Thursday. South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se, at a forum in Seoul, compared Kim Jong Un's 70 executions with those of his late father, Kim Jong Il, who he said executed about 10 officials during his first years in power.

It has been claimed the chief architect of Pyongyang Airport was executed by North Korea's totalitarian leader Kim Jong-un because he disliked his designs. Ma Won-chun, who was North Korea's director of the Designing Department of the National Defence Commission, vanished last year and was allegedly executed in November. This coincided with a report the same month explaining how the fearsome ruler was dissatisfied with the construction of Terminal 2 at the country's capital city.

North Korea marked the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War on Thursday with a 100,000-strong rally in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Stadium, and a statement condemning the "fatty monster US imperialists". The "Pyongyang Mass Rally on the Day of the Struggle Against the US," was a carefully orchestrated display of angry speeches, fist-pumping and calls for blood revenge. The rally was just one event in what it officially known as "Struggle Against US Imperialism Month", during which North Koreans visit war museums and attend gatherings denouncing the evils of the United States. North Korea also issued a...

North Korean officials said scientists had developed Kumdang-2 from ginseng and other ingredients - which they chose not to revealKim Jong-un claims to have succeeded where the greatest minds in science have failed... by producing a single drug which can prevent and cure Aids, Ebola, Sars and Mers. North Korea is currently suffering from one of the worst droughts in its history while still pursuing a nuclear programme. The official Korean Central News Agency said the portly despot's scientists developed miracle drug Kumdang-2 from ginseng and other ingredients - without saying which. North Korea claimed the same drug cured deadly...

Adolf Hitler started World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939. Nazi Germany moved only after it had already remilitarized the Rhineland, absorbed Austria and dismantled Czechoslovakia. Before the outbreak of the war, Hitler's new Third Reich had created the largest German-speaking nation in European history. Well before the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Imperial Japanese government had redrawn the map of Asia and the Pacific. Japan had occupied or annexed Indochina, Korea, Manchuria and Taiwan, in addition to swaths of coastal China. Attacking Hawaii, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Indonesia was merely the logical 1941 follow-up...

Strength. That’s the first word that comes to mind when most of us think about 3D printing in metal. And expense is usually the second–but when it comes to fixing up a nation’s fighter jet, thrift is most likely not an issue. And if you were up against a constant adversary like North Korea, you’d want the best, most secure repairs possible for the main fleet’s F-15K fighter jet–especially if you were the one flying it. When it came to the attention of the South Korean Air Force powers that they needed to modify and repair two high-powered turbine components...

In a bar in Seoul’s upmarket Gangnam district this week, music was blasting from the speakers and Harry Potter played on a giant flat-screen television; but the electronic darts board and kung fu video game stands were bereft of customers, and all but one of the tables were empty. The barman had a simple answer for the unusual lack of business: Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers). South Korea on Friday reported three more deaths from Mers, in what has become the largest outbreak of the virus outside Saudi Arabia, with more than a dozen deaths in the past few weeks...

Nurses at a hospital in China have been reportedly drawing lots to determine who should treat a patient with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers). The hospital, in the southern city of Huizhou, said the ballot was arranged because there were too many volunteers to treat the South Korean man. But posts on social media suggest many were reluctant to take on the task. The virus has a death rate of 27%, according to the World Health Organization. The sick man was named as China's first Mers case last week, after travelling to the country from South Korea, via Hong Kong....

South Korea struggled to contain an outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) on Monday as health authorities announced three more cases, bringing the number of infections to 18 in just over 10 days. Authorities are considering a ban on overseas travel for the nearly 700 people isolated for possible infection after a 44-year-old man broke a voluntary house quarantine last week and flew to Hong Kong and then travelled to mainland China. The man subsequently tested positive for MERS, China's first confirmed case, setting off alarm bells as health officials traced his footsteps and tested dozens of people who...

In Korea, the only "god" he knew was the country's leader, Kim Il-Sung, and any perceived blasphemy against him could land a person in a prison camp. So when Joseph Kim finally crossed the Tumen river into China, he did what he was told—follow the cross—even though he didn't know what a cross or a Christian was. Kim tells his story in a new book, Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and at a time when North Korea occasionally surfaces in the headlines for its continuing beligerence towards the...

The contest is a battle of robots on an obstacle course meant to simulate conditions similar to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear plant disaster. Team Kaist's DRC-Hubo humanoid robot defeated 22 others to win the top $2m prize from the US Department of Defense's Darpa research unit. The robots had an hour to complete a series of tasks, such as a driving a car and walking up steps. The challenge involved a series of tasks for the robots to complete, somewhat autonomously, with intermittent connectivity with their operators to simulate real disaster conditions. The challenge was the first where robots performed...

Bhubaneswar: South Korean steel giant Posco has waited patiently for its 12 million tonne per annum (MTPA) port-based steel plant near Paradip in Odisha to take off for nearly a decade. But with the Centre ruling out any out of turn allocation of iron ore mines to the company and the Odisha government giving the impression of washing its hands of the project, the steel major’s patience appears to be wearing thin. Nothing proves this exasperation better than the ugly war of words between Posco and Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation of Odisha (IDCO), the land acquisition arm of the state...

Authorities also reported six new cases of infection from the virus, raising the total to 25 since the first case was confirmed in May. That infection was of a 68-year-old South Korean man who had visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. South Korea is considering an overseas travel ban for almost 700 people isolated for possible infection from the virus. However, authorities said on Tuesday there is insufficient evidence to declare an epidemic. Of the six new cases reported Tuesday, two are people who didn’t come into contact with the original carrier, authorities said. Instead, they contracted...

South Korea and China officially signed their bilateral free trade agreement Monday, taking a step closer to implementing what officials here call a mutually beneficial and significant trade pact. The agreement was signed by South Korean Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick and his Chinese counterpart Gao Hucheng in Seoul, about six months after the two countries declared the conclusion of their negotiations that began in May 2012. The bilateral trade pact was initialed in Beijing on Feb. 25. The countries now only need approval from their respective legislatures before implementing the deal, which they plan to do before the end of...

All of a sudden, aircraft carriers are back in fashion. Over in Russia, they're drawing up plans to build the world's biggest aircraft carrier, a 100,000-ton beast that can carry 100 combat aircraft. China's building one, two, or maybe even four aircraft carriers. And here in the United States, we're busy building our second ­Ford-class supercarrier. Around the world and across the seas, aircraft carriers are popping up in the unlikeliest of places -- in Korea, in Thailand, in India, Japan, and maybe soon in Singapore, as well. But you'll never guess the latest country to announce plans to acquire...

The future of this year’s Pride in Seoul is looking uncertain after a notice banning the parade in the planned route was issued by Seoul Metropolitan police. The police issued the ban on the grounds that there were too many rallies planned for the same time, including opposing anti-LGBT demonstrations, and that it would cause too much disruption to traffic and pedestrians in the area. The organisers of the parade are contesting the prohibition saying it is unreasonable and unjustifiable. They also announced their plans to fight the prohibition by liaising with other activist groups. This comes after a controversial...

BUSAN, South Korea, May 21 (UPI) -- A South Korean man was arrested for slaughtering 600 stray cats and selling the meat for medicinal soups. The man, identified only by the surname Jeong, was taken into custody in May for violating South Korea's animal protection laws, reported Yonhap on Thursday. Jeong, who is in his 50s, said he sold the meat to traditional Korean health care centers – claiming the meat could be used in soups to treat arthritis. South Korea's Chosun TV reported Jeong employed a brutal method of butchering the cats. After trapping the cat, he would throw...