Articles written by Kim Tong Hyung


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  • North Korea threatens to shut liaison office with South

    Kim Tong Hyung|Jun 5, 2020

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Friday threatened to permanently shut a liaison office with South Korea as it continued to condemn its rival for failing to prevent activists from sending anti-North Korean leaflets across the border. The statement by North Korea's ruling Workers' Party came a day after the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un said the country would end a military agreement reached with South Korea in 2018 to reduce tensions if Seoul fails to stop the activists. Kim Yo Jong also said North Korea could permanently s...

  • NKorea's Kim Jong Un appears in public amid health rumors

    Kim Tong Hyung|May 1, 2020

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he was seriously ill. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim attended the ceremony Friday in Suncheon with other senior officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, who many analysts predict would take over if her brother is suddenly unable to rule. Neither the KCNA nor t...

  • As world scrambles, experts warn virus spread in US certain

    Adam Geller and Kim Tong Hyung|Feb 26, 2020

    NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. health officials warned Tuesday that the burgeoning coronavirus is certain to spread more widely in the country at some point, even as their counterparts in Europe and Asia scrambled to contain new outbreaks of the illness. "It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen — and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a call with reporters. The CDC...

  • Kim calls for measures to protect North Korea's security

    Kim Tong Hyung|Dec 29, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for his military and diplomats to prepare unspecified "offensive measures" to protect the country's security and sovereignty, the North's state media said on Monday, before his end-of-year deadline for the Trump administration to make major concessions to salvage a fragile nuclear diplomacy. Kim during a ruling Workers' Party meeting Sunday also "comprehensively and anatomically analyzed" problems arising in efforts to rebuild the North's moribund economy and presented tasks f...

  • Seoul police up security after rally at US envoy residence

    Kim Tong Hyung|Oct 18, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean police said Saturday they beefed up security at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Seoul after a group of anti-American students used ladders to break into the compound. They were protesting demands by the Trump administration that South Korea pay more to help cover the costs of keeping U.S. troops in the country. Officials from three Seoul police stations didn't immediately say whether they will seek to formally arrest any of the 19 university students who were detained Friday afternoon at the r...

  • S. Korea says N. Korea has fired more projectiles into sea

    Kim Tong Hyung|Aug 16, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's military said North Korea fired more projectiles into the sea Friday to extend a recent streak of weapons tests believed to be aimed at pressuring Washington and Seoul over slow nuclear diplomacy. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said projectiles were twice launched from an area on the North's eastern coast, but didn't immediately say what the weapons were, how many were launched or how far they flew. It was North Korea's sixth round of weapons launches since late July when it began stepping up its w...

  • North Korea calls Biden 'fool of low IQ' over Kim criticism

    Kim Tong Hyung|May 23, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has labeled Joe Biden a "fool of low IQ" and an "imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being" after the U.S. presidential hopeful called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a tyrant during a recent speech. Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency on Wednesday said the former American vice president had insulted the country's supreme leadership and committed an "intolerable and serious politically-motivated provocation" against the North. Biden during a campaign launch in Philadelphia on S...

  • Kim oversees missile firing drills, tells troops to be alert

    Kim Tong Hyung|May 5, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korean state media on Sunday showed leader Kim Jong Un observing live-fire drills of long-range multiple rocket launchers and what appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile, a day after South Korea expressed concern that the launches were a violation of an inter-Korean agreement to cease all hostile acts. Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said Kim expressed "great satisfaction" over Saturday's drills and stressed that his front-line troops should keep a "high alert posture" and enhance c...

  • South hopeful, wary, but nuke talks crucial for Korean ties

    Kim Tong Hyung|Feb 8, 2019

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Koreans, always deeply divided over how best to deal with their often-belligerent northern neighbor, are reacting with both hope and wariness to President Donald Trump's announcement that he will hold a second nuclear disarmament summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. But for liberal South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who is eager to push ahead with ambitious plans for engagement with North Korea, a breakthrough in Vietnam is crucial. Moon served as diplomatic middleman between the U.S. and North Korea fol...

  • A look at Americans who have been detained in North Korea

    Kim Tong Hyung|Nov 16, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea says it is expelling American Bruce Byron Lowrance after he slipped unlawfully into the police state known for its anti-U.S. fervor. He is believed to be the same person who was deported by South Korea a year ago after being caught wandering near the mine-strewn border with North Korea, looking for a way to cross over. Sneaking into North Korea has proved to be a powerful temptation for some Americans. Some were driven by religious zeal, others simply were attracted by the mystery of a remote and c...

  • N. Korea threatens to resume nuke development over sanctions

    Kim Tong Hyung|Nov 4, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has warned it could revive a state policy aimed at strengthening its nuclear arsenal if the United States does not lift economic sanctions against the country. The statement released by the Foreign Ministry on Friday evening said North Korea could bring back its "pyongjin" policy of simultaneously advancing its nuclear force and economic development if the United States doesn't change its stance. The North sopped short of threatening to abandon ongoing nuclear negotiations with Washington. Still, it a...

  • Unfinished business: Moon's summit dreams echo late mentor

    Kim Tong Hyung|Sep 19, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — This week's summit between rivals North and South Korea represents, in part, unfinished business for South Korean President Moon Jae-in. In pursuing engagement with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to defuse a nuclear crisis, Moon is also looking to bolster the legacy of his late friend and political mentor, former President Roh Moo-hyun, whose ambitious efforts to build trust with North Korea crumbled as it began building its nuclear arsenal a decade ago. A dovish liberal, Moon said he will use the meetings with Kim i...

  • At emotional Korean reunions, genuine talk often impossible

    Kim Tong Hyung|Aug 22, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A mother wails as she embraces a son she hasn't seen since the 1950-53 Korean War. A woman weeps as she greets a grandfather she never got to know. The scenes of Koreans meeting this week, likely for the last time before they die, are heartbreaking, but they often bely a highly political and tightly controlled event in which participants often struggle to have genuine conversations. Much of the awkwardness centers on the defining fact of the Korean Peninsula: For decades it has been divided between the authoritarian N...

  • North Korea said to be dismantling key parts of launch site

    Kim Tong Hyung|Jul 25, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea appears to have started dismantling key facilities at its main satellite launch site in a step toward fulfilling a commitment made by leader Kim Jong Un at his summit with President Donald Trump in June. While Pyongyang could be trying to build trust with Washington as they engage in talks to resolve the nuclear standoff, analysts say dismantling a few facilities at the site alone wouldn't realistically reduce North Korea's military capability or represent a material step toward denuclearization. And t...

  • SKorea suspends civilian drills to help talks with NKorea

    Kim Tong Hyung|Jul 11, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea has suspended its summertime civil defense drills aimed at preparing against a North Korean attack to keep alive a positive atmosphere for nuclear diplomacy with the North. Seoul's decision on Tuesday to "temporarily suspend" the nationwide civilian drills had been anticipated since the United States and South Korea halted their annual military exercises following a summit last month between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Streets in South Korean cities froze at the sound of a...

  • South Korean women protest against 'spy cam porn'

    Kim Tong Hyung|Jul 8, 2018

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thousands of South Korean women gathered in Seoul on Saturday to demand stronger government action to fight the spread of intimate photos and video taken by hidden cameras, which they say has women living in constant anxiety and distress. Police said about 18,000 took part in the women-only protest, with demonstrators calling for stronger investigations and punishments against male offenders who photograph or film women without their knowledge and post the material online. Most of the protesters covered their faces w...

  • Blue pills in Blue House: S. Korea leader explains Viagra

    Kim Tong Hyung|Nov 24, 2016

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Little blue pills in South Korea's presidential Blue House? President Park Geun-hye's office on Wednesday confirmed revelations by an opposition lawmaker that it purchased about 360 erectile dysfunction Viagra pills and the generic version of the drug in December. While the report has created a frenzy on the internet, Park's office said the pills were bought to potentially treat altitude sickness for presidential aides and employees on Park's May trips to Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya, whose capitals are 1 to 2 kilometers...

  • South Korean men investigated after eating missing sheepdog

    Kim Tong Hyung|Oct 7, 2016

    SEOUL, South Korea (AP, Oct. 7, 2016) — South Korean police said Friday they were investigating accusations that four men killed a missing sheepdog before eating it in a case that has infuriated many and caused debate on the country's dog-eating culture. The dog's owner said her heart was ripped by the loss. The four men admitted to butchering and eating the dog but said they found it dead on the side of the road, said Choi Won-kyu, a police official from the rural city of Iksan. Choi said a witness claimed seeing the dog hurt but alive h...