South Korea

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China to North Korea: Loosen Up Those Markets

Powerful Pyongyang official visits Beijing

(Newser) - It's time for authoritarian North Korea to let in some free markets, urged Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today, following a rare meeting with a high-ranking North Korean official, reports Reuters . Wen and President Hu Jintao met yesterday with Jang Song Thaek, the powerful uncle of North Korea's young...

S. Koreans Claim Islands— by Swimming to Them

Japan also claims disputed Dokdo/Takeshima islands

(Newser) - South Korea is reasserting its control over disputed islands in a rather creative fashion: A singer and a team of students will swim a 144-mile, 55-hour relay to the site, arriving on Wednesday. That just so happens to be Liberation Day, which marks the country's independence from Japan. Tokyo...

Facebook Sinks Millions Into Underwater Internet Cable

With US market saturated, Facebook looks to Asia for growth

(Newser) - Call it Bandwidth of Dreams. Banking that if they build it, users will come, Facebook is investing in a 6,214-mile-long fiber-optic cable running from Malaysia to South Korea and Japan, reports the BBC . The $450 million Asia Pacific Gateway cable is designed to reduce the countries' reliance on Singapore...

South Korea Plans to Resume Whale Hunt

Critics slam plan for 'scientific' whaling

(Newser) - South Korea has announced that it plans to join Japan in hunting whales for "scientific research." The country's delegation to the International Whaling Commission said the hunt for minke whales was needed "for the proper assessment of whale stocks," but anti-whaling countries and groups charged...

South Korea Refuses to Sign Japan Pact at Last Minute

Koreans still smarting over Japan's colonial rule

(Newser) - An intelligence-sharing pact between South Korea and Japan that had been called a breakthrough between the countries after decades of acrimony was postponed at the last minute today following a political outcry in Seoul, reports the AP . The non-combat military agreement, which was called "historic" by Japan's foreign...

N. Korea Furious After US, South Use Flag in Drills

Pyongyang calls move 'politically-motivated provocation'

(Newser) - Last week, a North Korean flag appeared during the largest US-South Korea military drills since the Korean War; now Pyongyang is taking the countries to task. "It is an extremely grave military action and politically-motivated provocation to fire live bullets and shells at the flag of a sovereign state...

14 Dead in Peru Mountain 'Copter Crash

Wreckage, bodies found at 16K feet

(Newser) - The crashed remains of a helicopter that had gone missing was found yesterday in Peru, 16,000 feet up a mountain, reports the BBC . All 14 on board are dead. The helicopter, which went missing after leaving the western Amazon on Wednesday, apparently "crashed and exploded," says a...

In South Korea, Creationists Score a Huge Victory

Evolution references yanked from textbooks

(Newser) - A group opposed to the teaching of evolution has won a major victory in the Deep South—of the Korean peninsula. A creationist group has successfully petitioned South Korean publishers to remove several references to evolution from high school textbooks, Nature reports. The group—set up by the US Institute...

N. Korea Screws Up Threat Vs. South's Media

Threats include media coordinates, but locations all wrong

(Newser) - Pity North Korea: Even when, in typical grandiloquent style, it threatens the "fools, idiots, and blockheads" in the South Korean media with "a merciless sacred war," it manages to muck that up, reports the Wall Street Journal . Apparently the North got really peeved at South Korean media'...

30 North Korean Officials Die in 'Car Crashes'

And regime's nuke ready for testing, maybe tomorrow

(Newser) - Thirty North Korean officials who took part in talks with South Korea were either executed or died in "staged traffic accidents" for failing to improve relations, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's annual report found that another 200 were arrested in January as the regime transferred...

Muslim Group Vows to Stop Gaga Concert

'We will stop her from setting foot here,' warns Jakarta FPI

(Newser) - Conservative Muslims' latest holy war is being waged against Lady Gaga and her Indonesia tour. The extremist Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) accuses Gaga of promoting devil worship, and has vowed to mobilize 30,000 protesters to intercept her at the Jakarta airport so she can't perform next month at...

S. Korea Busts Smuggled Pills—Made of Baby Flesh

Some believe substance to be cure-all

(Newser) - South Korean customs authorities have made a highly disturbing find: Thousands of capsules made of powdered baby flesh, believed by some to have healing powers. Smugglers have attempted to get nearly 17,500 such capsules into the country since August, officials say. Made in northeastern China, the pills contain diced...

South Korea: North Is Jamming Planes' GPS

Flights not in danger, South Korean officials say

(Newser) - Commercial flights into and out of South Korea found their GPS signals mysteriously jammed this weekend, officials revealed today, and they weren't shy about casting suspicion on their neighbors to the north. More than 250 flights were affected, though officials say none were in danger because they automatically switched...

S. Korea Stores Yank US Beef Over Mad Cow

Mad Cow scare affects two major retailers, but EU, Japan keeping cool

(Newser) - Two of South Korea's biggest grocery chains have temporarily halted the sale of US beef in response to the latest mad cow scare . "Not that there were any quality issues in the meat," a spokesman for the country's third-largest chain tells the AP , "but because...

North Korea: 'Special Actions' Will Crush South's Leadership

North Korean army promises 'unprecedented peculiar means and methods'

(Newser) - North Korea's military says it will launch "special actions" soon meant to wipe out conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's administration. The army statement carried by state media Monday said the actions will last 3 to 4 minutes and be carried out "by unprecedented peculiar means...

Kim Jong Il's Will: Keep Peace by Building Nukes

But purported document advises waiting for a new president in South Korea

(Newser) - Kim Jong Il's last wish was for peace with South Korea—or at least, it was according to a document that a pair of South Korean think tanks claim is the dear leader's will. In it, Kim writes that North Korea should renounce its war with South Korea,...

Could Iran Be Brought to Its Knees by ... Insurance?

European insurance sanction will be the toughest to dodge, Reuters says

(Newser) - Could the decisive blow in the West's struggle with Iran involve insurance salesmen? An upcoming European ban on providing maritime insurance for Iran's oil tankers may be the most vexing sanction Tehran has ever faced, experts tell Reuters . That's because 90% of the world's tanker insurance...

North Korea Digging Tunnel for Nuke Test: Seoul

And piles of dirt at the Punggye-ri site indicate it could happen soon

(Newser) - North Korea looks to be preparing a third nuclear test, the AP reports: New photos show work on an underground tunnel—at the site of two earlier such tests—is nearly finished, say South Korean intelligence officials. "North Korea is covertly preparing for a third nuclear test, which would...

North Korea Puts Rocket Into Place

Washington, South Korea watch nervously

(Newser) - North Korea has put a new long-range rocket into position as reports circulate that a nuclear test is underway, the BBC reports. Pyongyang insists the Unha-3 rocket will launch a harmless satellite, but South Korean leaders suspect otherwise—especially because the rocket is positioned at the Punggye-ri site, where North...

Kim Jong Un to Korean Troops: Sink Enemies

North Korean leader is hell-bent on rocket test, warns against interference

(Newser) - Kim Jong Un has a message for anyone who would mess with North Korea's planned rocket test (ahem, America and South Korea): We will "send all the intruders into the bottom of the sea." Bluntly underscoring again that his father's flair for the dramatic did not...

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