South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-fired its first intercontinental ballistic missile in three months on Wednesday, days after it threatened “shocking” consequences to protest what it called provocative United States reconnaissance activity near its territory.

Some experts say North Korea likely launched its developmental, road-mobile Hwasong-18 ICBM, a type of solid-fuel weapon that is harder to detect and intercept than its liquid-fuel ICBMs. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un previously called the Hwasong-18 the most powerful weapon of his nuclear forces.

SEOUL, Jul 11 (NNN-YONHAP) – One of the subway lines in South Korea’s capital, Seoul, was temporarily suspended owing to heavy rain.

Some sections of Subway Line 1 halted operation at about 3:56 p.m. local time, but resumed running around 15 minutes later.

Some of the roads in Seoul were flooded and blocked, as torrential rain hit the country, entering the rainy season.

The weather agency issued a heavy rain warning for the Seoul metropolitan area, and the south-eastern port city of Busan, and a heavy rain advisory for other regions.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean opposition lawmakers sharply criticized the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog on Sunday for its approval of Japanese plans to release treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant.

They met with Rafael Grossi in a tense meeting in Seoul that took place while protesters screamed outside the door.

Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s director general, arrived in South Korea over the weekend to engage with government officials and critics and help reduce public concerns about food safety.

SEOUL, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Japan's planned discharge of nuclear-contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean will pose a serious threat to the world's oceans, lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party said Thursday.

"The discharge of contaminated water from the Fukushima (Daiichi) Nuclear Power Plant poses a serious threat to the world's oceans," Wi Seong-gon, a Democratic Party lawmaker and chief of the party's prevention committee on the release of Fukushima nuclear wastewater, told a press conference with foreign correspondents here.

SEOUL, July 1 (Xinhua) -- South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party (DP) held a rally in central Seoul on Saturday to oppose Japan's nuclear-contaminated water discharge plan and urge the government to make clear its opposition to Japan's plan.

According to the DP, nearly 100,000 people took part in the rally.

Lee Jae-myung, chairman of the DP, said that if Japan wants to pollute the sea, (the South Korean government) should openly oppose it.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula on Friday in its latest show of force against North Korea, days after the North staged massive anti-U.S. rallies in its capital.

The long-range B-52 bombers took part in joint aerial drills with other U.S. and South Korean fighter jets over the peninsula, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The bombers’ flyover is the latest in a series of temporary U.S. deployments of strategic assets in South Korea in response to North Korea’s push to expand its nuclear arsenal.

SEOUL, June 29 (Reuters) - South Korean shoppers are snapping up sea salt and other items as worry grows about their safety with Japan due to dump more than 1 million metric tons of treated radioactive water from a wrecked nuclear power plant into the sea.

The water was mainly used to cool damaged reactors at the Fukushima power plant north of Tokyo, after it was hit by an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

The release of the water from huge storage tanks into the Pacific is expected soon though no date has been set.

SEOUL, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a ceremony Wednesday to mark the completion of an interior remodeling project for the China-DPRK Friendship Tower in Pyongyang.

Choe Ryong-hae, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly of DPRK attended the ceremony, among other officials from the country's ruling party, government and armed forces as well as citizens of the capital city.

SEOUL, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of South Koreans rallied in central Seoul Saturday to urge the Japanese government to build more storage facilities on land for nuclear-contaminated water instead of discharging it into the sea.

The civic activists gathered near the Seoul City Hall to clamor against Japan's planned discharge of radioactive wastewater, holding signs that read "Protect Pacific Ocean!" and "Storage on Land."

They also urged the South Korean government and people to prevent Japan's irresponsible plan of discharging nuke-contaminated water into the sea.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Top North Korean officials vowed to push for a second attempt to launch a spy satellite as they called their country’s first, and failed, launch last month “the most serious” shortcoming this year and harshly criticized those responsible, state media reported Monday.

In late May, a North Korean rocket carrying a military reconnaissance satellite crashed soon after liftoff, posing a setback to leader Kim Jong Un’s push to acquire a space-based surveillance system to better monitor the United States and South Korea.