South Korea

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea plans to lift its decades-long ban on public access to North Korean television, newspapers and other media as part of its efforts to promote mutual understanding between the rivals, officials said Friday, despite animosities over the North’s recent missile tests.

Divided along the world’s most heavily fortified border since 1948, the two Koreas prohibit their citizens from visiting each other’s territory and exchanging phone calls, emails and letters, and they block access to each other’s websites and TV stations.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Health officials in South Korea are expanding booster shots to adults 50 and over as COVID-19 cases creep up again across the country.

The 40,226 new cases reported Wednesday marked the country’s highest daily jump in more than two months, although hospitalizations and deaths remain stable.

SEOUL, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Sunday fired what appeared to be artillery shots, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The JCS said in a statement that it detected the trajectories, presumed to be the artillery shots fired from multiple rocket launchers, from about 6:21 p.m. to 6:37 p.m. local time.

According to Yonhap news agency, the South Korean military spotted the trajectories of two DPRK artillery shots.

On June 12, the DPRK fired around five shots from multiple rocket launchers off its west coast.

SEOUL, Jul 9 (NNN-YONHAP) – South Korea recorded 20,286 new COVID-19 cases as of midnight, compared to 24 hours ago, taking the total number of infections to 18,491,435, the health authorities said, today.

The daily caseload was up from 19,323 the previous day, and far higher than 10,715 tallied a week ago, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

For the past week, the daily average number of confirmed cases was 15,989.

Among the newly reported infections, 223 were imported cases, lifting the total to 36,928.

SEOUL, July 5 (Reuters) - North Korea appears to have released water from a dam near its border with South Korea, prompting vacationers in the neighbouring country to evacuate over rising water levels on the Imjin River, officials said on Tuesday.

The water level at a bridge at the river in the South's border county of Yeoncheon surpassed 1 metre on Monday afternoon, requiring visitors on the riverbank to evacuate, government data showed.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea suggested Friday its COVID-19 outbreak began in people who had contact with balloons flown from South Korea — a highly questionable claim that appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival responsible amid increasing tensions over its nuclear program.

Activists for years have flown balloons across the border to distribute hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets critical of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and North Korea has often expressed fury at the activists and at South Korea’s leadership for not stopping them.

SEOUL, June 29 (Reuters) - The nosedive in cryptocurrency markets has wiped out millions of dollars in funds stolen by North Korean hackers, four digital investigators say, threatening a key source of funding for the sanctions-stricken country and its weapons programmes.

North Korea has poured resources into stealing cryptocurrencies in recent years, making it a potent hacking threat and leading to one of the largest cryptocurrency heists on record in March, in which almost $615 million was stolen, according to the U.S. Treasury.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Health officials in South Korea on Wednesday approved the country’s first domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 years or older, adding another public health tool in the fight against a prolonged pandemic.

In clinical trials involving some 4,000 participants in South Korea and five other countries, SK Bioscience’s two-dose SKYCovione vaccine appeared to be more effective than the broadly used AstraZeneca shots in building immunity against infections, officials at South Korea’s Food and Drug Safety Ministry said.

SEOUL, June 27 (Xinhua) -- A South Korean minister in charge of inter-Korean affairs said Monday that the country was still committed to dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"We remain firmly committed to addressing all inter-Korean issues through dialogue," South Korean Unification Minister Kwon Young-se told a press conference with foreign correspondents in Seoul.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A top South Korean official said Monday that North Korea is increasingly targeting the South with its nuclear arms program, and urged China and Russia to persuade the North not to conduct a widely expected nuclear test.

Unification Minster Kwon Youngse’s comments came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un re-emphasized his nuclear ambitions in a key military meeting last week and approved unspecified new operational duties for front-line army units.