hankyoreh

A panel of experts affiliated with UN Security Council was found to have recently prepared ‘Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to resolution 1874, May 2011’ urging North Korea to stop its uranium nuclear development,

(http://www.scribd.com/doc/55808872/UN-Panel-of-Experts-NORK-Report-May-2011)

In the report, the panel said it “believes both that, despite the assertions of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the contrary, its long pursuit of a uranium enrichment programme was primarily for military purposes, and that the risk that the uranium enrichment workshop could easily be converted for military purposes should be underlined.”

“The Panel of Experts strongly believes that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea should be compelled to abandon its uranium enrichment programme and that all aspects of the programme should then be placed under international monitoring, and suggests steps towards this in its recommendations,” it added.　 　

The report includes satellite pictures of North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex Fuel Fabrication Complex and Uranium Enrichment Workshop.　

According to Yonhap News, however, the report was not officially adopted by UN Security Council as China refused to do so saying that the North’s nuclear issue should be discussed at the six-party talks.

Meanwhile, the European Union will send a delegation to North Korea to assess the food situation there on the heels of a similar mission by U.S. officials, a source said Sunday.

South Korean military intelligence officials are investigating seven officers and soldiers for posting pro-Pyongyang messages on an online community that praises North Korea, military officials said Monday.

About 70 military personnel were registered as members of the online community, called the “Cyber Command for Defense of Fellow Countrymen,” and seven of them posted pro-North Korea messages there, officials said.

“An intense investigation by the Defense Security Command is under way against the seven entry-level officers and soldiers who wrote messages on the online community,” said a military official.

The Internet community was opened by a 43-year-old man, identified only by his surname Hwang, in 2002. Hwang received a suspended jail term last year on charges of violating the security law.

(Yonhap News)

Revitalizing the tourism industries of Korea, China and Japan through cooperation that was the key issue at this year’s Trilateral Tourism Ministers’ Meeting.

South Korea’s Tourism Minister Choung Byoung-gug, his Chinese and Japanese counterparts and some 450 officials and representatives gathered in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province for the sixth annual meeting.

During the official trilateral meeting on Sunday, the ministers had four main issues to tackle. The tourism industries of the three nations had all been affected by unexpected crises like natural disasters, with Japan’s deadly earthquake and tsunami being the most recent event, and the tourism chiefs sought ways to adopt a system to jointly overcome these unforseen disasters.

(Arirang News)