Word: koreans
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This year 46 defectors reached South Korea, up from eight last year, and hundreds more are still in parts of China and Russia close to North Korea, taking shelter with large Korean communities there. China and Russia turn a blind eye toward the runaways, and South Korean diplomats in Beijing and Vladivostok sometimes help them, but many rely on a rudimentary underground run by Korean ethnics. There is as yet no wholesale stampede from the North similar to what happened in the last days of East Germany, but any openings like the agreement two weeks ago between Washington and Pyongyang...
...interviews, South Korean intelligence personnel always accompany the defectors, and there is no way to check the accuracy of their stories. Some tales do not even ring true. Last year army Lieut. Kim Young Seon told debriefers that he knew of a coup attempt against Kim Il Sung and a nuclear accident that had claimed hundreds of lives. Most experts agree that in highly secretive North Korea, no low-ranking officer could have access to such information. Other defectors reveal secrets that sound plausible. Ahn Myung Jon, a military infiltration expert, said he used his skills to cross the heavily...
Dissatisfaction with the hard life in the North was on the mind of U.S. and North Korean negotiators when they concluded their deal two weeks ago. In exchange for curbing its nuclear development program, Pyongyang will get 500,000 tons of free heavy oil and growing ties with Washington that the regime hopes will help strengthen its grip. The U.S. is betting that more contact with the West will have just the opposite effect -- and that eventually the walls designed to keep North Koreans at home will crumble...
After 43 years, a captive South Korean joins a tide of defectors...
South Korea today announced that it wants to do business with its one-time arch enemy and neighbor to the north. The South Korean government says it's lifting a 50-year-old ban on direct trade with and investment in North Korea because of theOctober nuke deal brokered by the U.S. The new trade opportunity gives South Korean businesses access to cheap labor and North Korea a flood of previously unavailable consumer goods. What's more, the initiative suggests that the two countries are finally ready to end their battles, says TIME State Department correspondentJ.F.O. McAllister. "There's been...