Almost 300 dead or missing in N Korea floods Aug 16, 2007
In the latest unusually detailed report from the reclusive state, an official broadcasting station said main roads, including one linking the capital Pyongyang to the eastern city of Wonsan, were badly damaged. "Korean People's Army soldiers are also out in force to stage hectic struggles to restore roads," it said, as quoted by Seoul's Yonhap news agency. (Yahoo News -- Top Stories)
North Korea's burden of crime and terror Apr 20, 2007
In October 2003, the official Korean Central News Agency reported that a Japanese national, Yoshiaka Sawada, had been arrested trying to bribe a North Korean into buying drugs from "a third country" - obviously China - and smuggling them into Japan on board the North Korean ship Mangyongbong-92, which used to sail regularly between Wonsan in North Korea and the Japanese port of Niigata until it was banned from entry into Japan in July 2006 after North Korea test-fired a Taepodong-2 missile. The... (Asia Times Online)
* Japan locates three N Korean factories producing narcotics Mar 18, 2007
The suspected factories -- in the eastern city of Wonsan, Chonjin in the northeast, and Nampo, southwest of Pyongyang -- are thought to be linked to the North Korean state, which uses government ships to smuggle the drugs out of the country, the Yomiuri said ... The factories in Wonsan and Chonjin are both former pharmaceutical plants built by Japan during its colonial rule over the Korean peninsula in 1910 to 1945, the report said. (Taipei Times, Taiwan -- World)
South Korea denies plot report against Kim Jong-il Jan 26, 2007
The report by Japan's Jiji Press, quoting a source in South Korea, said he may be under house arrest at his villa in Wonsan on the east coast of the secretive communist country. "We know of nothing to back it up," a Unification Ministry official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. (The Star Online, Malaysia)
Nuclear test flagrant challenge to Japan's readiness Jan 17, 2007
Members of the coalition apart from Japan are active on sea routes leading to such major ports in North Korea as Rajin, Wonsan and Nampo. The MSDF, because of the constitutional constraints under which this country is banned from the exercise of military force, cannot do more than fire blanks during vessel inspections. (News on Japan, Japan)
