*** FOREIGN TIPS

N. Korea Has almost 1,000 Forces for Cyber Warfare: Lawmakers

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea has nearly 1,000 hackers who could be deployed for the socialist country's cyber warfare, lawmakers said on Oct. 28.

   The chief of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country's intelligence agency, made the remark in a parliamentary audit, lawmakers Hwang Jin-ha and Choi Jae-sung said.

   "North Korea's cyber ability is remarkable," NIS Director Won Sei-hoon was quoted as saying by the lawmakers.

   The director also said the North's military hacking forces maintain nation-wide hacking networks within the communist country as well as a host of bases in China, according to the lawmakers.
The Web sites of presidential house Cheong Wa Dae and several other key government offices were hit last year and earlier this year by a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, a massive number of access attempts, believed to be from the communist regime.

   South Korea is still technically at war with the North because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

  
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U.N. Food Agency Chief Calls for Funding for N. Korean Children

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- The chief of the U.N. food agency appealed to the world on Oct. 28 to support aid programs in North Korea to feed its most vulnerable children, saying that only a fifth of the agency's needs are being met.

   Josette Sheeran, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), arrived on Oct. 27 from Japan for a two-day visit as part of a four-nation Asian tour that will take her to China and North Korea.

   "Our assessed needs in DPRK (North Korea) for the nutrition-focused program that we have now are only 20 percent funded as it is," Sheeran said during a press meeting.

   The program "reaches children in hospitals, in orphanages, in institutional settings, and targets very specific highly fortified nutritious food," she added.

   The WFP currently feeds about 671,000 malnourished children in 65 counties across the impoverished nation. In order to reach the 2.5 million children in need, according to agency estimates, the program will cost US$45 million annually, and will require 75,000 metric tons of food.

   "We're way below those funding levels," the director said.

   Her two-day trip to North Korea is expected to including meetings with senior government officials and a visit to one of the agency's project sites, she said.

  
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S. Korea Welcomes Canadian Sanctions on N. Korea over Ship Sinking

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- South Korea welcomed a set of anti-North Korean sanctions that Canada announced on Oct. 29 over March's sinking of one of its warships, saying the move shows Canada's firm position against Pyongyang's deadly provocation.

   The sanctions call for a ban on trade and financial transactions with North Korea and bars Canadian nationals and entities from making fresh investments or transferring technology to the socialist nation. They also call for halting exchanges with Pyongyang, except for human rights, consular affairs and security and inter-Korean issues.

   Canada was a member of the South Korean-led multinational investigation team formed to look into the sinking of the warship Cheonan in late March near the Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas. The probe concluded in May that a North Korean submarine attacked the vessel with a torpedo.

   North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking, calling the probe a "sheer lie."

   South Korea welcomed Canada's measure "as a reaffirmation of the Canadian government's firm position against North Korea's act of blowing up and sinking the Cheonan."

   "The government expresses gratitude to Canada for taking an active part in the investigation and in international efforts to call on North Korea to change its behavior," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

   The ministry also said the North should "face up to the international community's firm position like this," acknowledge responsibility for the sinking of the Cheonan and demonstrate its denuclearization commitments through action.

   South Korea has already taken punitive steps against the North over the ship sinking, banning all trade with the North, prohibiting North Korean commercial vessels from passing through South Korean waters and staging joint naval exercises with the United States.

   In late August, the United States also imposed bilateral sanctions on Pyongyang, blacklisting a series of North Korean individuals and entities, including a Workers' Party agency believed to be in charge of raising and taking care of secret funds for leader Kim Jong-il.

  
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U.S. Urges N.K. to Refrain from Provoking S. Korea During G-20 Summit

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States on Nov. 1 urged North Korea to refrain from provocations during the summit meeting of the group of 20 leading economies in Seoul next week.

   "We are interested in seeing North Korea cease all provocative actions of all kinds for any point going forward," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said. "Let's not limit it to the G-20."

   Crowley was responding to the report that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo on the island of Hainan over the past weekend that China pressure North Korea not to take provocative actions during next week's G-20 gathering.

   "We do have ongoing concerns about North Korean provocations, and we have discussed this with China and encouraged China to have appropriate conversations with North Korea," Crowley said. "It would not surprise me that when we talk to China about North Korea, we tend to mention our concerns about North Korean provocations."

   U.S. President Barack Obama will attend the G-20 summit in Seoul Nov. 11-12. Obama embarks on Nov. 11 on a 10-day trip that will also bring him to India, Indonesia and Japan.

   While in Seoul, Obama will have a bilateral meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to discuss North Korea's nuclear dismantlement as well as the ratification of a bilateral free trade deal, pending for more than three years over an imbalance in auto trade and limited shipments of beef, White House officials said.

   Obama will also have a one-on-one meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Seoul on the sidelines of the G-20 economic summit to discuss the resumption of the six-party talks on the North's denuclearization, as well as the yuan's revaluation, sanctions on Iran and other issues, they said.

   The nuclear talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have been stalled over the sinking of a South Korean warship by North Korea.

   South Korea and the U.S. want the North to apologize for the sinking of the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors in the Yellow Sea in March, as a condition to the reopening of the nuclear talks. Pyongyang denies any responsibility.

   South Korea is the first non-G-7 member advanced economy to host the G-20 economic summit since the outbreak of the economic crisis triggered by the subprime mortgage crisis on Wall Street in late 2008.

   U.S. President George W. Bush convened the first G-20 summit in November 2008 to seek support from South Korea, China, India and other major developing economies to address the worst recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

   The second and third G-20 summits were held in London and Pittsburgh last year and the fourth in Toronto in June.

  
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U.S. Expert to Visit North Korea Amid Stalled Nuclear Talks

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- A well-known American expert on North Korea, who served as Washington's envoy in negotiations with Pyongyang, was to visit the socialist nation on Nov. 2, a diplomatic source said, a trip that could be used to gauge the prospects of resuming international nuclear talks.

   Charles Pritchard, president of the U.S.-based Korea Economic Institute (KEI), plans to stay in North Korea for three or four days for meetings with North Korean officials, which are expected to include discussions on the stalled six-party nuclear talks, the source said on condition of anonymity.

   Pritchard is scheduled to visit South Korea early next week for talks on his North Korea trip.

   Pritchard served as U.S. envoy for negotiations with North Korea and in other posts handling Pyongyang under the administrations of former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. He is one of the best-known experts on Korean Peninsula issues.

   The six-party nuclear talks, involving the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S., have been stalled for nearly two years since the last session in December 2008. Prospects for reopening the negotiations have been thrown into further doubt after March's sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on the North.

   Pyongyang has indicated willingness to return to the negotiating table in recent months as its economic difficulties deepened in the wake of a series of sanctions it received for its nuclear test last year and the ship sinking.

   But Seoul and Washington have rejected the overtures, saying the North should first prove through action that it is serious about abandoning its nuclear programs and take responsibility for the ship sinking before the nuclear negotiations resume. Pyongyang denies any role in the sinking.

   KEI is a not-for-profit, educational organization affiliated with the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), a Seoul-based research institute funded by South Korea's government.

  
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N. Korea Estimated to Have 40 Kilograms of Plutonium: Defense Minister

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea is believed to have produced some 40 kilograms of plutonium, the main ingredient of an atomic bomb, and to be miniaturizing nuclear weapons to improve their mobility, South Korea's defense minister said on Nov. 2.

   "We believe that North Korea owns 40kg of plutonium and continues attempts to miniaturize atomic weapons," Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers.

   Kim's assessment on North Korea's plutonium stockpile is about 10kg less than what the United States estimates. The U.S. believes North Korea had produced about 50kg of the weapons material, which experts say would be enough for six to eight atomic bombs.

   Kim said North Korea's ballistic missiles could be used as "useful means" to carry nuclear bombs along with its fleet of bombers.

   North Korea, which conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, has shown no signs that it owns a working nuclear bomb.

   Asked about the possibility of another nuclear test by North Korea, Kim replied, "There is a possibility, but no clear signs (of a third nuclear test) have been observed yet."

   South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have been keeping a close watch on the movements of vehicles and personnel at the North's previous nuclear test site, Kim said.

   North Korea has also made progress in its uranium enrichment program, which could give Pyongyang a second way to develop nuclear weapons in addition to the plutonium-based program, Kim said.

   "I think it's quite possible for North Korea to build nuclear weapons through the uranium enrichment program," the defense minister said.

   North Korea officially quit six-party talks, a forum aimed at ending its nuclear development in exchange for incentives, in April last year and conducted the second nuclear test a month later.

   The six-party talks, which also involve South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia, were last held two years ago. Chances of their resumption have been dim after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for sinking one of its warships in March.

   North Korea has been beckoning other members recently, saying that it is willing to rejoin the forum. South Korea demands that the communist neighbor shows in action its willingness to denuclearize and apologize for the ship sinking.

  
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N. Korea's Premier in Northeastern China for Economic Cooperation: Sources

SHENYANG, China (Yonhap) -- North Korea's premier Choe Yong-rim is visiting northeastern China to meet with ranking officials there and speed up joint economic projects between the socialist allies, sources in China said on Nov. 3.

   Choe Yong-rim arrived in the city of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province earlier this week and visited the city of Changchun in a nearby province on Nov. 3, the diplomatic sources said.

   Choe, promoted by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at a parliamentary convention in June, is seen as trying to consolidate the ties between Pyongyang and Beijing as the two countries seek to develop a joint economic bloc that draws from resources in China.

   His visit comes after Kim visited the area in late August. During a summit between the North Korean leader and Chinese President Hu Jintao, the countries promised to boost their political and economic cooperation.

   Believed to be a key aide to North Korea's next leader, Kim Jong-un, the premier inspected electronics and medicine companies and an agricultural research center in Harbin on Nov. 2, the sources said.

   China's Xinhua News reports on Nov. 3 that a North Korean delegation led by Premier Choe Yong-rim was visiting China's northeast region. The report said that Choe held talks with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang in Changchun, Jilin Province, who conveyed Beijing's support in "expansion of cooperation and joint development between North Kore and China's northeast region.

   Choe's trip comes after 12 of the highest-ranking North Korean mayoral and provincial chiefs visited the same region in October, touring food, chemical and agricultural factories along with other major facilities.

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