Obama to visit Korea border zone

21 March 2012 Last updated at 02:48 GMT  Messages of hope for reunification line the barbed wire fence near the demilitarised zone President Barack Obama is due to visit the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on South Korea's border with the North on Sunday before a nuclear summit in Seoul.

The United States president's trip to the area separating the north and south on the Korean peninsula comes amidst increased tension over Pyongyang's plan to launch a rocket next month.

His visit will be a show of support for South Korea, said the White House.

There are currently about 28,500 US soldiers stationed in the area.

North and South Korea technically remain at war because their three-year conflict ended in an armistice in 1953 and no peace treaty was signed. The US has since stationed troops in South Korea.

The 4km(2.5-mile)-wide DMZ is probably the most heavily guarded border area in the world. Former US President Bill Clinton described it as ''the scariest place on earth'' when he visited in the 1990s.

Mr Obama, who is expected to renew pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear ambitions, will also meet South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak ahead of the summit starting on Monday.

The three-day Nuclear Security Summit involves more than 53 leaders from nations and international organisations.

Mr Obama is also due to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and is widely expected to urge him to draw on Beijing's influence for nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang.

'Grave provocation'

North Korea's announcement last week that it will launch a rocket carrying a satellite to mark its late leader Kim Il-sung's birth centenary in April drew widespread criticism.

The move is seen as violating UN Security Council resolutions passed after a similar launch in 2009.

South Korea said the launch would be a "grave provocation" and Japan urged the North to "exercise restraint".

Japan, particularly concerned as the 2009 rocket was launched over the country, said the move would ''interfere with our effort toward a dialogue''.

Last month, Pyongyang agreed to suspend long-range missile tests as part of a deal for the US to supply 240,000 tonnes of food aid to North Korea.

The US has said that the planned launch could violate the agreement and affect the resumption of food aid.

The North said that the ''working satellite'' launch is an opportunity for ''putting the country's technology of space use for peaceful purposes on a higher stage''.

At the nuclear summit dedicated to reducing the threats of nuclear terrorism, the North Korean issue will loom large, along with that of Iran's nuclear programme.

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North Korea artillery lands near South island in disputed waters (Reuters)

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea has fired artillery in the direction of a South Korean island on Wednesday in an apparent training exercise near a tense maritime border off the west coast, media and a government official said.

A South Korean Defense Ministry official said shells fired by North Korea landed in the waters off Yeonpyeong island but it was not clear whether it was inside the South's territorial waters. Yonhap news agency said South Korea fired back with its artillery.

"Three shots were heard. One shell landed near the Northern Limit Line," Yonhap quoted a military official as saying.

The incident took place near the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), the scene of several skirmishes over the past decade including two deadly attacks last year that killed 50 South Koreans.

Yonhap said the shelling started at around 2pm local time (0500 GMT). South Korea replied with three rounds artillery fire.

Fishing boats in the vicinity called to port and yeonpyeong residents have been evacuated into emergency shelters, media reports said.

Markets barely reacted to the incident.

Tuesday's flare-up occurred near Yeonpyeong island, which was attacked by the North last November. Four people were killed in the attack.

Previous incidents triggered by the North's violation of the NLL, unilaterally drawn up by the U.S. military at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, have led to clashes by the two sides' navies killing dozens of sailors.

Tensions had eased since the start of the year since the North's renewed calls for dialogue, including the resumption of six-way talks aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms program.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Jack Kim; editing by Jeremy Laurence and David Chance)

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Landslides, flash floods hit South Korea, 32 dead

CHUNCHEON, South Korea — Torrential rain battered the South Korean capital Seoul and surrounding regions Wednesday, causing dozens of landslides and flash floods that killed at least 32 people, the emergency services said.

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In the worst single accident, a landslide crashed into a mountain resort at Chuncheon, east of Seoul, destroying three small hotels and killing at least 13 people.

A resident reported hearing what sounded like a train.

"Then I heard someone shouting 'help me'. So I went out to see, and I saw a landslide had swept all over the area," she said.

Another landslide on the outskirts of Seoul buried dozens of houses and killed at least 10 residents, local media reported, adding that one villager was missing.

A tributary of the Han River running through Gonjiam, about 30 miles southeast of Seoul, had overflowed and killed five residents, Yonhap news agency reported.

Wild weather has battered the central region of the country since late Tuesday, causing rivers to burst their banks, disrupting travel and triggering power outages.

Photoblog: More dramatic images from South Korea

More than 60,000 homes were still without electricity on Wednesday evening, Yonhap said.

The share price of insurers fell on fears that damage costs would run into tens of millions of dollars.

At Chuncheon, about 60 miles east of Seoul, soldiers were drafted in to help with the rescue operation after a wall of mud flattened the small hotels just after midnight.

More than 40 holidaymakers, mostly university students, were sleeping in the inns when the landslide hit.

"We were asleep and suddenly I heard a big sound, and then the ceiling fell down," Lee Beon-seok, a student, told a television station.

Officials said 26 people were injured.

About 16 inches of rain fell on Seoul in a period of 24 hours, and the weather bureau said the heavy rain would last until Friday.

There was no immediate reports of damage to crops, and flights and shipping were not affected.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

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U.S. invites N. Korea to nuclear talks

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on July 22.North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kae-gwan is invited for later this weekThe diplomat is expected to talk about ways to resume denuclearization talksSix-party talks broke down in 2008 when North Korea pulled out

(CNN) -- A top North Korean diplomat will visit New York this week for "exploratory" talks on ways to resume stalled de-nuclearization negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Sunday.

"Following the first round of de-nuclearization talks between the nuclear negotiators of the Republic of Korea and North Korea, the United States has invited North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kae-gwan to New York later this week," she said.

The U.S. offer came on the heels of talks between the chief nuclear envoys of North Korea and South Korea last week. On Friday, the two sides agreed to try to resume six-party talks as soon as possible, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.

The session was the first such direct meeting on nuclear issues between the two nations since six-party talks broke down in 2008, when North Korea pulled out of the multinational nuclear disarmament initiative.

"This will be an exploratory meeting to determine if North Korea is prepared to affirm its obligations under international and Six Party Talk commitments, as well as take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearization," Clinton said in a statement.

"As we have stated repeatedly, we are open to talks with North Korea, but we do not intend to reward the North just for returning to the table. We will not give them anything new for actions they have already agreed to take. And we have no appetite for pursuing protracted negotiations that will only lead us right back to where we have already been."

The nations involved in the six-party talks are the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

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