South Korea

SEOUL, March 30 (Reuters) - South Korea's military has said North Korea's largest missile test yet used an older, smaller intercontinental ballistic missile, and not the massive new Hwasong-17 ICBM, in part to try to head off negative domestic reaction to a failed launch.

South Korean and U.S. officials have concluded that the March 24 launch appears to have been a Hwasong-15 ICBM, a defence ministry official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

SEOUL, March 28 (Reuters) - Reports suggest North Korea's biggest missile test ever may not have been what it seemed, raising new questions over the secretive country's banned weapons programme.

North Korea said it had test-fired its new Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday, the first test of a missile that size since 2017.

North Korean state media heralded the launch as an "unprecedented miracle", and South Korean and Japanese officials independently confirmed flight data that showed it flew higher and longer than any previous test. 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s daily average of new COVID-19 cases declined last week for the first time in more than two months, but the number of critically ill patients and deaths will likely continue to rise amid the omicron-driven outbreak, officials said Monday.

South Korea reported an average of about 350,000 new cases last week, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said Monday. It was the first drop in the weekly average in 11 weeks, KDCA Commissioner Jeong Eun-kyeong said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The United States called Friday for tougher U.N. sanctions after North Korea said it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile to date, with Kim Jong Un vowing to expand his country’s “nuclear war deterrent” while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.

The launch Thursday extended a barrage of weapons demonstrations this year that analysts say are aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and remove crippling sanctions against its broken economy.

SEOUL, March 25 (Reuters) - North Korea's latest launch was a big, new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), state media reported on Friday, a test leader Kim Jong Un said was designed to demonstrate the might of its nuclear force and deter any U.S. military moves.

Thursday's launch was the first full ICBM test by nuclear-armed North Korea since 2017. Flight data indicated the missile flew higher and longer than any of North Korea's previous tests before crashing into the sea west of Japan. 

SEOUL, March 24 (Reuters) - North Korea conducted what is thought to be its largest intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test ever on Thursday, the South Korean and Japanese militaries said, marking a dramatic end to a self-imposed moratorium on long-range testing.

It would be the first full-capability launch of the nuclear-armed state's largest missiles since 2017, and represents a major step in the North's development of weapons that might be able to deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the United States.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea test-fired a suspected long-range missile toward the sea Thursday, its neighbors’ militaries said. The launch, which extended North Korea’s barrage of weapons tests this year, came after the U.S. and South Korean militaries said the country was preparing a flight of its biggest-yet intercontinental ballistic missile.

SEOUL, March 23 (Reuters) - South Korea's total coronavirus infections topped 10 million, or nearly 20% of its population, authorities said on Wednesday, as surging severe cases and deaths increasingly put a strain on crematories and funeral homes nationwide.

The country has been battling a record COVID-19 wave driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant even as it largely scrapped its once aggressive tracing and quarantine efforts and eased social distancing curbs. 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Thirty years after going public with her story of abduction, rape and forced prostitution by Japan’s wartime military, Lee Yong-soo fears she’s running out of time to get closure to her ordeal.

The 93-year-old is the face of a dwindling group of South Korean sexual slavery survivors who have been demanding since the early 1990s that the Japanese government fully accept culpability and offer an unequivocal apology.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired suspected artillery pieces into the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, days after the North’s latest missile launch ended in failure amid the country’s recent burst of weapons testing activity.