The top U.S. commander in the Pacific region says he’s worried that North Korea’s continued missile tests are helping establish them as something that’s normal. Speaking during a news conference at The Pentagon on Tuesday, Admiral Sam Locklear, commander of the U.S. Pacific Command, said he was concerned that the international community was becoming “numb” to them.…

 

The planned expansion of the U.S. missile defense shield to guard against potential threats from North Korea and other nations will cost $5.8 billion over the coming years, according to an estimate released this week. The estimate was made by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in response to a question from Jeff Sessions, a Republican senator for…

 

The United States and several other nations have written to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) over North Korea’s failure to notify it of missile launches. Over the past couple of weeks, short and medium-range missile have been fired by North Korea into the sea to the east of the country on a handful of occasions. Each launch took place without a standard…

 

A U.S. interceptor missile system designed to deter and defend against missiles from North Korea and other nations will take a step forward this week when the U.S. Missile Defense Agency kicks off work on environmental impact statements on four proposed sites. On Wednesday, the MDA is expected to publish a notice informing residents in nearby neighborhoods of…

 

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) put out a call Tuesday for projects aimed at human rights and democracy in North Korea. DRL will fund winning proposals with grants of up to $350,000 per organization and groups have until May 13, 2014, to complete and submit their proposals. Proposals can cover…

 

Japan is sharing an increasing amount of intelligence information with the United States and emerging as a great partner in East Asia, the U.S. director of national intelligence said Thursday. Speaking during a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee in Washington, James Clapper said the two countries were working more closely together on intelligence…

 

The United Nations Human Rights agency said it is following with concern news coming out of Pyongyang that Jang Song Thaek was executed this week. “This underscores the arbitrary nature of the system in the DPRK and the absence of transparency and due process which is required for the rule of law,” said Ravina Shamdasani, a…

 

Kim Jong Il made a surprise appearance on the season premiere edition of Fox TV’s “The Simpsons” on Sunday night. And so did “the Internet he banned.” The episode, which marked the beginning of the 23rd season of the hit animated show, features a former CIA agent called Wayne. Played by Kiefer Sutherland, Wayne becomes…

 

The Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international radio broadcaster, recently aired a commentary that took aim at several hacking incidents in the U.S., but the true aim of the piece appears to be the U.S. Department of Defense’s recently published Strategy for Operating in Cyberspace. The U.S. document, a declassified version of which is available…

 

A delegation of North Korean officials toured Silicon Valley in California, according to several news reports. The group of 12 government employees had been in the U.S. on a 2-week trip organized by the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at University of California, San Diego. They spent about 100 minutes inside Google from 10am…