Mahaba Niue: KOREA

<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;"><img alt="The border between the North and the South is heavily patrolled " src="http://in2eastafrica.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/border-between-the-North-and-the-South-Korea.jpg" /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Soldiers opened fire after the man jumped into the Imjin river and ignored repeated warnings to stop.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The North and South remain technically at war after the 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">There are thousands of North Korean defectors living in South Korea, but few attempt to make the journey the other way.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Instances of trying to cross the heavily-militarised border in broad daylight are extremely rare.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The incident comes as South Korean workers <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24104774" style="-webkit-transition: all 0.2s; background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.2s; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank" title="Two Koreas reopen Kaesong complex">returned to the Kaesong industrial park</a> in North Korea, five months after work was halted amid high political tension.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The man, who has not yet been identified, was spotted by guards near the western border in Paju, north of Seoul, at around 14:23 local time (05:53GMT).</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Soldiers fired off warning shots and told him to return to the South. When he disobeyed the order and jumped into the river, he was shot dead, military officials told Yonhap news agency.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">A military spokesman also told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the man’s body had been retrieved.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Months of negotiation</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The shooting comes amid a thawing of ties between the North and the South as more than 800 South Koreans poured into the jointly-run Kaesong industrial complex.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The zone, just inside North Korea, is home to 123 South Korean factories that employ more than 50,000 North Koreans.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">It is the last functioning inter-Korean joint project and a key source of revenue for Pyongyang.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">But the North withdrew all of its workers in April, as ties between the two Koreas deteriorated in the wake of Pyongyang’s 12 February nuclear test.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Reopening the complex has taken months of negotiation.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The restart is being described as a trial but more than half of the South Korean companies had asked North Korean employees to report for work, officials said.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Negotiations on resuming operations at the complex faltered for weeks on South Korea’s insistence that safeguards must be in place to prevent any future unilateral shut-down of the site by North Korea.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">The two nations are divided by the heavily-fortified demilitarised zone, agreed at the end of the Korean War.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Last Friday it emerged that a South Korean man who was abducted by North Korea 41 years ago managed to escape the North and return home.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Jeon Wook-pyo, now 68, was among 25 crewmen aboard two fishing boats captured by North Korea in the Yellow Sea in 1972. He is said to have made his way to the South via an undisclosed third country.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">According to South Korea, about 500 of its citizens – most of them fishermen – are being held by North Korea.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">After the North Korean famine of the 1990s, the number of people defecting from North Korea increased sharply.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Escaping North Korea is extremely difficult as all its borders are heavily patrolled. The strategy normally used is to cross the northern border into China and flee into a third country.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">If China apprehends a defector, they are sent back to the North where they could face years of harsh punishment in labour camps.</div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 19px; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: top;">Nevertheless, there are more than 24,000 North Korean defectors living in the South and in Japan as well.</div>

SOUTH KOREA SHOOTS DEAD MAN SWIMMING TO NORTH...

Soldiers opened fire after the man jumped into the Imjin river and ignored repeated warnings to stop. The North and South remain technically...