Summary of inter-Korean news this week

NK weekly-inter-Korean news

Summary of inter-Korean news this week

SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Yonhap) -- The following is a summary of inter-Korean news this week.

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N. Korea-backed hackers launch newly detected cyberattack scheme using computer files: report

SEOUL -- A North Korea-linked cyber hacking group appears to have launched a new cyberattack campaign, code-named "Artemis," that embeds malicious code inside computer files, a report showed Monday.

The Genians Security Center (GSC), a South Korean cybersecurity institute, said in a report that it detected the operation believed to have been carried out by APT37, a Pyongyang-backed cyber hacking group.

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Record 81 pct of N. Korean defectors say they are 'satisfied' with life in South: survey

SEOUL -- A record 81 percent of North Korean defectors living in South Korea said they are "satisfied" with their lives in the South, amid an improvement in their overall economic situation, a survey showed Tuesday.

Of the 2,500 respondents, 81.2 percent said they were happy with their lives in South Korea, the highest figure since recordkeeping began in 2011, according to data from the Korea Hana Foundation, an agency affiliated with the unification ministry.

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2 N. Korean POWs in Ukraine express desire to defect to S. Korea in letter: activist

SEOUL -- Two North Korean soldiers who were captured in Ukraine while fighting for Russia have written a letter expressing their desire to defect to South Korea, an activist in Seoul said Friday.

Jang Se-yul, head of a North Korean defectors' group in the South, said the two North Korean captives in their 20s wrote such a letter in October when they met a South Korean documentary producer at a prisoner-of-war camp near Kyiv. The letter was delivered to the group via the producer earlier this month.

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Unification minister vows efforts to resolve separated families issue

SEOUL -- Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Wednesday met with an aging separated family member in South Korea and pledged to address humanitarian issues through dialogue with North Korea, according to the unification ministry.

Chung visited the home of Kim Bong-hwan, aged 105, in Seoul, in a bid to console her pain caused by decades of separation, according to the ministry.

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Resettlement centers for N. Korean defectors to be integrated next year

SEOUL -- The unification ministry said Friday it plans to integrate the main center and branch of Hanawon, the state facility for supporting North Korean defectors' resettlement, next year amid a sharp decline in the number of such people coming to South Korea in recent years.

Currently, the headquarters of Hanawon is located in Anseong, just south of Seoul, to help the resettlement of female North Korean defectors, and its branch is being operated in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, for male defectors.

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Unification ministry reviewing permitting public access to N. Korea's newspaper

SEOUL -- The unification ministry said Friday it is in talks with related government agencies to review measures to allow public access to the Rodong Sinmun, the main newspaper of North Korea's ruling Worker's Party, and other North Korean materials.

In South Korea, public access to North Korean media and publications, including the Rodong Sinmun, is denied as they are classified as "special materials" due to concerns that they include content praising and promoting North Korea.

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