Commie Spy popped in the South as North Korean Spy Master Dies

South Korea has arrested a suspected North Korean spy who entered the country on a forged passport and took pictures of sensitive military sites, the country’s intelligence agency said on Monday.

It is the first time that an alleged North Korean spy has been arrested under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, which has been seeking engagement with its communist neighbour.

The 48-year-old man, named Chung Kyung-hak, was arrested at a downtown hotel on July 31 after he entered South Korea from the Philippines with a fake passport. He allegedly took pictures of military sites such as radar bases, US military bases and atomic power plants, which could be wartime bombing targets.

He had travelled to South Korea three times between 1996 and 1998, the intelligence agency said. The case has been transferred to prosecutors, who are expected to indict him on charges of violating the country’s national security law.

The news comes as fears of North Korean infiltrators have subsided in the South in recent years, as fewer South Koreans view their Northern counterparts as enemies amid increased economic exchanges between the two countries.

The South Korean government said during the weekend that it would provide disaster relief worth $230m to flood-hit North Korea, backtracking on its earlier decision to halt food aid to Pyongyang in protest against the North’s provocative missile tests last month.

The capture of the spy suspect may increase tensions on the Korean peninsula and chill inter-Korean relations further, following media reports that North Korea may be preparing an underground nuclear test.

ABC television network of the US last week quoted a senior US military official as saying an intelligence agency had recently observed “suspicious vehicle movement” at a suspected North Korean nuclear test site. South Korea’s foreign ministry said it was closely watching the North’s nuclear activities in coordination with Washington.

Meanwhile, US and South Korean troops started annual military exercises on Monday, sparking strong protest from Pyongyang.

“The joint military exercises are another grave military provocation to the DPRK. They are nothing but a very dangerous military adventure driving the situation of the Korean peninsula to the brink of a war,” North Korea’s official news agency KCNA said on Friday.

The US has about 30,000 troops in South Korea. Experts cautioned that the North could conduct a nuclear test to flex its muscle in an attempt to extract concessions from the US, as it continues to suffer from economic sanctions by Washington.

North Korea's point man on South dead

North Korea's point man on the South and one of the key players in the communist state's warming ties with Seoul died on Sunday, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

Rim Tong-ok was for many years the figure believed by some to be a mastermind behind Pyongyang's spy operations against the South during the Cold War years. But his place in ties with the South was sealed with his appearance on the side of leader Kim Jong-il at a historic summit in Pyongyang with then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung six years ago that led to rapid political reconciliation. "Comrade Rim Tong-ok was a faithful revolutionary fighter who upheld the guidance of the Party and the Great President and gave everything for the unification of the fatherland and the victory of the great revolution," KCNA said. North and South Korea remain technically at war today because a truce that ended the 1950-53 Korean War was never replaced with a peace treaty. Rim was again on hand when the North Korean leader received a high-level South Korean delegation last year that broke a bitter year-long stalemate in ties over refugee issues. Rim died of an "incurable disease" at the age of 70, KCNA said. Rim was the communist Workers' Party's top policy maker on the South and vice chairman of the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland."