The United States is poised to announce a significant donation of food aid to North Korea this week, the first concrete accomplishment after months of behind-the-scenes diplomatic contacts between the two wartime enemies. An agreement by North Korea to suspend its controversial uranium enrichment program will likely follow within days.
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North Korean soldiers mark the birthday of late President Kim Il Sung by visiting his birthplace. Photo credit: Jean H. Lee. All Rights Reserved.
AP: North Koreans Honor Founder's Birth with Flags, Flowers →
April 15 is called "The Day of the Sun" in honor of the former guerrilla fighter who founded North Korea in 1948 and maintains godlike status in the country now led by his son, Kim Jong Il. In preparation for the holiday, workers fanned out across Pyongyang on Thursday to decorate the city, climbing ladders to adorn buildings with celebratory banners and crouching in flower beds to plant marigolds, mums and bright-red begonias.
Read MoreAP: NKorea's An wants revenge for '66 loss to Portugal
North Korea's An Yong Hak knows exactly what he wants from his team's upcoming World Cup match with Portugal. "Revenge. We'll try to get revenge for 1966," the lanky midfielder said with a grin, speaking to reporters before a training session Thursday at Makhulong Stadium in the township of Tembisa.
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AP: At World Cup, North Korean team goes under cover →
A week after arriving for the World Cup, the North Korean team remains largely hidden from public view, sequestered behind the tightly guarded gates of a remote hotel in northern Johannesburg that seems to rise like a fortress from the South African veld.
No chance of a casual South African braai - barbecue - with fellow hotel guests: All meals, prepared by a cook flown in from Pyongyang, are closed to outsiders. And no chance for the players to stray from the group.
Read MoreAP: For the 2 Koreas, Joint Appearance at World Cup Turns Sour →
With both North and South Korea in the World Cup for the first time, many on this war-divided peninsula were hoping that sports could cross the border and unite people. But the sinking of a South Korean warship in March has shattered the mood and heightened tensions between the two nations, turning the World Cup into a missed opportunity less than a month before the games start.
Read MoreAP: Worry at Border as North Korea Restores Nuclear Reactor →
Dank and mossy, the "invasion" tunnels dug by North Korea beneath its border with the South are a grim reminder the two sides remain at war, locked in a tenuous, decades-long truce watched over by soldiers, tanks and barbed wire.
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