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Tag: north korea

  • Hanoi businesses do brisk business with Trump-Kim summit specials

    Hanoi businesses do brisk business with Trump-Kim summit specials

    Several enterprising businesses have cashed in on the Trump-Kim summit with signature products – craft beer, cocktails, haircuts and T-shirts. A standing bar on Tran Vu Street has already gained a lot of attention with a craft beer named Kim Jong Ale, a kimchi flavored beverage concocted in Saigon.

    Huong Anh, who manages the bar, has waxed lyrical about the beer for the occasion. “Kim Jong Ale is a customers’ favorite here. The inspiration behind this beer is the pure streams of Mount Paektu, which is located between North Korea and China,” she told reporters.

    Yet another bar on Hang Than Street brought out a cocktail called “Make the world great again”, mixing soju, bourbon and Fireball Cinnamon Whisky, pineapple juice, vanilla and grenadine.A wine bar in the capital city has also helped itself to some publicity and increased business with a cocktail called “Peace Negroniations,” a variation of the classic Negroni, made with pink-grapefruit soju, vermouth and bitters. We replaced gin with soju for this special cocktail,” bartender Chau said.

    It took two days to complete this recipe, said Ngo Dinh Tien, a bartender.

    A pizzeria has been offering free pizzas to people with names similar to that of Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump, and to those sporting the distinctive haircuts of both leaders, from February 20-28.

    To get such haircuts, the place to go to is the one on De La Thanh Street that has been offering these for free. The salon is even organizing a contest for people getting such haircuts, with the grand prize being free haircuts for three years.

    A South Korean restaurant in the My Dinh area has hung a banner on their door, featuring Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump and welcoming the summit. The owner said the poster has attracted a lot of attention with many customers taking selfies with it.

    An Old Quarter restaurant has hogged some attention for itself with hamburgers named after the two leaders – “Durty Donald” and “Kim Jong Yum,” served with U.S. and North Korean flags.


    Perhaps the hottest summit item has been souvenir T-shirts. Truong Thanh Duc’s small shop on Hang Bong Street has been operating at full capacity, making 500 shirts a day with a design that says peace and carries pictures of both leaders. Each T-shirt costs less than $5


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  • Reiss North Korea makes debut

    Reiss North Korea makes debut

    British fashion brand Reiss has launched in South Korea, at Shinsegae Department Store in Kangnam.

    Introduced by Shinsegae International, the brand plans to open 12 stores in both Shinsegae and Lotte department stores across the country by the end of this year.

    Reiss says it expects high sales with its offering of trending items priced to compete with local and international brands.

    Founded in 1971, Reiss offers designs inspired by classic movies and artworks. Its international expansion has also taken it to the US, Canada and Australia.

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  • Suspected North Korean cyber group seeks to woo bitcoin job seekers

    The surging price of cryptocurrencies in global markets is catching the eye not just of ordinary retail investors but a cybercrime gang with links to the North Korean government, according to cyber researchers tracing the group’s activities.

    The Lazarus cybercrime group is mounting an ongoing scheme to steal the online credentials of bitcoin industry insiders, a report published by researchers at U.S. cyber security firm Secureworks’s Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said on Friday.

    Cybersecurity firms including Secureworks suspect North Korea to be behind the Lazarus group, which they link to an $81 million cyber heist last year at the Bangladesh central bank and a 2014 attack on Sony’s Hollywood studio.

    “Given the current rise in bitcoin prices, CTU suspects that North Korea’s interest in cryptocurrency remains high and (it) is likely continuing its activities surrounding the cryptocurrency,” Secureworks said in a statement to Reuters.

    Prices for the volatile cryptocurrency surged past $10,000 late last month and have continued to race upward toward $20,000. A single bitcoin traded above $17,500 on Friday, up more than 7 percent on the day and more than 18 times in the year to date.

    Secureworks said that as recently as last month it had monitored a targeted email campaign aiming to trick victims into clicking on a compromised link for a job opening for a chief financial officer role at a London cryptocurrency company.

    Those who clicked on the hiring link were infected by malicious code from an attached document in the email that installed software to take remote control of a victim’s device, allowing hackers to download further malware or steal data.

    This malware shares technical links with former campaigns staged by the mysterious cybercrime group Lazarus, which Secureworks has labelled “Nickel Academy”. Secureworks did not say whether anyone who received the email actually clicked on the link.

    The so-called “spearphishing” attempt appears to have been delivered on October 25, but initial activity was observed by Secureworks researchers dating back to 2016. The researchers said in a statement they believe the efforts to steal credentials are still on-going.

    Recent intrusions into several bitcoin exchanges in South Korea have been tentatively attributed to North Korea, it said.

    Secureworks researchers have found evidence dating back to 2013 of North Korean interest in bitcoin, when multiple user names originating from computers using extremely rare North Korean internet addresses were found researching bitcoin.

    The same internet addresses were linked to previous North Korean cyber attacks.

    A spokeswoman for Secureworks said the company was releasing its preliminary findings now and a more complete report would be published later.

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  • North Korea’s KCTV said to launch streaming service

    North Korea’s KCTV said to launch streaming service

    An unlikely new player has reportedly entered into the video streaming business, according to reports – North Korean state broadcaster KCTV.

    BBC News notes that the broadcaster’s new set-top-box, Manbang, has been called North Korea’s version of Netflix in some reports.

    Manbang is said to connect to the North Korean intranet and allow viewers to watch documentaries on demand and five TV channels.

    While KCTV claims that consumer demand for the price is high, connectivity in North Korea remains at very low levels.

    This is not the first time that North Korea, notorious for keeping a tight grip on the control of information entering into and coming out of the country, has been found been developing its own limited versions of popular internet services.

    In May, researchers found a rudimentary social network, resembling a crude version of Facebook, designed for users of North Korea’s intranet. But this was quickly pulled down after pranksters started creating spoof profiles, including one for Kim Jong-Un.

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  • European Stocks Fall on North Korea Bomb Test

    European Stocks Fall on North Korea Bomb Test

    European shares fell on Wednesday as a self-professed bout of nuclear testing by North Korea and a falling renminbi rattled investors.

    By late morning in London, the FTSE 100 was down 1.33% at 6,055.53. Mining stocks, as leaders BHP Billiton (BHP) and Rio Tinto (RIO) led the benchmark lower.

    In Frankfurt, the DAX was down 1.31% at 10,175.31 and in Paris the CAC 40 was down 1.36% at 4,475.91. Volkswagen (VLKAY)  extended Tuesday’s losses in Frankfurt amid fears of hefty legal costs in the U.S. over emissions-tests rigging.

    After the Chinese central bank set the renminbi reference point at a weaker-than-expected level, the currency fell to a five-year low against the dollar. Meanwhile, North Korea claimed to have tested an underground hydrogen bomb, although some international observers were skeptical.

    Final eurozone purchasing managers’ data from Markit Economics came in better than expected in December, with the composite index, which melds the service sector with factory output, unexpectedly rising to 54.3, taking it further above the 50 threshold which separates economic expansion from contraction. Initial December data had pointed to a reading of 54.0. However, weak European Union producer price data for November later took the sheen off those Markit figures.

    Construction and engineering company Costain was up almost 2% in London after it reported record orders worth £3.9 billion ($5.7 billion) in 2015, including £2.8 billion-worth of revenue that Costain will accrue in 2017 and beyond. It will release its full 2015 results on March 2.

    Retailer Topps Tiles was up about 1.3% after reporting same-store sales growth of 4.4% in its first quarter.

    Another retailer, Card Factory, was up 1.8% as it announced that Christmas trading had met its expectations. It said CEO Richard Hayes would retire and be replaced by Karen Hubbard, the chief operating officer of discounter B&M European Value Retail.

    Insurer NN (NNGPF) was up almost 3% at €32.10 in Amsterdam after ING cut its stake to 16.2% from 25.8%. ING sold the shares at €31 in an accelerated book build, raising €1 billion ($1.1 billion). NN itself bought 8 million of the 33 million shares on offer.

    Many Asian indices fell as the renminbi and emerging-market currencies retreated.

    In Seoul, stocks were mixed, with the main index closing up 0.47% at 687.27 after the North Korea H-bomb claim. But Chinese stocks recovered after a state media outlet reported that Chinese securities regulators would extend a six-month ban on share selling by major investors until permanent rules were put in place. The ban would otherwise have expired on Friday. The Shanghai Composite closed up 2.25% at 3,361.84 and the Shenzhen Component index gained 2.24% to close at 11,724.88.

    In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng closed down 0.98% at 20,980.81.

    Shares of New World China Land closed up almost 21% in Hong Kong at HK$7.49 per share after majority shareholder New World Development offered HK$7.80 per share to take the company private after a previous attempt failed to garner sufficient shareholder approval in June 2014. The new offer values the stock at HK$67.8 billion ($8.7 billion).

    In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 closed down 0.99% at 18,191.32 and the Topix fell 1.05% to close at 1,488.84.

    In Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 closed down 1.18% at 5,123.13.