By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
SEOUL (Worthy News) – One may be forgiven for thinking twice about enjoying a coffee here. Yet a South Korean border observatory overseeing a quiet North Korean mountain village was precisely where the Starbucks coffee chain decided to open an outlet on Friday.
Customers must pass a military checkpoint before entering the observatory at Aegibong Peace Ecopark. The observatory is less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from North Korean territory and overlooks North Korea’s Songaksan mountain and a nearby village in Kaephung County.
The tables and windows face North Korea at the Starbucks, where about 40 people, a few of them foreigners, came to the opening Friday, reporters witnessed.
The South Korean city of Gimpo said hosting Starbucks was part of efforts to develop its border facilities as a tourist destination and said the shop symbolizes “robust security on the Korean Peninsula through the presence of this iconic capitalist brand.”
It came amid mounting tensions with South Korea’s military, saying Friday that the autocratic North flew “dozens more balloons” overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital, Seoul, and nearby Gyeonggi province.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had earlier been trying to raise pressure on South Korea and threatening to attack his rival with nuclear weapons if provoked.
North Korea has also engaged in psychological and electronic warfare against South Korea, such as flying trash-laden balloons into the South and disrupting Global Positioning System signals from border areas near the South’s biggest airport.
Kaephung County is believed to be one of the possible sites from where North Korea has launched thousands of balloons over several months.
South Korea’s military said Friday that the North flew dozens more balloons overnight and that some trash and leaflets landed around the capital, Seoul, and nearby Gyeonggi province.
Yet the coffee aroma at Starbucks provided perhaps a brief respite from what is one of the world’s most militarized zones.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
More Worthy News
The United States has formally completed its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the State Department confirmed Tuesday, marking President Donald Trump’s second exit from the global climate pact and fulfilling a key pledge of his administration’s “America First” agenda.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump said Wednesday that “America is back” after the S&P 500 Index, which tracks the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the United States, surpassed the 7,000-point mark for the first time in its history.
Amid congressional outcry over the Trump administration’s military actions in Venezuela, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the moves Wednesday and outlined future plans to U.S. lawmakers.
Several blue states appear set to lose electoral college votes while red states will make sweeping gains, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau suggests.
Vladimir Putin met with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the Kremlin on Wednesday, as Russia moves to safeguard its remaining military bases in Syria following a dramatic shift in power in the war-torn nation.
The U.S. State Department has determined that the Palestinian Authority paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, despite claims by PA President Mahmoud Abbas that the controversial “pay-to-slay” program had been ended.
Atomic scientists on Tuesday moved the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest humanity has ever come to theoretical self-annihilation—yet the warning is not meant to declare destiny. For people of faith, the tightening of the hour carries prophetic weight, echoing past moments when global shaking preceded awakening, repentance, and renewal, serving as a call to restrain destructive paths and realign human choices toward life, wisdom, and peace.