SEOUL, Dec 13 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, the North's KCNA news agency reported on Saturday.

Decades after North Korea's abductions, relatives in Japan and elsewhere in Asia are still waiting for answers... and for loved ones to finally come home.

Kim Jong-un hugged the returning troops and awarded the country’s highest medal to nine soldiers killed in action.

North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un has opened a meeting to prepare for the upcoming ruling party congress, one of the country’s biggest political conferences meant to lay out new state priorities.

Kim has been presiding over a key party meeting this week as the country prepares for the Ninth Congress of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held a huge military parade and ceremony to welcome back the soldiers who fought in Russia against Ukraine. Kim Jong Un hugged soldiers and placed a white flower in front of portraits of soldiers who had died.

Six months into his term as South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung floated a review of joint military drills with the US to spur dialogue with Pyongyang, while touting Washington’s green light on Seoul building nuclear-powered submarines as one of his top achievements.

The National Security Strategy released last week didn’t include a single mention of the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-Un. That’s a big change from President Donald Trump’s first-term strategy.

North Korean defectors underscored that human rights weren’t an abstract ideal but the ability to speak, make choices and imagine a future in everyday life during a panel in Seoul on Monday to mark International Human Rights Day.