Top official says council ignores US weapons tests, after it met over Pyongyang’s anti-aircraft missile launch
North Korea has accused the United Nations security council of applying double standards over military activities among UN member states amid international criticism over its recent missile tests.
The council met behind closed doors on Friday upon requests from the United States and other countries over the North’s missile launches.
Continue reading...Irresponsible statements are fuel for those who falsely believe their rights have been taken away
When former prime minister John Key referred to New Zealand as a “smug hermit kingdom” in his widely disseminated op-ed, I thought it was pushing it a bit, but not completely off the mark – we closed our borders to outsiders, after all. What I didn’t expect was for him to start calling the government’s response “North Korean”. This isn’t just lazy rhetoric, it’s obviously wrong.
This is what North Korea’s been through: it closed its borders at the beginning of 2020, before most of the world put itself into lockdown. It stopped all shipments in and out of the country, including China, which is its largest trading partner and aid donor. Fishing in its surrounding waters and even salt harvesting was halted, for fear Covid may be transmitted that way. Foreign diplomatic staff left on one-way tickets: one group of Russians took a hand-powered rail cart out of the country.
Continue reading...Kim Jong-un appears not to have attended test, which was overseen by a central committee member
North Korea has fired a newly developed anti-aircraft missile, the official KCNA news agency has reported, in the latest in its recent series of weapons tests.
The test on Thursday, conducted by the Academy of Defence Science, a military weapons developer, was aimed at confirming the practical functionality of the missile’s launcher, radar, comprehensive battle command vehicle and combat performance, KCNA said.
Continue reading...North Korean leader said Biden offer of dialogue is ‘a facade’ and blamed the US for ‘hostile policy’
Kim Jong-un has condemned a US offer of dialogue as a “facade”, state media reported, but said he had ordered officials to restore communication lines with South Korea to “promote peace”.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the North Korean leader accused the US of continuing a “hostile policy” against his nuclear-armed country, despite the Biden administration’s offers of negotiations without preconditions.
Continue reading...Latest of several launches within a month signals further ramp-up of hostility towards neighbours
North Korea has fired what it described as a hypersonic missile towards the sea off its east coast, as Pyongyang repeated a call for Washington and Seoul to scrap their “hostile policy” to restart talks.
On Wednesday, North Korea said it was a newly developed hypersonic missile. The official KCNA news agency said the launch was of “great strategic significance”, as the North seeks to increase its defence capabilities a “thousand-fold”.
Continue reading...Analysts say North Korea’s apparent desire for engagement part of a push to get the US to ease crippling sanctions
The influential sister of North Korea’s leader said that an inter-Korean summit could take place, but only if mutual “respect” and “impartiality” are guaranteed.
The statement on Saturday was the second in two days by Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s sister and key adviser.
Continue reading...Analysis: Fear and uncertainty of the Obama years could return as Kim Jong-un revives nuclear ambitions
North Korea’s recent missile launches signal that the regime has reverted to familiar tactics to attract the attention of the US. Although the rest of the world will take little comfort from this return to “normality”, after a six-month pause Pyongyang last weekend launched what it claimed were new long-range cruise missiles capable of hitting Japan, followed hours later by the test launch of two ballistic missiles into the sea, apparently from a train.
Then came the clearest sign since its last nuclear test in 2017 that the North is not about to abandon its project to build a viable deterrent, with satellite images showing it was expanding a uranium enrichment plant at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex.
Continue reading...Launch comes as Chinese foreign minister is in Seoul to discuss stalled nuclear diplomacy and two days after North tests a new long-range cruise missile
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military has said, two days after the North claimed to have tested a new missile in its first weapons test in six months.
South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff (JCS) said the missiles flew from a central inland area towards the waters off the Korean Peninsula’s east coast and that further analysis with US officials was under way. “Our military maintains a full readiness posture in close cooperation with the US,” the JCS said.
Continue reading...Civil defence units and health personnel wearing gas masks and hazmat suits featured in celebrations in Pyongyang to mark the 73rd anniversary of North Korea’s founding, in a departure from previous militaristic displays
Continue reading...IOC says suspension is punishment for North Korea refusing to send team to Tokyo Games over Covid fears
North Korea has been formally suspended from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics by the IOC as punishment for refusing to send a team to the Tokyo Games, citing the Covid-19 pandemic.
The International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, said the North Korean national Olympic body would also now forfeit money it was due from previous Olympics. The unspecified amount – potentially millions of dollars – had been withheld because of international sanctions.
Continue reading...Analysis: China’s handling of troubles in Afghanistan, Myanmar and North Korea will differ to the west, and mould its identity as a global power
First it was North Korea. Then came Myanmar. Now it is Afghanistan. The three ongoing crises in China’s neighbourhood seem to have little in common. But for Beijing they pose the same question: how to deal with strategically important yet failing states on its border, and how will China’s response define its identity as a global power.
For many years China watchers in the west have been looking for clues to how a rising power will exercise its influence on the world stage through its involvement in Africa or its relations with the US. But the way China approaches the three neighbouring countries may provide a clearer picture.
Continue reading...Thousands of ethnic Koreans left Japan for North Korea decades ago lured by promise of a better life
A Japanese court has summoned North Korea’s leader to face demands for compensation by several ethnic Korean residents of Japan who say they suffered human rights abuses in North Korea after joining a resettlement programme there that described the country as a “paradise on Earth”, a lawyer and plaintiff have said.
Kim Jong-un is not expected to appear in court for the hearing on 14 October, but the judge’s decision to summon him was a rare instance in which a foreign leader was not granted sovereign immunity, said Kenji Fukuda, a lawyer representing the five plaintiffs.
Continue reading...Denmark has recorded a rise in cases in nursing homes; UK vaccines watchdog says not enough evidence to roll out Covid jabs to 12- to 15-year-olds; North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has ordered officials to fight Covid in ‘our style’
Consumers have been warned of an autumn rise in living costs from sharp increases in household energy bills and food prices, as Covid and Brexit disruption ripple through the UK economy.
Sounding the alarm for a wide range of products and services going up in price, business leaders said the UK was facing a “perfect storm” of worker shortages and problems with global supply chains that would lead to a burst of inflation within months.
Related: Inflation set to surge this autumn as Brexit and Covid combine
Here is a brief summary of all the big coronavirus news from so far today:
Continue reading...Reports of forced labour and severe punishments for detainees add to growing evidence of abuses worsening during the pandemic
Detainees in North Korea are forced into gruelling manual labour and beaten so severely it may be a form of torture, the UN has said, as it warned that Covid-19 had exacerbated human rights concerns in the notoriously oppressive country.
In a report to be presented at the UN general assembly in September, the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said fresh accounts given to the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) had added to “a growing body of information confirming consistent patterns of human rights violations”.
Continue reading...Regime looking to shift focus from domestic problems with rhetoric around US-South Korea military drills, say analysts
North Korea’s threat to boost its military capacity to counter hostility from Washington before joint US-South Korea military drills is intended to divert attention from its economic crisis but could lead to a resumption of missile tests, according to analysts.
While there is nothing unusual about North Korean opposition to the summer exercises involving American and South Korean forces, its warning this week that Seoul and Washington faced “greater security threats” comes from a position of weakness not seen since Kim Jong-un came to power a decade ago.
Continue reading...Kim Yo-jong, a key adviser to North Korean ruler, interrupts surprise thaw in relations on Korean peninsula
The influential sister of the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has called Seoul authorities “treacherous” over the South’s joint military exercises with the US, warning the two allies would face greater security threats as a result.
Kim Yo-jong’s latest remarks come despite a surprise thaw on the Korean peninsula, prompted by a series of personal letters between her brother and the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in.
Continue reading...More than 1,100 homes in North Korea were damaged, thousands of people evacuated and farms and roads washed away after days of heavy rains brought flooding, state media reported.
Continue reading...Amid economic crisis, Kim Jong-un wants restrictions relaxed on necessities as well as luxury goods, South Korea lawmakers say
North Korea wants a raft of international sanctions eased – including on imports of luxury items such as high-class liquors and suits – before it will restart denuclearisation talks with the United States, South Korean lawmakers have said.
Pyongyang has also called for sanctions banning its metal exports and imports of refined fuel and other necessities to be lifted, the lawmakers said on Tuesday after being briefed by Park Jie-won, head of the South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
Continue reading...Editorial in official newspaper calls on youth to follow ‘traditional lifestyles’ and stick to ‘superior’ language
Young North Koreans have been warned to adhere to the country’s standard language and follow “traditional lifestyles” as part of the regime’s campaign to stamp out cultural influences from neighbouring South Korea.
In an editorial published on Sunday, the Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party, railed against the creeping influence of the South on everything from hairstyles to the spoken word.
Continue reading...Analysis: leader’s talk of huge crisis, despite no admission of Covid cases, comes amid concerns over health infrastructure and food shortages
Almost 18 months after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, North Korea has come close to conceding that its attempts to keep the virus from its borders have failed.
While North Korea’s state-controlled media have not reported any cases, some analysts assume the virus has breached the country’s defences, prompting its leader, Kim Jong-un, to issue a coded request for outside help this week.
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