Category Archives: North Korea

North Korea Covid-19 outbreak fears after Kim Jong-un warns of ‘huge crisis’ in ‘antivirus fight’

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Leader speaks of a grave incident and sacks officials for neglecting duties in fighting ‘global health crisis’

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has sacked several senior party officials over a “grave” coronavirus incident that had threatened public safety, fuelling speculation that the coronavirus has breached the country’s defences.

“In neglecting important decisions by the party that called for organisational, material and science and technological measures to support prolonged anti-epidemic work in face of a global health crisis, the officials in charge have caused a grave incident that created a huge crisis for the safety of the country and its people,” the state-run KCNA news agency quoted Kim as telling a meeting of the ruling party’s politburo.

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Kim Jong-un’s sister dismisses hopes of US-North Korea nuclear talks

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Kim Yo-jong’s intervention appears to have thwarted any prospects for early resumption of negotiations

Kim Jong-un’s influential sister appears to have dismissed hopes for a breakthrough on nuclear talks with the US, warning Washington that it faced “disappointment” if it believed engagement with North Korea was a possibility.

Kim Yo-jong, a senior figure in the ruling party who is considered one of the North Korean leader’s closest confidantes, said any US expectations for a resumption of talks were “wrong”, according to the state-run KCNA news agency.

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Kim Jong-un says North Korea preparing for ‘dialogue and confrontation’ with US

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Dictator tells ruling Workers’ party of the need to get ready for ‘fast-changing’ security situation

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said his country needs to prepare for “both dialogue and confrontation” with the United States under Joe Biden, state media reported on Friday.

At a meeting of the central committee of the ruling Workers’ party on Thursday, Kim outlined his strategy for relations with Washington, and the “policy tendency of the newly emerged US administration”, the Korean Central News Agency said.

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Biden sends special envoy to South Korea to press North on nuclear arms

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US president and South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in remain ‘deeply concerrned’ over relations with Pyongyang

US president Joe Biden said he and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in remain “deeply concerned” about the situation with North Korea, and announced he will deploy a new special envoy to the region.

After talks in Washington on Friday, Biden told a joint news conference with Moon that he was dispatching former US ambassador to Seoul, Sung Kim, to help refocus efforts on pressing Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

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South Korea’s balancing act will test Biden’s plan to get tough with China

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Analysis: Seoul’s navigation of geopolitical landscape in east Asia hints at limits of united front with US

When the South Korean president goes to Washington DC on Friday, his discussions with Joe Biden about China will test the limits of the US president’s rhetoric to “work with [its] allies to hold China accountable”. It will also exhibit the dilemma faced by middle-sized powers such as South Korea.

The White House spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said last month that Moon Jae-in’s visit “will highlight the ironclad alliance between the United States and [South Korea], and the broad and deep ties between our governments, people and economies”.

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North Korea says propaganda leaflets sent from South could carry coronavirus

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State-run media in North warn people about a ‘strange object flying in the wind’ as South Korean police raid office of leaflet distributor

North Korea has warned its citizens against reading propaganda leaflets sent via balloon over the border with the South, saying they could be carrying coronavirus.

The state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper urged people to stay away from the leaflets, according to news agency Yonhap, saying: “Even when we come across a strange object flying in the wind, we must consider them as a possible route of transmission of the malicious virus rather than a natural phenomenon.” It advised people to “think and move” according to Covid-19 guidelines.

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Kim Jong-un warns of historic economic crisis in North Korea

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Leader uses the term ‘arduous march’ in party speech, a term used to refer to devastating 1990s famine in which hundreds of thousands died

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has called for another “arduous march” against severe economic difficulties, appearing to compare the situation to a 1990s famine during which hundreds of thousands of people died.

Kim had previously said his country faces the “worst-ever” situation due to factors including the coronavirus pandemic, US-led sanctions and natural disasters, but this is the first time he has publicly drawn a parallel with the deadly famine.

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North Korea pulls out of Tokyo Olympics, citing coronavirus fears

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With the Games just months away, the regime’s sports ministry says it wants to protect athletes from the ‘global health crisis’

North Korea’s sports ministry said on Tuesday that it will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics this year to protect its athletes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision was made at a meeting of North Korea’s Olympic committee, including its sports minister Kim Il guk, on 25 March the ministry said on its website, called Joson Sports. “The committee decided not to join the 32nd Olympics Games to protect athletes from the global health crisis caused by the coronavirus,” it said.

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Dire situation in North Korea drives ‘collective exit’ of diplomats

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Russian embassy staff cite medicine shortages and unbearable conditions arising from strict Covid restrictions

Russian diplomats fleeing North Korea have described acute shortages of medicines and other basic goods in the country, indicating a crisis fuelled by one of the world’s strictest quarantine regimes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter posted online on Thursday, employees of the Russian embassy in Pyongyang described a “collective exit” of foreign diplomatic staff that they predicted would “unfortunately not be the last” due to unbearable conditions in the North Korean capital.

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North Korea test fires two ballistic missiles in challenge to Biden

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Projectiles are believed to have landed in the sea outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone

North Korea test fired two ballistic missiles early on Thursday, in the biggest challenge so far to Joe Biden’s attempts to engage the regime over its nuclear weapons program.

The projectiles were launched on North Korea’s east coast and are believed to have landed in the sea outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, officials in Tokyo said.

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Harvard professor sparks outrage with claims about Japan’s ‘comfort women’

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Academics reject J Mark Ramseyer’s claim women were not forced into sexual slavery during second world war

A Harvard University professor has sparked outrage among fellow academics and campaigners after claiming that women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military had chosen to work in wartime brothels.

J Mark Ramseyer, a professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School, challenged the accepted narrative that as many as 200,000 “comfort women” – mostly Koreans, but also Chinese, south-east Asians and a small number of Japanese and Europeans – were coerced or tricked into working in military brothels between 1932 and Japan’s defeat in 1945.

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Russian diplomats leave North Korea on hand-powered rail trolley – video

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In normal times, most diplomats can expect to end a foreign posting with an official – if not always fond – farewell from their hosts and a comfortable journey back to their native country.

But for one group of Russian envoys and their families, the coronavirus pandemic meant there was only one way home: under their own steam on a hand-pushed rail trolley.

A more conventional exit from North Korea has not been possible since the country closed its land borders and banned international air travel early on in the pandemic

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Russian diplomats leave North Korea on hand-powered rail trolley

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Coronavirus pandemic meant the envoys and their families had to travel home in an unconventional way

In normal times, most diplomats can expect to end a foreign posting with an official – if not always fond – farewell from their hosts and a comfortable journey back to their native country.

But for one group of Russian envoys and their families, the coronavirus pandemic meant there was only one way home – under their own steam on a hand-pushed rail trolley.

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North Korea enslaves prisoners in producing coal for export, report says

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Rights group says pyramid-like scheme is directly linked to North’s nuclear and missile programmes

North Korea has been enslaving political prisoners, including children, in coal production to help boost exports and earn foreign currency as part of a system directly linked to its nuclear and missile programmes, a South Korea-based human rights group has said.

The Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights (NKHR) released a study analysing an intricate connection between North Korea’s exploitation of its citizens, the production of goods for export, and its weapons programmes.

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North Korean defector spends six hours walking around heavily guarded border unnoticed

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Embarrassment for South Korea’s military after guards fail to heed alarms despite man being picked up by five sets of CCTV cameras

South Korea’s military is facing criticism over security lapses along the country’s heavily armed border with North Korea after a man was able to cross into the South despite being spotted multiple times by surveillance cameras.

The man, wearing a wetsuit and flippers, reportedly swam to South Korea in the early hours of 16 February, but evaded capture for more than six hours, according to the Yonhap news agency.

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‘My mother begged me not to go’: the Japanese women who married Koreans – and never saw their family again

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Mitsuko left Japan in 1960 for a new life in North Korea. Once there, she realised she – and hundreds of others like her – could never go back

It has been six decades since Mitsuko Minakawa boarded a ferry on the Sea of Japan coast, bound for a new life in North Korea. But the anguish of that sunny day in the spring of 1960 has never left her.

Two months earlier, Minakawa had married a Korean man, Choe Hwa-jae, a contemporary at Hokkaido University, where she was the only woman in a class of 100 students. Minakawa, then 21, and Choe were part of the mass repatriation of ethnic Korean residents of Japan – many of them the offspring of people who had been brought from the Korean peninsula by their Japanese colonisers to work in mines and factories.

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North Korea upgraded nuclear missile programme in 2020, says UN diplomat

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Confidential UN report reveals Pyongyang was acting in violation of international sanctions

North Korea maintained and developed its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes throughout 2020 in violation of international sanctions, said a UN diplomat with knowledge of a confidential report given to security council members on Monday.

The report by independent sanctions monitors said Pyongyang “produced fissile material, maintained nuclear facilities and upgraded its ballistic missile infrastructure”, and continued to seek technology for those programmes from abroad.

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North Korea diplomacy is only used to advance nuclear programme, says top US official

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Washington’s top intelligence officer warns that Pyongyang is not intending to ‘find a way out’ of weapons development

The top US intelligence officer for North Korea has warned the country sees diplomacy only as a means to advance its nuclear weapons development, even as the new Biden administration says it will look for ways to bring Pyongyang back to talks.

Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Tuesday the new administration planned a full review of the US approach to North Korea to look at ways to increase pressure on it to return to the negotiating table.

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North Korea set for collision course with US as Kim Jong-un solidifies one-man rule

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Analysis: Congress gathering ends with Kim taking symbolic post of general secretary and a warning the US needs a fresh strategy

A rare meeting of North Korea’s ruling party has ended with a symbolically important new title for the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, speculation about the future of his influential sister, and a shot across the bow of the incoming US president.

Less than two weeks before Joe Biden’s inauguration, much of what Kim told the first congress of the ruling Workers’ party for five years had a familiar ring to it.

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