Category Archives: North Korea

Kim Jong-un calls US ‘biggest enemy’ and says nuclear submarine plans ‘complete’

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North Korea should ‘further advance nuclear technology’ and develop more flexible attack capability, leader tells party congress

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has called the United States his nuclear-armed nation’s “biggest enemy” and revealed that plans for a nuclear-powered submarine are complete, state media said.

Kim’s declaration on Saturday also included a call to develop smaller, more adapatable nyuclear warheads, comes less than two weeks before the inauguration of Joe Biden as US president, and after a tumultuous relationship between Kim and the outgoing Donald Trump.

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North Korea: Kim Jong-un says economic plan a near-total failure at rare political meeting

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Ruler begins second Workers’ party congress by admitting strategy fell short in ‘almost all areas’

North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un, has admitted that his economic policies have largely failed, and vowed to avoid a repeat of the “painful lessons” of the past at a rare meeting of the country’s ruling party.

Kim told the congress of the Workers’ party that his five-year economic plan had failed to achieve its goals “in almost all areas to a great extent”, North Korean state media said on Wednesday.

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North Korean hackers tried to disrupt vaccine in South, says spy agency

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South Korean intelligence foiled the attempt by secretive regime to infiltrate pharmaceutical companies working on treatments

South Korea’s intelligence agency has foiled attempts by North Korean hackers to disrupt attempts to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, according to officials.

Ha Tae-keung, a conservative member of the national assembly who was briefed by intelligence officials, said attempts by the North to target South Korean drugmakers had failed, but did not identify the companies involved.

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Hackers ‘try to steal Covid vaccine secrets in intellectual property war’

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Agencies point finger at state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea

State-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are engaged in concerted attempts to steal coronavirus vaccine secrets in what security experts describe as “an intellectual property war”.

They accuse hostile-state hackers of trying to obtain trial results early and seize sensitive information about mass production of drugs, at a time when a range of vaccines are close to being approved for the public.

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Human rights must not be ‘trampled’ in global rush for PPE, say MPs

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Calls come after Guardian finds UK sourced PPE from factories in China where North Koreans work in modern slavery

MPs and experts in the procurement of personal protective equipment have said human rights must not be “trampled” in the rush to secure PPE for frontline workers via global supply chains.

The calls come after a Guardian investigation found evidence that the British government had sourced PPE from factories in China where hundreds of North Korean women have been secretly working in conditions of modern slavery.

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UK sourced PPE from factories secretly using North Korean slave labour

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Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds evidence that Chinese PPE factories supplying UK government are breaking UN sanctions

The British government has sourced PPE from factories in China where hundreds of North Korean women have been secretly working in conditions of modern slavery, according to evidence uncovered by the Guardian.

The Guardian’s findings indicate that hundreds of thousands of protective coveralls ordered for the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) have come from factories using North Korean labour in the Chinese city of Dandong.

The three-month investigation has also found evidence of North Korean labour being used in factories exporting PPE to the US, Italy, Germany, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Myanmar.

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North Korea bans smoking in public places to safeguard ‘hygienic living’

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Measure comes despite more than 43% of the country’s male population being smokers, including leader Kim Jong-un

North Korea’s supreme people’s assembly has introduced smoking bans in some public places to provide citizens with “hygienic living environments”, state media KCNA reported.

The tobacco-prohibition law aims to protect the lives and health of North Koreans by tightening the legal and social controls on the production and sale of cigarettes, KCNA on Thursday quoted the legislature as saying.

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North Korea detainees subjected to ritual torture and sexual assault – rights group

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Prisoners considered ‘less than an animal’ by regime, according to interviews with 15 former detainees by Human Rights Watch

Suspects in North Korea are subjected to ritual torture, humiliation and sexual assault by a criminal justice system that considers them “less than an animal”, according to the first-ever report detailing the brutality of the country’s pretrial detention conditions.

The US-based Human Rights Watch [HRW] said people who are arrested and sent to pretrial detention are placed in cramped, unhygienic cells, forced to confess and denied proper food and clothing.

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Trump and Biden offer starkly different visions of US role in world

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The world is anxiously watching the election, with the candidates far apart on issues such as the climate crisis and nuclear weapons

Foreign policy barely gets a mention in this US election, but for the rest of the world the outcome on 3 November will arguably be the most consequential in history.

All US elections have a global impact, but this time there are two issues of existential importance to the planet – the climate crisis and nuclear proliferation – on which the two presidential candidates could hardly be further apart.

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BTS faces China backlash over Korean war comments

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Boyband member RM told award ceremony they would always remember sacrifices of US and South Korea in war

K-pop phenomenon BTS are facing a barrage of criticism in China after the South Korean boyband cited their country’s solidarity with the US stemming from the Korean war.

The band’s leader, RM, sparked outrage on social media in China when he cited the “history of pain” shared between South Korea and the US, who fought alongside each other in the 1950-53 conflict.

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Kim Jong-un cries during speech at North Korean military parade – video

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The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, became emotional during a speech at a military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' party. Kim removed his glasses and wiped away tears in an indication, analysts say, of mounting pressure on his regime.  He said his 'efforts and devotion' had not been enough to help all North Koreans

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‘Every boy’s dream is to be James Bond’: Inside North Korea with ‘Mr James’ and ‘the Mole’

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Danish film-maker Mads Brügger’s latest documentary is an absurdly brave look at Kim Jong-un’s regime that has all the intrigue of a spy thriller

Physically, Ulrich Larsen doesn’t stand out. Polite, unassuming, his unmemorable 44-year-old face is how I imagine an efit template might be, what you start with before you add distinguishing features. You get to decide who he is. Perfect for blending in. Or infiltrating the world’s most secretive regime perhaps, which, as it happens, is what he did. Larsen is “the Mole”.

Jim Latrache-Qvortrup is the opposite. Forty-eight, big, bold, bearded, inked, with an expensive-looking set of teeth and an explosive laugh. Ex-military? Better still, he joined the French Foreign Legion at 19. Crime? Tick; he spent eight years in jail for drug dealing. International arms dealer, buying stinger missiles from North Korea for anyone who will have them? Actually no, but he does a very good job of pretending to be one, hardly has to act at all in fact. Latrache-Qvortrup is “Mr James”.

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Kim Jong-un sheds tears as he delivers rare apology to North Korea over failings

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Analysts say emotional speech suggests Kim is feeling pressures on his leadership linked to Covid and nuclear sanctions

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, shed tears as he issued a rare apology for his failure to guide the country through tumultuous times exacerbated by the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking at a huge military parade held at the weekend to mark the 75th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ party, Kim removed his glasses and wiped away tears – an indication, analysts say, of mounting pressure on his regime.

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South Korea to ask North to further investigate killing of official

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South’s president Moon Jae-in faces growing public and political outrage over the shooting of the fisheries official

South Korea will ask North Korea to further investigate the shooting death of one of its officials, as public and political outrage over the killing grew.

After a national security council meeting on Friday, South Korea said on Saturday that it would call for a joint probe into the case with the North if needed, saying there were discrepancies in accounts of the accident from the two sides.

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North Korea apologises for ‘unfortunate’ killing of South Korean official

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Kim Jong-un says death ‘should not have happened’ after man shot in North Korean waters

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has apologised for the “unexpected” and “unfortunate” killing of a South Korean official this week after he drifted across the countries’ maritime border, possibly in an attempt to defect.

In a message to the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, Kim said he was “very sorry”, adding that the incident, which has raised tensions between the two countries, “should not have happened”, according to media reports.

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North Korea officials to be punished after typhoon causes ‘dozens of casualties’

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State newspaper reports leaders will punish ‘irresponsible’ city and provincial officials for failing to protect residents

North Korea has pledged harsh punishment for local officials it says failed to protect residents from a typhoon which caused a “serious incident” with dozens of casualties, the ruling party’s newspaper reported.

Typhoon Maysak brought heavy downpours across the country earlier this week, with footage showing a street inundated with water in the eastern port town of Wonsan, Kangwon province.

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Trump told Sarah Sanders to ‘take one for the team’ after Kim Jong-un wink

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  • Ex-press secretary describes boorish remarks in new memoir
  • ‘Kim Jong-un hit on you,’ Trump said, after gesture at summit

Donald Trump told Sarah Sanders she would have to “go to North Korea and take one for the team”, after Kim Jong-un winked at the then White House press secretary during a summit in Singapore in June 2018.

Related: Trump denies 'series of mini-strokes' after book reports mystery hospital visit

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‘It’s terrifying’: can anyone stop China’s vast armada of fishing boats?

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Ecuador stood up for the Galápagos, but other countries don’t stand a chance against the 17,000-strong distant-water fleet

The recent discovery by the Ecuadorean navy of a vast fishing armada of 340 Chinese vessels just off the biodiverse Galápagos Islands stirred outrage both in Ecuador and overseas.

Under pressure after Ecuador’s strident response, China has given mixed signals that it could begin to reel in its vast international fishing fleet. Its embassy in Ecuador declared a “zero tolerance” policy towards illegal fishing, and this week it announced it was tightening the rules for its enormous flotilla with a series of new regulations.

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South Korea says defector who fled to North ‘did not have’ Covid-19

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The case has triggered an emergency lockdown in the North, but officials in Seoul say the man had no record of infection or contact

South Korea has said that a defector who recently fled to the North does not appear to have contracted Covid-19, a day after Pyongyang imposed a lockdown near the border, claiming the man was its first recorded case of the illness.

North Korean state media reported on Sunday that the 24-year-old man, who was reportedly in quarantine, was displaying symptoms of coronavirus after returning to his homeland across the border separating the two Koreas last week.

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