Category Archives: North Korea

Kim Jong-un is ‘alive and well’, says South Korea’s security adviser

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Moon Chung-in quashes health rumours, saying North Korean leader has been in Wonsan – a resort town in the country’s east – since 13 April

South Korea has said that Kim Jong-un, is “alive and well”, downplaying rumours that that the North Korean leader was seriously ill after undergoing heart surgery.

“Our government position is firm,” Moon Chung-in, a special adviser on national security to the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “Kim Jong-un is alive and well.”

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Kim Jong-un’s train possibly spotted at North Korean resort

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As rumours persist that ruler is in poor health, satellite images emerge showing train parked at Wonsan’s ‘leadership station’

A special train possibly belonging to the North Korean ruler, Kim Jong-un, has been spotted at a resort town, according to satellite images reviewed by a Washington-based North Korea monitoring project, amid conflicting reports about Kim’s health and whereabouts.

The monitoring project, 38 North, said in its report on Saturday that the train was parked at the “leadership station” in Wonsan on 21 April and 23 April. The station is reserved for the use of the Kim family, it said.

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Kim Jong-un: China sends doctors to check on health – report

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Speculation continues about dictator’s condition after reports of heart surgery and absence from important events

China has sent a team to North Korea including medical experts to check on Kim Jong-un, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The trip by the Chinese doctors and officials comes amid conflicting reports about the health of the North Korean ruler. It was not immediately clear what the trip by the Chinese team signalled in terms of Kim’s health.

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has heart surgery – report

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Speculation about health builds after Kim misses key event honouring country’s founder, Kim Il-sung

Kim Jong-un underwent heart surgery earlier this month and is recovering at his private villa, according to a South Korean report, with US media citing officials as saying the North Korean leader was in “grave danger” after the procedure.

If accurate, the surgery claim, made by the Daily NK website, would explain Kim’s absence from an event to mark the anniversary of the birth of his grandfather – and the country’s founder – Kim Il-sung.

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North Korea defies sanctions with China’s help, UN panel says

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International report claims Pyongyang has been transferring coal exports to Chinese barges

North Korea sharply stepped up trade in coal and oil products last year in defiance of UN sanctions through the apparent help of China’s shipping industry, a UN panel has said.

The annual report to the UN Security Council by sanctions experts went online on Friday and inexplicably disappeared later in the day, with the text itself noting China’s reservations about the findings.

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Kim Jong-un’s sister returns to key role in North Korean reshuffle

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Kim Yo-jong reinstated to position she lost last year after collapse of US summit

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s powerful younger sister has been reinstated to a key decision-making body, state media have reported, marking her rise in the isolated nation.

Long one of her brother’s closest advisers, Kim Yo-jong was reappointed an alternate member of the political bureau of the central committee in a reshuffle of top officials on Saturday, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

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North Korea’s coronavirus-free claim met with scepticism

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‘Not one single person infected,’ claims official but US general in South Korea says that is ‘impossible’

North Korea remains totally free of the coronavirus, a senior health official in Pyongyang has insisted, despite mounting scepticism over the claim as known cases of infection topped one million worldwide.

The already isolated, nuclear-armed North quickly shut down its borders after the virus was first detected in neighbouring China in January and imposed strict containment measures.

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‘You think Trump will save you?’: my nine days detained by North Korea’s secret police

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Alek Sigley was studying in Pyongyang when he was blindfolded and taken to an interrogation facility where his handlers demanded he confess to his ‘crimes’

“Do you know what day it is?” asked the man as we sat in the black Mercedes-Benz that had whisked me from the foreign student dormitory at Kim Il-sung university, where I had been living in the North Korean capital Pyongyang. I knew full well, but he answered his own question: “It’s the day the US imperialists invaded and started the war.”

It was Tuesday 25 June, and the start of my nine long days of interrogation at the hands of the North Korean ministry of state security – or at least that’s who I believed it was, as they never revealed who they actually were.

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North Korea reacts to Pompeo ‘insult’ with threat to cut off talks

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Kim Jong-un’s regime says ‘we will walk our own way’ but US secretary of state still hopes for dialogue

North Korea has warned it could cut off dialogue with the United States but Mike Pompeo has said the US still looked forward to talks, even after the North called his insistence on sanctions “ludicrous”.

The US secretary of state has asked nations to “stay committed to applying diplomatic and economic pressure” over the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes while calling on it to return to talks.

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North Korea fires two missiles as Seoul condemns ‘inappropriate’ timing

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Latest in flurry of launches draws particular criticism amid coronavirus pandemic

North Korea fired what appeared to be two short-range ballistic missiles into the ocean off its east coast on Sunday, the latest in an unprecedented flurry of launches that South Korea decried as “inappropriate” amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Two “short-range projectiles” were launched from the coastal Wonsan area and flew 230km (143 miles) at a maximum altitude of 30km (19 miles), South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said.

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North Korea fires projectiles into sea for third time in a month

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Suspected short-range missile launches come as Pyongyang announces legislature to meet in April amid coronavirus pandemic

North Korea fired two projectiles that appeared to be short-range ballistic missiles into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, South Korea’s military reported.

The launch on Saturday follows two earlier this month, when North Korea fired short-range missiles and multiple projectiles, according to South Korea’s military, drawing US and Chinese appeals for Pyongyang to return to talks on ending its nuclear and missile programmes.

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North Korea fires projectiles into sea for second week running

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South Korean military says three projectiles were launched on Monday, following launch of two short-range missiles on 2 March

North Korea has fired three unidentified projectiles off its eastern coast a week after firing two short-range missiles, South Korea’s military said.

The projectiles were launched on Monday from the coastal town of Sondok, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said. The town hosts a military airfield and North Korea fired missiles from the area last year.

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Kim Jong-un sister condemns ‘frightened dog’ South Korea in first public statement

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Kim Yo-jong likens South Korea to ‘frightened dog barking’ after Seoul protested against Pyongyang’s live-fire military frill

The sister of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has condemned South Korea as a “frightened dog barking” after Seoul protested against a live-fire military exercise by the North.

Kim Yo-jong’s comments – her first known official statement – came after Seoul’s security ministers expressed “strong concern” over Pyongyang’s firing of two short-range ballistic missiles on Monday – its first weapons test for more than three months.

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North Korea fires two projectiles in first launches for three months

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Move comes after expiry of unilateral deadline Pyongyang set Washington to offer it fresh concessions on sanctions relief

North Korea fired two short-range projectiles on Monday, the South Korean military said, in the first launches by the regime for more than three months.

The two devices werefired over the sea from the Wonsan area on the east coast, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

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North Korea’s most senior defector to run for parliament in the South

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Thae Yong-ho was deputy ambassador at the North Korean embassy in London when he defected in 2016

The most senior diplomat to have defected from North Korea will run for parliament in South Korea to “give hope” to tens of thousands of others who have fled the regime, media reports said on Tuesday.

Thae Yong-ho was deputy ambassador at the North Korean embassy in London when he defected with his wife and two sons in August 2016, and has since become one of the regime’s most vocal critics.

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Nuclear watchdog head warns Iran over recent detention of inspector

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Rafael Grossi, IAEA director general, said he told Iranian officials a repeat of the ‘grave’ incident would be a ‘serious problem’

The new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has warned Iran there would be serious consequences if there is any repeat of last year’s detention of an IAEA inspector.

Speaking to journalists on his first official trip to Washington as IAEA director general, Rafael Grossi said he had met a senior Iranian official inVienna in December and expressed his concern over what he described as a “grave” incident.

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Africa is humanitarian ‘blind spot’: the world’s top 10 forgotten crises – report

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Climate emergency is fuelling drought, food poverty and disaster in the global south but humanitarian crises under-reported

The African continent is a “blind spot” for coverage of the humanitarian crises that are being fuelled by the climate emergency, according to a new analysis [pdf].

Madagascar’s chronic food crisis, where 2.6 million people were affected by drought in 2019, came top of the list of 10 of the most under-reported crises last year, Care International’s annual survey found.

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Kim Jong-un signals North Korea could resume nuclear missile tests

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Trump says he trusts leader to refrain from testing, despite Kim’s criticism of Washington’s ‘gangster-like demands’

Kim Jong-un has signalled that North Korea will lift its moratoriums on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests in a move likely to anger Donald Trump.

The North Korean leader told a four-day meeting of party officials in Pyongyang that the test ban, which Kim agreed to in talks with the US president, was no longer needed, state media said on Wednesday.

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Seven bodies found on suspected North Korean fishing boat in Japan

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Experts say vessel was possibly travelling far out to sea for bigger catches

Seven badly decomposed bodies were found in a suspected North Korean fishing boat that washed up on a Japanese island, a coast guard official.

The remains were found on Saturday in a broken vessel on the shore of Sado Island, which lies around 900km from North Korea across the Sea of Japan.

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Reasons to be fearful – the international news review of 2019

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This year world leaders struggled to manage the fallout from the erratic tenant in the White House – as China flexed its imperial muscles. We look back at the events that created the most turbulence

Click here for 2019’s reasons to be cheerful

A year of high anxiety was rendered more alarming by intensifying clashes of interest between world powers. As international cooperation declined, and nationalist agendas gathered strength, China, the US, Russia and Europe, and their respective allies, emulators and proxies, engaged in often dangerous competition.

The Chinese communist regime’s increasingly assertive behaviour at home and abroad, reflecting the authoritarian outlook of its paramount leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, produced head-on collisions with western countries, notably over Hong Kong, trade, technology and the repression of the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.

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