Forum: Koffiekamer » Noord-Korea! » Pagina: 15

[verwijderd] 12 juli 2021 18:57

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North Korea's Kim Jung Un regime stability being questioned

Reports of COVID outbreak, food shortages and political volatility fanning speculation

Speculation over internal conditions in North Korea and the stability of its regime is even more rampant than usual.

Reports of food shortages, a COVID outbreak and political volatility have fanned much of the speculation. Kim Jong-Un’s recent extended absence from public view simply fueled the fire, triggering renewed rumors of health problems.

Still, it never pays to sell the regime short. It has outlived countless previous reports of its imminent demise.

Kim has now reappeared much thinner than before, but this has only fueled more speculation. His return to the scene coincided with senior leadership meetings in which he warned of dire food shortages, a dangerous influx of foreign influence and a "grave" breach of the country’s defenses against the COVID virus. Some experts interpreted the trifecta of failings as potentially leading to regime instability or collapse.

Kim acknowledged that the country’s food situation is getting "tense," going so far as to warn of another "arduous march," a reference to the 1990s famine that killed an estimated one million people. Crop shortages, skyrocketing food prices and closure of markets have led to increasingly dire conditions.

The Geneva-based Assessment Capacities Project concluded more than 10 million North Koreans are in need of humanitarian assistance. Last month, an unconfirmed report from within North Korea indicated less than 30% of households are having proper meals.

North Korea’s harvest is habitually a million tons short of what is needed for minimal nutritional levels, which is made up in trade or food aid. Pyongyang blames the food crisis on last year’s typhoons and flooding, but decades of failed socialist economic mismanagement and draconian COVID restrictions imposed last year are primarily responsible.

The regime closed its borders last year to prevent a virus outbreak. Subsequently, trade with China, the regime’s principal trading partner, plummeted by 90%. Representatives of international nongovernmental organizations, which could facilitate food aid, have all departed the country. Pyongyang has repeatedly refused international offers of COVID support and food or rejected monitoring of aid distribution.

North Korea officially claims it hasn’t suffered even a single case of COVID. Yet Kim Jong Un recently strongly denounced senior officials for failing to properly implement COVID safety procedures that caused a "great crisis [and] grave consequences" for the security of the state and safety of the people. State media did not provide details on the incident but it could refer to a COVID outbreak or a breach of border security. Several officials were likely purged from office to deflect blame from Kim.

Since assuming power in December 2011, Kim has augmented regime efforts to prevent foreign information from reaching the populace, perceiving it as a contagion undermining regime stability. Recently he denounced even foreign clothing or speaking styles as a "malignant tumor that threaten the life and future of our descendants."

Kim Yo-jong, the leader’s powerful sister, demanded South Korea prevent civil rights groups from sending information, rice and currency into the secluded north. Seoul quickly capitulated, even introducing legislation to criminalize such efforts – an action that drew rebukes from the U.S. Congress, the UN rapporteur for North Korean civil rights, and human rights advocacy groups.

While the combination of these factors seems to portend regime instability or even collapse, three generations of the Kim family have proven remarkably adept at outlasting and outmaneuvering threats to their hold on power.

Some experts blame international sanctions for food shortages. However, there are no U.N. or U.S. sanctions on food, medicine or humanitarian assistance. All U.N. resolutions and U.S. laws have language highlighting that any punitive measures do not cover those items. That said, Washington should work with the U.N. sanctions committee to expeditiously process requests for sanctions exemptions to ensure humanitarian assistance is not inadvertently blocked.

The populace, impoverished and malnourished, is at high risk to a devastating outbreak of COVID. The country’s decrepit medical system, even in normal circumstances, is undersupplied. U.S. policy has long been to keep humanitarian assistance separate from denuclearization negotiations.

Despite previous North Korean rejections of aid, Washington should again offer to provide medical and humanitarian assistance, while maintaining sanctions until the regime ceases the nuclear and missile activity that triggered the sanctions response.

Would Kim accept the offer? Probably not. While the North Korean people suffer, he still enjoys a life of luxury. Still, it is an offer worth making.

[verwijderd] 13 juli 2021 19:56

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How bad is the COVID-19 pandemic in North Korea? Here’s what we know

After saying for months that it has kept COVID-19 at bay, North Korea came its closest to admitting that its anti-coronavirus campaign has been less than perfect.

North Korea could be dealing with a huge coronavirus outbreak that has spread beyond border towns and rural areas and is now reaching urban centers, possibly including the capital, Pyongyang.

In case of large outbreaks, the North would deploy extreme measures to seal off affected regions, something outside monitoring groups haven’t detected.

Even if it was dealing with an alarming rise in infections, it’s highly unlikely that the North would admit it. Still, Kim’s decision to publicly address a major setback in the fight against the pandemic could also be an appeal for outside help. Most analysts agree that Kim’s remarks indicate a development that’s significant enough to warrant a shakeup of Pyongyang’s leadership.

Kim’s efforts to find scapegoats for the outbreak could also be in preparation for accepting COVID-19 vaccines from abroad.

[verwijderd] 15 juli 2021 09:21

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Kim Jong-Un says North facing ‘great crisis’ in pandemic fight

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un slammed senior officials for causing a “great crisis” in the pandemic fight by mismanaging coronavirus prevention measures, state media reported.

Kim made the comments at a ruling party politburo meeting where an unspecified member of the powerful five-member presidium was reportedly recalled.

“Senior officials in charge of important state affairs neglected the implementation of the important decisions of the party on taking organizational, institutional, material, scientific and technological measures as required by the prolonged state emergency epidemic prevention campaign,” Kim said at the meeting, according to the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

This “caused a crucial case of creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences.”

The state media report did not specify what “crucial” lapse had occurred.

North Korea, to date, has claimed to have had no coronavirus infections, despite testing more than 30,000 people and sharing a border with China.

[verwijderd] 15 juli 2021 17:03

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N Korea's Kim Jong-Un vows to boost China ties amid pandemic hardship

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un said he'll push to further upgrade relations with China, his main ally, as he struggles to navigate his country out of a deepening crisis linked to pandemic.

North Korea maintains some of the world's toughest anti-virus measures, including 1 years of border shutdowns, despite its much questionable claim to be coronavirus free.

Such draconian steps have devastated its already struggling economy, and Kim has said before his country faces the worst-ever situation. It's unclear when North Korea would reopen its borders with China, and so far, there are no reports that it has received any vaccines.

More than 90 per cent of North Korea's trade goes through China, which has long been suspected of refusing to fully implement UN sanctions against North Korea because of its nuclear weapons programs. Experts say China worries about a collapse and chaos in North Korea because it doesn't want refugees flooding over the long border and a pro-US, unified Korea on its doorstep.

[verwijderd] 16 juli 2021 12:12

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North Korea Takes UN Hypocrisy to New Heights

Pyongyang Blames Problems on Everything but Own Abusive Policies

Hypocrisy is commonplace at the United Nations. Delegates routinely stand at UN podiums and blame everyone and everything but their own governments for their countries’ problems. North Korea took this practice to new level on Tuesday at a High Level Political Forum on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

North Korea is “a people centered socialist state” that provides free housing and universal health care and is meeting UN development goals, according to its presentation. The forum’s process allows for states to decide on the format for their presentations, so no questions were asked about the North Korean government’s systemic use of forced labor, pervasive poverty, or UN reporting on the country’s atrocious human rights record. North Korean officials allowed only a single country to pose questions: Cuba.

The reality is that the North Koreans who build the country’s supposedly “free” housing are not paid. Many are forced to work temporarily on construction projects, unless they pay a bribe. Other workers include detainees or people forced to work on paramilitary hard labor brigades for up to 10 years without pay. Construction materials are often obtained by government demands from citizens in the form of “portrayals of loyalty” or are paid by future owners.

As for the “universal healthcare system,” several former North Korean health workers and patients have reported that most doctors, nurses, and other health workers receive no salaries from the government: patients pay them directly for their services and buy their own medicines and medical supplies.

The government did acknowledge the country’s increasingly poor economic situation but blamed it entirely on “continued sanctions” and “natural disaster and a world health crisis,” as well as last year’s typhoons and floods. But reported new shortages of agricultural supplies like fertilizer or farming machinery, not to mention food and household supplies, appear to be due mainly to the government’s stringent border closure in 2020, which went well beyond Covid-19-related restrictions.

Whatever the impact of other factors, the government is ultimately responsible for the country’s dire economic situation. If Pyongyang were genuinely concerned with advancing its development goals, it could begin by engaging with the UN and other governments about an economic reform agenda that was grounded in respect for basic human rights. It would not only adopt core UN human rights treaties, but also take them seriously. Hoping North Korea’s leadership would take such a path is admittedly utopian, but it is a more hopeful utopia than the one the North Korean government believes it has already achieved.

[verwijderd] 17 juli 2021 09:45

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What’s going on in North Korea?

While the leader of North Korea may be relaxing aboard a luxury yacht, the rest of the country does not have that luxury. Conditions in the country have seemed increasingly concerning in recent weeks, reported The New York Post.

The country is facing a food shortage due to failed crops, international sanctions and a strict COVID-19 lockdown, reported the Deseret News. North Korea has continued to claim that it has zero coronavirus cases. However, last month, Kim admitted that the country faced a “grave incident” related to the pandemic, per Deseret News.

After a year of denial, North Korea admitted to a ‘grave incident’ from the pandemic

North Korea is one of the few places in the world to claim zero COVID-19 cases.

Experts have widely doubted this claim, but North Korean officials remained insistent that they had coronavirus outbreaks under control, says BBC. As of Wednesday, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un admitted the country faced a “grave incident” related to the pandemic.

What has the COVID-19 pandemic been like in North Korea?

In January 2020, North Korea sealed its borders to prevent the coronavirus from entering the country. Eighteen months later, the border closure has damaged the economy and contributed to a worsening food situation, reports the Deseret News. Still, North Korea claims it has had no COVID-19 cases, says CNN.
According to reports from North Korean defectors and international aid workers via CNN, the health care system in North Korea is weak, often lacking necessary supplies. The system is unlikely to be able to handle mass COVID-19 outbreaks.

To prevent — or manage — outbreaks, the country instituted strict public health measures — so strict that at least two people were executed for failing to comply, reports CNN. The measures have continued throughout the last year and a half.

What does Kim Jong Un’s comment about the pandemic mean?

In a rare acknowledgment of the strain that COVID-19 has brought, Kim Jong Un spoke of a “great crisis” resulting from the negligence of senior officials, reports The Associated Press.

What is the “great crisis”? Kim did not specify, leaving experts and officials to decipher the words, says NBC News.

According to Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, “something significant happened and it was big enough to warrant a reprimanding of senior officials. This could mean mass infections or some sort of situation where a lot of people were put at direct risk of infections,” per the AP.

This could include a small break of quarantine, a mass outbreak — potentially along the porous North Korea-China border — or something else entirely, says BBC.

What’s next for North Korea?

Both China and South Korea have voiced their willingness to aid North Korea in the event of a major outbreak, reports NBC News.

South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun said that “during this pandemic era we have publicly expressed our willingness to help, ranging from PCR tests to whatever you can imagine,” per NBC News.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said that “if necessary, China will actively consider providing assistance to the DPRK,” per the AP.

Kim’s recent remarks could be laying the political groundwork to ask for additional assistance in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, says NBC News.

[verwijderd] 18 juli 2021 09:40

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Kim Jong-Un signal for help could mark a turning point in North Korea’s Covid-19 fight

Kim Jong-Un talks of huge crisis, despite no admission of Covid-19 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.

If their interpretation is correct, it would mark a significant turning point in the North’s coronavirus response, after repeated claims by the regime that it has not recorded a single infection.

In what it called a fight for “national existence”, it severely curtailed cross-border traffic and trade, and banned international arrivals and sent diplomats and aid workers home. North Korean citizens already accustomed to restrictions on their freedom of movement have been subject to even tighter controls on domestic travel.

North Korea has told the World Health Organization it has not found a single coronavirus infection after testing more than 30,000 people.

The US and South Korea are among those to have cast doubt on the North’s reported success in escaping a virus that has breached national borders in the rest of the world. When South Korea’s then foreign minister, Kang Kyung-wha, questioned its neighbour’s claims last December, Kim’s influential sister, Kim Yo-jong, told Kang she would “pay dearly” for her “reckless” remarks.

But on Tuesday, her visibly angry brother referred to “failed” pandemic measures and a “great crisis” in its efforts to control the pandemic. According to the state-run KCNA news agency, Kim berated, and sacked, senior officials for neglecting “important decisions of the party … as required by the prolonged state emergency epidemic prevention campaign”.

This, he told a meeting of the ruling party’s politburo, had created “a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people and entailed grave consequences”. He did not give details of what had happened, however.

For some analysts, Kim’s outburst was tantamount to an admission that the virus had taken hold in North Korea, whose health infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle a public health crisis.

“There is no possibility that North Korea will ever admit to an infection,” said Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. “Even if there have been mass transmissions, the North will definitely not reveal such developments and will continue to push forward its anti-virus campaign.

“But it is also clear that something significant happened, and it was big enough to warrant a reprimanding of senior officials. This could mean mass infections or some sort of situation where a lot of people were put at direct risk of infections.”

Du Hyeogn Cha, an analyst at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, believes the North could be dealing with a huge Covid-19 outbreak that has spread beyond border towns and rural areas to cities, possibly including the capital Pyongyang.

But other experts say there are, as yet, no definitive signs that the North is battling an outbreak.

Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korea studies at Ewha University, said he doubted that this week’s politburo meeting, which was attended by party officials from across the country, would have gone ahead in the midst of an aggressive outbreak.

In addition, a significant rise in Covid-19 cases would force the regime to take immediate action to seal off affected regions, but groups that monitor North Korea have seen no evidence of that, according to Ahn Kyung-su, the head of the Research Center of DPRK Health and Welfare in Seoul.

Given that the North Korean regime is unlikely to publicly acknowledge an outbreak, some believe Kim’s tirade was an indirect appeal for help from the outside world.

This month, Pyongyang admitted it was tackling a serious food crisis caused by a dramatic slump in trade with neighbouring China, natural disasters and international sanctions targeting its nuclear weapons programme. In April, Kim warned North Koreans to prepare for the “worst-ever situation”.

There is even speculation that Kim’s visible weight loss is an attempt to demonstrate his devotion to public duty amid food shortages and shore up support. Last week, state television showed an unidentified Pyongyang resident describing how “heartbroken” people were over their leader’s “emaciated” appearance.

China – North Korea’s biggest trade partner and aid donor – appears ready to step in and help its neighbour, possibly including the provision of vaccines.

“China and [North Korea] have a long tradition of helping each other when they encounter difficulties,” Wang Wenbin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, told reporters this week. “If necessary, China will actively consider providing assistance.”

Covax, the global vaccine-sharing initiative, said in February that the North could receive 1.9m doses in the first half of the year, but delivery has been delayed due to global shortages.

[verwijderd] 19 juli 2021 06:44

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North Korea warns young people against using slang from the South

North Korean state media has urged its young people against using slang from South Korea and told them to speak North Korea's standard language.

There were also fresh warnings in North Korea's official newspaper against adopting the fashions, hairstyles and music of South Korea.

It is part of a sweeping new law which seeks to stamp out any kind of foreign influence, with harsh penalties.

Those found in breach of the law can face jail or even execution.

Rodong Sinmun newspaper warned millennials of the dangers of following South Korean pop culture.

"The ideological and cultural penetration under the colourful coloured signboard of the bourgeoisie is even more dangerous than enemies who are taking guns," the article read.

It stressed that Korean based on the Pyongyang dialect is superior, and that young people should use it correctly.

The North has recently sought to stamp out South Korean slang, for example a woman calling her husband "oppa" - which means "older brother" but is often used to refer to a boyfriend.

Foreign influence is seen as a threat to North Korea's communist regime, and it's Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un's grip on power.

He recently labelled K-pop a "vicious cancer" that corrupts the youth of North Korea, according to the New York Times.

Anyone caught with large amounts of media from South Korea, the United States or Japan now faces the death penalty. Those caught watching it face prison camp for 15 years.

But despite the risks, foreign influence continues to seep into the North, and highly sophisticated smuggling rings to bring in banned media reportedly continue to operate.

Some North Korean defectors have said that watching South Korean dramas played a part in their decision to escape.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told the Korea Herald that Kim, who was educated in Switzerland, "is well aware that K-pop or Western culture could easily permeate into the younger generation and have a negative impact on its socialist system".

"He knows that these cultural aspects could impose a burden on the system. So by stamping them out, Kim is trying to prevent further troubles in the future."

[verwijderd] 19 juli 2021 09:15

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NK paper urges 'maximum vigilance' against COVID-19 amid global spread of Delta variant

North Korea's official newspaper on Sunday called for "maximum vigilance" against the coronavirus amid the global spread of the highly contagious Delta variant and pandemic fatigue.

The North has claimed to be coronavirus-free but has enforced tight border controls and other anti-pandemic measures since early last year to ward off an outbreak on its soil.

Last July, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un convened an emergency politburo meeting of the Workers' Party and adopted a "maximum emergency system" against the coronavirus.

[verwijderd] 20 juli 2021 00:03

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Mysteriously skinnier Kim Jong Un berates underlings for allowing "great crisis" with COVID-19

North Korea was one of the most isolated nations on the planet even before the coronavirus pandemic led dictator Kim Jong Un to shut its borders more than a year and a half ago. The Kim regime has claimed ever since then that its drastic measures have successfully kept COVID-19 out of North Korea, but while first-hand information from inside the "Hermit Kingdom" is virtually non-existent, even Kim appeared to acknowledge this week that his country is struggling.

The ruler's own dramatic, unexplained weight loss, meanwhile, has renewed speculation that he could be struggling personally with health issues.

Kim publicly berated senior officials within his regime earlier this week for failing to secure the country from COVID-19, accusing the unnamed individuals of, "creating a great crisis in ensuring the security of the state and safety of the people," which he said had resulted in unspecified "grave consequences."

North Korea has yet to confirm a single case of COVID-19 to the World Health Organization, but Kim's statement was taken widely by analysts as an admission that the virus has gained a foothold in North Korea, likely creeping across its difficult-to-secure border with China.

"There seems to be a big problem in taking pre-emptive measures for COVID in cities such as Sinuiju or Hyesan, etc. that border with northeast parts of China," Dr. Cheong Seong-Chang, Director of the Center for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute in South Korea, told CBS.

He added that the way in which Kim made the vague revelation, blaming senior officials in his own government, could indicate a shakeup and the replacement of key members of the governing politburo.

Kim made the remarks as he presided over an extended politburo meeting of the ruling Workers' Party on Tuesday, and some analysts have pointed to the fact that the large gathering was even allowed to go ahead as evidence that any epidemic in North Korea could still be limited to border regions. However, given the country's weak health care infrastructure and unclear capacity to test for the virus, the scale of any COVID-19 outbreak is impossible to gauge.

"There is no possibility that North Korea will ever admit to an infection — even if there were mass transmissions, the North will definitely not reveal such developments and will continue to push forward an anti-virus campaign it has claimed to be the greatest," Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification, told the Associated Press. "But it's also clear that something significant happened and it was big enough to warrant a reprimanding of senior officials. This could mean mass infections or some sort of situation where a lot of people were put at direct risk of infections."

Some believe Kim's public dressing-down of anonymous senior officials was meant to signal to China, and the world at large, that North Korea does need help fighting a COVID-19 epidemic that it won't admit exists. Thus far the Kim regime has sought no coronavirus vaccine doses from the global COVAX initiative, nor from its closest ally, China.

The other great mystery keeping North Korea analysts busy over the last week has been a dramatic change in the young dictator's appearance. Photos of Kim from this summer show him much slimmer than he was less than a year ago.

South Korean media and analysts have long assumed that Kim, 37, could suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure, as he was significantly overweight. South Korean intelligence officials told lawmakers in 2020 that Kim could be tipping the scales at almost 310 pounds, leading to rampant speculation that he was at severe risk of cardiovascular disease — which killed both his father and his grandfather.

When the new images of the slimmed-down Kim emerged, they renewed fevered speculation in South Korea that he could be suffering from diabetes, which can lead to a sudden drop in body weight if insulin levels aren't managed.

North Korean media provided no explanation of Kim's new physique, but aired an interview with a "concerned citizen" who lamented the leader's changing form and said the North Korean people "were most heartbroken to see the respected General Secretary looking thinner." The individual, who spoke on state-controlled North Korean TV, said Kim's slimming-down had brought tears to their eyes.

Analysts note that, whatever the reason for Kim's weight loss, millions of people in his country struggle daily to find enough to eat. The already-battered North Korean economy has been decimated by the coronavirus border closure, cutting off the vital trade route with China.

While his people are starving and Kim's "obesity problem has been well known," Dr. Go Myong-Hyun, a senior fellow at the Asian Institute for Policy Studies, told CBS News that the North Korean media's commentary likely was aimed at engendering sympathy for the ruler, to keep the populace behind him and avoid resentment.

"North Korean state media used this opportunity to spin the story around Kim Jong-Un's weight loss as a pre-emptive measure to ensure his regime," Go said, by "creating a perception that Kim Jong-Un understands and feels the pain ordinary North Korean people are experiencing right now."

Kim admitted on June 17 at a plenary meeting of the ruling Workers' Party that his country was facing food shortages, blaming a typhoon and flooding that wiped out crops last year. But like everything else in the secretive nation, the extent of the problem remains unclear.

[verwijderd] 20 juli 2021 16:35

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Satellite images show Kim Jong-Un's water-slide yacht in action, while North Korea struggles with famine and COVID-19

Satellite images caught the movements of Kim Jong-Un's luxury yacht, suggesting he is partying.

North Korea is undergoing food shortages and struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kim Jong-Un's 260-ft luxury yacht has been spotted moving towards his private compound, suggesting he or his associates are reading to party during North Korea's struggles with famine and COVID-19.

The country also recently hinted at a COVID-19 surge, after Kim reshuffled his senior officials, blaming them for a "great crisis" in their response to the pandemic.

North Korea does not release COVID-19 data, and has long claimed to be free of the virus, but reports from outside the country suggest there have been surges in the last year.

The country has been sluggish in attempting to access vaccines, despite being entitled to 2 million doses through the UN's COVAX scheme, Voice of America News reported.

US and South Korean officials said that it is plausible that Kim used the resort to shelter from the virus in May last year, Sky News reported. Kim is a heavy smoker, a high risk factor in complications for COVID-19.

[verwijderd] 21 juli 2021 07:54

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Kim Jong-un’s Covid-19 policy could lead millions to mass starvation in North Korea

The country’s border closure has resulted in lack of access to agricultural materials, making it hard for citizens to have a sufficient grain harvest.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has stated publicly that the country is facing a food shortage, a rare admission for the country’s leader, who blamed the pandemic and a recent typhoon.

Last year, speaking at an anniversary event of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Kim urged his people to “remain firm in the face of ‘tremendous challenges’ posed by the pandemic”. One such challenge Kim has warned of is the potential for a famine echoing the “arduous march” of the late 1990s when the country faced a period of mass starvation that reportedly killed millions.

Kim’s response to Covid-19 has made North Korea even more isolated, leading to food shortages that are likely to impact millions. His slimmer look may also indicate Kim’s own lack of access to the food he used to have.

Is North Korea on its way toward another arduous march?

North Korea was one of the first countries to respond to the Covid-19 outbreak by closing its borders in January 2020. North Korea still claims zero positive Covid-19 cases, which no one can really confirm.

There have been signs of a devastating economic situation in North Korea associated with the closed border, which entirely blocked existing illegal trades. Due to existing sanctions, there were not many legitimate trade activities in North Korea, apart from with China, but smuggling has sustained supply and demand chains in general.

At the moment, North Korea is facing its toughest international sanctions yet, imposed in 2017 over its sixth nuclear test. The first such sanctions were put in place by the United Nations in 2006 over North Korea’s ballistic missile tests and were expanded when the country conducted its first nuclear test that same year.

It is believed that the Covid-19 border closure has affected the North Korean economy even more than the sanctions, resulting in a more than 50% decrease in trade with China compared to 2018.

The border closure has resulted in a lack of access to agricultural materials such as fertiliser and machinery, making it hard for North Koreans to have a sufficient grain harvest. Additionally, food imports and humanitarian aid are not being allowed due to the lockdown.

During the initial arduous march, North Korea received a massive amount of food aid from the international community. It is a reasonable assumption that it is in need of more aid this time. But despite calls from the international community to provide humanitarian aid to North Korea, Kim’s regime has not allowed them into the country.

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2021 08:10

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North Korea massacre as Kim Jong-Un plots mass execution of defectors: 'Sent back to die'

Kim Jong-Un is widely rumored to be plotting a mass execution of defectors who are being returned to North Korea from China in the latest demonstration of the Supreme Leader's utter ruthlessness.

China has already returned roughly 50 escapees, including air force pilots, all of whom are facing the death penalty, Chinese sources told the US-backed news network Radio Free Asia. The first repatriations since the border between North Korea and China was closed in January 2020 took place on July 14 in the north-western city of Sinuiju.

Because it has become increasingly difficult for those fleeing into China to move on to a third country, defectors are routinely rounded up and returned to North Korea.

The group returned earlier this month had been previously been held at a prison in Shenyang 250 miles, some for as long as two years.

Speaking at the time, the insider, a Chinese citizen of Korean descent, said: “The Dandong customs office was opened just for today and they sent about 50 North Korean escapees back to North Korea on two buses.

“This morning dozens of police officers lined up in front of the customs office to block public access and ensure nobody was filming the repatriation.

Among them is also a woman in her 30s who made heaps of money in Hebei province.

"She was said to be very rich, but her neighbors ratted her out.”

There are many more North Korean citizens in Chinese custody who are also likely to be returned, the insider said.

Another source said Chinese onlookers had voiced their sympathy for the group.

They explained: “They said ‘If they leave, they will die. It is horrible that after escaping their country to survive, they are going to be executed young.’

“The witnesses even showed hostility toward the police, who are essentially sending them off to die.”

The repatriations got the go-ahead after Pyongyang finally relented, having refused several requests by the Chinese authorities.

The second source explained: “Chinese authorities had planned to repatriate the escapees several times since April, but they were unable to because North Korea refused to accept them, citing coronavirus quarantine measures.”

Among the first 50 are North Koreans who escaped after the coronavirus pandemic started, they explained, adding: “So it will be difficult for them to avoid severe punishment when they get back to North Korea.”

North Korean authorities are also understood to have sent 90 long-term residents of Chinese citizenship across the border into China on empty buses sent to receive the North Korean escapees.

Chinese citizens who have been living in North Korea for generations are permitted relatively free travel to China.

During a press conference on Monday, South Korea’s Ministry of Unification was unable to confirm the reports.

Spokesman Lee Jong Joo said: “The Government has made various efforts to protect and support North Korean defectors abroad.

“However, there is nothing that the ministry can confirm regarding the issue.”

Beijing claims it is obliged to return North Koreans living illegally within Chinese territory by, the 1960 PRC-DPRK Escaped Criminals Reciprocal Extradition Treaty and the 1986 Mutual Cooperation Protocol for the Work of Maintaining National Security and Social Order and the Border Areas.

Rights groups however argue forced repatriation violates China’s responsibility to protect escapees under the Refugee Convention.

Just 229 escapees made it to North Korea last year as a result of the difficulties posed by the coronavirus pandemic, according to Ministry of Unification statistics.

An US Department of State spokesman said: “North Koreans who are forcibly repatriated are commonly subjected to torture, arbitrary detention, summary execution, forced abortion, and other forms of sexual violence.

“We are particularly concerned by recent reports that nearly 50 North Koreans were forcibly repatriated.

“We continue to urge China to fulfill its international obligations as a party to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol and the UN Convention Against Torture.”

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2021 12:22

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North Korea's killing fields where people are shot for stealing a cow or watching TV

A new report has found that hundreds are executed in Kim Jong-Un's secretive state and that the family and friends of those condemned are forced to watch

Using the testimonies from more than 600 North Korean defectors, the Seoul-based Transitional Justice Working Group has mapped hundreds of locations in the country where witnesses claim public executions and extrajudicial state killings have taken place.

Most of the 715 executions documented were as punishment for crimes such as theft or damage to property, with 238 reports, followed by violent crime such as murder, rape and arson, with 115 reports.

They were followed by people accused of political crimes such as spying, desertion, helping others flee the country or even for watching South Korean TV.

The group has not released the exact locations of the executions as the report is intended to prepare for eventual legal proceedings against North Korea under international law.

But the grim map of 323 execution sites - probably just a fraction of the real number - reveals the hermit state’s heavy reliance on the death penalty to provoke fear and intimidate the population.

Indeed in January 2014 Kim Jong-un sent his own uncle to his death after accusing him of orchestrating a coup.

Sang Song Thank and five of his aides were reportedly stripped naked and fed to 120 hungry dogs, who had been starved for three days.

Hundreds of officials watched as they were attacked and eaten.

The new report shows that the threat of a humiliating death hangs over even the poorest North Koreans, and the punishment is meted out for the tiniest of misdemeanors.

Most of the killings - 267 - took place in just two northeastern provinces near the border with China, the area where most of the defectors who took part in the study came from.

Researchers have also been documenting suspected mass graves where remains of the condemned may be buried, using satellite images and retracing escapees’ memories, to help with any future prosecutions or tribunals.

Sarah Son, one of the report’s authors, said the continued practise of public executions is a key tool through which North Korea maintains control over its people.

She said: “It’s a clear tactic, it serves a purpose. It maintains that culture of fear, it asserts regime control, it reminds people that certain crimes are not tolerated.”

The report found that the most common crime for which people were executed was property crime, such as stealing copper from power lines, or the theft of livestock, especially cows.

Under North Korean criminal laws, “extremely severe cases of theft of state property” are punishable by death.

The vast majority of the executions were by firing squad, with a small number of reported hangings, which appear to have been discontinued since 2005, according to the report.

Almost all of the state killings documented in the report were public executions by firing squad.

Public executions were almost always preceded by brief on-the-spot ’trials’ where charges were announced and sentences were issued without legal counsel for the accused, the report said.

The most common sites of public executions were riverbanks, fields and other open spaces.

But marketplaces and school grounds, often with hundreds but sometimes more than 1,000 watching, are also used.

Some defectors also reported that before some executions, guards used metal detectors to find and confiscate mobile phones from witnesses to prevent them from recording the events, a sign that the government may be sensitive to how the killings are viewed by the outside world.

Without access to North Korea or any of its official records, researchers had to rely on the memories of escapees who volunteered to be interviewed.

Because it takes years for North Koreans who flee to China to make their way to South Korea, the most recent documented execution dates to 2015, making it impossible to know whether there have been changes amid talks with the United States.

A separate report released last week by the Korea Institute for National Unification claimed that public executions continued to take place in 2018, but they may have become less frequent.

In 2014 a UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korean warned leader Kim Jong-un that, under international law, military commanders can be held accountable for abuses committed during their rule.

The letter accompanied a 400-page report that documented crimes against humanity taking place in North Korea, including “extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation."

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2021 12:42

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Kim Jong-Un should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, say jurists.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and other officials should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity committed in the authoritarian nation’s camps for political prisoners, three renowned international jurists said.

The jurists’ report is based on testimony from defectors and experts on the camps, believed to hold between 80,000 and 130,000 inmates. It cites evidence of systematic murder, including infanticide, and torture, persecution of Christians, rape, forced abortions, starvation and overwork leading to “countless deaths”.

The report, drafted with the International Bar Association’s support, is billed as an unofficial follow-up to a UN investigation in 2014 finding reasonable grounds to conclude crimes against humanity had been committed in North Korea.

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2021 15:08

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Kim Jong-Un Has Committed 10 Crimes Against Humanity

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has up to 130,000 people imprisoned across a network of gulags, amounting to atrocities committed against his own nation, an international war crimes committee reported.

NBC News reported that the dictator committed all but one of the 11 recognized crimes against humanity, according to the International Bar Association War Crimes Committee's report: murder, extermination, enslavement, forcible transfer, imprisonment, torture, sexual violence, persecution, enforced disappearances and other inhumane acts.

Defectors told the committee about a newborn being fed to guard dogs, executions of starving prisoners for scrounging for edible plants in the dirt, the torture of Christians and more.

The gulags "are as terrible, or even worse" than Nazi camps, renowned jurist Thomas Buergenthal, who survived Auschwitz and serves on the committee, told The Washington Post.

The UN report called for the prosecution for those most responsible for the alleged crimes.

“Systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, its institutions and officials,” the UN report concluded. “In many instances, the violations of human rights found by the commission constitute crimes against humanity… The gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world. ”

North Korea’s government, however, has denied the existence of such political prisons and human rights abuses.

[verwijderd] 22 juli 2021 15:36

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16 Disturbing Pictures From Inside North Korea's Anti-America Museum

"They are cannibals seeking pleasure in slaughter." —Kim Jong-Un

Visitors to the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities embark on a guided tour that features elaborate installations which depict acts of torture and violence being committed by the US and South Korean militaries. Paintings show graphic scenes of a mass murder, while North Koreans are often depicted as martyrs who stand bravely in the face of death. The museum tour culminates at the “revenge-pledging place,” where North Koreans are invited to express their hatred toward the US by shouting anti-American remarks.

These pictures capture some of the disturbing sights at the Sinchon Museum of American War Atrocities in North Korea.

www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabriels...

[verwijderd] 23 juli 2021 06:43

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North Korea isn't Nazi Germany — in some ways, it's worse

The United Nations released a scathing report on North Korea, strongly criticizing its alleged human rights abuses as without "any parallel in the contemporary world.

The United Nations Commission of Inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, led by retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, based its report on a year of public hearings with about 80 witnesses and private, confidential interviews with another 240 victims, including people who'd spent time in North Korean prison camps, and other experts. North Korea did not allow the U.N. team into the country to collect information firsthand.

Pyongyang's "crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons, and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation," the report says. It includes satellite photos and grisly cartoon images of life inside North Koran gulags, based on interviews with survivors.

This is one case where the usual comparisons to Nazi Germany isn't hyperbole — Godwin's Law, about the first person mentioning Adolf Hitler automatically forfeiting the argument, doesn't apply to Kim Jong-Un. But the Kim dynasty's North Korea is not Hitler's Nazi Germany.

The big difference is the technical lack of attempted genocide. Over 12 years, the Nazis killed an estimated six million Jews and another five million Roma, artists, homosexuals, political dissenters, mentally and physically disabled people, and others deemed unfit for German society. Genocide, notes Chico Harlan at The Washington Post, "is a technical term, involving extermination along national, ethnic, racial or religious lines." North Korea, he adds, "tends to target people for their beliefs."

In North Korea, "hundreds of thousands of political prisoners have perished in these camps over the past five decades," the report estimates. "The unspeakable atrocities that are being committed against inmates of the kwanliso political prison camps resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian states established during the 20th century." There's a pretty big quantitative difference between 11 million and hundreds of thousands, though.

In terms of racial/ethnic profiling and sheer numbers, then, the DPRK doesn't match the horrors of the Holocaust. And while Kim Jong-Un may be close to having a working nuclear missile, nobody outside of Pyongyang considers North Korea a world power like Nazi Germany was at its peak.

Still, in several important ways, North Korea is worse than Hitler's Germany.

For one thing, most of North Korea's roughly 25 million inhabitants are chronically hungry, malnourished, or straight-out starving. The citizens of wartime Germany faced hardships and shortages, but nothing near the same levels North Koreans routinely deal with, especially in times of crop failure.

The other big differences are longevity and technology. Hitler's propaganda, indoctrination, and surveillance techniques were weak or primitive compared with the Big Brother apparatus the Kim family and its retainers have developed over the past six decades. WWII-era Germans didn't have press freedoms or freedom of expression or congregation or exercise of religion, but most of them — targeted groups obviously excluded — were encouraged to go about their business, making money (and wartime goods and munitions) for the fatherland.

In North Korea, from loudspeakers hard-wired into every house to distribute government news and information to crude and sophisticate methods of eavesdropping, "state surveillance permeates the private lives of all citizens to ensure that virtually no expression critical of the political system or of its leadership goes undetected," the U.N. report says. It starts young.

[verwijderd] 24 juli 2021 07:50

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KIM BOMB UN ‘Modern-day Hitler’ Kim Jong-Un knows he can bully ‘weak’ Biden and will NEVER stop building nukes, warns defector.

KIM Jong-un is a “modern day Hitler” who will never stop developing nukes as he thinks the US is weak and he can bully them, a North Korean defector has warned.

Yeonmi Park, 27, paid human traffickers to smuggle her out of the hellhole country in 2007 after her cancer-stricken dad was thrown in one of the ruthless regime's concentration camps.

Yeonmi told The Sun Online that the Kim “doesn't see America as strong, at all” and will continue to do “whatever he wants” as long as China backs him.

And she says the tyrant thinks he can continue to "bully" the US under President Joe Biden, just as his family have done for decades.

"He knows he can bully America, he can bully anyone he wants because China is supporting him and China," she said.

"North Korea is never going to stop building their weaponry. They know America will never do anything to stop them.

"They haven't for the last 75 years and they've let North Korea bully them."

Now an activist living in the US, the 27-year-old speaks against the horrors of Kim's evil regime which was accused by the UN of carrying out atrocities “strikingly similar” to Hitler's Nazi Germany.

Yet, despite the agency's damning 2014 report and international sanctions, the dictator continues to develop nuclear weaponry and even launched a series of missiles last month.

It comes as it was warned in a report by think tank Rand Corp that Kim's nuclear arsenal could have ballooned to 240 nukes capable of killing millions.

The report urged Seoul and Washington to look into options such as dedicating US strategic nuclear weapons to targeting the North.

The UN compared the regime to Hitler - yet now everyone wants to have a negotiation with Hitler

Yeonmi told The Sun Online: “Diplomacy has never solved this problem. Every US President comes up with the same plan and North Korea's threat has been growing ever more.

“China enables North Korea to do all the inhumane things. The problem is China. The enabler of Kim Jong-Un is China.”

Yeonmi says that Beijing's official line that it backs North Korea because it doesn't want millions of refugees flooding its border is a LIE.

She claims China's Communist Party uses the missile-wielding rogue state as a weapon in negotiations with the West.

“North Korea is a tool for China to get concessions from America. If America wants to deal with Kim, they know they have to talk to the Chinese,” she says.

“If America wants to talk to North Korea, then China can say 'ok, but only if you lift some sanctions for us'."

The human rights activist points to South Korea's constitution which states that every North Korean can become a citizen.

Source: Sun online

[verwijderd] 24 juli 2021 08:34

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Kim Jong-un is 'modern day Hitler' who'll never give up nukes, says North Korea defector

A North Korean defector says America's policy of appeasing Kim Jong-Un, like the policy of appeasing Hitler, is doomed to fail and the North Korean tyrant will never stop developing nukes

A North Korean defector who uses her YouTube channel to reveal the true stories behind North Korea’s secretive facade says Kim Jong-Un is “a modern day Hitler”, and he will continue to develop nuclear weapons despite international sanctions because he "doesn’t fear America".

The Pyongyang régime is propped up, says Yeonmi Park, by China. She believes that the Chinese government uses North Korea as a bargaining chip in its diplomatic battle with the West.

Park and her family fled the oppressive North Korean regime in 2007 by crossing the frozen Yalu River into China.

Both Park and her mother were raped and exploited by people traffickers before escaping again to Mongolia.

Today Yeonmi Park lives in the US and has nearly half a million subscribers on YouTube. But growing up in North Korea she says she remembers eating insects to survive, and seeing bodies piled up in the streets.

But no matter what atrocities he commits, Kim Jong-Un can’t be overthrown, she says, because of China’s support.

"He knows he can bully America,” she told The Sun. “He can bully anyone he wants because China is supporting him".

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