300,000 North Koreans have fled to China risking their lives to flee the mass starvation and brutal oppression of the Stalinist North Korea Kim Jong regime.
North Korea has delayed military talks with the US-led United Nations Command over the deadly sinking of the South Korean warship, Cheonan. The meeting would have been the first of its kind since the warship went down in March near the disputed inter-Korean sea border, an incident that sharply raised regional tensions.
The announcement of the delay came less than an hour before the talks were to begin at the border village of Panmunjom.
Hours after that development, the UN Security Council issued a statement which condemned the attack but did not apportion blame - a result hailed by North Korea as a "great diplomatic victory".
The Hanawon resettlement center for North Korean defectors is located in Anseong, Gyeonggi outside Seoul. The Hanawon center, which was opened on July 8, 1999, has served as the gateway for a new life in South Korea. The center, built on 16.6 acres of land, provides defectors from North Korea with a basic education of how South Korean society functions, along with medical treatment and vocational training.
After three months, Hanawon discharges the defectors and provides them with subsidies for housing and assists them in finding a job.
“Some North Korean defectors seem to become so dependent on the government subsidies that they are unable to function normally,” said Kim Hyang-sun (an alias), a 34-year-old defector from Yanggang Province in the North.
However, Ha Tae-kyung, head of Open Radio for North Korea, a North Korean human rights group, said structural problems, including the government’s role in processing defectors, are to blame. Ha said the government should cooperate more with private organizations to provide more tailored and sustainable help for North Koreans instead of relying solely on Hanawon.
Sarah Kohls, a senior researcher at the Hanns-Seidel Foundation in Korea, part of a German NGO that promotes democracy andcivil society development, said that the South Korean public needs to play a role.She blamed the “closed minds” of South Koreans toward North Koreans for creating problems for the defectors. “I think ordinary South Koreans have a lot of resentment and prejudice [against the North Korean refugees],” Kohls said. “They don’t really know about refugees.”
Last year, 2,952 North Koreans came to the South. Based on current trends, the total number of North Korean defectors is set to exceed 20,000 this year.
North Korea reported that an American, Aijalon Mahli Gomes, imprisoned for illegally entering the reclusive country has tried to kill himself.Gomes is being treated at a hospital, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said, citing information from "a relevant" government entity.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters that Swedish diplomats visited Gomes on Friday, their eighth such visit.
"We reiterate our urge for the North Korean government to release Mr. Gomes on humanitarian grounds," Toner said. Gomes was sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 for entering the country illegally and for an unspecified "hostile act."
Gomes had attended rallies in Seoul in support of Robert Park, a fellow Christian who crossed into North Korea from China to call attention to the North's dismal human rights record.
Voice of America is carrying a story about U.S researchers who question the theory that North Korea sank the South Korean navy ship, the Cheonan.
Researchers J.J. Suh and Seung-Hun Lee say the South Korea made a weak case in concluding that North Korea was responsible for sinking the Cheonan.Speaking in Tokyo Friday, the two said the investigation was riddled with inconsistencies and cast "profound doubt" on the integrity of the investigation.
Suh and Lee conclude that the cracked portion of the bottom of the ship does not show the signs of a large shock that are usually associated with outside explosions. They add that all the ship's internal parts remained intact and few fragments were recovered outside the ship.
Lee, a professor of physics at the University of Virginia, points to a blue mark on a fragment of the torpedo to question the validity of the study. South Korean scientists say that part of the torpedo was marked "number one" in Korean, with a blue marker. Suh and Lee say the writing would not have survived the intense heat of an explosion.
While the researchers say their findings do not prove that North Korea did not sink the Cheonan, they simply state it is irresponsible for the South Korean government to reach its conclusions based on an inconclusive study. They are calling for a new international investigation to re-examine the Cheonan's sinking.
The UN Security Council is considering a draft statement condemning the sinking of a South Korean warship. The draft, put forward by the US, "deplores the loss of life" on the corvette Cheonan but does not blame North Korea directly for the attack.
The draft statement takes note of North Korea's insistence that it had nothing to do with the sinking, and stresses the importance of a peaceful settlement of the issue.
The statement has already been approved by the five permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, China, Britain, France and Russia. It must be now adopted unanimously by the 15-member council, which is expected to reach agreement on Friday afternoon.
North Korea's official news agency issued a commentary rejecting U.S. charges against the country over "human rights issues."
The accusations were "a challenge and mockery of the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK," said the KCNA news agency.
North Korea added that the U.S. move only revealed its real intention to "intensify the interference in the internal affairs of the DPRK and pressure upon it to an extreme pitch," it said, and stated that the U.S. has no right to talk about the human rights issue of the DPRK, as it is "the worst human rights abuser" that has violated the rights of the Korean people in the most inhuman manner, the commentary said.
It stressed that the U.S. had better change its anti-DPRK policy and improve its worst human rights record in the world if it is truly interested in human rights.
The U.S. State Department recently claimed that the "human rights issue" in the DPRK would be a top-priority concern of the United States, as it would adversely affect the process of mending its relations with the DPRK.
A third man has been arrested concerning the plot to assassinate top ranking defector from North Korea, Hwang Jang-Yop, a report said Saturday.
The man, whose family name is Han, was a former North Korean agent who has been living in South Korea since the 1960s, Yonhap news agency said, quoting prosecutors.
His arrest came after a South Korean court on Thursday handed 10-year prison sentences to two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the communist state in a bid to assassinate Hwang Jang-Yop.
Han was charged with seeking to trace Hwang's address in a plot to assassinate him, Yonhap said. He was said to have been recruited by North Korean agents in 2000, who helped him reunite his family members living in the North.
North Korea's relationship with South Korea has dipped further as a result of a Seoul court jailing two North Koreans for plotting to assassinate a prominent high-ranking North Korean defector.
North Korea has repeatedly denied the existence of the plot to kill Hwang Jang-jop. The two Koreans, Kim and Tong, admitted during their trial that they pretended to be defectors and had a secret mission to kill Hwang, a former senior member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party.
South Korean prosecutors asked for 15-year sentences for the two North Korean men, both age 36, but the judge reduced this to 10 years each. A lesser sentence was handed down because the accused had no choice to do other than what they were told, the judge said. The two men also cooperated fully with the investigation.
"The defendants admit all the charges, and testimony from other defectors and former agents verified their statements," said a senior judge.
Prosecutors had asked for 15-year sentences, but the court jailed the two men for 10 years each.
The two men, identified only as Kim and Tong, had admitted pretending to be defectors with a secret mission to kill Mr Hwang.
North Korea has denied the existence of any such plot.
The judge said a lesser sentence had been decided because the two men, both aged 36, came from a state where they had no choice but to do as they were told.
As soon as their fake identities had been exposed, the two men had cooperated fully with the investigation.
"The defendants admit all the charges, and testimony from other defectors and former agents verified their statements" about their identities and mission, said senior judge Cho Han-Chang. "Had the defendants succeeded in taking root here, they would have posed a very serious threat to Hwang's life."
Hwang Jang-yop was a very senior member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party before his defection in 1997. He lives under heavy police protection at an undisclosed location in South Korea and has remained a harsh critic of Pyongyang.
South Korea's Defense Ministry is seeking a sharp increase in next year's budget to improve its fighting capability due to tensions over the deadly sinking of the warship Cheonan, blamed on North Korea.
Defense Ministry officials have agreed to request about 31.6 trillion won ($25.8 billion) next year to introduce new weapons and improve military hardware and welfare facilities for troops, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
The amount would represent a 6.9 percent increase from the amount budgeted this year, which was a 3.6 percent increase from the year before, he added.
Kim Jong-un, the youngest son and possible heir of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, was elected to the parliament of the one-party communist state in March of last year, a Western source told a small group of reporters in Seoul.
The Supreme People’s Assembly is a rubber stamp for the Communist Party and is comprised of high-ranking Communist Party officials. The election of Kim Jong-un, 27, is further evidence that he is being groomed to succeed his ailing father.
North Korea announced a new roster of its 687-member parliament after the election on March 9, 2009, which included a member named “Kim Jong” representing District 216.
“After the election,” the source said, “‘Pal-Kol-Um,’ a song extolling Kim Jong-un, began to be sung at primary schools.” Pal-kol-um, or bal-geol-eum, is Korean for footstep.
Chosun Ilbo reports Kim Jong-il has been displaying signs of memory loss and occasionally talks nonsense, based on National Intelligence Service chief Won Sei-hoon apparently telling the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee in a closed-door meeting. "Kim has been exhibiting memory loss and saying things that do not make sense during his field visits," Won was quoted by lawmakers as saying.
According to the NIS, Kim said during a recent field inspection at a potato farm, "People should not live on potatoes alone. They need to have rice, too. We should send them rice." The NIS attributes Kim's odd comments to the aftereffects of his stroke. South Korean intelligence officials said North Korean officials are worried about Kim's deteriorating condition.
NIS officials apparently showed lawmakers photos of Kim's swollen left hand, which has been paralyzed since the stroke. The North Korean leader is undergoing therapy and has asked foreign specialists to the country.
In September, North Korea will hold only the third-ever meeting of its ruling party, the clearest sign yet that the hermit nation is preparing for a transfer of power.
The announcement that the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) would gather to elect a new leadership follows an intense period of political jockeying in the secretive state. Ailing leader Kim Jong-il is desperate to ensure that his son Kim Jong-un is anointed as his successor.
It was at the last meeting of the WPK in 1980 that Kim Jong-il was made his father's official successor, when he was elected as a standing member of the Political Bureau. Analysts in South Korea, such as Koh Yu-hwan, an expert on North Korea at Seoul's Dongguk University, are speculating that the September session will result in Kim Jong-un being elevated in the party hierarchy.
Said to resemble his father in personality, the 27-year-old Jong-un was educated at a Swiss boarding school. With Kim Jong-il in poor health since suffering a stroke in 2008, Jong-un has started to take a more prominent role in DPRK politics. Last year, he was elected to a position on the National Defense Commission.
Yet Kim Jong-il faces a fight in his efforts to make sure his son becomes the third generation of his family to rule the DPRK. The mysterious death in a car crash earlier this month of Ri Je-gang, one of the most senior WPK officials and a key supporter of Kim Jong-un's succession, has fuelled speculation that the powerful North Korean military would prefer one of their own to succeed Kim.
North Korea threatened to increase punishment of an American who 2 months ago was sentenced to hard labor for illegally entering the country. Aijalon Mahli Gomes, from Boston, now has his case linked to U.S. criticism of Pyongyang over the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship.
Gomes was sentenced in April to eight years of hard labor and fined $700,000 for entering the country illegally and for an unspecified "hostile act." Prior to crossing into North Korea, Gomes had attended rallies in Seoul in support of Robert Park, a fellow Christian who also deliberately crossed into North Korea from China to call attention to the North's human rights record.
The North is examining what harsher measures to take against Gomes under a wartime law, and would be compelled to consider applying the law if the U.S. persists in its "hostile approach," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Thursday.
North Korea has recently freed three other Americans detained for illegal entry, but ruled out Gomes' release amid tensions over the March sinking of a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, that Seoul and Washington have blamed on the North.
"The U.S. government is requesting (North Korea) to leniently set him free on humanitarian grounds, but such a thing can never happen under the prevailing situation. There remains only the issue of what harsher punishment will be meted out to him," KCNA said.
An expert on North Korean legal affairs said the threat could be a tactic to head off U.S. sanctions over the ship sinking. "The North is using Gomes as a negotiating card as it knows that the U.S. will not sit idly by about him," said Choi Eun-suk, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
