|
Post by Admin on Nov 13, 2018 18:03:03 GMT
A U.S. think tank said on Monday it had identified at least 13 of an estimated 20 undeclared missile bases inside North Korea, underscoring the challenge for American negotiators hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. In reports released by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), researchers said maintenance and minor infrastructure improvements had been observed at some of the sites despite the negotiations. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to work toward denuclearization at their landmark June summit in Singapore but the agreement was short on specifics and negotiations have made little headway.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Nov 24, 2018 17:59:22 GMT
Mass starvation is no longer the crisis it once was in North Korea, but the nation still endures high levels of food insecurity. More than 40 percent of the population is undernourished — up to 10.3 million people don't get enough to eat, according to the World Food Programme. And the political, social and health consequences of the famine a generation ago still linger today. Severe food shortages in the mid-1990s devastated the country. Some 3 million people died, and many others barely survived on a diet of contraband grain or watery gruel. There were a number of causes for the famine: Poor weather damaged already limited crops, and economic mismanagement and the end of fuel subsidies further disrupted food distribution. The result was a situation so severe that its impact is still being felt, according to Daniel Jong Schwekendiek a professor at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul who has researched nutrition in North Korea. "The food crisis led to the marketization of the North Korean economy that continues until today," Jong Schwekendiek said an email. "As the public distribution system collapsed, people started to engage in the informal economy, including livestock breeding, smuggling, street vending." Long after the worst of the famine, North Koreans continue to bear its marks. Through his research, Jong Schwekendiek found that contemporary South Korean preschool children are up to 3 kilograms (about 6 and a half pounds) heavier than North Korean preschoolers. South Korean women on average weigh 4 to 9 kilograms (8.8 to 19.9 pounds) more than their peers in the North.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Dec 22, 2018 18:07:17 GMT
The extraordinary claims were made in a paper composed by the official Iranian Resistance movement. The document asserts numerous Iranian officials have travelled to North Korea to discuss nuclear weapons. It comes after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attacked Iran for violation of United Nations (UN) resolutions this week. According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) document, many Iranian officials have been in clandestine talks with Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship over nuclear weapons policy. In exchange for obtaining military, nuclear and missile equipment, the Iranian regime sends oil to North Korea, the explosive paper claims. It reads: “The Iranian regime is North Korea’s strategic ally. “Many of the regime’s current officials, including Khamenei, current President Hassan Rouhani, and Mohsen Rezai, the former Commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), have all travelled to North Korea to discuss the nuclear programme.”
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Dec 24, 2018 17:53:51 GMT
The United States is sanctioning three senior North Korean leaders, including the regime's "Number Two" official, for state-sponsored censorship activities and alleged human rights violations and abuses, the Treasury Department announced Monday. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control will impose sanctions on Choe Ryong Hae, who is seen as the Number Two official for the Workers’ Party of Korea and is the director of the party's Organization and Guidance Department, for implementing censorship policies through the department. Pak Kwang Ho, director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, is also being sanctioned for suppressing freedom of speech and expression and for censorship. In addition, North Korea's Minister of State Security Jong Kyong Thaek will be sanctioned for censorship activities and alleged abuses.
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jan 1, 2019 18:10:56 GMT
People watch a TV news on a screen showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivering his New Year's speech, at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday. In a New Year's address on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he is eager to renew face-to-face negotiations with President Trump after a bilateral summit in June, but suggested that he could ramp up nuclear weapons development if the U.S. does not end economic sanctions against Pyongyang. In the speech broadcast on state television, Kim said he is ready to meet Trump at any time to forge an agreement "welcomed by the international community." However, if the U.S. did not "keep its promise made in front of the whole world" and instead "insists on sanctions and pressures" on North Korea, "we may be left with no choice but to consider a new way to safeguard our sovereignty and interests."
|
|