Category: DPRK Government

Aunt of Kim Jong Un no longer appears on list of ruling North Korean elites

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Kim Jong Un’s once powerful aunt is no longer included on a list of top Pyongyang officials, six months after speculation swirled the North Korean leader had ordered her execution.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry stated in an annually issued directory that Kim Kyong Hui‘s name was not on the list of cabinet members, the list of Workers’ Party secretaries or the Party’s Politburo. She was previously a top official: a chairwoman of the Politburo of the Workers’ Party, secretary of the Party’s Secretariat, a member of the Party’s Central Committee and a senior delegate of the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly. She also held positions in the military.

Kim, 69, is the wife of executed North Korean official Jang Song Thaek. In May, a high-level defector had said Kim Jong Un had had her poisoned, but sources in North Korea said she was alive and recovering from an alcoholism-related illness at Pyongyang’s Bonghwa Clinic.

Kim Kyong Hui also has been absent from public events since late 2013, when her husband Jang was executed on charges that included treason and corruption.

“It has been most likely confirmed that Kim Kyong Hui resigned from all official posts following Jang Song Thaek,” a South Korean government official said.

South Korea also stated in the report that Kim Jong Un is believed to have been born on Jan. 8, 1984. In previous statements, Seoul had said Kim’s date of birth ranged between 1982 and 1984.

[UPI]

News about imprisoned Canadian pastor Hyeon Soo Lim

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Canadian diplomats were allowed to meet a Canadian pastor soon after he was sentenced to life in prison in North Korea last week and found him in good spirits and health, a church spokeswoman said on Sunday.

Hyeon Soo Lim, held by North Korea since February, was sentenced to hard labor for life for subversion on Wednesday, a ruling Canada called “unduly harsh.”

Lim, a Canadian citizen, had been doing humanitarian work in North Korea since 1997 and had visited the isolated country more than 100 times, according to his Toronto church, the 3,000-member Light Korean Presbyterian Church.

He cried when Canadian diplomats relayed his son’s message that “we’re all proud of you,” church spokeswoman Lisa Pak said.

Pak said after an emotional prayer meeting for Lim, which drew more than 1,000 churchgoers, that two consular officials from Canada’s embassy in Seoul and a translator met Lim on Friday. She also confirmed he had received medication for an unspecified health condition.

The church began a petition at the prayer meeting asking U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is arranging a potential visit to North Korea, to seek Lim’s release.

[Reuters]

North Korea sentences Canadian pastor to life sentence

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North Korea’s Supreme Court sentenced a Canadian pastor to life in prison with hard labor for what it called crimes against the state. Hyeon Soo Lim, who pastors the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto, was given the sentence after a 90-minute trial. He had been in detention since February.

Lim entered and left the court in handcuffs flanked by two public security officers in uniform. The handcuffs were removed in court during the trial. He kept his head bowed most of the time and answered questions in a subdued tone.

The crimes he was charged with included harming the dignity of the supreme leadership, trying to use religion to destroy the North Korean system, disseminating negative propaganda about the North to the overseas Koreans, and helping U.S. and the South Korean authorities lure and abduct North Korean citizens, along with aiding their programs to assist defectors from the North.

State prosecutors sought the death penalty. Lim’s lawyer asked the court to take into account the fact that Lim is a fellow Korean and that he had frankly confessed to everything the prosecution had brought up. Lim pleaded to be given a chance and said if the court gave him a chance he would not do anything bad again.

Lim’s relatives and colleagues have said he traveled on Jan. 31 as part of a regular humanitarian mission to North Korea where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage. Lim, who is in his early 60s, has made more than 100 trips to North Korea since 1997.

North Korea has very strict rules against any missionary or religious activities that it sees as threatening the supremacy of its ruling regime. Merely leaving a Bible in a public place can lead to arrest and possibly severe punishment.

China, Russia fail to derail UN meeting on North Korean dismal human rights

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China, Russia, Venezuela and Angola failed on Thursday to stop the United Nations Security Council from holding its second meeting on human rights in North Korea, which has been accused by a U.N. inquiry of abuses comparable to Nazi-era atrocities.

China called a vote to stop the meeting, but lost nine to four. Nine votes are needed to win a procedural vote and the five permanent members – China, Russia, the United States, Britain and France – cannot use their vetoes.

The 15-member council added the situation in North Korea – including human rights – to its agenda and held its first meeting on the issue a year ago, despite objections at the time by China, a firm ally of North Korea, and Russia. Previously, the council’s discussion of North Korea was limited to its nuclear weapons program.

The 193-member U.N. General Assembly has urged the U.N. Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a U.N. Commission of Inquiry detailed wide-ranging abuses in the impoverished Asian state. China is likely to veto such a move, diplomats said.

[Reuters]

Kim Jong Un claims North Korea has Hydrogen Bomb

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North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un says his country has developed a hydrogen bomb, but senior defense and intelligence officials poured cold water on that claim.

There is no evidence that North Korea has made such a weapon, they said. And while the communist country has some level of nuclear capability, that does not mean they have succeeded in building a working atomic bomb.

Also known as a thermonuclear bomb, a hydrogen bomb produces a much stronger blast than the atomic bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

North Korean female dance troupe on diplomacy tour of China

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Kim Jong-un has dispatched his all-female dance troupe on a six-day mission to China in an effort to rebuild relations with their northern neighbor.

Relations between North Korea and China have been strained since Kim Jong-un decided to test new ballistic missiles and detonate a nuclear bomb in a secretive underground bunker in defiance of a request from Beijing.

According to North Korean newspaper the Rodong Sinmun: “The DPRK State Merited Chorus and Moranbong Band will pay friendship visit to China to give performances from December 10 to 15.”

[Daily Mail]  

North Korean top brass trembling in their boots

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North Korean top military officials often look nervous and uneasy on state broadcasts as they face leader Kim Jong-un, well aware of his sometimes brutal struggle to bring the unruly military under control.

In one scene broadcast last week, Kim Jong-un can be seen sitting in the podium, when he gestures to Armed Forces Minister Pak Yong-sik to sit down. Pak, the North’s No. 2 military official … stares at Army politburo chief Hwang Pyong-so, the top-ranked military official. Kim then gestures Hwang to sit as well, but Hwang also appears too nervous to sit next to the leader. Eventually he sits down awkwardly after saluting Kim and Pak follows suit, also visibly nervous.

As the officials gather for a commemorative photo, Hwang stands next to Kim … but then suddenly steps aside, apparently mindful of being spotted standing next the leader for an extended period. Hwang was also pictured accompanying Kim at a military ceremony in June and suddenly back-stepping after realizing he had ended up walking ahead of the leader.

“Kim Jong-un’s reign of terror appears to have made officials very cautious,” a researcher at a South Korean state-run think tank said. “The atmosphere seems to have worsened after Kim’s key aide Choe Ryong-hae was demoted again and sent to a reeducation camp.”

Kim has carried out sweeping purges since he came to office, tacitly killing his father Kim Jong-il’s “military-first” doctrine that led to the army becoming a voracious and belligerent state within the state.

[Chosun Ilbo]

Rumor that Kim Jong Un avoids assassination attempt

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Rumors have circulated that Kim Jong Un narrowly avoided death after explosives were found at an airport he was due to visit last October.

A stack of explosives was reportedly found hidden inside the roof of Kalma Airport a day before Jong-Un was scheduled to arrive.

The TNT was discovered by North Korea’s State Security Department (SSD) just hours before the visit. The device had apparently been missed during an earlier sweep of the airport by Jong Un’s personal Supreme Guard Command bodyguards.

A source told Radio Free Asia: “The explosives found at the desk was a box of TNT which North Koreans use to blast through mines. The explosives were planted inside the roof of the airport’s information desk.”

South Korean commentators have suggested the incident was a stunt aimed at winning support for the security services. Jeong Jin-man, formerly of the South Korean Special Forces, said: “It might have been an SSD setup to win Kim Jong Un’s favour by setting up the TNT and pretending that they found it after the Supreme Guard Command had already swept the site.”

This comes as North Korean officials are said to be growing increasingly disenchanted with Jong Un’s iron-fisted rule.

[Daily Express]

US and 8 other countries call for new UN meeting on North Korea human rights

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The United States and eight allies on the United Nations Security Council called for reviving discussions on human rights in North Korea, which has been accused by a U.N. inquiry of abuses comparable to Nazi-era atrocities.

“Chile, France, Jordan, Lithuania, Malaysia, New Zealand, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States have requested another meeting of the Security Council to examine conditions in DPRK (North Korea) and their effects on international peace and security,” Hagar Chemali, spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in a statement.

Chemali said the United States, which holds the council’s rotating presidency this month, would work quickly to schedule the meeting.

Last month China’s U.N. ambassador, Liu Jieyi, said it would be a “bad idea” for the 15-nation Security Council to hold such a meeting, adding that the council “is not about human rights.” China is likely to veto any Security Council bid to refer North Korea to the ICC, diplomats said.

A year ago this month the 193-member U.N. General Assembly urged the U.N. Security Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court after a U.N. Commission of Inquiry detailed wide-ranging abuses in the hermit Asian state.

[Reuters]

North Korea sending its spies south

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Pyongyang is believed to have begun sending spies posing as defectors to the South in the late 1990s when large batches of refugees fled a massive, deadly famine.

Before that, South Korea occasionally caught armed spies who had infiltrated from across the militarized border, or via small submarines in the dark of night. Some confrontations between North Korean agents and South Korean security forces ended in deadly gunfights.

“It is not an easy process because they are disguised as refugees, highly trained, dispatched by counter-South espionage agencies,” said Jun Ok-hyun, a former deputy director of South Korea’s spy agency who retired in 2009.

“The more defectors come, the stronger the review process should be because it could be easier for North Korea to send spies as fake refugees,” he told Reuters.

When defectors leave the resettlement center and move into the general population, police officers are assigned to protect and manage them, according to police officials who declined to elaborate.

[Reuters]