North Korea has detained a US citizen, officials said, bringing to three the number of Americans now being held there.
Tony Kim, who also goes by his Korean name Kim Sang-duk, was detained on Saturday, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology chancellor Park Chan-mo said.
Park said Kim, who is 58, taught accounting at the university for about a month.
He said Kim was detained by officials as he was trying to leave the country from Pyongyang’s international airport.
A university spokesman said he was trying to leave with his wife on a flight to China.
The Swedish embassy in Pyongyang on Sunday said it was aware of a Korean-American citizen being detained, but could not comment further.
The embassy looks after consular affairs for the US in North Korea because the two countries do not have diplomatic relations.
The US Department of State also said it was aware of the report about a US citizen being detained, but declined further comment “due to privacy considerations.”
Park said he was informed that the detention had “nothing to do” with Kim’s work at the university, but did not know further details.
Kim previously taught Korean at the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in Yanji, China, not far from the North Korean border, said the school’s Chinese Communist Party Committee secretary, who would only give his surname, Huang.
Kim resigned in August last year and has not contacted the school since, Huang said.
“We don’t know anything about his trip to North Korea,” Huang said.
As of yesterday morning, North Korea’s official media had not reported the detention.
The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology is the only privately funded university in North Korea. It held its first classes in 2010. It is unique in the North for its large number of foreign staff.
Colin McCulloch, the director of external affairs, said the university was not under investigation and was continuing its normal operations.
Though no details on why Kim was detained have been released, the detention comes at a time of unusually heightened tensions between the US and North Korea.
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail