A North Korean biological weapons expert has been detained while trying to slip into the Australian consulate in China's southern city of Guangzhou to seek political asylum, an anti-Pyongyang activist said yesterday.
Norbert Vollertsen, a German doctor-turned-activist, said plainclothes security agents had detained Ri Chae-woo, who planned to testify in the US against Pyongyang's chemical and biological weapons program.
Vollertsen, quoted on a human rights Web site, said Ri had evidence of human experiments in North Korea.
While North Korea's nuclear weapons program has been a top international concern recently, the reclusive state is also believed to be capable of making large amounts of chemical weapons such as nerve, blister and choking agents.
Ri had worked for the Chiha-ri Chemical Corp in Anbyon, south of Wonsan, North Korea, until June 2003, when he and his wife and two teenage children fled to China, Vollertsen said.
"He [Ri] was disguised in the uniform of maintenance staff of the building which houses the consulate," Vollertsen said in a statement on the Web site Chosun Journal, which promotes human rights in North Korea.
"He was apprehended in the fire escape stairwell. His family members escaped via a nearby fast food restaurant and are at large," Vollertsen said.
Guangzhou police declined to comment, and the Australian consulate was not immediately available for comment.
Activists say up to 300,000 North Korean refugees are hiding in northeast China after slipping across the border to flee hunger, poverty and repression in their Communist homeland.
Defectors say North Korean refugees who are sent home face imprisonment, torture or death.
China, which fought alongside the North during the 1950-53 Korean War, has an agreement with its neighbor to repatriate North Koreans, whom it views as economic migrants -- not refugees.
But to avert Western criticism, China has allowed many North Korean asylum seekers to leave for South Korea via third countries.
Last year, more than 1,000 North Koreans reached South Korea via China and other countries. Since last year, China has allowed more than 150 asylum seekers who have fled to foreign embassies and schools in China, to leave and ultimately reach South Korea.
Last month, Shanghai police foiled an attempt by nine North Korean refugees to sneak into a Japanese school and arrested a Japanese national for helping them. Three South Koreans were also detained for filming the refugees.
In July, four North Korean teenagers slipped into the British consulate in Shanghai and were later sent to South Korea.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of