North Korea will free a South Korean worker in the next few days after detaining him for nearly five months for allegedly insulting the country’s rulers, South Korean media said yesterday, quoting informed sources.
The release could decrease tension on the Korean Peninsula that has risen following the North’s May 25 nuclear test and threats to attack the South while easing concern among investors about a rupture in ties leading to chaos.
South Korean TV news broadcaster YTN said the release of the man identified by his family name Yoo could take place today, while others expected it by the end of the week. A Unification Ministry official would not comment on the reports.
Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of the Hyundai Group, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in projects in the North went to Pyongyang on Monday to seek Yoo’s release.
The visit took place a week after former US president Bill Clinton met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and secured the freedom of two US journalists who had been held since March for suspected illegal entry.
Yoo has been held since late March at a joint factory park located in the border city of Kaesong. About 100 South Korean firms use cheap North Korean labor to make goods at the park.
The North’s propaganda machine will portray the trips by Clinton and Hyun as leaders paying tribute to Kim, analysts said. This will help erase doubts about his grip on power after the 67-year-old Kim was suspected of suffering a stroke last year and also help him press forward with his succession plans.
Repairing ties with Hyundai could also bolster the North’s state coffers, hit by UN sanctions for its nuclear test as well as a cut in aid from the South, which once sent handouts equal to about 5 percent of the North’s yearly economy.
Hyun said she wanted to restart a joint mountain resort in North Korea visited by more than 1 million South Koreans. It was shut last year after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier after wandering into a military area.
Meanwhile, Seoul has repatriated two Chinese members of the Falun Gong spiritual group following a court decision not to grant them refugee status, officials said yesterday.
A justice ministry spokesman said they were deported last month following the earlier court decision. He declined to say whether more would be sent back.
In January last year a court granted refugee status to two Chinese Falun Gong practitioners, saying they would be persecuted back in China because of their beliefs.
It was the first time a local court had given members of the group refugee status.
But the court rejected similar petitions from 30 other people, saying they could not prove they had been persecuted in China and did not play leading roles in spreading the group’s teachings in South Korea.
In March this year the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision.
Lee Yanglan, a Korean-American Falun Gong practitioner, said Seoul sent three Falun Gong members back to China last month while two others await deportation in a detention center.
“This is in a way much worse than China’s expelling North Korean refugees ... that the [Seoul] government has been condemning all along,” she said in an e-mail.
The ministry spokesman denied accusations that Seoul was deporting Falun Gong members under pressure from the Chinese government: “The government cannot allow foreigners to stay illegally without clear evidence that they have been persecuted because of their faith.”
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
‘NO COUNTRY BUMPKIN’: The judge rejected arguments that former prime minister Najib Razak was an unwitting victim, saying Najib took steps to protect his position Imprisoned former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was yesterday convicted, following a corruption trial tied to multibillion-dollar looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) state investment fund. The nation’s high court found Najib, 72, guilty on four counts of abuse of power and 21 charges of money laundering related to more than US$700 million channeled into his personal bank accounts from the 1MDB fund. Najib denied any wrongdoing, and maintained the funds were a political donation from Saudi Arabia and that he had been misled by rogue financiers led by businessman Low Taek Jho. Low, thought to be the scandal’s mastermind, remains
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
FIGHTING CONTINUES: Thai military dropped 40 bombs on border areas, Cambodia said, while Bangkok said Phnom Penh launched heavy attacks and damaged homes Cambodia yesterday accused Thailand of intensifying its bombardment of disputed border areas, even as officials from the two countries attend a multi-day meeting aimed at negotiating an end to deadly clashes. The neighbors’ long-standing border conflict reignited this month, shattering an earlier truce and killing more than 40 people, according to official counts. About 1 million people have also been displaced. Cambodian and Thai officials were in their third day of talks at a border checkpoint, with ministers of defense from the two countries scheduled to meet today. However, the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense said Thailand’s military carried out a heavy
RSS