North Korea said yesterday it had detained four South Koreans for illegal entry a day after tensions rose over Seoul’s joint military exercises with the US.
A Seoul activist said that the four, whom he suspected were Christian evangelists, had reportedly crossed the border from China in an attempt to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
South Korea could not confirm the reported arrests but said it was checking the safety of more than 1,000 of its citizens currently working in or visiting the hardline communist state.
“A relevant institution of the DPRK [North Korea] recently detained four South Koreans who illegally entered it. They are now under investigation by the institution,” Pyongyang’s official news agency said.
Its English-language report, headlined “South Korean Trespassers Detained,” gave no further details.
It was the third time in two months that the North has reported an illegal border crossing. One of the cases involved a US missionary on a human rights crusade.
Activist Choi Sung-yong, quoting his informants in China, said the four crossed the border between China’s Tumen city and Namyang in the North several days ago.
“They told North Korean soldiers that they came there to see Kim Jong-il,” said Choi, who campaigns to bring back South Koreans abducted by the North in previous decades and has contacts there.
Choi said he suspected the four may have been Christian evangelists but added that he was seeking further information.
US missionary Robert Park walked into the North across the frozen Tumen river from China on Dec. 25 to draw attention to Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.
He was freed on Feb. 6 after expressing what the North described as “sincere repentance.”
Pyongyang has said it is also holding an unidentified US arrested for illegal entry from China on Jan. 25. That person’s motives are unknown and US officials have not confirmed the detention.
North Korea has in recent months been making peace overtures to the South but military tensions persist.
On Thursday the North’s military accused South Korea and the US of planning a surprise attack and warned it could respond with atomic weapons.
It described a major US-South Korean military exercise due to start next month as “pilot operations and nuclear war exercises” aimed at mounting a surprise preemptive attack on the North.
The military said it would retaliate for any attack “with our powerful military counteraction, and if necessary, mercilessly destroy the bulwark of aggression by mobilizing all the offensive and defensive means including nuclear deterrent.”
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS