South Korea has arrested a North Korean agent who plotted to assassinate an outspoken anti-Pyongyang activist with a poison-tipped needle, the intended victim and a news report said yesterday.
The agent, identified only as An, was in possession of the needle and other weapons at the time of his arrest, Yonhap news agency said.
The target of the apparent plot, the latest of several blamed on Pyongyang, was activist Park Sang-hak, who is involved in launching cross-border propaganda leaflets fiercely critical of the North’s regime.
Photo: AFP
He said the plot was foiled by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
An, a former North Korean special forces commando aged in his 40s, came to the South in the late 1990s as a defector but disappeared several years ago, according to Yonhap.
After resurfacing in the South in February, An sought to meet Park.
However Park, alerted by the anti-espionage agency, said he did not show up for a meeting with An at a subway station in southern Seoul on Sept. 3.
“An told me by phone that he was to be accompanied by a visitor from Japan, who wants to help our efforts. Then I was told by the NIS not to go to the meeting due to the risk of assassination,” Park said.
“Following advice from intelligence authorities and police, I don’t see any strangers these days,” he added.
An NIS spokesman said the agency did not comment on cases under investigation.
Park is a former North Korean defector who, along with other activists, sends thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, sparking angry protests from North Korea.
It has threatened to fire across the border at launch sites for the towering gas balloons that carry the leaflet bundles.
Recent leaflets have urged North Koreans to rise up “like Libyan rebels” and topple the regime.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not