The UN Security Council has agreed to immediately start work on a new series of sanctions on North Korea after its fifth nuclear test drew global condemnation.
During a closed-door meeting on Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under article 41 of the UN Charter, which provides for sanctions.
“The members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on appropriate measures under article 41 in a Security Council resolution,” New Zealand’s UN ambassador Gerard van Bohemen, who holds the council’s rotating presidency, said after the talks.
South Korea, the US, Japan, Russia and China all condemned the blast at the Punggye-ri nuclear site: North Korea’s most powerful yet at 10 kilotons.
In Seoul, dozens of protesters burned an effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and North Korean flags and called for “strong retaliation,” including pre-emptive attacks on North Korea’s nuclear complex.
“Eliminate Kim Jong-un!” and “Destroy North Korea’s nuclear weapons!” the activists shouted.
Some newspapers were equally scathing. “South Korea left unguarded before nuclear maniac,” read the banner headline of the top-selling Chosun Ilbo.
However, North Korea’s ruling party newspaper yesterday said it would not submit to US nuclear “blackmail,” and described South Korean President Park Geun-hye as a “dirty prostitute” for working with US forces.
“Gone are the days never to return when the US could make a unilateral nuclear blackmail against the DPRK,” said Rodong Sinmun, using the country’s official name.
The Security Council met at the request of Japan, South Korea and the US to agree on a response, despite resistance from Pyongyang’s ally China to calls for tougher measures.
After the meeting, China’s UN ambassador Liu Jieyi (劉結一) sidestepped questions about Beijing’s support for sanctions.
“We are opposed to testing and we believe that it is more urgent than ever to work together to ensure denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” Liu said. “All sides should refrain from mutual provocation and any action that might exacerbate the situation.”
North Korea has been hit by five sets of UN sanctions since it first tested a nuclear device in 2006.
After Pyongyang carried out its fourth nuclear test, the council in March adopted the toughest sanctions resolution to date targeting North Korea’s trade in minerals and tightening banking restrictions.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Filipino farmers like Romeo Wagayan have been left with little choice but to let their vegetables rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss, as rising oil prices linked to the Iran war drive up the cost of harvesting, labor and transport. “There’s nothing we can do,” said Wagayan, a 57-year old vegetable farmer in the northern Philippine province of Benguet. “If we harvest it, our losses only increase because of labor, transportation and packing costs. We don’t earn anything from it. That’s why we decided not to harvest at all,” he said. Soaring costs caused by the Middle East
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s officially declared wealth is fairly modest: some savings and a jointly owned villa in Budapest. However, voters in what Transparency International deems the EU’s most corrupt country believe otherwise — and they might make Orban pay in a general election this Sunday that could spell an end to his 16-year rule. The wealth amassed by Orban’s inner circle is fueling the increasingly palpable frustration of a population grappling with sluggish growth, high inflation and worsening public services. “The government’s communication machine worked well as long as our economic situation remained relatively good,” said Zoltan Ranschburg, a political analyst
RSS