There are fears 22 North Koreans may have been executed after they were returned home having been picked up in boats in waters belonging to South Korea, a news report said yesterday.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified intelligence source in Seoul saying that there has been a widespread rumor in the area where the 22 came from that all were shot dead last week by the hard-line communist state.
They had been sent back home by South Korea on Feb. 8 after being found drifting in two rubber dinghies in the South's waters, the report said.
"Residents in South Hwanghae are in shock as all the 22 people, instead of being sent to prison, were shot to death," a source from South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) was quoted as telling Yonhap.
"They believe the 22 people were caught trying to defect to the South," the source said.
The 22 -- eight men and 14 women -- were picked up by South Korean authorities in the South's waters, although the group said they had not been attempting to seek asylum and were fishing.
"In the course of interrogation, the 22 said they were swept by currents and they were not defectors. They strongly demanded they must be sent back home," an NIS spokesman said.
The NIS said in a statement it believed the group was not seeking asylum and instead were at sea to collect clams and oysters -- though without the necessary authorization of the North Korean maritime agency.
They were apparently hoping to take advantage of lax security during the Lunar New Year break to fish, but instead drifted into the South's waters, the report said.
They were repatriated via an overland route the following day, the NIS said, and may have been executed for fishing without permission.
PARLIAMENT CHAOS: Police forcibly removed Brazilian Deputy Glauber Braga after he called the legislation part of a ‘coup offensive’ and occupied the speaker’s chair Brazil’s lower house of Congress early yesterday approved a bill that could slash former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s prison sentence for plotting a coup, after efforts by a lawmaker to disrupt the proceedings sparked chaos in parliament. Bolsonaro has been serving a 27-year term since last month after his conviction for a scheme to stop Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office after the 2022 election. Lawmakers had been discussing a bill that would significantly reduce sentences for several crimes, including attempting a coup d’etat — opening up the prospect that Bolsonaro, 70, could have his sentence cut to
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
A passerby could hear the cacophony from miles away in the Argentine capital, the unmistakable sound of 2,397 dogs barking — and breaking the unofficial world record for the largest-ever gathering of golden retrievers. Excitement pulsed through Bosques de Palermo, a sprawling park in Buenos Aires, as golden retriever-owners from all over Argentina transformed the park’s grassy expanse into a sea of bright yellow fur. Dog owners of all ages, their clothes covered in dog hair and stained with slobber, plopped down on picnic blankets with their beloved goldens to take in the surreal sight of so many other, exceptionally similar-looking ones.
‘UNWAVERING ALLIANCE’: The US Department of State said that China’s actions during military drills with Russia were not conducive to regional peace and stability The US on Tuesday criticized China over alleged radar deployments against Japanese military aircraft during a training exercise last week, while Tokyo and Seoul yesterday scrambled jets after Chinese and Russian military aircraft conducted joint patrols near the two countries. The incidents came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi triggered a dispute with Beijing last month with her remarks on how Tokyo might react to a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan. “China’s actions are not conducive to regional peace and stability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said late on Tuesday, referring to the radar incident. “The US-Japan alliance is stronger and more
RSS