North Korea withdrew its invitation to a US envoy who was headed to Pyongyang to request the release of imprisoned, ailing US missionary Kenneth Bae, the US Department of State said on Friday.
North Korea canceled talks with Robert King, the US special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, who was expected to visit Pyongyang on Friday and yesterday.
“We are surprised and disappointed by North Korea’s decision,” US Department of State spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
“We remain gravely concerned about Mr. Bae’s health and we continue to urge the DPRK authorities to grant Mr. Bae special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds,” the spokeswoman said in a written statement, referring to the North by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
There was no immediate explanation for the decision from North Korea, which does not have diplomatic relations with Washington.
King’s trip, announced this week as he was visiting US allies Japan and South Korea, was seen as a potential signal of the start of a gradual thaw in relations between Washington and Pyongyang.
The US Department of State had termed the trip a “humanitarian mission” and played down any connection between Bae’s release and diplomacy over the North’s sanctioned nuclear weapons program.
HOPE AND FAITH
Bae’s sister in Washington state issued a statement saying their family was disappointed and worried about Kenneth Bae’s health, but are “not giving up hope for a peaceful and timely resolution.”
“We hold on to faith that DPRK and US diplomats will resume talks soon, ultimately leading to my brother being released,” said Terri Chung, Bae’s sister.
US Representative Rick Larsen, who represents the district where Bae’s family lives, urged the North Koreans to free Bae.
“The North Koreans gain nothing from this course reversal. It is time to let Kenneth come home to his family and get the medical attention he needs,” Larsen, a Democrat, said in a statement.
King secured the release of another Korean-American missionary, Jung Young-su, in 2011 as part of a trip to assess North Korean pleas for food aid.
Relations between Washington and Pyongyang have been frosty since the collapse of a deal early last year, when North Korea broke its promise to end its long-range rocket launches and prevented nuclear inspectors from examining its nuclear stockpile and production.
Nuclear talks involving the US, China, Japan and North and South Korea have been deadlocked for five years, although Pyongyang in 2005 had signed a deal in which it would have frozen its nuclear program in exchange for economic and energy aid. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006.
HUMAN RIGHTS SCRUTINY
North Korea’s human rights record has recently come under international scrutiny.
A UN Public Commission of Inquiry in Seoul on Aug. 20 was told by witnesses that public executions and torture are daily occurrences in the North’s prisons. Bae, 45, was sentenced to 15 years hard labor for attempting to overthrow the North Korean state by spreading anti-government propaganda, according to North Korean media. He has diabetes and his health has deteriorated since he was jailed.
North Korean state media said Bae started his plot to “topple” the country’s government in 2006, a date that coincides with his own testimony about his arrival in China.
It accused him of spreading “false propaganda” and of bribing North Korean citizens in a bid to bring down the government.
Bae lived in a Chinese town that borders North Korea and worked for a tour company, while undertaking missionary work inside North Korea.
With much pomp and circumstance, Cairo is today to inaugurate the long-awaited Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), widely presented as the crowning jewel on authorities’ efforts to overhaul the country’s vital tourism industry. With a panoramic view of the Giza pyramids plateau, the museum houses thousands of artifacts spanning more than 5,000 years of Egyptian antiquity at a whopping cost of more than US$1 billion. More than two decades in the making, the ultra-modern museum anticipates 5 million visitors annually, with never-before-seen relics on display. In the run-up to the grand opening, Egyptian media and official statements have hailed the “historic moment,” describing the
‘CHILD PORNOGRAPHY’: The doll on Shein’s Web site measure about 80cm in height, and it was holding a teddy bear in a photo published by a daily newspaper France’s anti-fraud unit on Saturday said it had reported Asian e-commerce giant Shein (希音) for selling what it described as “sex dolls with a childlike appearance.” The French Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said in a statement that the “description and categorization” of the items on Shein’s Web site “make it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content.” Shortly after the statement, Shein announced that the dolls in question had been withdrawn from its platform and that it had launched an internal inquiry. On its Web site, Le Parisien daily published a
UNCERTAIN TOLLS: Images on social media showed small protests that escalated, with reports of police shooting live rounds as polling stations were targeted Tanzania yesterday was on lockdown with a communications blackout, a day after elections turned into violent chaos with unconfirmed reports of many dead. Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan had sought to solidify her position and silence criticism within her party in the virtually uncontested polls, with the main challengers either jailed or disqualified. In the run-up, rights groups condemned a “wave of terror” in the east African nation, which has seen a string of high-profile abductions that ramped up in the final days. A heavy security presence on Wednesday failed to deter hundreds protesting in economic hub Dar es Salaam and elsewhere, some
Flooding in Vietnam has killed at least 10 people this week as the water level of a major river near tourist landmarks reached a 60-year high, authorities said yesterday. Vietnam’s coastal provinces, home to UNESCO world heritage site Hoi An ancient town, have been pummeled by heavy rain since the weekend, with a record of up to 1.7m falling over 24 hours. At least 10 people have been killed, while eight others are missing, the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment said. More than 128,000 houses in five central provinces have been inundated, with water 3m deep in some areas. People waded through
RSS