North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature has voted to abolish laws on economic cooperation with the South, state media said yesterday, as relations between the two neighbors hit new lows.
Ties between the two Koreas have been in a deep freeze as Pyongyang accelerates its weapons development programs and Seoul ramps up military cooperation with Washington and Tokyo, with key inter-Korean economic cooperation projects suspended for years.
At a plenary meeting of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly on Wednesday, officials voted to scrap the law on inter-Korean economic cooperation “with unanimous approbation,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
Photo: KCNA via Reuters
The latest decision comes after Pyongyang last month declared Seoul its main enemy, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification, and threatened to occupy the South during war.
The legislature also unanimously approved a plan to abolish a special law on the operation of the Mount Kumgang tourism project, once a prominent symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
The resort was built by South Korea’s Hyundai Asan on one of the North’s most scenic mountains, and once drew hundreds of thousands of visitors from South Korea.
However, its tours ended abruptly in 2008 after a North Korean soldier shot and killed a South Korean tourist who strayed off an approved path, resulting in Seoul suspend travel.
The Mount Kumgang resort was once one of the two biggest inter-Korean projects, along with the now-shuttered Kaesong Industrial Complex, where South Korean companies employed North Korean workers while paying Pyongyang for their services.
Seoul pulled out of the venture — launched in the wake of a 2000 inter-Korean summit — in 2016 in response to a nuclear test and missile launches by North Korea, saying Kaesong profits were helping to fund the provocations.
In 2020, North Korea blew up a liaison office on its side of the border — paid for by Seoul — saying it had no interest in talks.
After years of COVID-19-linked border closures, restarting its lucrative tourism business would offer North Korea a means of generating hard cash, but could now violate international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic weapons programs.
As Pyongyang draws closer to Moscow — also under a raft of global sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine — Seoul-based Web site NK News has reported that Russian tourists are set to visit North Korea this month.
As the sun sets on another scorching Yangon day, the hot and bothered descend on the Myanmar city’s parks, the coolest place to spend an evening during yet another power blackout. A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted Southeast Asia this week, sending the mercury to 45°C and prompting thousands of schools to suspend in-person classes. Even before the chaos and conflict unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup, Myanmar’s creaky and outdated electricity grid struggled to keep fans whirling and air conditioners humming during the hot season. Now, infrastructure attacks and dwindling offshore gas reserves mean those who cannot afford expensive diesel
Does Argentine President Javier Milei communicate with a ghost dog whose death he refuses to accept? Forced to respond to questions about his mental health, the president’s office has lashed out at “disrespectful” speculation. Twice this week, presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni was asked about Milei’s English Mastiff, Conan, said to have died seven years ago. Milei, 53, had Conan cloned, and today is believed to own four copies he refers to as “four-legged children.” Or is it five? In an interview with CNN this month, Milei referred to his five dogs, whose faces and names he had engraved on the presidential baton. Conan,
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese