South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday appointed a former North Korean diplomat as a vice minister, the highest-level government job for any of the thousands of North Koreans who have resettled in South Korea.
Tae Yong-ho was North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the UK when he defected to South Korea in 2016. Tae is the highest-ranking North Korean who has resettled in South Korea in recent years. He has said he did so because he did not want his children to live “miserable” lives in North Korea. and he fell into “despair” over North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s executions of officials and nuclear ambitions.
North Korea called him “human scum” and accused him of embezzling government money and committing other crimes.
Photo: AP
Yoon appointed Tae secretary general of the South Korean Peaceful Unification Advisory Council, which gives the president policy advice on peaceful Korean unification.
The appointment made Tae the first North Korean defector appointed to a vice-ministerial job in South Korea, among about 34,000 North Koreans who have resettled in South Korea, the South Korean Ministry of Unification said.
In 2020, Tae was elected to the South Korean National Assembly. There have been other North Korean defectors who have served as lawmakers in South Korea.
Yoon’s office said in a statement that Tae was the right person for the post, because he can utilize his experience living in North Korea and work experiences as a member of the South Korean parliament’s committee on foreign policy and unification issues.
Most of the defectors left North Korea after a devastating famine in the mid-1990s.
Upon arrival in South Korea, North Korean defectors are given citizenships, almost-free apartments, resettlement money and other benefits.
However, coming from authoritarian, impoverished and nominally socialist North Korea, many experience diverse discrimination and severe difficulties in adjusting to new lives in capitalistic, highly competitive South Korea, according to their interviews and surveys.
Yoon promised to provide greater government support to improve the lives of North Korean defectors on the inaugural “North Korean Defectors’ Day” on Sunday.
On Tuesday, the South Korean spy agency said that Ri Il-kyu, a counselor of political affairs at the North Korean embassy in Cuba, had defected to South Korea in November last year.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS