Kim Jong-un - Page 16

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un delivered his much-anticipated New Year’s address in the early hours of Tuesday morning Eastern time. As expected, the speech was largely focused on North Korea’s economy but included some mixed messages about denuclearization.

North Korea’s state media has wrapped up 2018 with yet another tirade against the United States, this time condemning Washington’s condemnation of the dire state of human rights in the communist country and insisting that any criticism is the product of the envy Americans feel at the “flower garden of human love” in North Korea.

President Donald Trump tweeted 2,843 times in 2018, willingly engaging in a messaging war with his critics, the “haters,” the “losers” and the “fake news” on social media.

North Korea’s state media assailed the United States and allies at the United Nations Tuesday for helping pass a resolution condemning Pyongyang’s decades-long systematic human rights abuses, calling the resolution “a serious political provocation against the dignified” Korean state.

North Korea announced on Thursday it will never unilaterally get rid of its nuclear weapons unless the United States removes its own “nuclear threat” from the Korean peninsula. 

Contents: US issues new sanctions on North Korea over human rights abuses; North Korea threatens retaliation for the sanctions; Japan-Korea relations worsen over ‘comfort women’ issue

The South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo highlighted a report on Friday indicating that North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site, which it dramatically claimed to have been blown up as a gesture of goodwill, may still be able to function with minimal repairs.

The prospects of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un visiting Seoul in the last few days left in this year are bleak, the Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday, citing South Korea’s presidential office.

South Korean Unification Minister Cho Myung-gyon expressed hope on Tuesday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un will follow through on his promise to visit Seoul and make the trip a “stepping stone” to his second summit with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping held an audience with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho in Beijing on Friday to discuss how China could most easily facilitate friendly relations between the two nations, and help North Korea elevate its status internationally.

North Korea has spent the past six months “continuously upgrading” a key long-range missile facility despite public promises to reduce investments in military development, according to a report citing satellite image evidence published Wednesday.

South Korea has expressed frustration and concern over the growing number of intrusions into its air defense identification zone at the hands of Chinese military aircraft in recent years, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported Wednesday. 

South Korean media reported Monday that Seoul is scrambling to invite North Korean dictator to the country before the end of the year, shortly after President Donald Trump suggested an early 2019 date for talks with Pyongyang.

The socialist dictatorship in Venezuela welcomed a visit from Kim Yong Nam, the president of North Korea’s puppet legislature, on Monday for meetings with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza and dictator Nicolás Maduro.

North Korean has destroyed ten of its front-line guard posts as part of an agreement to ease tensions along its heavily secured border with South Korea, Seoul’s Defense Ministry announced on Tuesday.

A soldier who dramatically fled North Korea by crossing the heavily armed Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) into South Korea last year told Japanese media that he believes about 80 percent of young North Koreans are “indifferent” towards the regime and have “no loyalty” to Kim Jong-un, English-language reports revealed on Monday.

Contents: North Korea announces a ‘Newly Developed Tactical Weapon’; The ‘Charm Offensive’ has almost run its course

North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency reported on Friday that dictator Kim Jong-un inspected a “newly-developed ultramodern” tactical weapon system at an undisclosed location. North Korean media clearly intended the report to be provocative, but South Korean analysts shrugged it off as testing for a battlefield rocket launcher that would have little impact on arms control negotiations.

Vice President Mike Pence said from the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on Thursday that President Donald Trump will hold a second meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un next year. Pence said Kim will be expected to submit a firm denuclearization plan at the meeting.

A study that the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) published on Monday found that North Korea is maintaining at least 13 ballistic missile bases, seemingly contradicting the spirit of denuclearization even as Pyongyang demands sanctions relief as a reward for the steps it has taken so far.

Contents: North Korea plays hardball to get sanctions lifted; North Korea – South Korea reunification talks continue

South Korea’s ambassador to Russia revealed on Monday that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is likely to visit Russia this month amid warming relations between him and President Vladimir Putin.

Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel, who holds the title of “president” but remains subordinate to dictator Raúl Castro, received a hero’s welcome in North Korea on Sunday and Monday, enjoying a theater performance and street parade with dictator Kim Jong-un.

The United States and South Korea are expected to restart small-scale military exercises on Monday, a few days ahead of a meeting this week between U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and North Korea’s second-in-command to discuss denuclearization.

Contents: US and South Korea resume some military marine drills, despite North’s objections; Disarmament proceeds along North-South Korea border, opposed by US

Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday released a report on “endemic” sexual violence in North Korea. The report was three years in the making, due in part to the exceptional difficulty of obtaining reliable data and testimony from one of history’s most oppressive nations. HRW concluded the abuse of women has “come to be accepted as part of ordinary life” in North Korea and called for international intervention.

WASHINGTON, DC – Human rights advocates urged American President Donald Trump on Monday to advance human rights in ongoing denuclearization negotiations with North Korea, noting that doing so promotes U.S. national security.

Former slave laborer Hui-Chang Roh said the Trump administration should make human rights a priority in talks with the North Korean regime.

CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert joked that U.S. troops who are going to be stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent a caravan of migrants from entering the U.S. will need to lie their “ass off” when their kids ask them what they did under President Donald Trump.

A North Korean soldier reportedly went on a rampage against a police officer after returning from a decade of service to find his family “destitute” and starving despite their loyalty to the communist regime, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Tuesday.

Dozens of groups representing North Korean defectors in South Korea issued a call Thursday for Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon to step down after banning a journalist from covering a joint Seoul-Pyongyang event because that journalist was born in North Korea.

Leftist South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s top officials claimed on Thursday that Pope Francis was interested in visiting North Korea following a meeting between the head of the Catholic church and the head of state at the Vatican.

North Korea’s government news agency published a piece Tuesday condemning the United States yet again for refusing to lift sanctions on the rogue state, calling American officials “stubborn” and arguing that sanctions “are misused as tools for meeting party interests” in America.

The leftist government of South Korea banned Kim Myeong-sung, a journalist for South Korea’s largest newspaper who fled North Korea, from covering North-South talks in the border town of Panmunjom occurring Monday.

Contents: N. Korea’s Kim Jong-un met Pompeo in a new Rolls-Royce Phantom, violating sanctions; Growth of Ebola cases suddenly surges in DR Congo, threatening Uganda, Rwanda

North Korea’s state newspaper Rodong Sinmun published a belligerent column Friday accusing the U.S. of “murderous” policies against the Korean people, but ensuring that North Korea would survive up to a century of the sanctions it claims are killing its people.