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U.S. sanctions North Korean leader for first time over human rights

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un posing with school children

By David Brunnstrom and James Pearson

WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – The United States on Wednesday sanctioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for the first time, citing “notorious abuses of human rights,” in a move diplomats say will infuriate the nuclear-armed country.

The sanctions, the first to target any North Koreans for rights abuses, affect property and other assets within the U.S. jurisdiction. They include 10 other individuals besides Kim and five government ministries and departments, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

“Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea continues to inflict intolerable cruelty and hardship on millions of its own people, including extrajudicial killings, forced labor, and torture,” Acting Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Adam J. Szubin said in the statement.

But inside North Korea, adulation for Kim, 32, is mandatory and he is considered infallible. A 2014 report by the United Nations, which referred to Kim by name in connection to human rights, triggered a strong reaction from Pyongyang, including a string of military provocations.

Earlier this year, Congress passed a new law requiring U.S. President Barack Obama to deliver a report within 120 days to Congress on human rights in North Korea. It had designate for sanctions anyone found responsible for human rights violations. Kim Jong Un, the third generation of his family to rule the Stalinist state, topped the list.

The U.S. Treasury Department identified Kim’s date of birth as Jan. 8, 1984, a rare official confirmation of the young leader’s birthday.

Many of the abuses are in North Korea’s prison camps, which hold between 80,000 and 120,000 people including children, the report said.

The five agencies designated were two ministries that run North Korea’s secret police and their correctional services, which operate the prison camps. Also named were the ruling Workers’ Party’s Organization and Guidance Department (OGD), a key bureau used by Kim to wield control of the party and the government.

The sanctions also named lower-level officials, such as Minister of People’s Security Choe Pu Il, as directly responsible for abuses.

FORCED LABOR

Senior U.S administration officials said the new sanctions showed the administration’s greater focus on human rights in North Korea, an area long secondary to Washington’s efforts to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

The report was “the most comprehensive” to date on individual North Korean officials’ roles in forced labor and repression.

They said the sanctions would be partly “symbolic” but hoped that naming mid-level officials may make functionaries “think twice” before engaging in abuses. “It lifts the anonymity,” a senior administration official told reporters.

The North Korea mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment.

South Korea, which cut off all political and commercial ties with its own sanctions against the North in February, welcomed the move, saying it will encourage greater international pressure on the North to improve its human rights record.

China’s foreign ministry, asked about the new sanctions, reiterated its policy of opposing unilateral sanctions.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, visiting Beijing on Thursday, said he is very concerned about rising tension on the Korean peninsula and called on North Korea to refrain from making any provocations.

MORE SANCTIONS TO COME

Using sanctions against a head of state is not unprecedented. In 2011, the United States sanctioned Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and six other senior Syrian officials for their role in Syria’s violence. Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was also sanctioned.

Policymakers often worry that targeting a country’s leader will destroy any lingering chance of rapprochement, former diplomats say.

It is a sign “there probably isn’t much of a hope for a diplomatic resolution,” said Zachary Goldman, a former policy adviser in the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

The new sanctions follow a long list of measures that have had little effect in pressuring North Korean leaders to change, experts who study the North’s political system said.

“The sanctions from today will do nothing whatsoever to alter North Korea’s strategic calculus and only underscore their thinking that the U.S. has a ‘hostile policy’ against their country,” said Michael Madden an expert on the North Korean leadership.

“Considering the sanctions name Kim Jong Un, the reaction from Pyongyang will be epic,” he said. “There will be numerous official and state media denunciations, which will target the U.S. and Seoul, and the wording will be vituperative and blistering.”

Peter Harrell, a former State Department sanctions official, said the measures would signal to companies in China, as well as others doing business with North Korea, the U.S. would continue escalating sanctions.

Harrell added it was unlikely any assets would be blocked, however “given the realities of where Kim Jong Un and his cronies likely hide their assets.”

In March, the U.N. Security Council imposed harsh new sanctions on the country in response to its nuclear and missile tests.

That same month, Obama imposed new sanctions on North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test and a rocket launch that Washington and its allies said employed banned ballistic missile technology.

Those steps froze any property of the North Korean government in the U.S. and essentially prohibited exports of goods from the U.S. to North Korea.

“The United States has maintained sanctions and pressure against the North for 65 years since the Korean War, but there’s not been a single case where the intended result was accomplished,” said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“How much time is left in the Obama administration? There may be the wish to prove the policy of ‘strategic patience’ against the North has not failed, but when it comes to practical results, there won’t be much to show,” Yang said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Yeganeh Torbati and Joel Schectman in Washington, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Bill Tarrant)

North Korea leader says missile launch shows ability to attack U.S. in Pacific

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea leader Kim Jong Un said after supervising the test launch of an intermediate-range missile that the country now has the capability to attack U.S. interests in the Pacific, official media reported on Thursday.

South Korean and U.S. military officials have said the North launched what appeared to be two intermediate-range missiles dubbed Musudan on Wednesday. The first of the two was considered a failure.

The second reached a high altitude in the direction of Japan before plunging into the sea about 400 km (250 miles) away, they said.

The test-fire was successful without putting the security of neighboring countries at risk, the North’s KCNA news agency said, referring to the missile as a “Hwasong-10.” Hwasong is Korean for Mars.

“We have the sure capability to attack in an overall and practical way the Americans in the Pacific operation theater,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

The missile, which is fired from mobile launchers, has a design range of more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles), meaning all of Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam are potentially within reach.

A spokesman for South Korea’s military, Jeon Ha-gyu, said the second launch demonstrated “technical progress in terms of its engine capacity”. However, Jeon said it would not be meaningful to discuss whether it was a success because it was not a normal flight.

Japan and South Korea said the missile flew to a height of 1,000 km (620 miles). Experts said it appeared North Korea had deliberately raised the angle of the launch to avoid hitting any territory of Japan.

South Korea and the United States condemned the launch as an unacceptable violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said the launch was an indication that North Korea’s threat to Japan was intensifying.

The United Nations Security Council, which in March imposed new sanctions on the North following its fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February, met at the request of the United States and Japan.

“All expressed a strong concern as well as their opposition (to) these launches,” Alexis Lamek, Deputy U.N. Ambassador of France, which holds the Security Council presidency for June, told reporters. He said he hoped a statement condemning the move could be agreed on soon.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described North Korea’s latest ballistic missile launches as a “brazen and irresponsible act”.

North Korea had failed in at least five previous attempts to launch the intermediate-range missiles.

The North is believed to have up to 30 Musudan missiles, according to South Korean media, which officials said were first deployed around 2007, although the North had never attempted to test-fire them until this year.

North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty. The North regularly threatens to destroy Japan, South Korea and the United States, South Korea’s main ally.

(Additional reporting by Ju-min Park in Seoul, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and David Brunnstrom and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Paul Tait)

Steely will seen behind Kim’s push for North Korea weapons that work

North Korean leader watching missile test

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – Images in March of a smiling Kim Jong Un inspecting a silver sphere, purported to be a miniaturized nuclear warhead but likened in the media to a disco ball, burnished the North Korean leader’s international image as deluded and reckless.

But on Wednesday, the man Hollywood and others love to mock proved skeptics wrong with what looks like the successful launch of a ballistic missile that reached an altitude of 1,000 km and got over half way to Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Experts said the launch, which came after five failed tests including one earlier on Wednesday, marked progress in North Korea’s weapons program, and underlined Kim’s steely determination as well as his patience with scientists involved.

The quick succession of flight tests of the Musudan missile, which began in April, also resembles methods used in the early stages of missile development by super powers decades ago, when sophisticated simulation equipment was not available to substitute actual tests.

“This rate of attempts is not too different from what the U.S. was doing in the Cold War,” Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. “It’s of course very different from what the USA is doing these days.

“It may reflect the fact that North Korea has less capabilities in computer analysis, so it’s easier for them to just launch another missile than to run a computer simulation.”

Reclusive North Korea’s state propaganda has painted Kim as a demanding but generous and understanding leader willing to forgive the failures of its scientists.

That contrasts with his reputation overseas as ruthless and impulsive, after he executed his own uncle, replaced his defense chief five times and defied the world with two nuclear tests.

“Humans grow by eating food and science flourishes amidst failures,” North Korea’s state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun quoted Kim as telling scientists who knelt before him after a failed rocket launch in April 2012.

The dispatch was issued after an eventual successful launch in December that year.

The comments were echoed in a later state publication that described Kim patiently encouraging scientists distraught by failure.

“On receiving the report of the failure, Kim Jong Un said that failure was commonplace,” a 2012 book summarizing a year of the young leader’s activities said, referring to a failed long-range rocket launch earlier that year.

“What was important was to find out the cause of the failure as soon as possible and make a successful launch,” it quoted Kim as saying.

PEOPLE “NOT SHOT” FOR FAILURES

Michael Madden, an expert on political leadership in the North who has contributed to the Washington-based 38 North think-tank, said rumors of technicians behind failures being shot or purged were “nonsense”.

“One thing to note is that people don’t get shot behind failures,” said Madden, who edits North Korea Leadership Watch. “They get shot because they lie in their reporting or refuse to accept responsibility.”

Wednesday’s second launch ended a recent run of unsuccessful attempts to test the Musudan missile, which is designed to fly more than 3,000 km (1,800 miles) and could theoretically reach all of Japan and the U.S. territory of Guam.

While failure is potentially embarrassing for Kim, the failed Musudan tests have not been reported in the North’s tightly controlled state media, meaning that most North Koreans are in the dark about the program.

“There’s no great political risk to Kim Jong Un’s status or reputation, because only a tiny percentage of the population even knows about the tests,” Madden said.

Instead, Wednesday’s second missile launch in a day and the failures which preceded it may in fact demonstrate Kim’s determination to make the technology work, said Yang Uk, a senior researcher at the Korea Defense and Security Forum.

“They must have been working extremely hard and to a given time frame in order to make it work,” said Yang, who is also a policy adviser to the South Korean military.

Like the rest of North Korea’s opaque leadership, the state’s nuclear and missile programs are shrouded in secrecy, and deception and misinformation have long been an important part of propaganda aimed at maximizing the benefit for leaders.

It boasted in March of having successfully tested an engine for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and mastered the re-entry technology for a warhead to fit on such a missile, assertions discredited by South Korea and the United States.

Experts said the more likely course of weapons development for the North was to perfect a shorter-range missile that can mount and deliver a nuclear warhead, which would pose a direct threat to the United States with the capability to hit Guam.

Jeffrey Lewis, of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said that with continued testing, the North will eventually develop a reliable Musudan that can threaten the United States.

“Failures are a part of testing. The North Koreans will, sooner or later, fix the problems with the Musudan.”

(Additional reporting by James Pearson and Ju-min Park; Editing by Mike Collett-White)

North Korea says to push nuclear program defying UN sanctions

Foreign reporters gather around screens broadcasting address by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) congress, at a hotel in central Pyongyang

By James Pearson

PYONGYANG (Reuters) – Secretive North Korea said it will strengthen self-defensive nuclear weapons capability, its KCNA news agency reported on Monday, a decision adopted in defiance of U.N. resolutions at a rare congress of its ruling Workers’ Party.

The congress is the first in 36 years and North Korea granted visas to scores of foreign journalists to coincide with the gathering.

Their movements have been closely monitored and one BBC journalist, not reporting directly on the congress, was expelled along with two colleagues, after a top official said he had “distorted facts and realities” in his coverage.

Young leader Kim Jong Un, who assumed power in 2011 after his father’s sudden death, took on the new title of party chairman on the fourth day of the congress on Monday, media reported.

The promotion – his previous party title was first secretary – had been predicted by analysts who had expected Kim would use the congress to consolidate his power.

North Korea has come under tightening international pressure over its nuclear weapons program, including tougher U.N. sanctions adopted in March backed by lone major ally China, following its most recent nuclear test in January.

The congress’s decision on strengthening the capability of its nuclear weapons formalizes North Korea’s position.

It had already declared itself “a responsible nuclear weapons state” and disavowed the use of nuclear weapons unless its sovereignty is first infringed by others with nuclear arms.

“We will consistently take hold on the strategic line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of nuclear force and boost self-defensive nuclear force both in quality and quantity as long as the imperialists persist in their nuclear threat and arbitrary practices,” KCNA said, citing the congress.

The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. North Korea regularly threatens the South and its major ally, the United States, which it accuses of planning a nuclear attack.

Since the latest round of U.N. resolutions, North Korea has pressed ahead with its nuclear and missile development, and said it had succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead and launching a submarine-based ballistic missile.

RIVAL KOREAS

South Korea condemned the North’s claim to be a nuclear weapons state, saying it would continue to exert pressure on Pyongyang until it abandons its nuclear ambitions.

North Korea is believed by western experts to have about 40 kg of plutonium, enough to build eight to 12 nuclear weapons.

On the weekend, Kim took a conciliatory position on ties with the South, saying military talks were needed to discuss ways to ease tension.

South Korea rejected the proposal as meaningless.

“We have not given up on dialogue,” South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Cheong Joon-hee told a briefing. “But it is only when the North shows sincerity about decentralization that genuine dialogue is possible.”

The unusually large group of 128 foreign media members in Pyongyang for the congress, which opened on Friday, had not been given any access to the proceedings until Monday afternoon, when a group of about 30 of them were let in to the April 25 House of Culture for several minutes after nearly three hours of security checks.

There, Kim entered and was received by a wildly cheering audience of delegates, according to reporters who got in.

A closing date has not been made public but South Korea officials said earlier they expected the congress to last four or five days.

The expulsion of BBC journalist Rupert Wingfield-Hayes grabbed headlines in foreign media on Monday. He had been in the country ahead of the congress to cover the visit of a group of Nobel laureates.

Earlier on Monday, visiting media were taken to a textile factory named after Kim Jong Suk, the wife of state founder Kim Il Sung and the grandmother of the current leader. They have been taken to a string of show-case sites including a maternity hospital, electric cable factory and children’s centre.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Ju-min Park in Seoul; Editing by Tony Munroe and Robert Birsel)

North Korea may have resumed tunneling at nuclear test site

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un salutes as he arrives to inspect a military drill at an unknown location, in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Satellite images show that North Korea may have resumed tunnel excavation at its main nuclear test site, similar to activity seen before the country’s most recent nuclear test in January, a U.S. North Korea monitoring website reported on Wednesday.

The 38 North website, run by the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said such activity could be carried out as part of preparations for a nuclear test, as was the case in January, or to conceal such preparations.

It said commercial satellite images of the West Portal of the Punggye-ri test site taken on Tuesday showed two small ore carts on a track crossing a road from a tunnel entrance.

“The presence of the two carts … and the absence of any notable changes in the spoil pile suggests that tunnel excavation operations are about to resume, or have recently resumed, for the first time this year,” the 38 North report said.

The report said the images also showed limited movement of vehicles and equipment at the site’s North Portal, where the past three North Korean nuclear tests took place, compared to images taken on April 14.

“These activities by themselves do not establish that test preparations are imminent. However, the possibility of an impending test cannot be ruled out,” the report said.

“Pyongyang has clearly demonstrated, with its fourth nuclear detonation this past January, the ability to conduct detonations on short notice while masking indicators of its preparations from satellite view.”

A South Korean official declined to comment on any new intelligence reports of activities at the site but said the military was on high alert over the possibility that the North could conduct a nuclear test at any time.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in March that his country has miniaturized a nuclear warhead and ordered tests of a nuclear warhead and ballistic missiles in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

38 North reported in early December that satellite photographs from the two previous months indicated North Korea was digging a new tunnel for nuclear testing.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and has vowed to conduct more, despite the stepped up international sanctions.

Some experts expect North Korea to conduct a fifth nuclear test before a ruling party congress in early May, following an embarrassing failure in the test of an intermediate-range missile last week.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Asia-Pacific region warned on Tuesday that a fifth North Korean nuclear test could trigger new sanctions including an effort to choke off hard currency earnings by its workers abroad.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Tom Brown and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Secretive North Korea lifts veil on arms program

KCNA file picture shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un looking at a rocket warhead tip after a simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile

By Jack Kim and David Brunnstrom

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ahead of a rare ruling party Congress next month, secretive North Korea is revealing details of its weapons development program for the first time, showcasing its push to develop long-range nuclear missiles despite international sanctions.

Until recently, information on the North’s weapons program was hard to come by, with foreign governments and experts relying on satellite imagery, tiny samples of atomic particles collected after nuclear tests and mangled parts and materials recovered from long-range rocket launches.

No longer. In just over a month, the North has published articles with technicolor photographic detail on a range of tests and other activities that point to fast-paced efforts to build a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

The reason for the revelations, many analysts say, is that Pyongyang believes convincing the world, and its own people, of its nuclear prowess is as important as the prowess itself. Nevertheless, isolated North Korea’s true capabilities and intentions remain unknown.

“Close-up pictures of ground test activities are almost unprecedented from the DPRK,” John Schilling, an aerospace engineer specializing in satellite and launch vehicle propulsion systems, told Reuters.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the North’s official name. The reclusive state has conducted four nuclear tests in the past 10 years, the last in January.

“The openness suggests that the underlying strategy is as much diplomatic as military: it is important to Pyongyang not only that they have these capabilities, but that we believe they have these capabilities,” Schilling said.

In its latest revelations, North Korean state media reported on Saturday that the country had carried out a successful test of a new ICBM engine. Pictures showed what experts said were the engines of two Soviet-designed R-27 missiles clustered together, ejecting two exhaust plumes.

The claims indicate the North has no intention of slowing down, despite last month’s United Nations sanctions and stern warnings from Washington and elsewhere, said Michael Elleman, a U.S.-based rocket expert with the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The revelations, pronouncements and ‘tests’ appear to be part of a campaign to establish the narrative that Pyongyang has, or will soon have, a nuclear-armed, long-range missile that could threaten the U.S. mainland,” he said.

“Each unveiling, if real, would be part of a structured program aimed at developing the capability. The open question is: How real are these tests?”

The activities are likely to be watched closely by U.N. experts assigned to enforce sanctions prohibiting the North from engaging in work that involves ballistic missile technology.

CONVINCING THE DOUBTERS?

There is an increasing feeling among international arms experts that North Korea’s capability may be more advanced than previously thought. It could have a primitive but operable ICBM “later this decade,” said a U.S. government source with intelligence on the North’s weapons program.

Overcoming such scepticism, and fuelling alarm for its neighbors and the United States, may be the intended effect, with significant domestic propaganda value ahead of the May ruling party congress, said Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

“To a normal military, arms development is supposed to be classified,” he said. “But Kim Jong Un had years of the South and the U.S. putting his military down, so now he wants to maximize the perceived threat of what he’s trying to develop.”

The recent ICBM engine test followed the March test of a solid-fuel rocket engine and a simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a missile warhead.

Kim has vowed another nuclear warhead test soon, which would be the country’s fifth. Some analysts say it could be timed to take place just before the congress, at which Kim is likely to unveil an official policy of twinning economic development with nuclear capability.

Kim also claimed in March that his country has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to be mounted on a ballistic missile. Media reports displayed a spherical object and a jubilant Kim standing before a large rocket-shaped object similar to the KN-08 ICBM.

The choreographed manner in which the weapons tests appear to be taking place also points to political posturing rather than rigorous technical examination, some analysts have said.

Given the North’s secrecy, penchant for bombastic propaganda and history of manipulating photographic and video images, its claims are still met with plenty of scepticism.

“I am still not convinced that everything really is what they want us to believe it is,” said German aerospace engineer Markus Schiller, who has closely followed the North’s missile development program.

(Editing by Tony Munroe and Raju Gopalakrishnan)

North Korea Nuclear Missile Capable

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a visit to the Sinhung Machine Plant in this undated photo released by North Korea's

y Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea can mount a nuclear warhead on a medium-range missile, a South Korean official said on Tuesday in a new assessment of the capability of a country that conducted its fourth nuclear test this year.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said last month his country had miniaturized nuclear warheads to mount on ballistic missiles. It was his first direct statement of a claim often made in state media though never independently verified. [nL4N16G5IY]

“We believe they have accomplished miniaturization of a nuclear warhead to mount it on a Rodong missile,” the South Korean official, with knowledge of South Korea’s assessment of the North’s nuclear program, told a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity.

The Rodong missile can fire a 1 tonne (1,100 lb) warhead a distance of up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles), the official said. That would put all of South Korea, most of Japan and parts of Russia and China in range.

“We believe they have the ability to mount a nuclear warhead on a Rodong. Whether they will fire it like that is a political decision,” said the official.

There was no direct evidence that the North has successfully mounted a warhead on such a missile, the South Korean official said. He declined to discuss the basis for the change in assessment.

Staunch U.S. ally South Korea has been facing off against its rival to the north for decades.

The South’s conservative president, Park Geun-hye, has reversed a policy of trying to engage the North in dialogue and has instead adopted a hard line against it, particularly since the North conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a month later launched a long-range rocket putting an object into space orbit.

The test and launch prompted the U.N. Security Council to impose new sanctions.

South Korea has previously said North Korea had made progress in its efforts to miniaturize a nuclear warhead but the capability was incomplete. South Korea’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that assessment remained the military’s position.

Rodong missiles, developed from Soviet-era Scud missiles, make up the bulk of the North’s short- and medium-range missile arsenal with an estimated stockpile of 200.

Experts have predicted that the delivery vehicle for the North’s first nuclear warhead would be the medium-range Rodong missile, rather than an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which the North has yet to test.

Despite threats to strike the mainland United States, the North is seen as several years away from building an ICBM that can carry a nuclear warhead.

Experts have previously said a functioning mid-range nuclear missile would need the technology to overcome the stress of launch and re-entry and to strike the target with precision, which requires repeated testing.

The North fired a Rodong missile in March. It flew about 800 km (500 miles) into the sea, in the first such launch since two Rodongs were fired in 2014.

(Editing by Tony Munroe, Robert Birsel)

U.N. rights envoy urges prosecution of North Korean leader

GENEVA (Reuters) – The United Nations human rights investigator for North Korea called on Monday for leader Kim Jong Un and senior officials in the country to be prosecuted for committing crimes against humanity.

Marzuki Darusman told the U.N. Human Rights Council that North Korea is devoting huge resources to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction while many of its citizens lack sufficient food and others work in “slave-like conditions”.

“We are now at a crucial stage, therefore there is a fundamental need for countries to make that next step in ensuring accountability is undertaken,” he said.

The delegation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) boycotted the session. The European Union, United States and Japan supported Darusman’s call for accountability, although they did not refer to Kim by name.

Ambassador Robert King, U.S. envoy on North Korea, denounced the “egregious human rights violations committed by the DPRK” and said that the United States would work with other countries to “seek ways to advance accountability for those most responsible”.

China, Pyongyang’s ally, took a more conciliatory tone, saying human rights issues should not be politicized and calling for a comprehensive approach to dealing with North Korea.

China also rejected Darusman’s findings that North Koreans who flee across the border to China were being forced back to their homeland illegally.

North Korea Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, in a speech to the Geneva forum on March 1, said it would boycott any session that examined its record and would “never, ever” be bound by any such resolutions.

Darusman, referring to a report he issued last month, said: “I would like to reiterate my appeal to the international community to move forward to ensure accountability of the senior leadership of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, including that of Mr. Kim Jong Un.”

This could be via the International Criminal Court (ICC) but failing consensus among major powers, North Korea’s leadership could be prosecuted in a third country, he said.

He called for the Council to set up a panel of three experts to look into “structure and methods of accountability”.

Political prison camps, torture, “slave-like labor” and religious persecution remain features of the state apparatus, two years after a landmark U.N. investigation into crimes against humanity, Darusman said.

North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and launched a long-range missile the following month.

“The denial of human rights to its citizens internally and this aggressive behavior externally are basically two sides of the same coin. The country is pouring a large amount of resources into developing weapons of mass destruction, while large parts of its population continue to suffer from food insecurity,” Darusman said.

John Fisher of Human Rights Watch said that North Korea had “horrific” forced labor camps, public executions and a history of mass malnutrition and even “mass starvation”.

“Generations of North Koreans have suffered at the hands of the Kim family and its elite,” Fisher said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Jermey Gaunt)

North Korean Leader Claims Nation is Ready to Detonate Hydrogen Bomb

The leader of North Korea is reportedly claiming the country now has the ability to detonate a powerful hydrogen bomb, though his comments immediately drew skepticism from experts.

The state-run KCNA news agency reported Thursday that Kim Jong-un made the announcement while at the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site, which is significant to the country’s arms history.

According to the KCNA report, Kim said North Korea had evolved into “a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation.” If true, it would be a landmark development.

Hydrogen bombs rely on a different nuclear reaction than atomic bombs and are known to be much more powerful. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that while Kim has publicly touted on numerous occasions that his country has atomic-bomb capabilities, this appeared to be the first time the leader publicly indicated that North Korea possessed a hydrogen bomb.

Still, experts took Kim’s claim with a grain of salt. The leader is known for making bold claims.

“It’s hard to regard North Korea as possessing an H-bomb. I think it seems to be developing it,” Lee Chun-geun, a research fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, told Yonhap.

The BBC quoted John Nilsson-Wright, the head of the Asia Program at Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, as saying Kim’s comments appeared to be “an attention-grabbing effort to assert North Korean autonomy and his own political authority.”

North Korea Executes Christians For Owning Bible

The government of North Korea has murdered Christians for possessing a Bible.

A South Korean newspaper reports that the people labeled criminals by the North Korean government for owning a Bible were killed in public execution events arranged by Kim Jong-un’s government.

A source said in the city of Wonsan, those being executed were tied to stakes in a local stadium and shot to death with machine guns while over 10,000 residents were forced by military forces to watch. He said the bodies were so riddled with machine gun bullets that identities could not be determined.

Relatives or accomplices of those murdered were taken to prison camps.

Some North Korean experts say the executions are an effort by the government to quell any possible opposition.

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