Aussie student expelled from North Korea denies spying

SEOUL - An Australian student who was expelled from North Korea denied on Tuesday that he had been spying on the authoritarian state while he lived there.

Alek Sigley, 29, was released last week after being detained for several days, with Pyongyang later accusing him of promoting propaganda against the country online.

"The allegation that I am a spy is (pretty obviously) false," he wrote on Twitter, adding that he was "well both mentally and physically".

"I am still very interested in North Korea and want to continue academic research and other work related to the country. But I currently have no plans to visit the country again, at least in the short term," he wrote.

The tweets were the first comments addressing the incident from Sigley, who speaks fluent Korean and had been one of just a handful of Westerners living and studying in North Korea.

His disappearance, which prompted deep concern about his fate, came just days before a G20 summit and a landmark meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

After he was released and flew to Japan, North Korean state media published a report saying the country had deported the student for spying.

"I may never again walk the streets of Pyongyang, a city that holds a very special place in my heart," Sigley, who speaks fluent Korean, tweeted Tuesday.

"I may never again see my teachers and my partners in the travel industry, whom I've come to consider close friends. But that's life."

From the capital, Sigley organized tours to the country and ran a number of social media sites that posted a stream of apolitical content about life in one of the world's most secretive nations.

His blog posts focused on everyday Pyongyang -- from the city's dining scene to North Korean app reviews -- and he married his Japanese wife there last year.

He also wrote columns for specialist website NK News, which North Korean state media called an anti-regime news outlet in its report on Saturday.

NK News has released a statement denying the accusations, which the student said he stood by. 

He said the "only material" he gave to the news site and other outlets was what was published. 

His case was complicated by Australia's lack of diplomatic representation in North Korea, with the Swedish envoy helping to negotiate his release.

On Twitter, Sigley said he would not be speaking to the press or answering questions about the events on social media, having said on Friday he was planning to "return to normal life".

In 2016, University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned during a tour of North Korea, died days after arriving back in the United States.

Doctors said Warmbier suffered severe brain damage while in detention and fell into a coma before his death aged 22.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Hillary Clinton warns of ‘diplomatic danger’ in North Korea talks

THE HAGUE, Netherlands- Hillary Clinton has warned that the Trump administration "was not recognizing the danger" in discussing nuclear disarmament with Pyongyang, and said Washington lacked experienced diplomats to handle the talks.

"If you want to talk to Kim Jong Un about his nuclear weapons you need experienced diplomats," Clinton was quoted as telling Dutch tabloid Algemeen Dagblad in an interview published Saturday.

"These are people familiar with the dossiers and who know the North Koreans and their language," Trump's presidential rival said in an interview conducted in Amsterdam and published in Dutch.


The former secretary of state said however that the US State Department was "being eroded" and that experienced diplomats on the North Korean issue were in short supply, with many having left.

"You cannot have diplomacy without diplomats," she said, adding "the danger is not being recognised by the Trump government."

Clinton's words echo those of veteran diplomat and former US ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, who warned that negotiating with North Korea was not "reality television."

"It's a real opportunity... I worry about the president's unpreparedness and lack of discipline. But I commend him for his very bold move in accepting the invitation," Richardson told AFP on Friday.

"But this is not 'The Apprentice' or a reality TV event. It's a negotiation with an unpredictable leader who has at least 20 nuclear weapons and who threatens the United States," he said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Rex Tillerson in China as US presses North Korean economic squeeze

BEIJING - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will hold top-level talks in China on Saturday as the United States looks to tighten an economic squeeze aimed at persuading North Korea to retreat from its nuclear arms and missile programs.

The United States sees China as critical to averting a military confrontation with Pyongyang, which is fast advancing toward its goal of developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the United States.

US officials say Beijing appears increasingly willing to cut ties to North Korea’s economy by adopting U.N. sanctions, after long accounting for some 90 percent of its neighbor’s foreign trade.

But to succeed in reaching any kind of diplomatic solution, Tillerson would need to overcome some basic US assumptions about North Korea and China.

The first would be getting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to view nuclear weapons as a liability, not a strength. The US intelligence community does not believe Kim is likely to willingly give up his weapons program.

“(Tillerson’s) working against the unified view of our intelligence agencies, which say there’s no amount of pressure that can be put on them to stop,” Senator Bob Corker told a Senate hearing on Thursday.

Kim, Corker said, saw nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles as “his ticket to survival.”

The second big challenge for Tillerson would be getting China to impose economic sanctions on North Korea so harsh that Kim might question his future if they persisted.

US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they believe China’s priority is stability on the Korean peninsula, since a political collapse would almost certainly push destabilizing waves of refugees into northeastern China.

China says it will strictly and fully enforce U.N. resolutions against North Korea and its Commerce Ministry on Thursday said North Korean firms in China and joint ventures in China and overseas would be shut down by January, in line with the latest UN resolution.

But the latest sanctions need time before they begin to bite, the official China Daily cautioned in an editorial on Friday.

US President Donald Trump, who is due to visit China in November, has called for it to do more on North Korea and has promised to take steps to rebalance a trade relationship that his administration says puts US businesses at a disadvantage.

Tillerson, whose arrival in Beijing was delayed due to mechanical problems with his aircraft, told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Trump was looking forward to his China visit.

Tillerson will also hold talks with President Xi Jinping, and China’s top diplomat State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who outranks the foreign minister.

The US State Department did not suggest any major announcements would be made on Tillerson’s trip but the China Daily said it needed to be more than a “routine show of mutual goodwill” ahead of Trump’s visit.

“The guest and his hosts must ... straighten at least one thing out - what each can expect from the other to ensure the situation on the Korean peninsula does not deteriorate and spiral out of control,” it said.


UNACCEPTABLE OPTIONS

Senator John McCain, who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee, said this week he was skeptical.

“The ideal, we all know, is China. China has not done anything for the last three presidents. I’m not sure that they’re going to do anything with this one,” McCain told a security conference in Washington hosted by the Institute for the Study of War.

McCain has repeatedly warned that the United States, which neither wants to live with a nuclear-armed North Korea nor go to war with it, may be faced with “unacceptable options.”

US officials have declined to discuss operational plans, but acknowledge that no existing plan for a preemptive strike could promise to prevent a brutal counterattack by North Korea, which has thousands of artillery pieces and rockets trained on Seoul.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster said on Monday that even military options short of a preventative strike, such as a naval blockade meant to enforce sanctions, carried risks of military escalation.

Tillerson has in the past expressed hope for dialogue with North Korea. US diplomats have also sought to assure Pyongyang that Washington is not seeking to oust Kim, even as Trump and Kim exchange insults and threats of war.

“We are not seeking regime change or collapse,” State Department Assistant Secretary Susan Thornton, who is traveling with Tillerson, told a Senate hearing on Thursday.

Thornton’s remarks were welcomed in Beijing, which is calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the United States had issued many “positive signals” that the North Korean nuclear issue should be resolved via talks.

Still, it is unclear how and when negotiations with Pyongyang might be possible.

McMaster said there was no set list of preconditions for talks but added Pyongyang’s capabilities had advanced too far to simply freeze its program in return for concessions.

He cited academic reports about actions North Korea could take to suggest it was serious about talks, such as allowing International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to key sites and stating that Pyongyang was willing to denuclearize.

“What we want to see is negotiations that begin under fundamentally different conditions” than in the past, McMaster said. (Reporting by Phil Stewart, Ben Blanchard and Michael Martina in Beijing; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Guam nuclear guidelines: 'Take cover, avoid bomb flash'

WASHINGTON - Guam posted emergency guidelines on Friday to help residents prepare for any potential nuclear attack after a threat from North Korea to fire missiles in the vicinity of the U.S. Pacific territory.

Pyongyang's state-run KCNA news agency said on Thursday its army would complete plans in mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near Guam as North Korea and the United States engaged in increasingly heated rhetoric this week over the North's nuclear weapons program.

North Korea did not threaten Guam with a nuclear attack, but the crisis between Pyongyang and the United States has stirred fears that a nuclear conflict could break out in the region.

While the governor of Guam shrugged off the North's missile warning and said there was no heightened threat, the government has issued a preparedness fact sheet.

In language that evoked the specter of nuclear conflict during the Cold War, the guidelines cover what to do before, during and after a nuclear attack.

"Do not look at the flash or fireball – It can blind you," it said. "Take cover behind anything that might offer protection."

"Remove your clothing to keep radioactive material from spreading. Removing the outer layer of clothing can remove up to 90% of radioactive material," read the guidelines of what to do if caught outside.

They suggest having an emergency plan and supply kit and making a list of potential concrete structures near home, work and school to serve as fallout shelters.

"Fallout shelters do not need to be specifically constructed for protecting against fallout," it said. "They can be protected space, provided that the walls and roof are thick and dense enough (i.e. concrete) to absorb radiation given off by fallout particles."

The fact sheet advises people on how to wash: do not scrub or scratch the skin, use soap, shampoo and water but do not put not conditioner on your hair because it binds radioactive material.

It offers advice for parents who are away from their children during a strike.

"Stay where you are, even if you are separated from your family," it said. "Listen to the news. Do not call the school. Be patient. Wait for instructions to pick up your child."

The information on the fact sheet was gathered from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security website www.ready.gov, a Guam Homeland Security spokeswoman told the Pacific Daily News.

Guam is home to about 163,000 people and a U.S. military base that includes a submarine squadron, an air base and a Coast Guard group. (For a graphic on North Korean missile trajectories, ranges click http://tmsnrt.rs/2hIzZHG)

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday warned North Korea against threatening Guam and said on Friday that the U.S. military was "locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely."

Asked about Trump's tough posture, Guam Governor Eddie Calvo said he agreed with sending a clear message to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who has ramped up his country's tests of missiles and nuclear bombs.

"Though I don't want the temperature to get any higher, I think it's important also that there is clarity and that if there is an attack on any American soil including Guam, that it will be met with overwhelming response," Calvo told reporters on Friday. "I don't have any problem with that."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

 

 

Trump issues stern warning to North Korea and its leader

BEDMINSTER, New Jersey - President Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric toward North Korea and its leader on Thursday, warning Pyongyang against attacking Guam or US allies after it disclosed plans to fire missiles over Japan to land near the U.S Pacific territory.

Trump took specific aim at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying, "He has disrespected our country greatly. He has said things that are horrific. And with me, he's not getting away with it. He got away with it for a long time between him and his family. ... This is a whole new ball game."

North Korea's army will complete the plans in mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near Guam, when they will be ready for Kim's order, state-run KCNA news agency said. The plans called for the missiles to land in the sea 30-40 km (18-25 miles) from Guam.

"I read about, 'We're in Guam by August 15th.' Let's see what he does with Guam. He does something in Guam, it will be an event the likes of which nobody's seen before, what will happen in North Korea," Trump, without offering specifics, told reporters in New Jersey.

"It's not a dare. It's a statement," Trump said. "He's not going to go around threatening Guam. And he's not going to threaten the United States. And he's not going to threaten Japan. And he's not going to threaten South Korea."

Tension in the region has risen since the reclusive communist country, which staged two nuclear bomb tests last year, launched two intercontinental ballistic missile tests in July in defiance of world powers. Trump has said he will not allow Pyongyang to develop a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States.

Far from toning down his words after saying on Tuesday that any threats by Pyongyang would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," Trump said those remarks may have not gone far enough. "Maybe it wasn't tough enough," Trump said.

Trump's Tuesday comments had unnerved allies in the region and drew criticism from some politicians and foreign policy experts at home as needlessly pugnacious at a time when more measured language would be appropriate.

On Thursday in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is on a working vacation, Trump also declared the US nuclear arsenal "in tip-top shape, and getting better, and getting stronger."

Asked if he would consider a pre-emptive strike against North Korea to deny it the ability to launch a nuclear attack against the United States, Trump said, "We'll see what happens."

Trump during the 2016 US presidential campaign complained that key Asian allies such as Japan and South Korea were not paying their fair share of their defense burden and even suggested they might need to develop their own nuclear weapons, a comment that ran counter to decades of US anti-proliferation policy.

Since taking office, Trump has reaffirmed a commitment to defend those countries against any North Korean threat.

"If North Korea does anything in terms of even thinking about attack of anybody that we love or we represent or our allies or us, they should be very, very nervous," Trump added.

The United States and South Korea remain technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

Trump also said that new sanctions on North Korea approved by the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 5 that could slash by a third the country's $3 billion annual export revenue probably "will not be as effective as a lot of people think it can be, unfortunately." Trump praised China and Russia for backing the sanctions, but pressed Beijing to do more.

"I think China can do a lot more, yes. ... And I think China will do a lot more," Trump said.

Trump said the United States loses a lot of money on trade with China. "It's not going to continue like that. But if China helps us, I feel a lot differently toward trade," Trump added.

The tensions between North Korea and the United States spurred a broad market sell-off in US stocks. The benchmark S&P 500 stock index closed with a 1.4 percent loss, marking the biggest one-day drop since May and registering just the third day all year that it closed with a loss of more than 1 percent.

RISKS GROW

Experts in the United States and South Korea said North Korea's Guam plans ratcheted up risks significantly, since Washington was likely to view any missile aimed at its territory as a provocation, even if launched as a test.

If Pyongyang carries out its threatened show of force and launches missiles toward Guam, it would represent an unprecedented milestone in the already fraught relations between the United States and North Korea.

Trump said the United States would "always consider negotiations" with Pyongyang, but faulted three of his predecessors, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, on their approach to North Korea.

The planned path of North Korea's missiles would cross some of the world's busiest sea and air traffic routes. The North Korean report said the missiles would cross the sky above Shimane, Hiroshima and Koichi Prefectures of Japan.

Guam, a tropical island more than 3,000 km (2,000 miles) to the southeast of North Korea, is home to about 163,000 people and a strategically located US air base, Navy installation that includes a submarine squadron, a Coast Guard group and roughly 6,000 US military service members.

"Sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him," KCNA said, calling Trump's "fire and fury" comment "a load of nonsense."

Former US President Jimmy Carter rebuked officials in both nations over their threatening language.

"The harsh rhetoric from Washington and Pyongyang during recent months has exacerbated an already confrontational relationship between our countries, and has probably eliminated any chance of good faith peace talks between the United States and North Korea," Carter said.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

How serious is North Korea's nuclear threat?

US intelligence believes North Korea has now built a nuclear weapon small enough to fit onto a ballistic missile, making it a potent threat against neighbors and possibly the United States, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The country's nuclear advances have proceeded much more quickly than expected, but experts say North Korea still needs significant technological gains in order to become a full-fledged nuclear threat.

- Where does the North Korean nuclear capability stand? -

Pyongyang has conducted five nuclear bomb tests, with the last one, on September 9, 2016, roughly the size of the nuclear bomb the United States dropped on Nagasaki in 1945: 20-30 kilotons. That device, North Korea said, was going to be miniaturized and "standardized" for use on its ballistic missiles.

This year it demonstrated an ability to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in two tests. The most recent of them, on July 28, showed a missile with a theoretical range of 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles), meaning it could hit much of the United States and Europe, including population centers like New York and Paris.

- Is that enough to constitute an immediate threat? -

Besides reliable missiles with accurate targeting technology, Pyongyang needs to make sure its bombs would survive a 16,000 mile per hour (25,800 kilometer per hour) reentry from high in the atmosphere on an ICBM. It is possible their warheads are currently robust enough to survive the slower speeds of a shorter range missile that could strike Japan, but unlikely with an ICBM.

According to Michael Elleman, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the re-entry vehicle on the July 28 test likely broke into pieces and disintegrated.

Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear expert, said it could be another five years before North Korea has an adequately robust reentry vehicle.

"I don't believe they have sufficient missile or nuclear test experience to field a nuclear warhead that is sufficiently small, light and robust to survive an ICBM delivery," Hecker told AFP.

- What other technical hurdles does NK face?-

Hecker, who has visited North Korea several times to view its nuclear activities, said its weapons program is deeply constrained by its small supply of uranium and plutonium, especially plutonium, which is preferable in an ICBM-mounted weapon. Combined, he said, its uranium and plutonium supplies are likely enough for 20-25 nuclear weapons.

But according to the Washington Post report, the US Defense Intelligence Agency believes the country already has up to 60 nuclear weapons in its stockpile.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

N. Korea flood death toll rises to 133 with 395 missing: UN

Severe flooding in a North Korean border region has killed at least 133 people with hundreds more missing, according to the UN, which said the scale of the disaster was "beyond anything experienced" by local officials.

Some 107,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the area along the Tumen River, the world body said in a statement received Monday which cited Pyongyang government figures.

The North's official media has described the downpour which led to the floods near the northeastern border with China and Russia as the worst for decades, and said it brought severe hardship to residents.

It says a nationwide mass-mobilisation 200-day labour campaign intended to bolster the economy has been redirected to assist the flood victims.

"The scale of this disaster is beyond anything experienced by local officials," said UNICEF deputy representative in North Korea Murat Sahin, who visited the flood-stricken region last week.

"Although the early warning system was triggered, the scale of the damage was unexpectedly high."

Sahin said food and shelter was the immediate priority for families, and that a lot of humanitarian work still needed to be done before the winter sets in and temperatures drop below zero.

"Families here lost everything. We met the household doctor for the community in the rubble of her clinic. She told us that 11 out of 15 pregnant women in the community had miscarriages since the floods."

The impoverished nation is vulnerable to natural disasters, especially floods, due partly to deforestation and poor infrastructure.

At least 169 people were killed by a massive rainstorm in the summer of 2012.

Major state resources are swallowed up by a missile and nuclear weapons programme which Pyongyang says is essential to deter US aggression.

More than 35,500 houses have been hit by the latest floods, with 69 percent of them completely destroyed, and 8,700 public buildings have been damaged, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement dated Sunday.

Around 16,000 hectares (39,540 acres) of farmland have been inundated and at least 140,000 people urgently need help, it said, adding that aid agencies have released material from stockpiles in the North such as food and shelter.

UNICEF said a truck carrying emergency supplies including oral rehydration salts, medical kits, vitamin supplements and water purification tablets left Pyongyang on September 5 headed to the affected areas. It said further supplies were on the way.

The North's government was working urgently to reopen roads and was distributing relief goods and building materials. The priority was to rebuild 20,000 homes by early October before the bitter Korean winter hits.

From floods to 'fairyland'

The North has trumpeted the role of its ruling Workers' Party in responding to the disaster in North Hamgyong province.

The aim is "to turn the area into the fairyland in the era of the Workers' Party within this year by dint of army-people great unity, harmonious whole", said party newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Monday.

"The party regards the work for taking care of the people's life in a responsible way as the most important affair and duty and has steadily created legendary stories about love for the people," it added.

Much of North Korea is hilly or mountainous but slopes have long been stripped bare for fuel or turned into terraced ricefields. This allows rainwater to flow downhill unchecked.

A series of floods and droughts was partially responsible for a famine that killed hundreds of thousands between 1994-98, with economic mismanagement and the loss of Soviet support exacerbating the situation.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization said in April that North Korea's chronic food shortages were expected to worsen, given the tight food supplies last year and this year when "most households were already estimated to have poor or borderline food consumption levels".

The United Nations Security Council is planning fresh sanctions on the nation after it staged its fifth nuclear weapons test Friday.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

North Korea activity points to possible space launch - US officials

WASHINGTON - The United States has seen increased activity around a North Korean missile site, suggesting preparations for a possible space launch in the near future, U.S. officials told Reuters on Thursday.

The finding was revealed as Washington shows growing concern that Pyongyang could use space technology to enhance its missile capability and while United Nations Security Council members discuss fresh sanctions against North Korea after it conducted its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6.

The officials cited intelligence suggesting movement of components and propellant at North Korea's Sohae satellite launch facility. A test could take place within a couple of weeks, they said.

"Our concern though is ... it's the same technology to develop ICBMs" (inter-continental ballistic missiles), one of the officials said.

"We are keeping a close eye on these activities by the North Koreans. We're watching 24/7," a second official said.

Joe Bermudez, chief analytics officer at commercial intelligence firm AllSource Analysis, said open source imagery showed increased activity at the site in northwestern North Korea.

Movement of vehicles, construction and other activities suggested test preparations for a rocket engine test soon, Bermudez said. Activities were also noted at the launch pad, however, but it was not clear whether a rocket had already been delivered to the site.

North Korea was concealing activities on the site through construction of new buildings and a cover that obscures satellite views of the gantry tower next to the launch pad.

"This is the first time leading up to a potential launch that all the concealment shelters are in place," said Stephen Wood, chief executive officer of AllSource.

An analysis by 38 North, a North Korea monitoring project at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, said the cover near the gantry tower could conceal a rocket, and a rail-mounted shelter has been moved adjacent to the engine-test stand on the site.

The shelter could allow for rocket stages to be assembled and moved to the tower under cover of darkness of heavy clouds, 38 North found. It is large enough to conceal the first stage of North Korea's Musudan intermediate range ballistic missile, its Unha space-launch vehicle, or a new rocket engine.

The analysis said commercial satellite images, taken as a series of "snapshots" from Dec. 28 to Jan. 25, showed "low-level activities" throughout the Sohae Rocket Launch Facility.

North Korea last conducted a long-range rocket launch in late 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit. Western and Asian experts said it was part of an effort to build an ICBM.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok declined to comment on possible pre-launch activities by North Korea, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters.

North Korea has not yet warned about potential interference with navigation, a step it has taken ahead of previous launches, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during a trip to China this week warned against North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's declared intention to develop an ICBM with the capacity to carry a nuclear warhead.

"It is a threat the United States must take extremely seriously," Kerry told reporters in Beijing on Wednesday.

"The United States will do what is necessary to protect people in our country and our friends and allies in the world," Kerry said.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency on Thursday carried out a test of ground-based interceptors at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a source with knowledge of the test said. The test, aimed at improving the reliability of U.S. interceptors based in Alaska and California, met the agency's objectives, the source said.

The U.S. military is adding 14 interceptors to the 30 already in place, and defense advocates have called for increasing the number of interceptors.

Meanwhile, on Thursday the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved legislation to broaden existing sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program, human rights record and cyber activities.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Andrea Shalal; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Ju-min Park and Jack Kim; Editing by David Greising and Grant McCool)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

US warns North Korea against nuclear 'provocation'

WASHINGTON - The United States warned Wednesday that North Korea will face ''severe consequences'' if it continues with what Washington sees as its provocative decision to restart a nuclear reactor.

Pyongyang has said it has restarted the long-mothballed Yongbyon reactor, which is capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium, and has threatened to launch a rocket which US officials see as a test-bed for ballistic missile technology.

Challenged as to whether Washington could respond credibly to the North Korean moves after earlier striking a deal to allow Iran's nuclear program to continue under international supervision, Secretary of State John Kerry insisted it could.

"There will be severe consequences as we go forward if North Korea does not refrain from its irresponsible provocations that aggravate regional concerns, make the region less safe, and if it refuses to live up to its international obligations," he said.

"Our position is clear: We will not accept a DPRK -- North Korea -- as a nuclear weapons state, just as we said that about Iran."

Asked what the United States could do if North Korea continues to flout international agreements not to expand its nuclear and missile programs, Kerry said Kim Jong-Un's regime was already experiencing growing diplomatic isolation.

"China, for instance, has taken serious steps in the last year, year-and-a-half, since we engaged China on this subject specifically to encourage them to do more, and they have," he told reporters at the State Department.

Kerry said he had also spoken to his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov about North Korean defiance.

"So there's a lot happening. And I can assure you that all of these countries remain fixated on the need for North Korea to denuclearize with respect to its weapons program and to live up to its international obligations," he said.

North Korea mothballed the Yongbyon reactor in 2007 under a six-nation aid-for-disarmament accord but began renovating it after its latest nuclear test in 2013.

When fully operational the reactor is capable of producing around six kilograms (13 pounds) of plutonium a year -- enough for one nuclear bomb, experts say.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

The rise of North Korea's 'masters of money'

SEOUL - Nail salons, massage parlors, cafes and other signs of consumerism were unheard of in rigidly controlled North Korea just a few years ago, but they are slowly emerging in one of the world's last bastions of Cold War socialism.

North Korea operates a centrally-planned economy modelled on the former Soviet Union where Western-style conspicuous consumption is anathema.

But as a growing middle class of North Koreans earns more money in the unofficial economy, the demand for products such as cosmetics, smartphones, imported fruit juices and foreign clothes is on the rise, according to residents and visitors.

There are now 2.5 million North Korean mobile phone subscribers in a country of 24 million people. Even some state-owned factories are diversifying product lines from rationed daily necessities to meet the demand for non-essential goods.

"Nobody needs to drink coffee, and nobody needs to spend money on it, but people do. This is what's happening in Pyongyang, and it's a change," said Nils Weisensee, a coffee roaster from Germany who works with the Singapore-based Choson Exchange NGO to train North Koreans in business skills.

While the repressive and impoverished country is still years away from becoming a consumer paradise, it is now home to a rising class of rich North Koreans known as "Donju", meaning "masters of money", thanks to the growing unofficial economy.

Some Donju spend their cash on private English tuition for their children, or on South Korean or Japanese clothes, according to research by the South Korean government-run Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), in Seoul.

"People can choose between toothpaste that uses crystals or nanotechnology to make it more effective than normal toothpaste, or a special one flavored for children," said Weisensee.

Many of the Donju have made money trading in informal markets, or by setting up small businesses. Some businesses operate as a form of public-private partnership, where staff of state enterprises are given permission to start quasi-autonomous profit-making enterprises.

Around 70 percent of that profit goes to the state, with the rest going to individuals, according to defectors from the country, including Choi Song-min, who ran a shipping service before fleeing to the South in 2011.

"For example, at a Chongjin city branch of the transport ministry, they might say to their bosses 'how about we sell coffee to the people waiting for our buses'" said Choi, who now writes for the Daily NK, a Seoul-based website, and has regular contact with sources inside the North.

At the food section of the Kwangbok Department Store in central Pyongyang, moneyed shoppers can choose between a wide variety of consumer foods like fruit juices, chocolates and soda, according to Troy Collings of Young Pioneer Tours.

"People weren't just buying basic foods. They were considering factors other than price, by buying the imported orange juice instead of the local one, for example," said Collings, who leads regular tourist trips to North Korea.

Even leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying North Korean-made cosmetics should compete in quality with foreign luxury brands like Chanel and Christian Dior, according to the Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan.

"These nouveau-riche who make money in the markets need a channel for consumption," said Ahn Chan-il, 63, a North Korean defector and former South Korean intelligence official who receives information from contacts inside North Korea.

"Things like cars, massages, raffles, pet dogs. North Korean people are already riding on the back of the tiger that is the market economy, not the regime," said Ahn.

PYONGHATTAN

North Korean consumer capitalism is very much in its early days, residents of Pyongyang said. A chronic energy shortage, brutally repressive government and deeply ingrained corruption ensure that the pace of change is sluggish, and limited.

"What use are these new, kitschily-decorated places that mostly imitate Chinese nouveau-riche life if there is no electricity to cook the food?" a diplomatic source in Pyongyang told Reuters.

One area of downtown Pyongyang, jokingly known by foreign residents as "Pyonghattan" or "Dubai", is home to expensive department stores, a sushi restaurant and a 24-hour coffee shop.

"Oftentimes you will be turned away, not because you are a foreigner, but because there is just no energy to operate the kitchen. Good luck trying to get a proper meal in Pyongyang after 10 p.m.," said the source.

Defectors said the consumer boom extends to cities beyond Pyongyang, where bustling markets or train stations are now home to small coffee stalls, and wearing jewellery is an outward and accepted sign of status.

Ahn said the nearby city of Pyongsong is where many well-off North Koreans live, thanks to wholesale businesses importing products from China.

Choi said the coffee drinking trend for moneyed North Koreans began to appear last year: "To look cool, the Donju, party officials and young people like college students go to coffee shops to meet people".

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

N.Korea's Internet appears to collapse after Sony hack

WASHINGTON, United States- North Korea's weak Internet links appear to have been crippled by a major outage, cyber experts said Monday, suggesting the country's network could be under attack after the hacking of Sony Pictures.

Pyongyang's apparent connection woes came after US President Barack Obama vowed to retaliate for the cyber assault on the Hollywood studio blamed by the FBI on the isolated Asian nation.

While US officials refused to confirm whether Washington had already taken any action against Pyongyang, they did call for compensation for Sony which -- following threats against movie-goers -- pulled the Christmas Day debut of the comedy action film "The Interview," which lampoons North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

"If they want to help here they could admit their culpability and compensate Sony for the damages that they caused," State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters.

According to respected US-based cyber security firm Dyn Research, Internet connectivity between North Korea and the outside world, never good at the best of times, seems to have been severely affected over the weekend.

"I haven't seen such a steady beat of routing instability and outages in KP (North Korea) before," Doug Madory, director of Internet analysis at Dyn Research, told the North Korea Tech website.

"Usually there are isolated blips, not continuous connectivity problems. I wouldn't be surprised if they are absorbing some sort of attack presently."

North Korea's communist authorities however have denied being behind the Sony hacking that also led to the release of a slew of embarrassing company emails.

Instead Pyongyang has called for a joint investigation, and vowed reprisals if the US brings in new sanctions, including putting the country back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The diplomatic row comes as China failed on Monday to block the first-ever UN Security Council meeting on North Korea's dismal rights record after a strong majority of members voted in favor of it.

North Korea has limited Internet access, available only to trusted government officials.

Networks under duress

Its main Internet presence is through its Uriminzokkiri website, which has Twitter and Flickr feeds and is best known for posting propaganda videos excoriating South Korea and the United States.

On Monday the website was slow to load, and then eventually just timed out.

A graph by Dyn appeared to show that from around 2200 GMT Sunday to 1000 GMT Monday the number of unstable networks seen in North Korea dramatically increased.

"Their networks are under duress," Madory told the New York Times.

"This is consistent with a DDoS attack on their routers," he said, a reference to a "distributed denial of service" attack in which attackers flood a network until it collapses under the strain.

Obama had vowed a "proportional" response, saying he saw the attack as an act of "cyber vandalism" not a declaration of war.

But US officials have been tight-lipped about exactly what action they will take, and Harf refused to confirm reports that North Korea's cyberspace was under attack.

The US administration is "discussing a range of options" in response to the Sony hacking, she said.

"As we implement our responses, some will be seen, some may not be seen," she said.

Washington has urged Beijing -- Pyongyang's closest ally -- to help rein in the North's cyber hacking activities, with US Secretary of State John Kerry speaking with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi over the weekend to discuss the problem.

"Despite our differences, I would say on this or other issues, we have affirmed that malicious cyber activity like this attack can pose a risk to international peace and security," Harf told reporters.

In Beijing, a foreign ministry statement on Monday said the country "opposes cyber attacks and cyber terrorism in all of its forms," without referring directly to North Korea.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Obama says Sony hack was not 'an act of war'

WASHINGTON, United States - North Korea's alleged hack of Sony Pictures was not an act of war, President Barack Obama said in an interview aired Sunday, as Pyongyang threatened reprisals if targeted with sanctions.

Obama's Republican critics have accused North Korea of waging "cyber warfare" by targeting Sony, urging the president to respond robustly to the crisis.

Obama, however, said that while his administration was planning a "proportionate" response, the hack of Sony was an act of "cyber vandalism" rather than war.

"I don't think it was an act of war. I think it was an act of cyber vandalism that was very costly, very expensive. We take it very seriously," Obama told CNN.

Obama did not elaborate on what action the US government may take but said Washington could review whether or not to put North Korea back onto its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

North Korea was removed from the US list in 2008 as part of negotiations over the nation's nuclear program.

Obama, in the pre-taped interview on CNN's "State of the Union," emphasized however that any change in that status could only happen after a careful evaluation of the facts.

"We've got very clear criteria as to what it means for a state to sponsor terrorism. And we don't make those judgments just based on the news of the day," Obama said.

"We look systematically at what's been done and based on those facts, we'll make those determinations in the future," he added.

'New form of warfare'

Obama faced fresh calls from Republican critics on Sunday to target North Korea with stiff sanctions.

"It's more than vandalism, it's a new form of warfare that we're involved in and we need to react and react vigorously, including reimposing sanctions," said US Senator John McCain, the incoming chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Washington accuses Pyongyang of being behind the hack at Sony that led to the release of embarrassing emails and caused executives to halt the debut of the madcap comedy action film "The Interview."

The film about a fictional CIA plot to kill the country's leader infuriated North Korea, although Pyongyang has repeatedly denied it was behind the cyber-assault on Sony.

North Korea on Saturday called for a joint probe into the investigation with the United States into the hacking -- an offer swiftly rebuffed by security officials in Washington.

North Korea threatened Sunday to hit back at the White House and other US targets if it was sanctioned over the alleged hacking.

The North's National Defense Commission, in a statement on the official news agency, said its army and people "are fully ready to stand in confrontation with the US in all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels,"

"Our toughest counteraction will be boldly taken against the White House, the Pentagon and the whole US mainland, the cesspool of terrorism, by far surpassing the 'symmetric counteraction' declared by Obama," it said.

The North, which has in the past made statements threatening the US mainland, accused the Obama administration of being "deeply involved" in the making of the "The Interview" at the center of the Sony hacking.

It again praised the "righteous action" by the hacking group, which has styled itself Guardians of Peace, but said it was unaware where they were based.

The FBI has cited "significant overlap" between the attack and other "malicious cyber-activity" with direct links to Pyongyang, including an attack on South Korean banks blamed on the North.

The North said in Sunday's statement it has never attempted or made a cyber-attack on South Korea.

"It is common sense that the method of cyber warfare is almost similar worldwide," it added.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

S.Korea to pull all workers from industrial zone in North

SEOUL - South Korea will pull out all remaining workers from a jointly run industrial zone in North Korea, it said on Friday, after Pyongyang rejected a call for formal talks to end a standoff that led to operations being suspended.

The decision to remove about 170 people from the Kaesong factory park located just north of the armed border deepens a conflict between the two Koreas and puts at risk their last remaining channel of exchange that resulted from their breakthrough 2000 summit and a bid to improve ties.

The two Koreas remain technically at war under a mere truce that ended hostilities in their 1950-53 conflict and North Korea, angry at U.N. sanctions and joint South Korean-U.S. military drills, has threatened both countries with nuclear attack in recent weeks.

"Because our nationals remaining in the Kaesong industrial zone are experiencing greater difficulties due to the North's unjust actions, the government has come to the unavoidable decision to bring back all remaining personnel in order to protect their safety," South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae said.

The North withdrew its 53,000 workers from the complex this month amid spiralling tension between the two Koreas. The North has prevented South Korean workers and supplies from getting in to the zone since April 3.

Impoverished North Korea rejected the proposal of talks, saying the South has acted in an "unpardonable" manner to jeopardize a "precious" legacy of the rivals' bid to seek peace.

The North's National Defence Commission, its supreme leadership body, repeated that what it saw as the reckless behaviour of the South had thrown into question the safety of the zone's operations.

The Kaesong project opened in 2004 as part of a so-called sunshine policy of engagement and optimism between the two Koreas, and 123 South Korean companies produced clothing, household goods and motorcycle helmets employing local workers.

The zone was a lucrative source of cash for the North, providing it with almost $90 million a year. South Korean manufacturers have been paying about $130 a month to North Korea for each of the workers they employed.

On Thursday, South Korea made the proposal for formal talks as the South Korean workers who remained at the zone were believed to be running out of food and other supplies. It had demanded an answer from the North by Friday.

The number of South Koreans in the zone has dwindled from the 700 or so normally needed to keep the factories running to about 170, seen as the minimum number needed to safeguard assets at the 1 trillion won ($894.73 million) park.

North Korea stepped up defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions in December when it launched a rocket that it said had put a scientific satellite into orbit. Critics said the launch was aimed at developing technology to deliver a nuclear warhead mounted on a long-range missile.

The North followed that in February with its third test of a nuclear weapon. That brought new U.N. sanctions which in turn led to a dramatic intensification of North Korea's threats of nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com