North Korea detains 3rd US citizen: Report

North Korea has detained another US citizen, bringing to 3 the number of Americans held in the country amid increasing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.

The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang Sunday confirmed the detainment of the US citizen but did not elaborate on the matter.

However, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency, citing unnamed sources, reported on the same day that a Korean-American man had been arrested Friday at Pyongyang's international airport.

According to the agency, the man in his fifties, identified only by his surname Kim, was trying to leave the country when North Korean police arrested him.

Kim has been involved in aid and relief programs to North Korea and formerly worked as professor at the Yanbian University of Science and Technology in China, which has a sister university in Pyongyang.

The report, however, was not confirmed by South Korea's Unification Ministry or its intelligence agency.

North Korea has at least two other Americans in its prisons.

Last year in January, Otto Warmbier (pictured below), who was 21 at the time of his arrest, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in prison after he confessed to trying to steal a propaganda banner.

North Korea court sentences US student

Also in March 2016, Korean-American Kim Dong-chul (pictured below), 62, was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage.

North Korea arrested US missionary Kenneth Bae (pictured below) in 2012 and sentenced him to 15 years for crimes against the state, but then released him 2 years later.

The new arrest came as tensions have increased between North Korea and the US in recent weeks. The US has been unnerved by the North advancing missile and nuclear programs and has dispatched a military strike group to the Korean peninsula. Pyongyang has said it is ready for war.

Comments

Iran, Turkey, Qatar mull land route amid Saudi crisis

Turkey seeks to establish a land route via Iran for trade with Qatar which has relied on both countries for sourcing food since a diplomatic crisis broke out with Saudi Arabia. Turkish Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci on Saturday was in Tehran where he was expected to discuss using Iran’s land route to facilitate trade with Qatar, Anadolu quoted him as saying. "We're thinking about alternatives for land trade routes with Qatar but the easiest way is passing through Iran," Zeybekci said, according to the news agency. He traveled to Tehran to attend the swearing-in of President Hassan Rouhani along with delegates from around the world. It was not immediately clear who was representing Qatar in the ceremony. Turkey has used a land, air and sea blockade imposed on Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to flood the tiny peninsula in the Persian Gulf with its goods but Zeybekci said using cargo planes to carry products was no...

China punishes thousands over misuse of govt. funds

China has punished 8,123 people for committing fiscal violations after an audit of how the government's 2016 central budget was spent revealed multiple problems, the Xinhua state news agency reported. Hu Zejun, head of the National Audit Office, announced the infringements while briefing lawmakers on Saturday, Xinhua said. A broad anti-graft campaign in China, aimed at rooting out deep-seated corruption in the ruling Communist Party, including the misuse or embezzlement of government funds, has ensnared more than 1.3 million officials. Hu said that of the offenders, 970 were punished for misusing funds earmarked for a poverty relief campaign intended to lift everyone in rural areas out of poverty by 2020. Another 1,363 were punished for irregularities in the use of funds meant to provide affordable housing, she said. She said 800 people in state-owned enterprises and 73 people in eight major banks were found to have committed violations, along with 505 people who...

38 dead, 92,000 left homeless by Niger floods

Recent heavy floods in Niger have killed more than three dozen people and left tens of thousands of others homeless, a United Nations (UN) report says. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report on Wednesday that, since June, at least 38 people had lost their lives and more than 92,000 had been made homeless as a result of torrential rains and heavy downpours in the West African country. The Nigerien government had put the number of fatalities at 14 before new flooding in August. The OCHA, citing government figures, also noted that more than 9,000 homes had been destroyed and more than 26,000 heads of livestock lost. Over 50,000 people had received aid from NGOs and many of the homeless had been sheltering in schools and public buildings, it added. The Nigerien National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) issued a warning last month, advising residents along the Niger River to evacuate immediately to safer ground over the likelihood of...

True News

Search This Blog