A Korean woman is very lucky to be alive after being rescued by the French military in Burkina Faso:
French special forces have rescued a Korean, two French and an American tourist after a military operation in Burkina Faso. The four have been held captive by an armed gang in the West African country located in the Sahel area which has recently seen a rise in violence by al Qaeda- and Islamic State-linked militants. Kim Bum-soo has more.
Report:
[Sound bite: Florence Parly – French Minister of the Armed Forces (French)] “The freed hostages will be able to find their freedom and their loved ones again.”
French special forces have rescued four hostages, including two of its own citizens, a South Korean and an American, from a militant group in Burkina Faso.
The French military announced on Friday that two of its commandos lost their lives during the operation in the West African country. It said four terrorists were killed while two escaped during combat.
You can read more at the link, but Burkina Faso is under a travel alert to South Koreans because of the Islamic militants. I wonder if this Korean woman was a missionary?
It seems selling weapons to various countries in Africa is a major money maker for the Kim regime,
North Korean ceremonial head of state Kim Yong-nam arrives in Uganda.
North Korean weapons barred by U.N. sanctions ended up in the hands of U.N. peacekeepers in Africa, a confidential report says. That incident and others in more than a half-dozen African nations show how North Korea, despite facing its toughest sanctions in decades, continues to avoid them on the world’s most impoverished continent with few repercussions.
The annual report by a U.N. panel of experts on North Korea, obtained by The Associated Press, illustrates how Pyongyang evades sanctions imposed for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs to cooperate “on a large scale,” including military training and construction, in countries from Angola to Uganda.
Among the findings was the “largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions” against North Korea, with 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades found hidden under iron ore that was destined for Egypt in a cargo vessel heading toward the Suez Canal. The intended destination of the North Korean-made grenades, seized in August, was not clear.
A month before that, the report says, a U.N. member state seized an air shipment destined for a company in Eritrea containing military radio communications items. It was the second time military-related items had been caught being exported from North Korea to Eritrea “and confirms ongoing arms-related cooperation between the two countries.” Eritrea is also under U.N. sanctions for supporting armed groups in the Horn of Africa.
Discovering such evasions is challenging because Africa has the world’s lowest rate of reporting on monitoring U.N. sanctions on North Korea. Just 11 of its 54 countries turned in reports to the panel of experts last year, the U.N. report says.
“African enforcement tends to be lax,” Marcus Noland, an expert on North Korea at the Petersen Institute for International Economics, wrote last month, adding that “North Korea may deliberately target African countries as a circumvention strategy.” He said North Korea’s long military involvement in Africa, and its growing interest in trade there to reduce its deep dependence on China, “bring the continent’s relationship with North Korea into increasing conflict with tightening U.N. sanctions.” [Associated Press]
You can read the rest at the link, but it may be time to start actively targeting these countries doing arms deals with North Korea with financial sanctions as well.
Considering the few friends Pyongyang has this is a big diplomatic win by South Korea by getting Uganda to enforce the United Nations sanctions against North Korea:
Uganda has told North Korean military and police personnel stationed there to go home, according to multiple diplomatic sources.
One diplomatic source told the JoongAng Ilbo that President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda asked about 10 North Korean military training officials and another group of 40 police personnel stationed there to leave the country. No deadline was specified by the source.
Another source said Museveni had diplomatically told the North Koreans that his government no longer required their aid and cooperation in the field of national security and military strategy. Both sources asked not to be named, given the classified nature of the information.
If true, Museveni’s decision to drive North Koreans out of his country comes just a week after he promised visiting South Korean President Park Geun-hye that he would honor UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea approved in March, which bars Pyongyang from having any military links with foreign countries, including weapons trade and training deals. The South Korean government estimates about 50 North Korean military and police training officials were staying in Uganda as of February 2016. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
A South Korean health care worker in Ebola-hit Sierra Leone left for Germany over a possible contraction of the highly contagious virus, South Korean officials said Saturday.
The evacuation by Phoenix Air, a U.S. air ambulance company, came after the worker was determined to be at risk of exposure to the virus while collecting blood from an Ebola patient, according to South Korean officials.
The health care worker’s left index finger “touched” a needle through a partly ripped glove. The worker did not sustain any external injuries and has not shown symptoms of infection such as fever or vomiting, they said.
Still, the health care worker will be closely monitored in an isolated unit at the unspecified hospital for up to 21 days, the maximum incubation period for the virus, they said.
The health care worker is one of the 10-strong medical team members sent by South Korea to an Ebola clinic built by Britain in Goderich, near Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown.
South Korea has reached preliminary deals with Europe and the United States to evacuate its health care workers from West Africa to Europe for treatment if they contract the virus.
Despite the evacuation, South Korea plans to send 20 other medical workers in coming months to the West African country. [Yonhap]
It will be interesting to see who is going to get deployed to do this mission, but this shows the US government must be very concerned that the ebola outbreak could get much worse to deploy this many personnel to try and stop its spread:
Amid criticism that the U.S. has not done enough to block the spread of the Ebola virus across West Africa, President Barack Obama will announce a “significantly ramped up” campaign Tuesday that relies heavily on the U.S. military, senior administration officials said.
The Defense Department will work with local governments to plan and build 17 new Ebola treatment units, for a total of 1,700 new beds, while military medical staff will begin training a target of 500 health care providers per week in care and prevention of the lethal virus, an official said.
The scaled-up effort, along with current programs, will be run through a U.S. joint command center to be set up in Monrovia, Liberia, the country facing the most troubling transmission rate, officials said.
Pentagon officials expected the command center to eventually oversee about 3,000 military personnel on the ground handling logistics, engineering, distribution of supplies, and coordination with other government agencies and international organizations, one official said. [Stars & Stripes]
