I feel bad for the families effected by this, but once again these people only have themselves to blame for being detained and governments should not feel compelled to get them released when their own stupidity by traveling to North Korea in first place is the cause for what happened:
Canada’s government has confirmed that a Canadian pastor has been detained in North Korea, the man’s family said Thursday.
Canadian officials told the family that North Korea’s government confirmed the detention of Reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, said Lisa Pak, a spokeswoman for the family and the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Pak said Lim is facing charges but could not say what they are.
Pak said Lim was supposed to return from a humanitarian trip to North Korea more than a month ago. He has not been heard from since he travelled to North Korea on Jan. 31 as part of a regular humanitarian mission where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage, she said. [Associated Press]
Like I said before when this plan was first hatched if the North Koreans allow this to happen there is some kind of propaganda value for them effectively making these people useful idiots for the Kim regime:
Organizers of WomenCrossDMZ.org, including lead coordinator Christine Ahn, left, and honorary co-chair Gloria Steinem, right, hold a UN press conference announcing plans fro rare walk. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Gloria Steinem and 30 other women including two Nobel peace laureates have announced plans for a rare walk across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to call for reunification.
The DMZ is the world’s most fortified border, with the two countries still technically at war. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers face off across the heavily mined zone.
Organizers of the effort called WomenCrossDMZ.org said on Wednesday they hope for 30 women to cross from North Korea to South Korea on May 24, which is International Women’s Day for Disarmament.
The walk also marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula.
The women say they are still seeking approval from both countries and the United Nations. [The Guardian]
You can read more at the link, but why is there an International Women’s Day for Disarmament?
North Korea’s slave labor network has been operating for decades, but South Korea has no right to complain about it considering the near slave labor they are using at the Kaesong Industrial Complex:
A construction site in Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is one of 40 countries where North Korean laborers are dispatched to work and earn cash for the North Korean regime. UPI Photo/Norbert Schiller
North Korea’s massive network of slave laborers is kept under strict surveillance and in case of injury or death are cheated of their compensation by the North Korean state, a South Korean NGO said Tuesday.
The report, based on interviews with 20 North Korean defectors in South Korea, highlighted severe human rights violations and wage exploitation that occurred at work sites in a total of 40 different Asian and African countries, The Korea Times reported.
Poland was the sole European nation that allowed North Koreans to work within its borders. Seoul’s foreign ministry estimates 50,000 North Korean nationals work at state-sanctioned sites.
One North Korean defector testified how the North Korean state cheated a family of its benefits after a construction worker fell to his death from a building in Kuwait. Of the $160,400 in compensation, the family of the victim received only $2,000.
Defectors who worked at sites in Russia said for every $100 earned, $90 would go to the state.
These workers were forced to work 15 hours a day. Even as temperatures reached below freezing, one defector said they were only given “one thin uniform” The Korea Times reported. [UPI]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) tours a nursing home for seniors in Pyongyang. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported it on March 6, 2015, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. Circled is Yo-jong, Kim’s younger sister. (KCNA-Yonhap)
South Korea and the United States plan to stage a joint landing drill here late this month, with three U.S. amphibious ships participating, officers said Wednesday.
Starting at the end of this month, the Marine Corps and the navies of the two nations are scheduled to hold the annual landing drill of Ssangyong in South Korea’s southern port city of Pohang “to boost capabilities of conducting the full spectrum of a combined arms, amphibious landing operation,” a military officer said.
Though the exact scale of the planned exercise is not known, officers say some 1,000 U.S. Marines and 3,000 South Koreans are to take part in the drill, which is expected to last less than a week, together with the three U.S. amphibious vessels.
“The U.S. plans to send the 25,000-ton USS Green Bay transport dock, the 41,000-ton USS Bonhomme Richard assault ship and the 15,000-ton USS Ashland dock landing ship for the exercise,” another officer said.
The Green Bay, which takes on the design for stealth capabilities, is able to deliver a fully equipped battalion of 800 Marines. It is the first time that the San Antonio-class ship has taken part in the joint drill. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I would like to see the anti-US leftists try and stab these guys like they did the US ambassador.
With the repeal of the adultery law in South Korea, this has opened the door to the reopening of the Ashley Madison website that is used by people looking to have an affair:
A Canada-based website facilitating extra-marital affairs among its clientele is back in business in South Korea, authorities said Tuesday, in what seems to be a quick move after the country’s top court abolished a decades-old anti-adultery law late last month.
Ashley Madison, an online dating site which hooks up married individuals as well as singles, has resumed service for local customers under a new domain, www.ashleymadison.co.kr, the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), the local watchdog for online materials said.
The controversial website, operating in more than 20 countries worldwide, first began its service here last year, luring customers with aggressive marketing until the KCSC banned the site in April, citing the demoralizing nature of the business.
The KCSC, however, lifted the ban on Ashley Madison on Tuesday, following the decision by the Constitutional Court to repeal the anti-adultery law on Feb. 26. [Korea Herald]
I can understand the ROK government’s viewpoint on this, but if the activists do not get media attention for their activities then they will have a hard time receiving support to sustain their operations:
South Korea expressed concern Tuesday over civic groups’ plans to publicly send leaflets to North Korea, indicating that it will try to block them.
Days ago, a group of civic groups announced their plan to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets to North Korea on March 26, the fifth anniversary of the North’s torpedoing of a South Korean Navy ship in March 2010.
Civic groups involved in the leaflet campaign have often pre-announced their campaigns so their activities could draw media and social attention. Such campaigns intended to spread dissenting messages, however, often lead to wild indignation and military reaction from Pyongyang.
“Believing that spreading leaflets publicly is not right, the government has been urging prudent and wise decisions (from civic groups),” a unification ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “I think there needs to be expression of such a government stance through whatever means, including person-to-person contact.”
Still, scattering leaflets basically falls in the sphere of a constitutionally given right to free expression, which the government cannot regulate with force, the official said. [Yonhap]
\
