South Korea
Seoul: North Korea fires 2 ballistic missiles off east coast
North Korea fired two ballistic missiles off its east coast on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said, two days after the North claimed to have tested a new missile in its first weapons test in six months.
The two ballistic missiles launched from a site in central North Korea flew toward the waters of the Korean Peninsula’s east coast on Wednesday afternoon, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The statement said South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities are analyzing more details about the North Korean launches. It said South Korea has boosted its anti-North Korea surveillance posture.
Read:North Korea says it tested new long-range cruise missiles
Japan’s coast guard confirmed the missiles both landed outside Japanese Exclusive Economic Zone in the waters between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. No ships or aircraft reported damage, the Coast Guard said.
North Korea said Monday it tested a newly developed cruise missile twice over the weekend. North Korea’s state media described the missile as a “strategic weapon of great significance,” implying they were developed with the intent to arm them with nuclear warheads. According to North Korean accounts, the missile flew about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles), a distance that is capable of reaching all of Japan and U.S. military installations there.
Many experts say the North Korean test suggested North Korea is pushing to bolster its weapons arsenal amid a deadlock in nuclear diplomacy between Pyongyang and Washington.
The latest launch came as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Seoul for meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and other senior officials to discuss the stalled nuclear diplomacy with the North.
Talks between the United States and North Korea have stalled since 2019, when the Americans rejected the North’s demand for major sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling an aging nuclear facility. Kim’s government has so far threatened to build high-tech weapons targeting the United States and rejected the Biden administration’s overtures for dialogue, demanding that Washington abandon its “hostile” policies first.
Read: Leaders of North Korea, China vow to strengthen ties
The North’s resumption of testing activity is likely an attempt at pressuring the Biden administration over the diplomatic freeze after Kim failed to leverage his arsenal for economic benefits during the presidency of Donald Trump.
North Korea ended a yearlong pause in ballistic tests in March by firing two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea, continuing a tradition of testing new U.S. administrations with weapons demonstrations aimed at measuring Washington’s response and wresting concessions.
North Korea still maintains a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile tests, a sign that it may not want to completely scuttle the nuclear negotiations with the United States.
In Seoul center, N Korean defectors find solace with locals
A small group of North Korean defectors gather at a sleek seven-story building in Seoul. Together with South Korean residents, they play the accordion, make ornaments and learn how to grow plants. Later, some go out for coffee.
“South and North Koreans gather here, smile and talk to each other. They ask each other about their pasts. Some (South Koreans) say their parents also originally came from North Korea,” said Ko Jeong Hee, 60, a defector who teaches accordion at the Inter-Korean Cultural Integration Center. “The atmosphere is really good here.”
The center, which opened last year, is South Korea’s first government-run facility to bring together North Korean defectors and local residents to get to know each other through cultural activities and fun. It’s meant to support defectors’ often difficult resettlement in the South, but also aims at studying the possible blending of the rivals’ cultures should they unify.
Unification is a cherished part of the political rhetoric of both Koreas, but the difficulties of creating a single Korea comprised of the fantastically rich and successful South and the poor, authoritarian North make the reality of such a plan deeply complicated.
Read:Leaders of North Korea, China vow to strengthen ties
A Korean unification in the near future seems highly unlikely. The North, despite decades of poverty and mistrust of the outside world, is not politically unstable, and there have been no meaningful recent talks on unification between the Koreas.
Exchange programs between the Koreas — singers, art troupes and basketball matches — are frozen in the midst of a dispute over North Korea’s continued accumulation of nuclear weapons. There are also questions over just how useful the center will be, and whether many defectors, suffering economic hardship, will join in events that offer no chance of profit.
About 34,000 North Koreans have resettled in South Korea after fleeing poverty and political oppression at home, mostly in the last 20 years or so. That’s about 0.06% of South Korea’s 52 million people. Upon their arrival in South Korea, defectors are given citizenship, apartments, resettlement money, three months of social orientation courses and other benefits.
But they come from an extremely repressive, nominally socialist country whose estimated nominal gross domestic product was only one-54th of South Korea’s in 2019. Many are often discriminated against in the South and struggle to adjust to their new brutally competitive, capitalistic lives.
Last year, official data showed defectors’ monthly average wage was about 80% of South Koreans’. They stuck with a job for 31.6 months on average, less than half the time spent by South Koreans; and their school dropout rate was nearly three times higher. A 2019 survey showed only 9.4% of South Korean respondents would accept defectors marrying into their families.
The plight of defectors in the South raises questions about what would happen if South Korea had to handle a sudden influx of North Korea’s 26 million people in the event of a unification on South Korean terms.
“This country has been unable to embrace those who voluntarily flee North Korea, but many are shouting for an integration of South and North Koreans and a unification,” said defector Son Jung Hoon, who worked as a human rights activist in South Korea for years. “That’s hypocrisy.”
Even the center’s establishment has been contentious. Its opening was delayed for several years because of protests by local residents, who worried it would tarnish their neighborhood’s image and lower housing prices. Center officials say there are no such complaints any longer.
Churches and civic groups have previously offered activities involving defectors, often enticing them with cash. They included a chorus, camping trips and soccer games with South Korea-born residents. But Kang Woo-jun, a university profession who is in charge some programs at the government center, said that facility doesn’t offer money but is pushing to give defectors high-quality classes.
Read: NKorea’s Kim vows to boost China ties amid pandemic hardship
“Cultural integration is much more difficult and requires a longer time than a political and institutional unification,” Unification Minister Lee In-young said recently. “Even though South and North Korea, living separated for about 70 years, becoming one is a long, treacherous journey, we must not stop it. It’s a journey that we have to go on together. That’s the reason why the Inter-Korean Cultural Integration Center exists.”
Built in a quiet residential neighborhood in western Seoul, the center isn’t well-known to the general public. COVID 19-related restrictions have largely forced it to offer more than half of its programs online and limit the number of in-person participants to less than 10. On Monday, its in-person programs were suspended or switched online amid a viral resurgence in Seoul.
During a recent visit to the center by Associated Press journalists, four female defectors and a South Korean man, all wearing masks, played the accordion, with Ko, the instructor, helping them.
Yu Hwa-suk, 57, fled to the South in 2015, and said she wants to achieve her childhood dream of becoming an accordionist.
“(South Korean) participants have a huge interest in North Koreans so we felt an intimacy with them,” Yu said, adding that she and others often dine out after their class.
In a craft class, four defectors and three South Koreans, all women, appeared a bit uncomfortable with each other, saying they haven’t had any meaningful conversations.
Song Hyo Eun, a 39-year-old South Korean, said she wouldn’t ask defectors about their lives in North Korea because it might involve a sore subject like their relatives left behind. Two defectors in their 70s said they worry South Koreans might have negative views about defectors.
Authorities should use various local facilities to integrate defectors living around South Korea, rather than establishing one big center in a certain area, said Kim Whasoon, an expert at a research institute at Seoul’s Sungkonghoe University.
Many defectors eke out a living and have been paid for attending cultural events in the past, said Kim Jong Kun, a professor at Seoul’s Kunkuk University. Because of this, Kim said, “I don’t think they want to gather with South Koreans just to learn calligraphy and musical instruments or sing a song.”
Read:North Korea’s Kim berates officials for ‘grave’ virus lapse
Some defectors and South Koreans also view unification differently.
Park Seong Hee, 50, a South Korean instructor in the craft class, said she hopes for a gradual process. “If we are unified, I think North Koreans would all come down to South Korea and disrupt the order that we’ve established,” she said.
Yu, the defector, wept as she spoke of unification as a way to rejoin her relatives and teach them what she’s learned in South Korea.
“Frankly speaking, I sometimes want to go back home,” Yu said. “When I lived in North Korea, I thought I would be happy if I was well-off. But after coming here, I’ve realized that being happy means being with the people I miss.”
Delwar Hossain next Bangladesh Ambassador to South Korea
The government has appointed Md. Delwar Hossain, currently serving as the Director General of Myanmar Wing in the Ministry, as the next Ambassador of Bangladesh to the Republic of Korea.
Hossain is a career foreign service officer belonging to the 17th batch of Bangladesh Civil Service (BCS) Foreign Affairs cadre.
Read: Abida Islam new Bangladesh Ambassador to Mexico
He served in various capacities in Bangladesh Missions in Paris, Tripoli, Thimphu and Beijing in his distinguished diplomatic career, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday.
At the headquarters, he worked for multiple Wings in different capacities.
Hossain obtained his MBA from IBA, Dhaka University and B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from Khulna University of Engineering & Technology.
He also earned a diploma in International Relations from the International Institute of Public Administration in Paris, France.
NKorea’s Kim vows to boost China ties amid pandemic hardship
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Thursday he’ll push to further upgrade relations with China, his main ally, as he struggles to navigate his country out of a deepening crisis linked to the pandemic.
Kim made the comments in a message to Chinese President Xi Jinping congratulating him on the 100th founding anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
“The Workers’ Party of Korea, by its firm unity with the Chinese Communist Party, would raise (North Korea)-China friendship to a new strategic point as required by the times and as desired by the peoples of the two countries,” Kim was quoted as saying.
Read:North Korea’s Kim berates officials for ‘grave’ virus lapse
In an apparent reference to the United States, Kim said that “hostile forces’ vicious slander and all-round pressure upon the Chinese Communist Party are no more than a last-ditch attempt and they can never check the ongoing advance of the Chinese people,” according to KCNA.
Kim’s message came a day after state media said he had told a powerful Politburo meeting that a “crucial” lapse in the anti-virus campaign has caused a “great crisis.” He did not elaborate, but there was speculation that Kim may have aimed to raise a call for international assistance, including vaccine shipments.
Read:North Korea's Kim vows to be ready for confrontation with US
North Korea maintains some of the world’s toughest anti-virus measures, including 1 ½ years of border shutdowns, despite its much questionable claim to be coronavirus free. Such draconian steps have devastated its already struggling economy, and Kim has said before his country faces the “worst-ever” situation. It’s unclear when North Korea would reopen its border with China, and so far, there are no reports that it has received any vaccines.
More than 90% of North Korea’s trade goes through China, which has long been suspected of refusing to fully implement U.N. sanctions against North Korea imposed over its nuclear weapons programs. Experts say China worries about a collapse and chaos in North Korea because it doesn’t want refugees flooding over the long border and a pro-U.S., unified Korea on its doorstep.
Read: State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
On Wednesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin held out the possibility of sending assistance to North Korea.
“China and the DPRK have a long tradition of helping each other when they encounter difficulties,” Wang said, referring to the North by the initials of its official name. “If necessary, China will actively consider providing assistance to the DPRK.”
North Korea’s Kim berates officials for ‘grave’ virus lapse
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un berated senior ruling party and government officials for their failures in the fight against the coronavirus, which created a “huge crisis” for the country, state media reported.
The alleged “grave incident” in North Korea’s pandemic fight was not specified in the report Wednesday from the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea has claimed to have had no cases of coronavirus infections throughout the pandemic, despite testing thousands of people and sharing a porous border with its ally and economic lifeline China, where the first COVID-19 cases were confirmed in late 2019.
Read:North Korea's Kim vows to be ready for confrontation with US
KCNA said Kim made the comments during a Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party that he called to discuss the anti-virus failures. It said Kim criticized senior officials for supposed incompetence, irresponsibility and passiveness in planning and executing anti-virus measures amid a lengthening pandemic.
“In neglecting important decisions by the party that called for organizational, material and science and technological measures to support prolonged anti-epidemic work in face of a global health crisis, the officials in charge have caused a grave incident that created a huge crisis for the safety of the country and its people,” the KCNA paraphrased Kim as saying.
Read: State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
While North Korea has told the World Health Organization it has not found a single coronavirus infection after testing more than 30,000 people, experts widely doubt its claim of a perfect record, considering the country’s poor health infrastructure and ties to China.
From the start of the pandemic, North Korea described its anti-virus efforts as a “matter of national existence,” banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed cross-border traffic and trade. The lockdown has further strained an economy already battered by decades of mismanagement and crippling U.S.-led sanctions over the country’s nuclear weapons program.
Read: China: US should push North Korea diplomacy, not pressure
Kim during a political conference earlier this month called for officials to brace for prolonged COVID-19 restrictions, indicating that the country isn’t ready to open its borders anytime soon despite its economic woes.
The North’s extended border controls come amid uncertainties over the country’s vaccination prospects. COVAX, the U.N.-backed program to ship COVID-19 vaccines worldwide, said in February that the North could receive 1.9 million doses in the first half of the year, but the plans have been delayed due to global shortages.
US envoy hopes N. Korea responds positively on offered talks
President Joe Biden’s special envoy for North Korea said Monday he hopes to see a positive reaction from the North soon on U.S. offers for talks after the North Korean leader ordered officials to prepare for both dialogue and confrontation.
Read:North Korea's Kim vows to be ready for confrontation with US
Sung Kim, Biden’s special representative for North Korea, is in Seoul to speak with South Korean and Japanese officials about the U.S.’s stalled diplomacy with the North over its nuclear program and U.S.-led sanctions.
The trilateral talks followed a North Korean political conference last week where leader Kim Jong Un called for stronger efforts to improve his nation’s economy, further battered last year by pandemic border closures and now facing worsening food shortages.
After his meeting with senior South Korean diplomat Noh Kyu-duk, the U.S. envoy Sung Kim said the allies took note of the North Korean leader’s comments and are hoping the North will give a “positive response to our proposal for a meeting soon.”
Read:State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
Sung Kim spoke later with Noh and Japanese nuclear envoy Takehiro Funakoshi over the stalled push to resolve the nuclear standoff with North Korea. “South Korea and the U.S will maintain close cooperation to keep the situation in the Korean Peninsula stable and find a way to resume the dialogue with North Korea as soon as possible,” Sung Kim told reporters.
North Korea’s economic setbacks followed the collapse of Kim Jong Un’s ambitious summitry with then-President Donald Trump in 2019, when the Americans rejected the North Koreans’ demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a partial surrender of their nuclear capabilities.
Kim Jong Un in recent political speeches has threatened to bolster his nuclear deterrent and claimed that the fate of diplomacy and bilateral relations depends on whether Washington abandons what he calls hostile policies.
Read: NKorean leader calls for meeting to review battered economy
U.S. officials have suggested Biden would take the middle ground between Trump’s direct dealings with Kim and President Barack Obama’s policy of “strategic patience.” But some experts say the North likely must take concrete steps toward denuclearization before the Biden administration would ease any sanctions.
Korean envoy seeks jabs for all foreign investors in Bangladesh
All foreign investors and business people working in Bangladesh should get equal treatment under the country’s Covid-19 vaccination program, South Korean Ambassador in Dhaka Lee Jang-keun said on Wednesday.
Ambassador Lee said this will be in line with the government’s policy to promote business-friendly environment.
Read: Korea to provide $700 mn of EDCF loan to Bangladesh
He hoped that all foreign investors will be eligible for vaccinations as soon as the vaccine supply becomes normal in Bangladesh.
Speaking at a virtual discussion, the ambassador pointed out that despite the growth of overall trade volume, bilateral trade between Dhaka and Seoul has remained static at $1.7 billion for the past decade.
In order to realize the full bilateral commercial potentials he called for fostering a business-friendly environment, including addressing the challenges in tax and tariff policy, repatriation of profit, and streamlining administrative procedures.
The Embassy of Bangladesh in Seoul hosted the virtual discussion on “Bangladesh and ROK: Trade and Investment Opportunities”.
Read:S Korea pledges $200mn to provide vaccines in lower-income countries
S Korea pledges $200mn to provide vaccines in lower-income countries
South Korean President Moon Jae-in has said his country will provide $200 million in aid through next year for equitable access of COVID-19 vaccines in lower-income countries.
President Moon, during a plenary session on health during a Group of Seven Summit, vowed to offer $100 million in grants this year.
Another $100 million will be given next year to the COVAX Advance Market Commitment, a financing framework made to have COVID-19 vaccines available at lower cost than usual in more than 90 developing countries with comparatively low incomes.
Read: Korea supports strengthening digital investigation capability of Bangladesh Police
Moon was invited to attend the summit as a guest alongside his counterparts from Australia, India and South Africa, according to The Korea Herald.
Moon attended the plenary session with other guests to join the leaders of G-7 members, as well as chiefs of the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
The presidential office said the commitment will spur South Korea’s role as a global vaccine hub while it seeks partnerships with other G-7 nations.
Participants including Moon also discussed ways to cooperate on creating global public health governance and increase support for equitable medical access to nations to prepare for future public health threats, Moon’s office added.
During his visit, Moon also met with Pascal Soriot, executive director and CEO of the Britain-based AstraZeneca, to reaffirm the importance of continued cooperation in global production and supply of COVID-19 vaccines.
In the 27-minute long meeting, Moon pledged to actively cooperate with the international community to ensure enough COVID-19 vaccines are provided globally, according to the presidential office.
Read: As summit ends, G-7 urged to deliver on vaccines, climate
Cheong Wae Dae said Moon thanked Soriot for his company’s active role in the COVID-19 outbreak, saying its vaccine has been a core part of Korea’s vaccination campaign that kicked off in February. Korea aims to complete vaccination of 14 million people by the end of this month.
“AstraZeneca’s vaccine is unique for us in that it the first (COVID-19) vaccine inoculated in South Korea and is the most used vaccine,” Moon was quoted as saying.
“Koreans could receive the vaccine with relief as it was produced locally with SK’s technology transfer. This has also played an important first step for Korea to become a global vaccine production hub.”
More than 60 percent of those who have received their first jabs here were ones developed by the British pharmaceutical firm.
As of Saturday’s end, close to 8 million people in Korea have gotten their first COVID-19 shots from AstraZeneca, followed by 3.26 million from Pfizer.
Read: UK to donate 100 mn coronavirus vaccine doses
SK Group subsidiary SK Bioscience has been producing AstraZeneca’s vaccine domestically through a contract manufacturing deal.
Moon also asked Soriot to provide continued support so as to ensure a steady supply of its vaccines for the latter half of the year, Moon’s office said.
The AstraZeneca CEO also expressed appreciation for Korea’s role in the COVAX facility, as vaccines produced in the country have been provided to 75 nations within the coalition, the office added.
Asia welcomes US vaccine donations amid cold storage worries
Health officials and experts in Asia have welcomed U.S. plans to share 500 million more doses of the Pfizer vaccine with the developing world, but some say it would take more than donations alone to address huge vaccination gaps that threaten to prolong the pandemic.
President Joe Biden was set to make the announcement Thursday in a speech before the start of the Group of Seven summit in Britain. Two hundred million doses — enough to fully protect 100 million people — would be shared this year, with the balance to be donated in the first half of 2022, according to a source familiar with the matter who confirmed the news of the Pfizer sharing plan.
Jaehun Jung, a professor of preventive medicine at South Korea’s Gachon University College of Medicine, said the U.S. donations may proveto be a “huge turning point” in the global fight against COVID-19, but also lamented that the help couldn’t come earlier.
He said the extremely cold storage temperatures required for Pfizer shots would present challenges for countries with poor health systems and called for U.S. officials and the New York-based drug maker to explore the possibility of easing the requirements.
Read:AP source: US to buy 500M Pfizer vaccines to share globally
He said the delay in U.S. help was “understandable, because the United States initially had its own troubles with supplies while inoculating its own population. But for now, it’s critical to move up the timing of the vaccine provisions to the earliest possible point.”
According to the person who spoke to the AP, the Biden administration plans to provide the 500 million shots it purchases from Pfizer to 92 lower income countries and the African Union over the next year through the U.N.-backed COVAX program.
The United States has faced increasing pressure to outline its global vaccine sharing plan. Inequities in supplies around the world have become more pronounced while there’s increasing concern over newer virus variants emerging from areas with consistently high COVID-19 circulation.
The White House had earlier announced plans to share 80 million doses globally by the end of June, most through COVAX.
The additional donation of the Pfizer shots is crucial because the global disparity in vaccination has become a multidimensional threat: a human catastrophe, a $5 trillion economic loss for advanced economies, and a contributor to the generation of mutant viruses, said Jerome Kim, the head of the International Vaccine Institute, a non-profit dedicated to making vaccines available to developing countries.
Read: G7 must ensure vaccine access in developing countries: UN experts
Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency, said the success of Biden’s vaccine-sharing plan would depend mainly on how fast the shots could be manufactured and sent to countries in need amid global shortages.
She also echoed Jung’s concerns about Pfizer’s cold chain requirements and said the U.S. donations should be accompanied with efforts to improve infrastructure and educate health workers in receiving countries.
“It’s very important to manage international cooperation so that the whole world can be vaccinated quickly,” she said during a briefing.
The United States has yet to confirm the 92 lower-income countries that would be receiving the Pfizer shots.
In Asia, Jung said that India and Southeast Asia are in desperate need of donations. Vaccinating isolated North Korea could also prove to be a difficult challenge.
Some experts say donations alone wouldn’t be enough to close the huge gaps in supplies and call for a transition toward a distributed system of vaccine manufacturing where qualified companies around the world would produce their own shots without intellectual property constraints.
Read: WTO panel considers easing protections on COVID-19 vaccines
But Jung said many developing countries depending on COVAX donations don’t have the industrial resources to manufacture advanced vaccines like Pfizer’s mRNA shots.
As countries around the world struggled to access vaccines, unable to secure bilateral deals with companies like Pfizer, many have turned to China. China has exported 350 million doses of its vaccines to dozens of countries, according to its Foreign Ministry.
China has pledged 10 million doses to COVAX, and the Chinese drug maker Sinopharm said last week it had just finished a batch of vaccines for sharing with COVAX. The WHO had approved the vaccine for emergency use last month.
While Chinese vaccines have faced scrutiny because of a lack of transparency in sharing clinical trial data, many countries were desperate to take what was available and found the shots easier to use as they could be stored in normal refrigerators.
State media: Kim has plans to stabilize N. Korean economy
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presented economic plans to senior ruling party officials before an upcoming meeting to review efforts to overcome hardships brought about by the pandemic, state media said Tuesday.
The Korean Central News Agency said Kim held his consultations Monday in preparation for a meeting of the Workers’ Party’s powerful Central Committee at which they will discuss state affairs for the first half of 2021. The meeting was set for early June and could take place as early as this week.
Read:After Trump setbacks, Kim Jong Un starts over with Biden
Kim’s plans were not specified but were described as intending to bring “tangible change” to stabilizing the economy and people’s living conditions.
The North Korean economy has been crippled by decades of mismanagement, U.S.-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear weapons program and the coronavirus pandemic. South Korean officials say there are no signs North Korea is easing the border controls it imposed at the start of the pandemic or importing more industrial and agricultural materials to boost production.
The Workers’ Party last held a plenary meeting of Central Committee members in February, when Kim ripped into state economic agencies for their “passive and self-protecting tendencies” in setting their annual goals.
Earlier in the year, at the party’s first congress since 2016, Kim urged his people to be resilient in the struggle for economic self-reliance and called for reasserting greater state control over the economy, boosting agricultural production and prioritizing the development of chemicals and metal industries. Those sectors have been critically depleted by sanctions and halted imports of factory materials amid the pandemic.
Read:North Korea holds huge military parade as Kim vows nuclear might
Kim has shown unusual candor in addressing the North’s economic problems in recent political speeches, saying that the country was facing its “worst ever” situation due to COVID-19, sanctions and heavy flooding last summer that decimated crops. He even called for his people to brace for another “arduous march,” a term that had been used to describe a 1990s famine that killed hundreds of thousands.
In a meeting of the Workers’ Party’s political bureau last week, Kim expressed appreciation that a lot of economic works were being sped up thanks to the “ideological enthusiasm and fighting spirit of self-reliance” demonstrated by the party and his people. But he also said there was a need to correct unspecified “deflective matters,” which he said would be discussed at Central Committee’s plenary meeting.
While North Korea monitoring groups have yet to detect signs of mass starvation or major instability, some analysts say conditions could be aligning for a perfect storm that undercuts food and exchange markets and triggers public panic.
The Geneva-based Assessment Capacities Project, a nonprofit that specializes in humanitarian needs assessment, said in May that it considers North Korea to be at high risk of a humanitarian crisis. It said poor economic governance, repressive political measures and an increasing dependence on internal production amid a cutback in imports have negatively impacted the country’s population.
“Chronic food insecurity and limited access to basic services, such as health care and clean water, have left more than 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance,” the group said.
Read:North Korea’s Kim adds title: General secretary of ruling party
The economic setbacks have left Kim with nothing to show for his ambitious diplomacy with former President Donald Trump, which failed to bring the North sanctions relief, and the North has so far ignored the Biden administration’s calls to resume dialogue.
Some experts say Kim could use the upcoming Central Committee meeting to address the stalled diplomatic efforts.