North Korea
N. Korea may send workers to Russian-occupied east Ukraine
As the war in Ukraine stretches into its seventh month, North Korea is hinting at its interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country's east.
The idea is openly endorsed by senior Russian officials and diplomats, who foresee a cheap and hard-working workforce that could be thrown into the “most arduous conditions," a term Russia's ambassador to North Korea used in a recent interview.
North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration,” citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.
The talks came after North Korea in July became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.
The employment of North Korean workers in Donbas would clearly run afoul of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear and missile programs and further complicate the U.S.-led international push for its nuclear disarmament.
Many experts doubt North Korea will send workers while the war remains in flux, with a steady flow of Western weapons helping Ukraine to push back against much larger Russian forces.
But they say it’s highly likely North Korea will supply labor to Donbas when the fighting eases to boost its own economy, broken by years of U.S.-led sanctions, pandemic border closures and decades of mismanagement.
The labor exports would also contribute to a longer-term North Korean strategy of strengthening cooperation with Russia and China, another ideological ally, in an emerging partnership aimed at reducing U.S. influence in Asia.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin has said that North Korean construction companies have already offered to help rebuild war-torn areas in Donbas, and that North Korean workers would be welcomed if they come.
That’s a clear break from Russia's position in December 2017, when it backed new U.N. Security Council sanctions, imposed on North Korea for testing an intercontinental ballistic missile, requiring member states to expel all North Korean workers from their territories within 24 months.
Russia now seems eager to undercut those sanctions as it faces a U.S.-led pressure campaign aimed at isolating its economy over its aggression in Ukraine, said Lim Soo-ho, a senior analyst at the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank run by South Korea’s spy agency.
“For Russia, the idea of employing North Korean workers for postwar rebuilding has real merit,” Lim said. “Large numbers of North Korean construction workers came to Russia in previous years, and demand for their labor was strong because they were cheap and known for quality work.”
Before the 2017 sanctions, labor exports were a rare legitimate source of foreign currency for North Korea, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars a year to the government.
Read:UN inspectors head to Ukraine nuclear plant in war zone
The U.S. State Department earlier estimated that about 100,000 North Koreans were working overseas in government-arranged jobs, primarily in Russia and China, but also in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and South Asia.
Civilian experts say the workers earned $200 million to $500 million a year for North Korea's government while pocketing only a fraction of their salaries, often toiling for more than 12 hours a day under constant surveillance by their country’s security agents.
While Russia sent home some North Korean workers before the U.N. deadline in December 2019, an uncertain number remained, continuing to work or becoming stuck after the North sealed its borders to fend off COVID-19.
North Korea could easily mobilize possibly several hundreds or even thousands of workers to Donbas if it decides to use the laborers who remained in Russia, said Kang Dong Wan, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Dong-A University.
It’s not yet clear how lucrative Donbas would be for North Korea.
Russia is short of cash, battered by Western sanctions targeting its financial institutions and a broad swath of industries. North Korea likely has no interest in being paid in rubles because of worries about the currency's purchasing power, which bottomed out during the war's early days before Moscow took steps to artificially restore its value.
North Korea might be willing to be compensated with food, fuel and machinery, an exchange that would likely also violate Security Council sanctions, Lim said.
Hong Min, a senior analyst at South Korea’s Institute for National Unification, said North Korea could have bigger things in mind than short-term gains from labor exports.
“The United States’ strategic competition with China and confrontation with Russia have given North Korea breathing room as it steps up to join Moscow and Beijing in a united front to counter U.S. influence and promote a multipolar international system,” Hong said.
North Korea has already used the war in Ukraine to ramp up its weapons development, exploiting divisions in the Security Council, where Russia and China vetoed U.S.-sponsored resolutions to tighten sanctions on North Korea over its revived ICBM tests this year.
North Korea and Russia also see eye-to-eye on key policies.
North Korea has repeatedly blamed the United States for the Ukraine crisis, saying the West’s “hegemonic policy” justifies military actions by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself.
Russia, meanwhile, has repeatedly condemned the revival of large-scale military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea this year, accusing the allies of provoking North Korea and aggravating tensions.
Alexander Matsegora, Russia’s ambassador to North Korea, has backed its dubious assertion that its COVID-19 outbreak was caused by South Korean activists who flew anti-North Korean leaflets and other materials across the border with balloons.
Nam Sung-wook, a professor at the unification and diplomacy department of South Korea's Korea University, is one of the few experts who sees the labor exports beginning soon.
Desperate to address its economic woes, North Korea might send small groups of workers to Donbas on “scouting missions” over the next few months and gradually increase the numbers depending on how the war goes, he said.
“Interests are aligning between Pyongyang and Moscow,” Nam said. “One hundred or 200 workers could eventually become 10,000.”
UN chief affirms support for denuclearized North Korea
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday proclaimed unwavering U.N. commitment to a fully denuclearized North Korea, even as a divided Security Council allows more room for the isolated country to expand its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
Meeting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in Seoul, Guterres said he affirms the U.N.’s “clear commitment to the full, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and DPRK,” using the initials of North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“There’s a fundamental objective to bring peace, security and stability to the whole region,” he told Yoon, while also praising South Korea’s participation in international peacekeeping efforts and fighting climate change.
Guterres, who arrived in South Korea on Thursday, later met with South Korean Foreign Minster Park Jin for discussions that were expected to be centered around the North Korean nuclear threat.
Also read: UN chief warns world is one step from 'nuclear annihilation'
North Korea has test-fired more than 30 ballistic missiles this year, including its first flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as leader Kim Jong Un pushes to advance his nuclear arsenal in the face of what North Korea has called “gangster-like” U.S.-led pressure and sanctions.
The unusually fast pace in weapons demonstrations also underscore brinkmanship aimed at forcing Washington to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and negotiating badly needed sanctions relief and security concessions from a position of strength, experts say. The U.S. and South Korean governments have also said the North is gearing up to conduct its first nuclear test since September 2017, when it claimed to have detonated a nuclear warhead designed for its ICBMs.
While the Biden administration has said it would push for additional sanctions if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, the prospects for meaningful punitive measures are unclear. China and Russia recently vetoed U.S.-sponsored resolutions at the U.N. Security Council that would have increased sanctions on the North over some of its ballistic missile testing this year, underscoring division between the council’s permanent members that has deepened over Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Guterres’ meetings with South Korean officials came a day after North Korea claimed a widely disputed victory over COVID-19 but also blamed rival South Korea for the outbreak, vowing “deadly” retaliation. The North insists its initial infections were caused by leaflets and other objects flown across the border on balloons launched by South Korea's anti-Pyongyang activists, a claim Seoul describes as unscientific and “ridiculous."
Also read: UN chief lauds Bangladesh’s socio-economic development
North Korea has a history of dialing up pressure on the South when it doesn’t get what it wants from the United States, and there are concerns that North Korea's threat portends a provocation, which might include nuclear or missile tests or even border skirmishes.
North Korea claims disputed victory over virus, blames Seoul
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared victory over COVID-19 and ordered preventive measures eased just three months after acknowledging an outbreak, claiming the country's widely disputed success would be recognized as a global health miracle.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency also reported Thursday that Kim’s sister said her brother had suffered a fever and blamed the North Korean outbreak on leaflets flown from across the border from South Korea, while warning of deadly retaliation.
Some experts believe North Korea has manipulated the scale of the outbreak to help Kim maintain absolute control of the country amid mounting economic difficulties. They believe the victory statement signals Kim's aim to move to other priorities but are concerned his sister's remarks portend a provocation.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, issued a statement expressing strong regret over North Korea’s “extremely disrespectful and threatening comments” that were based on “ridiculous claims” about the source of its infections.
Since North Korea admitted to an omicron outbreak of the virus in May, it has reported about 4.8 million “fever cases” in its population of 26 million but only identified a fraction of them as COVID-19. It has claimed the outbreak has been slowing for weeks and just 74 people have died.
“Since we began operating the maximum emergency anti-epidemic campaign (in May), daily fever cases that reached hundreds of thousands during the early days of the outbreak were reduced to below 90,000 a month later and continuously decreased, and not a single case of fever suspected to be linked to the evil virus has been reported since July 29,” Kim said in his speech Wednesday, according to KCNA.
“For a country that has yet to administer a single vaccine shot, our success in overcoming the spread of the illness in such a short period of time and recovering safety in public health and making our nation a clean virus-free zone again is an amazing miracle that would be recorded in the world’s history of public health,” he said.
For Kim to declare victory against COVID-19 suggests that he wants to move on to other priorities, such as boosting a broken and heavily sanctioned economy further damaged by pandemic border closures or conducting a nuclear test, said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.
Read:Kim threatens to use nukes amid tensions with US, S. Korea
South Korean and U.S. officials have said North Korea could be gearing up for its first nuclear test in five years amid its torrid run of weapons tests this year that included its first demonstrations of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017.
The provocative testing activity underscores Kim’s dual intent to advance his arsenal and pressure the Biden administration over long-stalled negotiations aimed at leveraging its nukes for badly needed sanctions relief and security concessions, experts say.
Kim Jun-rak, a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday the South Korean military was maintaining firm readiness and prepared for “various possibilities” of North Korean provocations.
The bellicose rhetoric of Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, is concerning because it indicates she will try to blame any COVID-19 resurgence on the South and is also looking to justify North Korea’s next military provocation, Easley said.
North Korea first suggested in July that its COVID-19 outbreak began in people who had contact with objects carried by balloons flown from South Korea — a questionable and unscientific claim that appeared to be an attempt to hold its rival responsible.
Activists for years have flown balloons across the border to distribute hundreds of thousands of propaganda leaflets critical of Kim, and North Korea has often expressed fury at the activists and at South Korea’s leadership for not stopping them.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Kim Yo Jong reiterated those claims, calling the country’s virus crisis a “hysteric farce” kicked off by South Korea to escalate confrontation. She claimed that her brother had suffered fever symptoms and praised his “energetic and meticulous guidance” for bringing an “epoch-making miracle” in the fight against COVID-19.
“(South Korean) puppets are still thrusting leaflets and dirty objects into our territory. We must counter it toughly,” she said. “We have already considered various counteraction plans, but our countermeasure must be a deadly retaliatory one.”
Kim Yo Jong's reference to Kim Jong Un's illness wasn't further explained.
Outside experts suspect the virus spread after North Korea briefly reopened its northern border with China to freight traffic in January and surged further following a military parade and other large-scale events in Pyongyang in April.
In May, Kim prohibited travel between cities and counties to slow the spread of the virus. But he also stressed that his economic goals should be met, which meant huge groups continued to gather at agricultural, industrial and construction sites.
At the virus meeting, Kim called for the easing of preventive measures and for the nation to maintain vigilance and effective border controls, citing the global spread of new coronavirus variants and monkeypox.
N Korea warns of security instability over US-S Korea drills
North Korea has warned that the United States and South Korea will face “unprecedented” security challenges if they don’t stop their hostile military pressure campaign against the North, including joint military drills.
North Korea views any regular U.S.-South Korean military training as an invasion rehearsal even though the allies have steadfastly said they have no intention of attacking the North. The latest warning came as Washington and Seoul prepare to expand their upcoming summertime training following the North’s provocative run of missile tests this year.
“Should the U.S. and its allies opt for military confrontation with us, they would be faced with unprecedented instability security-wise,” Choe Jin, deputy director general of the Institute of Disarmament and Peace, a Foreign Ministry-run think tank, told Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang on Thursday.
Choe said that Washington and Seoul’s joint military drills this year are driving the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war. He accused U.S. and South Korean officials of plotting to discuss the deployment of U.S. nuclear strategic assets during another joint drill set to begin next month.
“The U.S. should keep in mind that it will be treated on a footing of equality when it threatens us with nukes,” Choe said. He said Washington must abandon “its anachronistic and suicidal policy of hostility” toward North Korea or it will face “an undesirable consequence.”
Read: UN court to rule on jurisdiction in Rohingya genocide case
The regular U.S.-South Korea military drills are a major source of animosity on the Korean Peninsula, with North Korea often responding with missile tests or warlike rhetoric.
In May, U.S. President Joe Biden and new South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said after their summit that they would consider expanded joint military exercises to deter North Korean nuclear threats. Biden also reaffirmed the American extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, a reference to a full range of U.S. defense capabilities including nuclear ones.
Their announcement reflected a change in direction from that of their predecessors. Former U.S. President Donald Trump complained about the cost of the U.S.-South Korean military drills, while former South Korean President Moon Jae-in faced criticism that his dovish engagement policy only helped North Korea buy time to perfect its weapons technology. Yoon accused Moon of tilting toward North Korea and away from the United States.
The U.S. and South Korean militaries haven’t officially announced details about their summertime drills including exactly when they would start. But South Korean defense officials said the drills would involve field training for the first time since 2018 along with the existing computer-simulated tabletop exercises.
In recent years, the South Korean and U.S. militaries have cancelled or downsized some of their regular exercises due to concerns about COVID-19 and to support now-stalled U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing North Korea to give up its nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits.
UN elects new council members including Japan, Switzerland
U.N. member nations elected five countries to join the powerful U.N. Security Council on Thursday with no suspense or drama because all were unopposed -- Ecuador, Japan, Malta, Mozambique and Switzerland.
Winning a seat on the 15-member Security Council is considered a pinnacle of achievement for many countries because it gives them a strong voice on issues of international peace and security.
Today, the war in Ukraine is at the top of the list. Although Russia’s veto power has prevented the council from taking action, it has held numerous meetings since Moscow’s Feb. 24 invasion that have seen contentious exchanges between top diplomats from both countries and their supporters.
But many other conflicts are also on its agenda from Syria and Yemen to Mali and Myanmar as well as international security issues from the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran, and attacks by extremist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaida.
The results of the secret ballot vote in the 193-member General Assembly were Ecuador 190, Japan 184, Malta 184, Mozambique 192, and Switzerland 187.
Even if a country is running unopposed, it must obtain the votes of two-thirds of the member states that voted in order to win a seat on the council.
Also Read: UNGA chief calls for shift to green economies on Mother Earth Day
General Assembly President Abdalla Shahid announced the results of the secret-ballot vote and congratulated the winner.
It will be Mozambique and Switzerland’s first time serving on the council, Japan’s 12th time, Ecuador’s third time and Malta’s second time.
The five new council members will start their terms on Jan. 1, replacing five countries whose two-year terms end on Dec. 31 -- India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway.
They will join the five veto-wielding permanent members of the council -- the United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom and France -- and the five countries elected last year: Albania, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana and United Arab Emirates.
The 10 non-permanent seats on the council are allotted to regional groups, who usually select candidates, but sometimes cannot agree on an uncontested slate.
WHO believes COVID getting worse, not better in North Korea
A top official at the World Health Organization said the U.N. health agency assumes the coronavirus outbreak in North Korea is “getting worse, not better,” despite the secretive country's recent claims that COVID-19 is slowing there.
At a briefing on Wednesday, WHO's emergencies chief Dr. Mike Ryan appealed to North Korean authorities for more information about the COVID-19 outbreak there, saying “we have real issues in getting access to the raw data and to the actual situation on the ground.” He said WHO has not received any privileged information about the epidemic — unlike in typical outbreaks when countries may share more sensitive data with the organization so it can evaluate the public health risks for the global community.
Also read: WHO: Monkeypox won’t turn into pandemic, but many unknowns
“It is very, very difficult to provide a proper analysis to the world when we don’t have access to the necessary data,” he said. WHO has previously voiced concerns about the impact of COVID-19 in North Korea's population, which is believed to be largely unvaccinated and whose fragile health systems could struggle to deal with a surge of cases prompted by the super-infectious omicron and its subvariants.
Ryan said WHO had offered technical assistance and supplies to North Korean officials multiple times, including offering COVID-19 vaccines on at least three separate occasions.
Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and other top officials discussed revising stringent anti-epidemic restrictions, state media reported, as they maintained a widely disputed claim that the country’s first COVID-19 outbreak is slowing.
The discussion at the North’s Politburo meeting on Sunday suggested it would soon relax a set of draconian curbs imposed after it announced the outbreak in early May out of concern about its food and economic situations.
North Korea's claims to have controlled COVID-19 without widespread vaccination, lockdowns or drugs have been met with widespread disbelief, particularly its insistence that only dozens have died among many millions infected — a far lower death rate than seen anywhere else in the world.
Also read: WHO: COVID-19 cases mostly drop, except for the Americas
The North Korean government has said there are about 3.7 million people with fever or suspected COVID-19. But it disclosed few details about the severity of illness or how many people have recovered, frustrating public health experts' attempt to understand the extent of the outbreak.
“We really would appeal for for a more open approach so we can come to the assistance of the people of (North Korea), because right now we are not in a position to make an adequate risk assessment of the situation on the ground,” Ryan said. He said WHO was working with neighboring countries like China and South Korea to ascertain more about what might be happening in North Korea, saying that the epidemic there could potentially have global implications.
WHO's criticism of North Korea's failure to provide more information about its COVID-19 outbreak stands in contrast to the U.N. health agency's failure to publicly fault China in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
In early 2020, WHO's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus repeatedly praised China publicly for its speedy response to the emergence of the coronavirus, even as WHO scientists privately grumbled about China's delayed information-sharing and stalled sharing the genetic sequence of COVID-19.
N. Korea's low death count questioned amid COVID-19 outbreak
North Korea said Friday that nearly 10% of its 26 million people have fallen ill and 65 people have died amid its first COVID-19 outbreak, as outside experts question the validity of its reported fatalities and worry about a possible humanitarian crisis.
After admitting the omicron outbreak last week following more than two years of claiming to be coronavirus-free, North Korea has said an unidentified fever has been explosively spreading across the country since late April. Its anti-epidemic center has since released fever tallies each morning via state media, but they don’t include any COVID-19 figures.
Also read: Shanghai to reopen subways in easing of COVID restrictions
Some observers say North Korea was likely forced to acknowledge the COVID-19 outbreak because it couldn't hide the highly contagious viral spread among its people and suffer possible public discontent with leader Kim Jong Un. They believe North Korean authorities are underreporting mortalities to try to show that its pandemic response is effective, while the country lacks test kits to confirm a large number of virus cases.
“It’s true that there has been a hole in its 2 1/2 years of pandemic fighting,” said Kwak Gil Sup, head of One Korea Center, a website specializing in North Korea affairs. “But there is a saying that North Korea is ’a theater state,' and I think they are massaging COVID-19 statistics.”
Kwak said North Korea is likely partly using the outbreak as a propaganda tool to show that it is overcoming the pandemic with Kim’s leadership. But the country has “a Plan B” and “a Plan C” to seek Chinese and other foreign aid if the pandemic gets out of hand, he said.
On Friday, the North’s state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters said 263,370 more people had feverish symptoms and two more people died, bringing the total fever cases to 2.24 million and fatalities to 65. They said 754,810 people remain quarantined, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
The outbreak likely originated from an April 25 military parade in Pyongyang that Kim organized to show off his new missiles and loyal troops. The parade and other related festivals, which marked North Korea’s army foundation anniversary, drew tens of thousands of people and soldiers from Pyongyang and other parts of the country, who returned home after the events.
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Thursday that “a considerable number” of the fever cases reported by North Korea include people sick with waterborne diseases like measles, typhoid and pertussis.
The National Intelligence Service assessed that those diseases had already been spreading across North Korea even before COVID-19 broke out, according to Ha Tae-keung, a lawmaker who attended a private NIS briefing. Ha cited the NIS as saying the waterborne diseases were spreading due to shortages of medicines and medical supplies in the wake of the North’s previous long-running anti-pandemic steps.
Also read:CDC urges Pfizer booster for children ages 5 to 11
“(The NIS) said it doesn’t know exactly what percentage of the fever cases are coronavirus patients. It said North Korea lacks coronavirus diagnostic kits but appears to have sufficient thermometers,” Ha said.
The NIS has a spotty record in confirming developments in North Korea. Some civilian medical experts earlier said they believed most of the fever cases announced by North Korea were COVID-19.
Earlier this week, a health official said on state TV the government had detected 168 COVID-19 cases as of Monday, when the country’s fever cases already surpassed a million. There have been no updates on the North’s virus cases since then.
North Korea’s public medical system remains in shambles, and experts say the country could suffer mass pandemic fatalities if it doesn’t receive outside aid shipments. They say the country’s elevated restrictions on movement and quarantine rules may also worsen its food insecurity.
The NIS said North Korea intends to overcome the pandemic with assistance from its main ally, China, according to Ha and Kim Byung-kee, another lawmaker who was briefed by the spy service. During an anti-virus meeting Saturday, Kim said his country faces “a great upheaval” and that officials must study how China and other nations have handled the pandemic.
Some media reports said North Korea already sent planes to China to bring back emergency supplies earlier this week, but the South Korean government said it couldn’t confirm the reports. South Korea said it and the United States have offered to ship vaccines, medicines and other medical supplies to North Korea, but the North hasn’t responded.
North Korea’s suspected COVID-19 caseload nears 2 million
North Korea on Thursday reported 262,270 more suspected COVID-19 cases as its pandemic caseload neared 2 million — a week after the country acknowledged the outbreak and scrambled to slow infections in its unvaccinated population.
The country is also trying to prevent its fragile economy from deteriorating further, but the outbreak could be worse than officially reported since the country lacks virus tests and other health care resources and may be underreporting deaths to soften the political impact on authoritarian leader Kim Jong Un.
North Korea’s anti-virus headquarters reported a single additional death, raising its toll to 63, which experts have said is abnormally small compared to the suspected number of coronavirus infections.
The official Korean Central News Agency said more than 1.98 million people have become sick with fever since late April. Most are believed to have COVID-19, though only a few omicron variant infections have been confirmed. At least 740,160 people are in quarantine, the news agency reported.
North Korea’s outbreak comes amid a provocative streak of weapons demonstrations, including its first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in nearly five years in March. Experts don’t believe the COVID-19 outbreak will slow Kim’s brinkmanship aimed at pressuring the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating economic and security concessions from a position of strength.
READ: Nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths: A look at the US numbers
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Wednesday that U.S. intelligence shows there’s a “genuine possibility” that North Korea will conduct another ballistic missile test or nuclear test around President Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea and Japan that begins later this week.
After maintaining a dubious claim that it had kept the virus out of the country for two and a half years, North Korea acknowledged its first COVID-19 infections May 12 and has described a rapid spread since. Kim has called the outbreak a “great upheaval,” berated officials for letting the virus spread and restricted the movement of people and supplies between cities and regions.
Workers were mobilized to find people with suspected COVID-19 symptoms who were then sent to quarantine — the main method of curbing the outbreak since North Korea is short of medical supplies and intensive care units that lowered COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in other nations.
State media images showed health workers in hazmat suits guarding Pyongyang’s closed-off streets, disinfecting buildings and streets and delivering food and other supplies to apartment blocks.
Despite the vast numbers of sick people and the efforts to curb the outbreak, state media describe large groups of workers continuing to gather at farms, mining facilities, power stations and construction sites. Experts say North Korea cannot afford a lockdown that would hinder production in an economy already broken by mismanagement, crippling U.S.-led sanctions over Kim’s nuclear weapons ambitions and pandemic border closures.
North Korea also must urgently work to protect its crops from a drought that hit during the crucial rice-planting season — a worrisome development in a country that has long suffered from food insecurity. State media also said that Kim’s trophy construction projects, including the building of 10,000 new houses in the town of Hwasong, are being “propelled as scheduled.”
Also Read: North Korea confirms 1st Covid outbreak, Kim orders lockdown
“All sectors of the national economy are stepping up the production to the maximum while strictly observing the anti-epidemic steps taken by the party and the state,” Korean Central News Agency reported.
The virus controls at workplaces include separating workers by their job classifications and quarantining worker units at construction sites and in its key metal, chemical, electricity and coal industries, KCNA said.
Kee Park, a global health specialist at Harvard Medical School who has worked on health care projects in North Korea, said the country’s number of new cases should start to slow because of the strengthened preventive measures.
But it will be challenging for North Korea to provide treatment for the already large number of people with COVID-19. Deaths may possibly approach tens of thousands, considering the size of its caseload, and international assistance would be crucial, Park said.
“The best way to prevent these deaths are to treat with antivirals like Paxlovid,” which would significantly lower the risk of severe disease or death, Park said. “This is much faster and easier to implement than sending ventilators to build ICU capacity.”
Other experts say providing a small number of vaccines for high-risk groups such as the elderly would prevent deaths, though mass vaccinations would be impossible at this stage for the population of 26 million.
It’s unclear, however, if North Korea would accept outside help. It already shunned vaccines offered by the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program, and the nation’s leaders have expressed confidence the country can overcome the crisis on its own.
Kim Tae-hyo, deputy national security adviser for South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, told reporters on Thursday that North Korea has ignored offers of help from South Korea and the United States to contain the outbreak.
Experts have said North Korea may be more willing to accept help from China, its main ally. South Korea’s government had said it couldn’t confirm media reports that North Korea flew planes to bring back emergency supplies from China this week.
North Korea confirms 21 new deaths as it battles COVID-19
North Korea on Saturday reported 21 new deaths and 174,440 more people with fever symptoms as the country scrambles to slow the spread of COVID-19 across its unvaccinated population.
The new deaths and cases, which were from Friday, increased total numbers to 27 deaths and 524,440 illnesses amid a rapid spread of fever since late April. North Korea said 243,630 people had recovered and 280,810 remained in quarantine. State media didn’t specify how many of the fever cases and deaths were confirmed as COVID-19 infections.
The country imposed what it described as maximum preventive measures on Thursday after confirming its first COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. It had previously held for more than two years to a widely doubted claim of a perfect record keeping out the virus that has spread to nearly every place in the world.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a ruling party Politburo meeting on Saturday described the outbreak as a historically “huge disruption” and called for unity between the government and people to stabilize the outbreak as quickly as possible.
Officials during the meeting mainly discussed ways to swiftly distribute medical supplies the country has released from its emergency reserves, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said. In a report presented to the Politburo, the North’s emergency epidemic office blamed most of the deaths on a lack of “scientific knowledge about treatment methods,” including drug overdoses.
Kim, who said he was donating some of his private medicine supplies to help the anti-virus campaign, expressed optimism that the country could bring the outbreak under control, saying most transmissions are occurring within communities that are isolated from one another and not spreading from region to region.
He called for officials to take lessons from the successful pandemic responses of other nations and picked an example in China, the North’s major ally.
China, however, has been facing pressure to change its so-called “zero-COVID” strategy that has brought major cities to a standstill as it struggles to slow the fast-moving omicron variant.
Also Read: North Korea confirms 1st Covid outbreak, Kim orders lockdown
North Korea since Thursday has imposed steps aimed at restricting the movement of people and supplies between cities and counties, but state media’s descriptions of the measures indicate people aren’t being confined to their homes.
Experts say a failure to control the spread of COVID-19 could have devastating consequences in North Korea, considering the country’s poor health care system and that its 26 million people are largely unvaccinated.
Tests of virus samples collected Sunday from an unspecified number of people with fevers in the country’s capital, Pyongyang, confirmed they were infected with the omicron variant, state media said. The country has so far officially confirmed one death as linked to an omicron infection.
Lacking vaccines, antiviral pills, intensive care units and other major health tools to fight the virus, North Korea’s pandemic response will be mostly about isolating people with symptoms at designated shelters, experts say.
North Korea doesn’t have technological and other resources to impose extreme lockdowns like China, which has shut down entire cities and confined residents to their homes, nor it could afford to do so at the risk of unleashing further shock on a fragile economy, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification.
Even as he called for stronger preventive measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, Kim has also stressed that the country’s economic goals should be met, which likely means huge groups will continue to gather at agricultural, industrial and construction sites.
It’s unusual for isolated North Korea to admit to an outbreak of any infectious disease, let alone one as menacing as COVID-19, as it’s intensely proud and sensitive to outside perception about its “socialist utopia.” Experts are mixed on whether the North’s announcement of the outbreak communicates a willingness to receive outside help.
The country had shunned millions of doses offered by the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because of concerns over international monitoring requirements attached to those shots.
North Korea has a higher tolerance for civilian suffering than most other nations and some experts say the country could be willing to accept a certain level of fatalities to gain immunity through infection, rather than receiving vaccines and other outside help.
South Korea’s new conservative government led by President Yoon Suk Yeol, who took office on Tuesday, has offered to send vaccines and other medical supplies to North Korea, but Seoul officials say the North has so far made no request for help. Relations between the rival Koreas have worsened since 2019 following a derailment in nuclear negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang.
However, Kim’s call for his officials to learn from China’s experience indicates that the North could soon request COVID-19-related medicine and testing equipment from China, said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said Friday that Beijing was ready to offer North Korea help but said he had no information about any such request being made.
North Korea’s viral spread could have been accelerated after an estimated tens of thousands of civilians and troops gathered for a massive military parade in Pyongyang on April 25, where Kim took center stage and showcased the most powerful missiles of his military nuclear program.
After maintaining one of the world’s strictest border closures for two years to shield its poor health care system, North Korea had reopened railroad freight traffic with China in February apparently to ease the strain on its economy. But China confirmed the closure of the route last month as it battled COVID-19 outbreaks in the border areas.
Hours after the North acknowledged its first COVID-19 infections on Thursday, South Korea’s military detected the North test-firing three ballistic missiles in what appeared to be a defiant show of strength.
Kim has been accelerating his weapons demonstrations in 2022, including the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missile in nearly five years. Experts say Kim’s brinkmanship is aimed at forcing Washington to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power and negotiating a removal of crippling U.S.-led sanctions and other concessions from a stronger position.
South Korean and U.S. officials also say the North is possibly preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017, which they say could happen as early as this month.
N. Korea reports 6 deaths after admitting COVID-19 outbreak
North Korea said Friday that six people died and 350,000 have been treated for a fever that has spread “explosively” across the nation, a day after its first acknowledgement of a COVID-19 outbreak.
The true scale is unclear, but a big COVID-19 outbreak could be devastating in a country with a broken health care system and an unvaccinated, malnourished population. North Korea, which likely doesn’t have sufficient COVID-19 tests and other medical equipment, said it didn't know the case of the mass fevers.
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said of the 350,000 people who developed fevers since late April, 162,200 have recovered. It said 18,000 people were newly found with fever symptoms on Thursday alone, and 187,800 people are being isolated for treatment.
One of the six people who died was confirmed infected with the omicron variant, KCNA said, but it wasn’t immediately clear how many of the total illnesses were COVID-19.
Also read: North Korea confirms 1st COVID outbreak, Kim orders lockdown
North Korea imposed a nationwide lockdown Thursday after acknowledging a COVID-19 outbreak for the first time in the pandemic. Those reports said tests from an unspecified number of people came back positive for the omicron variant.
It’s possible that the spread of the virus was accelerated by a massive military parade in Pyongyang on April 25, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took center stage and showcased the most powerful missiles of his military nuclear program in front of tens of thousands.
Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said the pace of the fever's spread suggests the crisis could last months and possibly into 2023, causing major disruption in the poorly equipped country.
Some experts say the North’s initial announcement communicates a willingness to receive outside aid. It previously shunned vaccines offered by the U.N.-backed COVAX distribution program, possibly because they have international monitoring requirements.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, said the South was willing to provide medical assistance and other help to North Korea based on humanitarian considerations.
KCNA said Kim was briefed about the fever when he visited the emergency epidemic prevention headquarters on Thursday and criticized officials for failing to prevent “a vulnerable point in the epidemic prevention system.”
He said the spread of the fever has been centered around capital Pyongyang and nearby areas and underscored the importance of isolating all work, production and residential units from one another while providing residents with every convenience during the lockdown.
“It is the most important challenge and supreme tasks facing our party to reverse the immediate public health crisis situation at an early date, restore the stability of epidemic prevention and protect the health and wellbeing of our people,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
North Korea's claim of a perfect record in keeping out the virus for two and a half years was widely doubted. But South Korean officials have said North Korea had likely avoided a huge outbreak until now, in part because it instituted strict virus controls almost from the start of the pandemic.
Also read: North Korea raises alarm after confirming 1st COVID-19 case
Describing its anti-coronavirus campaign as a matter of “national existence,” North Korea had severely restricted cross-border traffic and trade and is even believed to have ordered troops to shoot on sight any trespassers who cross its borders.
The border closures further battered an economy already damaged by decades of mismanagement and crippling U.S.-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the toughest moment of his rule since he took power in 2011.
Hours after confirming the outbreak Thursday, North Korea launched three short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, South Korea and Japan said, in what possibly was a show of strength after Kim publicly acknowledged the virus outbreak. It was the North’s 16th round of missile launches this year.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the United States supported international aid efforts but doesn’t plan to share its vaccine supplies with the North.
“We do continue to support international efforts aimed at the provision of critical humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable North Koreans, and this is, of course, a broader part of the DPRK continuing to exploit its own citizens by not accepting this type of aid,” Psaki said Thursday in Washington, referring to North Korea by its formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“It’s not just vaccines. It’s also a range of humanitarian assistance that could very much help the people and the country and instead they divert resources to build their unlawful nuclear and ballistic missiles programs.”