Tag: diplomacy

Trudeau slams ‘political’ detentions, after China spy charges

by Michel COMTE OTTAWA, Canada (AFP) — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday blasted China’s detention of two Canadians for “political ends,” following charges against them for spying. His comments came after China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate on Friday said it had begun the prosecution of ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, who were “suspected of foreign espionage” and “providing state secrets.” The move, 18 months after their arrest, came just weeks after a Canadian […]

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N. Korea says millions of leaflets readied against South

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea said on Monday it has readied thousands of balloons and millions of leaflets in preparation for “retaliatory punishment” against South Korea. The detail, in a state media report, came a day after the North said it was preparing to begin an anti-South leaflet campaign following a series of vitriolic condemnations of Seoul because of anti-North leaflets floated over the border. Defectors in the South send such leaflets which […]

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China begins prosecution of two Canadians on spying charges

BEIJING, China (AFP) — China has formally charged two Canadians with spying, officials said Friday, more than 18 months after they were arrested in a spat between Beijing and Ottawa. The pair were detained shortly after Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada on a US warrant, in what is widely believed to have been a retaliatory move from China. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate said ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor were “suspected […]

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Seoul’s unification minister resigns over N. Korea tensions

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea’s Unification Minister, its point man for relations with the North, resigned on Friday over heightened tensions on the peninsula, days after Pyongyang blew up its liaison office with the South. President Moon Jae-in “accepted Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul’s offer to resign”, the presidential Blue House said in a statement, without giving further details. Kim had offered to step down on Wednesday, a day after the North demolished the […]

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EU warns N.Korea against further ‘provocative’ acts

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AFP) — The EU on Tuesday warned North Korea against taking further “provocative and damaging steps” after Pyongyang blew up a liaison office near its border with South Korea. The demolition came after days of increasingly virulent rhetoric from the North condemning the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border. “The European Union strongly regrets the recent actions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” an EU spokesperson said in a […]

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Kim Yo Jong: North Korean leader’s increasingly powerful sister

by Claire LEE SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister warned at the weekend that a Korean liaison office would soon be seen “completely collapsed”. On Tuesday, Pyongyang reduced it to rubble. Kim Yo Jong is one of her brother’s most trusted advisers and among the most powerful women in the isolated regime, but her public profile is mounting rapidly and she has been mooted as a potential successor. The […]

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Office politics: Symbol of inter-Korean liaison reduced to rubble

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — The inter-Korean liaison office that Pyongyang blew up on Tuesday was opened in September 2018 as part of an agreement the North’s leader Kim Jong Un and the South’s President Moon Jae-in signed at their first summit five months earlier. The office occupied a four-storey building in an industrial zone in the North’s city of Kaesong, where companies from South Korea employed Northerners, paying Pyongyang for their labour. It was […]

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North Korean army ‘fully ready’ for action against Seoul: KCNA

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea’s army is “fully ready” to take action against the South, state media said Tuesday in the latest verbal sabre-rattling from Pyongyang, days after its leader’s sister threatened military moves against Seoul. Since early June, North Korea has issued a series of vitriolic condemnations of the South over activists sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets over the border — something defectors do on a regular basis. Last week, it announced it was […]

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N. Korea warns US to stay out of inter-Korean affairs

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea rebuked Washington on Thursday for criticizing its decision to cut communication links with Seoul, warning it to stay out of inter-Korean affairs if it wanted to ensure a smooth presidential election. In a statement carried by the KCNA news agency, a senior North Korean foreign ministry official slammed the “double-dealing attitudes” of the US as “disgusting”. Washington should “hold its tongue and mind its internal affairs first”, said […]

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Qatar denies Gulf bloc exit rumors

DOHA, Qatar (AFP) — Qatar denied on Thursday that it plans to quit the Gulf Cooperation Council as it prepares to mark three years of isolation led by the regional bloc’s heavyweight Saudi Arabia. However, the gas-rich state cautioned that the effort by three of the GCC’s six members to isolate Doha economically and politically meant people in the region were “doubting and questioning” the organization. Rumors of Qatar’s imminent departure from the GCC, founded […]

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Brazilian Amazon mayor pleads for world help on virus

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AFP) — The mayor of Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon rainforest region, asked world leaders Tuesday for help fighting the novel coronavirus, which has brought his city’s health system to the brink of collapse. Manaus is the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, which has been devastated by the pandemic. Mayor Arthur Virgilio sent video messages and letters pleading for funds and medical equipment to 21 world leaders, […]

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US Secretary of State Pompeo steps up pressure on China over pandemic handling

by Brian KNOWLTON Agence France Presse Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday stepped up a US campaign to hold China accountable for the spread of the deadly coronavirus, asserting there is “enormous evidence” the virus originated in a laboratory in the city of Wuhan. The high-security bio-containment facility, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, has called such claims “impossible”. Pompeo, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” did not elaborate on what he also described as “significant […]

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