krafty all this while has been trolling and spamming sbf from his palatial internet cafe in pyongyang.
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Man finds £5 note with Kim Jong-un's face in UK
Staff Reporter
2015-03-21
The fake ￡5 bill with North Korean Supreme leader Kim Jong-un's image. (Internet photo)
A man in Manchester in the UK has recently experienced a little surprise as he found in his pocket a £5 (US$7.40) note with the image of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, reports UK news outlet Metro.
Ant Norfolk, 24, is selling the note that is apparently fake on ebay. The latest bid is £50 (US$74).
On his Facebook, Norfolk explained that he was in the bar when he got the note.
"Apparently I 'dropped' a note, which a stranger was kind enough to 'give back' to me," the report quoted him as saying.
"I didn't notice it was different. I just put it in my pocket like you would and said thank you. Really it was someone playing a joke."
Norfolk said he will donate half of his earnings from selling the note to charity.
NORTH KOREA: Airdropping DVDs of 'The Interview' would constitute a de facto declaration of a war
AFP
Mar. 22, 2015, 11:53 AM
South Korean activists prepare to release balloons carrying anti-North Korea leaflets at a park near the inter-Korea border in Paju, north of Seoul, on October 10, 2014
Seoul (AFP) - North Korea's military on Sunday threatened to blow up balloons that South Korean activists plan to send over the heavily-militarised border carrying 10,000 DVDs of the satirical Hollywood film "The Interview".
Activists plan to launch copies of the film -- a comedy about a fictional CIA plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un -- as well as 500,000 propaganda leaflets across the border on or around March 26.
Pyongyang has long condemned such balloon launches and threatened retaliation, and local residents have complained the activists are putting their lives at risk by making them potential targets.
"All the firepower strike means of the frontline units of the (Korean People's Army) will launch without prior warning... to blow up balloons," the North's frontline military units said in a notice to the South.
It said the launch would constitute "the gravest politically-motivated provocation" against North Korea and "a de facto declaration of a war", according to Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.
The move is aimed at "deliberately escalating tension on the Korean peninsula where the situation has reached the brink of a war due to... joint war rehearsals" by South Korea and the United States, it said.
The South's military said it would retaliate if the North opens fire on its territory.
But the North's notice warned that any challenge to its "just physical countermeasures" will trigger "merciless retaliatory strikes".
South Koreans living near the border are "recommended to evacuate in advance for their safety" if the balloons are launched, it said.
The launch will mark the five-year anniversary of the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010, with the loss of 46 sailors. The South pinned the blame on the North and effectively froze trade and investment ties.
The warning came even after South Korea's Unification Ministry on Friday vowed to take steps preventing the launch in order to protect local residents, saying there is a "limit" to freedom of expression.
Seoul insists the activists have a democratic right to carry out such launches, but has appealed for restraint to avoid overly provoking the North.
South Korean police have occasionally prevented the launches at times of high cross-border tensions, citing the possible dangers posed to local residents.
The activists remained tight-lipped about the exact location and time for the launch.
In October last year North Korean soldiers attempted to shoot down some balloons, triggering a brief exchange of heavy machine-gun fire across the border.
North Korea refuses to atone for deadly 2010 ship sinking despite Seoul embargo
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 24 March, 2015, 3:53pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 24 March, 2015, 4:22pm
Agence France-Presse in Seoul
Pyongyang holds a rally in 2010 after the South accuses the North Korean navy of attacking the Cheonan ship with a torpedo. Photo: AP
North Korea today ruled out any apology over the 2010 sinking of the South Korean navel corvette Cheonan - even as Seoul requires Pyongyang to show contrition before lifting an effective trade embargo.
Two days ahead of the fifth anniversary of the sinking, in which 46 South Korean seamen died, the North’s top military body, the National Defence Commission (NDC), condemned Seoul’s steadfast insistence on the “cock-and-bull” idea that Pyongyang was responsible.
The Cheonan was carrying 104 personnel when it sank near the disputed Yellow Sea maritime border between North and South Korea on March 26. It was one of the deadliest incidents between the two Koreas since the end of the 1950-1953 Korean war.
A South Korean-led investigation involving a team of international experts concluded it was sunk by a North Korean submarine torpedo.
In its response today, Seoul slammed North Korea’s latest denial of its involvement in the sinking.
“It has been concluded [the sinking was the act of] North Korea’s submarine, and thus North Korea’s claim is unacceptable,” South Korea’s Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters.
Seoul had five years ago responded with the so-called “May 24 measures”, which amounted to an effective trade embargo and suspension of large-scale aid on North Korea, which remain in place today.
South Korea has insisted it will only consider lifting the sanctions after the North acknowledges its responsibility and apologises.
South Korean cameramen take footage of torpedo parts salvaged from the Yellow Sea, after Seoul concluded that the Cheonan ship sank from a projectile attack. Forty-six South Korean seamen died. Photo: AFP
The NDC statement today demanded the immediate end of the trade embargo, arguing that it was based on a “fictitious story about the North’s involvement”.
“We remain unchanged in our stand that the south has to immediately lift the ill-famed ‘step’ which they cooked up under the absurd pretext of the Cheonan warship sinking case, not dragging on time,” a spokesman for the Policy Department of the NDC said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
“The South should clearly understand that its sophism that [an] ‘apology’ and ‘expression of regret’ have to precede the lifting of the ‘step’ can never work,” the spokesman said.
Calling for an apology in such circumstances amounted to an “intolerable mockery” of the North’s dignity, the spokesman said.
Some influential South Korean business leaders and politicians have also called for the May 24 measures to be lifted, but President Park Geun-hye’s administration has held firm to the condition of a sincere apology.
A 2013 documentary by the left-wing South korean director Chung Ji-Young, Project Cheonan, stirred heated debate by exploring alternative explanations for the sinking, including suggestions that the vessel might have hit a reef or collided with an unidentified submarine.
The Cheonan incident and the trade measures imposed by the South triggered a dangerous surge in cross-border tensions.
In November 2010, the North shelled a South Korean border island, killing four people including two civilians and sparking brief fears of a full-scale conflict.
UN criticises N.Korea for 'systematic' abductions of foreigners
AFP
March 28, 2015, 12:52 am
Geneva (AFP) - The UN Human Rights Council on Friday strongly criticised North Korea for the "systematic abduction" of foreigners, after a UN investigation found the country had snatched up to 200,000 foreign nationals.
But the 47-member rights body's resolution was dismissed by North Korean foreign ministry official Ri Hung-Sik, as a "political plot filled with frauds and distortions".
The resolution, he told the council, was "intended to bring down the system and ideology" of his country.
The adopted text decried North Korea's "systematic abduction, denial of repatriation and subsequent enforced disappearance of persons, including those from other countries, on a large scale and as a matter of state policy".
A UN-mandated investigation issued a searing report in February 2014 accusing North Korea of committing human rights violations "without parallel in the contemporary world", including the abductions of an estimated 200,000 foreign nationals from at least 12 countries.
Most of them were South Koreans left stranded after the 1950-1953 Korean War, but hundreds of others from around the world have since been taken or disappeared while visiting the secretive Stalinist state.
The number of Japanese citizens believed to have been taken to train North Korean spies in Japanese language and customs are now estimated "in the hundreds", the UN's top investigator on the rights situation in North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, told reporters last week.
Darusman, whose mandate was extended for another year by Friday's resolution, has called for the international community to resolve the fate of the abductees, and to refer the perpetrators to the International Criminal Court.
In 2002, North Korea admitted that it had kidnapped 13 Japanese citizens to train its spies.
Five of the abductees returned home, but Pyongyang said -- without producing credible evidence -- that the eight others had died.
Pyongyang agreed last May to reinvestigate the cases of Japanese nationals kidnapped in the 1970s and 1980s in return for Tokyo lifting sanctions.
Friday's resolution said it was "expecting concrete and positive results" from that probe.
- Torture and rape -
Speaking to reporters, Ri harshly criticised Japan, a co-sponsor of the resolution, for bringing up abduction issue despite knowing "the issue is under investigation".
"This issue is to be... addressed bilaterally between (North Korea) and Japan," he said.
Speaking through a translator, he acknowledged that "it is wrong to abduct the nationals of other countries", but stressed that North Korea and Japan had been "in hostile relations" when the admitted abductions took place.
He also insisted that the Japanese citizens "were abducted, not by the country authorities, but by some agencies" inside North Korea.
As for the suspected kidnappings of people from other countries, he insisted: "There were no abductions of the other nationals."
Friday's resolution also condemned the "long-standing and ongoing systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations committed in... North Korea".
It called on Pyongyang to acknowledge the crimes, including suspected "crimes against humanity" and to "take immediate steps" to end all violations, and urged the international community to help bring those responsible to justice.
Last year's UN investigation heard testimony from North Korean exiles and documented a vast network of harsh prison camps holding up to 120,000 people along with cases of torture, summary executions and rape.
Pyongyang has rejected the findings, especially after one of the prominent witnesses cited in the report retracted some of his testimony.
The report "has been proven false by the testifiers themselves", Ri told the council, warning the UN was "being cheated by some double-dealers".
The United States, which co-sponsored the resolution, was not in doubt about the importance of the resolution.
North Korea "is among the world's most pervasive deniers of freedoms and violators of human rights," US ambassador Keith Harper told the council Friday.
N.K. holds S. Koreans for spying
Published: 2015-03-27 19:39
Updated: 2015-03-27 19:51
North Korea detained two South Korean citizens Friday on espionage charges, in a move that could worsen already-frosty inter-Korean relations.
North Korean authorities announced Kim Guk-cheol and Choi Choon-gil were detained for spying on the North. The South denied the accusations and demanded their immediate release.
“We strongly ask that (the North) release our citizens without delay,” a spokesperson for the South’s Unification Ministry said. “We express deep regret over the North’s ridiculous claims.”
Kim Guk-gi (left) and Choi Choon-gil, two South Koreans, appear at a press conference Thursday in Pyongyang. North Korea has detained them on espionage charges. (Yonhap)
But the South’s efforts to free them will be an uphill battle, analysts said, given the North’s record on detaining U.S. and South Korean citizens for months on similar grounds, despite external pressure to release them.
Later Friday, the North refused to accept a letter from Seoul officials requesting their release.
The Unification Ministry also requested for Kim Jong-uk, another South Korean citizen, to be released. He has been detained in North Korea since October 2013.
Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American, was detained in the North for nearly two years from 2012 to late last year. Laura Ling and Euna Lee, two U.S. reporters, were also detained in 2009.
The North asserted that Kim and Choi were found to have relayed information on the North to the South’s National Intelligence Service. Pyongyang authorities added the two had attained information from Chinese residents near the North Korean border in Manchuria.
Kim and Choi admitted their charges at a press conference held in the North. Many in the South believe the conference was staged and the confessions made under duress.
“Their lives probably depended on it,” said Ahn Chan-il, a North Korea expert.
Ahn added that Kim and Choi were likely detained so the North could gain an upper hand over the South in any future negotiations.
“For South Korea to gain (Kim and Choi’s release), it will be forced to appease the North in some way,” he said.
“The North might ask that the South lift sanctions imposed on the North in return for someone’s release,” Ahn added, in reference to the so-called May 24 sanctions the South put on the North in 2010 after Pyongyang torpedoed a southern naval ship, the Cheonan, in March of that year.
There has been debate in Seoul’s legislature in recent weeks over whether it should lift the May 24 sanctions in order to improve worsening ties with the North. But most South Korean conservatives have opposed removing the sanctions, saying the North must first apologize for its sinking of the Cheonan.
North Korea has consistently denied involvement in the sinking, sparking anger with both liberal and conservative South Koreans.
By Jeong Hunny ([email protected])
S. Korea urges N. Korea to free two arrested nationals
Published: 2015-03-27 12:07
Updated: 2015-03-27 15:00
South Korea called on North Korea on Friday to immediately release two of its nationals detained in the communist country on espionage charges.
A man identified as Kim Kuk-gi (Yonhap)
North Korea announced that it has arrested the two South Korean men on charges of espionage for the South's state spy agency.
"It's very regrettable that the North is making such a groundless claim about them," the unification ministry said in a statement. "We strongly call for their quick release and repatriation."
The North held a press conference for the two, which it identified as Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil, at the People's Palace of Culture in Pyongyang on Thursday. Speaking at a press briefing, unification ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol confirmed that Kim and Choe are South Korean nationals. But he refused to clarify whether they are related to the NIS.
It is a matter that requires a South Korean government probe after they are freed and repatriated here, Lim said.
He instead criticized the North for violating human rights and humanitarian spirit as well as international practices by unilaterally detaining the South's citizens without any notice to Seoul.
In the Pyongyang press conference, meanwhile, an unnamed official at the North's Ministry of State Security branded them as "heinous terrorists," according to Pyongyang's media.
"They zealously took part in the anti-DPRK smear campaign of the U.S. imperialists and the puppet group of traitors to isolate and blockade the DPRK in the international arena by labeling it 'a country printing counterfeit notes' and 'sponsor of terrorism' while pulling it up over its 'human rights issue,'" the North's official was quoted as saying.
DPRK is the acronym for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The official also accused the two of gathering information on the Workers' Party of Korea and other state and military secrets.
Pyongyang released public footage and audio files of what it claims to be the two men's confessions of spying for the South's National Intelligence Service.
With the North's security agents standing next to them, Kim and Choe said they were bribed by a senior NIS agent to collect information on the communist nation and criticize its system.
In 2010, Kim said, he received an "instruction" from the NIS that the North's top leader might visit China by train and he provided the Seoul-based agency with information related to a railway station in a Chinese border town.
He also said he offered information on the North's nuclear program. He admitted to have committed a grave crime and apologized for that.
Kim was born in Daejeon, a South Korean city, and he had operated an underground church in the Chinese border city of Dandong since 2003, the North said, without specifying when and how he was arrested.
As to Choe, it said, his hometown is the South's eastern city of Chuncheon, and the 56-year-old left his country in 2003 and spent many years in China. He was caught by the North's border guards after illegally entering the nation.
The arrests of Kim and Choe are expected to add to already-strained ties between the two Koreas.
It raised the number of South Koreans currently detained in the North to three. Kim Jeong-wook, a South Korean missionary, was put in custody in October 2013. (Yonhap)
Japan police raid pro-North Korea group residences
Raids come in connection to smuggling charges against S.Korean trader, may be due to stagnant abductee investigation
March 28th, 2015 Ha-young Choi
Japanese police raided the residences of six Chongryon’ members Thursday, including the home of its chairman Ho Jong Man.
Japanese police said the trading company Toho, based in Tokyo and owned by South Korean Lee Dong-cheol, has been smuggling North Korean pine mushrooms and that Chongryon is connected to this operation.
Toho is alleged to have imported 1,200kg of North Korean mushrooms, valued at approximately $25,000, through Shanghai and the Kansai airport in Japan, labeling them Chinese goods.
Importing North Korean products has been illegal in Japan since October 2006 due to sanctions stemming from the North Korean nuclear test and missile launch of that year. Despite the Stockholm Agreement announced last May, relaxing some sanctions including on transferring money and the comings and goings of ships for humanitarian purposes, trade between Japan and North Korea is still not allowed.
The General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan, or Chongryon, has functioned as the de facto embassy of DPRK in Japan, as the two nations have no official diplomatic relations.
“Though its role has been restricted due to the sanctions, Chongryon is a very important organization for North Korea, for ensuring foreign currency, importing luxury goods and collecting information,” Sejong Institute vice director Lee Myun-woo told NK News.
According to the NK Leadership Tracker, Ho Jong Man has been working at Chongryon headquarters in Tokyo since 1959, and was appointed chairman in 2012.
“The chairman of Chongryon is considered a high-level official who can personally meet with the North Korean leader,” Lee said.
Chongryon has strongly rebutted the smuggling allegation, saying there is no correlation between them and the alleged crime.
“The chairman and vice chairman of Chongryon have never known of the company or the president of the company,” a statement from the organization said.
Chongryong defined this incident as a “base” behavior encouraging misunderstanding and hostility toward the DPRK. Chongryon also suspects the “involvement of the Japanese government and prime minister” due to political motives.
Chongryon also stated that the Japanese government has a responsibility, given the ongoing investigation of North Korea’s 1977-83 abductions of Japanese civilians following the Stockholm agreement.
“The most sensitive, biggest issue between North Korea and Japan is the abductees, which is urgent for Japanese government. Given that the negotiations regarding the abductee issue have not been solved after almost a year, with the sudden raid against Chongryon it seems that Japan is exerting pressure to North Korea,” Lee said.
The North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) has reported on North Korean pine mushrooms, touting their health benefits. These days, the North Korean company Rason Taehung Trading Company produces pine mushroom broth.
This map shows how the world's most isolated regimes got their weapons in 2014
Armin Rosen and Skye Gould
Apr. 2, 2015, 11:37 AM
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un greeting a women's subunit during a rocket-launching drill.
Several countries have managed to build massive arsenals despite being under various forms of international sanction.
China has anti-satellite weapons, advanced fighter jets, and ballistic missiles, despite the US banning all weapons-related trade with Beijing after the 1989 Tienanmen Square massacre.
The Arab League maintains an official boycott on Israel — which nevertheless has the strongest military in the Middle East. And EU and US sanctions haven't wiped out Russia's ongoing military modernization drive.
But China, Israel, and Russia face far fewer barriers to the international weapons market than the true rogue states: that is, the US-listed state sponsors of terrorism.
And that is ironically a source of strength for these countries, which trade with one another. This is demonstrated by the below map, compiled with information from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's global weapons transfer database for 2014.
Rogue Regime Map GraphicSkye Gould/Business Insider
Today there are four of them (though Cuba is set to be delisted after last year's diplomatic thaw), and a few are notable military powers in their own right.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is fighting in Iraq and Syria. Syria's Assad regime has held out against secular rebels and a range of jihadist groups for over four years. Sudan's regime has survived through simultaneous civil wars and a deep economic trough.
North Korea, which was removed from the list in 2008 in an eventually failed bid to jumpstart flagging disarmament talks, is under a heavy sanctions regime and has 1.2 million soldiers, thousands of artillery pieces, and nuclear weapons.
These countries managed to build up their military capabilities partly because of their international isolation.
For instance, 30 years of western sanctions required Iran to develop the one of the most extensive domestic arms industries in the Middle East — if it could buy weapons from the US or Europe, Iran would not have had to build its own battleships and submarines. North Korea has a substantial indigenous weapons capability as well, ranging from ballistic missiles to small arms.
A new type of anti-ship cruise missile to be equipped at Korean People's Army (KPA) naval units is tested in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on February 7.
Iran provides all sorts of weaponry and military aid to Syria. Though it isn't marked on this map, which shows weapons transfers only from 2014, Iran helped set up Sudan's domestic arms industry and has provided arms to the government in Khartoum that later ended up with pro-government militant groups. Russia and China will sell to just about whomever they want to. Belarus, which has long been under various sanctions because of its government's human-rights record, will also sell to Sudan.
The map above shows one of the consequences of international sanctions and mechanisms like the state sponsors of terror list. They're meant to change regimes' behavior by cutting them off from mainstream trade and international relations. But this actually creates an incentive for them to cooperate with one another in a way that may be even less accountable to responsible international actors.
Because these governments are already sanctioned, "rogue" regimes may come to believe they have little to lose from further provocative behavior.
North Korea is under possibly the strictest sanctions regime there is, so it anticipates little additional cost in shipping arms to the Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees. Some regimes actually benefit from their isolation and would rather receive unconditional support from other weak and isolated states than Western assistance conditioned on meaningful reform.
The map also provides a useful reminder that no country is entirely cut off from the rest of the world and that even regimes far outside the international mainstream aren't totally friendless.
North Korean school textbook claims leader Kim Jong-un learned to drive aged 3
21:47, 9 April 2015
By Dominic Smith
It sensationally goes on to claim that the young supreme leader first raced a yacht aged nine - and won
Feats: Textbook claims Kim Jong Un learned to drive aged three
A new North Korean school textbook claims that leader Kim Jong-un learned to drive when he was just three years old.
It goes on to claim that the supreme leader raced a yacht aged just nine - and sensationally won.
A new subject - Kim Jong-un's Revolutionary Activities - will be taught in the country's middle and high schools, according to South Korean television station YTN.
It will focus on the life and times of the young leader, who came to power in 2011 following the death of his father Kim Jong-il.
The module reportedly goes on to claim that the 32-year-old is a proficient artist and can compose music.
This undated picture shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un (C) inspecting the fish meal fodder factory newly built by the Korean People's Army
It is a sign that teachers have been tasked with glorifying Kim, according to UPI.
The translated texts is reported to read: "At the age of 9, Kim Jong-un raced the chief executive of a foreign yacht company, who was visiting North Korea at the time," adding that Kim won the race.
Similar claims were made about Kim Jong-il and North Korean founder Kim il Sung who were both idolised in the country.
Kim Jong-il's biography stated that he shot 11 holes in one during his first ever round of golf, and promptly retired and never played the sport again.
Last week, it was reported that Kim Jong-un had ordered the return of a 'pleasure troupe' of young women to entertain him.
The country's official three-year mouring period after the death of his father, and the new leader's investigations upon taking office have now completed, it is said.
North Korean first lady Ri Sol-ju resurfaces in public sporting a 'wedding ring'
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 14 April, 2015, 1:41pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 14 April, 2015, 2:03pm
Agence France-Presse in Seoul
Ri Sol-ju (4th from left), wife of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (2nd from right), applaud a men's soccer match at Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang as part of celebrations honouring the birthday of Kim patriarch Il-sung. Photo: EPA
North Korea’s first lady has appeared in public for the first time this year as part of celebrations marking the birthday of the country’s founding leader Kim Il-sung, state media said today.
A grinning Ri Sol-ju, wearing what appeared to be a wedding ring on her left hand, was pictured clapping next to her smiling husband Kim Jong-un during a men’s football match at Kim Il-sung Stadium yesterday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
The images of the couple at a podium flanked by top party officials were published in state media.
The match was being held as part of a lavish series of events celebrating the 103rd birthday of Kim Il-sung, the young leader’s grandfather, which falls tomorrow.
North Korea designates the “Day of the Sun” as a rare two-day national holiday, with art performances, exhibitions and sporting events, and pilgrimages to the late leader’s birthplace in Pyongyang.
A former member of the North’s Unhasu Orchestra, Ri was last seen in public in December last year, when she and her husband attended a ceremony to commemorate the third anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il.
Their marriage was only revealed in July 2012 when pictures emerged of a young woman accompanying Kim at official events in a break from the past, when the North’s first ladies were kept out of the limelight.
She was pictured wearing stylish, expensive-looking outfits and on one occasion sported what appeared to be a Christian Dior handbag, in a country plagued by chronic poverty.
But Ri has been out of the spotlight since December for unknown reasons.
A foreign runner runs with locals during an annual marathon in Pyongyang at the weekend, ahead of the national holiday. Photo: Kyodo
The Kim dynasty has ruled the isolated state for nearly seven decades with an iron fist and pervasive personality cult.
Kim Il-sung led North Korea from its establishment in 1948 until his death on July 8, 1994.
He was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong-il, who also ruled until his death in December 2011 when power was transferred to his son and current leader Kim Jong-un.
KCNA said “an endless stream of people” was visiting, Mangyongdae, the birthplace of Kim Il-Sung, as the “Day of the Sun” draws near.
On Sunday more than 800 runners took place in an international marathon watched by hundreds of fans, including some 600 from abroad, as part of the celebrations.
“Attending the race were more than 600 marathon fans from dozens of countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Sweden, Finland, UK and Italy,” KCNA said.
The North announced in February that the April 12 marathon would only be open to domestic runners this year, because of lingering concerns over the Ebola epidemic in west Africa.
But it last month reversed a ban on foreigners taking part in the annual run, after lifting strict travel restrictions aimed at keeping out the Ebola virus.
WikiLeaks just published 30,000 documents from the Sony hack
Ryan Gorman Entertainment Apr. 17, 2015, 4:34 AM
AP Photo / John Stillwell
WikiLeaks has put the documents and emails obtained by hackers from Sony Pictures Entertainment in a searchable online database, the group announced on Thursday.
All 173,132 emails and 30,287 documents stolen from the movie studio late last year are now available for anyone to search, browse and view, founder Julian Assange said in a press release.
“This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation,” Assange said. “It is newsworthy and at the centre of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain … WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there.”
The reaction of Sony Pictures was fast and furious. The studio released a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times, condemning the act:
The attackers used the dissemination of stolen information to try to harm SPE and its employees, and now WikiLeaks regrettably is assisting them in that effort,” said a Sony Pictures spokesperson in a statement. “We vehemently disagree with WikiLeaks’ assertion that this material belongs in the public domain and will continue to fight for the safety, security, and privacy of our company and its more than 6,000 employees.
The treasure trove of data shows the inner workings of one of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios.
Information made public in the document dump ranges from political donations to President Barack Obama and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and discussions about the studio’s lawsuit against pirating site Megaupload to Sony’s stable of movie stars and how it even spied on rival studios.
“Documents in the archive reveal the budget breakdown for Oliver Stone’s rival picture Snowden, which is currently in production,” said WikiLeaks.
The archive also reveals how many government officials were in regular contact with SPE, about 100 .gov email addresses can be found, which also included “connections to the US military-industrial complex,” per WikiLeaks.
Details on lobbying efforts through various trade groups are also made public in the documents.
The emails and documents were initially stolen last year by hackers who call themselves the “Guardians of Peace,” a group that U.S. officials have said are affiliated with North Korea.
North Korea arrests two ‘South Korean spies’ who allegedly stole secrets, spread fake money
PUBLISHED : Friday, 27 March, 2015, 5:31pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 21 April, 2015, 12:41pm
Agence France-Presse in Seoul
Alleged South Korean spies Kim Kuk-gi (left) and Choe Chun-gil were paraded to the media by North Korean authorities. Photos: Kyodo
North Korea said it had arrested two South Korean spies who allegedly operated from a base in the Chinese border city of Dandong.
The announcement was made months after the two, identified as Kim Kuk-gi, 60, and Choe Chun-gil, 55, were detained for allegedly stealing secrets or confidential information about the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, state organisations and the military.
In a dispatch last night, the North’s official KCNA news agency described the two as “heinous terrorists” who tried to create economic chaos by circulating counterfeit money and spread “unsound” publications to the public.
“They zealously took part in an anti-DPRK [North Korea] smear campaign organised by US intelligence and the South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS),” the KCNA said.
The two arrested men, said to have lived in China for many years, were presented at a “press conference” in Pyongyang, attended by journalists and foreign diplomats.
North Korean officials at the event said Kim Kuk-gi was detained last September in Pyongyang, while Choe was captured by border patrol agents after entering North Korea on December 30.
South Korea today demanded the pair’s release. Though the NIS said it was still trying to confirm Kim and Choe’s nationality, they said the charge that the two men were working for the agency was “absolutely groundless”.
A North Korean official shows the counterfeit money that the two detained 'spies' allegedly circulated to sow economic chaos. Photo: Reuters
South Korea’s Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong Cheol told reporters said it was “deeply regrettable” that North Korea detained them and made “nonsensical claims” about their activities.
North Korea “should immediately set them free and repatriate them,” he said, adding that the North “has violated international practices, human rights which are universal values and humanitarianism”.
Lim also demanded the immediate release of a South Korean Christian missionary, Kim Jeong-uk, who has been in detention in the North for nearly a year.
Among other things, Kim was accused of spreading “religious propaganda” from an “underground church” he ran in Dandong, which has a large ethnic Korean community and is a hub of both official and illicit cross-border trade.
Cross-border ties are already strained over ongoing joint South Korea-US military exercises that Pyongyang has condemned as provocative rehearsals for invasion.
In the past, North Korea has occasionally detained South Korean nationals on accusations of spying in what experts say are attempts to pressure Seoul or raise North Korean people’s hostility towards the South.
With additional reporting from Associated Press and Kyodo
China confirms three killed by North Koreans in border village
Violence latest in a series of murders in northern China blamed on deserters from North Korea’s military
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 29 April, 2015, 4:50pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 29 April, 2015, 7:43pm
Nectar Gan
[email protected]
A Chinese guard on duty on the border with North Korea. Previous media reports have suggested North Korean soldiers are crossing the frontier to find food and steal money. Photo: AFP
The authorities in a border town between China’s northeastern Jilin province and North Korea have confirmed that three villagers were murdered last week after a media report that three men had crossed the border in North Korean military uniforms and carried out the killings.
The propaganda department in Shilong said in a statement on its social media account that after midnight on Saturday police received reports that a 67-year-old man, a 55-year-old man and his 26-year-old daughter had been murdered.
The public security authorities at city, prefecture and provincial level were investigating the case, the statement said.
South Korea’s national broadcaster Korean Broadcasting System reported on Tuesday that three armed soldiers who had fled from the North Korean army allegedly entered the small mountain village of Shiren on Friday afternoon and killed three Chinese villagers before fleeing.
It did not mention what had led to the violence.The report said the soldiers were carrying weapons, but gave no details.
The report said the Chinese authorities had dispatched huge numbers of officers, including armed police, to search the area where the suspects might be hiding.
Local residents told The Beijing News that people in the area were in shock. “We were all terrified after it happened,” a villager from a neighbouring village was quoted as saying.
He said he had heard that two victims died at the scene and the other died later after receiving medical treatment.
Last December, a deserter from the North Korean army shot four villagers to death after entering another village near Shilong. He was arrested by Chinese police the same day.
In September, a North Korean killed a family of three in the same village.]
North Korea diplomats storm out of UN rights meeting
AFP
May 1, 2015, 8:12 am
United Nations (United States) (AFP) - North Korean diplomats on Thursday stormed out of a UN conference on human rights after lashing out at the United States for inviting three defectors to speak at the event.
Pyongyang envoy Ri Song Chol interrupted the conference when he tried to deliver a statement following the poignant testimony of Joseph Kim who fled North Korea as an orphaned, homeless and hungry teenager.
US Ambassador Samantha Power ordered UN staff to turn off the North Korean diplomat's microphone and security guards were dispatched to the conference room at UN headquarters.
The three diplomats then stood up and left the room telling reporters that they were denied the opportunity to speak as a UN member-state.
Ri accused the United States of "murdering innocent black people" and pointed to the deaths of African Americans in Baltimore and Ferguson as proof that the US "is the true kingpin of human rights violations."
He blasted the event as a "one-sided political drama."
Power in turn accused the North Koreans of "bullying," saying that they were told beforehand that they would have an opportunity to speak.
"The delegation chose instead to try to drown out the testimony of these panelists," she said.
- North Korea's 'darkest corners'-
The conference opened with testimony from Joseph Kim who watched his father die of starvation at the age of 12.
His mother was sent to a prison labor camp for traveling to China where she had sent his sister in the hope that she would be spared from hardship.
Kim eventually fled to China and arrived in the United States eight years ago as a refugee.
At the age of 10, Jay Jo fled to China with her mother following the death of her grandmother, who starved while digging for grass.
She recounted how her father was sent to a prison camp for scavenging for food and died there.
Kim appealed to delegates to "continue lending an ear to the story of the North Korean people" so that "we can bring light to the darkest corners of the world's most isolated country."
In her remarks, Power said "the true weapon of mass destruction inside North Korea is the treatment of its people and the destruction of those lives."
The UN Security Council in December held its first-ever meeting on the human rights crisis in North Korea despite objections from China, which said the matter should be discussed in other UN settings.
The General Assembly last year adopted a resolution calling on the Council to consider referring North Korea to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.
The 15-member council however has yet to follow up on the assembly's resolution and call for an ICC probe of rights violations in North Korea.
Diplomats have said such a move is widely expected to be vetoed by China, North Korea's ally.
NIS: 'Kim Jong Eun Has Executed 15 Officials This Year'
Cho Jong Ik | 2015-04-30 15:52
Kim Jong Eun has executed 15 high-ranking officials so far this year, reported South Korea’s National Intelligence Service [NIS] on April 29th.
“Kim Jong Eun’s reign of terror continues unabated, according to the reports from the NIS," Shin Kyung Min, an assistant administrator of the Intelligence Committee and a member of the opposition party, told reporters the same day. “Kim is taking a strict policy of no excuses, consistently carrying out his ‘reign of terror.’ Dissents are considered acts of challenging his authority, punishable by execution to set an example for would-be protesters.”
He added, “According to the NIS, Kim executed the vice-minister of Forestries for complaining about the country’s afforestation directive. He also executed the vice-chairman of the State Planning Commission [SPC] in February for raising opposition to plans for a Science Technology Hall along the Taedong River.” Other reason behind the demise of the SPC vice-chairman was purportedly his objection to Kim Jong Eun’s desire to change the flower designs at the proposed science facility.
The head of Eunhasu [Milky Way] Orchestra and three other artists were also executed for “causing scandals," according to the report.
There has been a constant churn of promotion and demotion in the senior ranks of the military since Kim Jong Eun’s assumption of power in late 2011, a strategic process to ensure security, demonstrate Kim's total command, and foster fear and loyalty in the senior ranks. Shin cited the case of Kim Young Cheol, who, just three months after suddenly being demoted from his position as director of North Korea’s General Bureau of Reconnaissance, was reinstated to his original rank.
Aside from the information on these 15 officials, the NIS reported that Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Eun’s younger sister and vice department director in the Central Committee of the ruling Chosun Workers’ Party, is expecting a child in May. “The child’s paternity cannot be confirmed,” Shin stated, adding that current intel points to a fellow graduate of Kim Il Sung University as the father, though nothing is known of his background.
Shin concluded the briefing by broaching the swirling speculation regarding Kim Jong Eun’s upcoming visit to Russia for celebrations marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Germany in WWII; such a trip would be his first visit to a foreign country since assuming power in December 2011. Shin said the NIS report asserted the possibility for Kim Jong Eun to head to Moscow to be "very high" but that a host of factors and variables prevent this theory from being entirely conclusive.
*Translated by Jihae Lee
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