UNITED NATIONS: North Korea’s deputy UN ambassador accused the United States on Monday of turning the Korean Peninsula into “the world’s biggest hotspot” and creating “a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.”
Kim In Ryong told a news conference that “if the US dares opt for a military action,” North Korea “is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US“
He said the Trump administration’s deployment of the Carl Vinson nuclear carrier task group to waters off the Korean Peninsula again “proves the US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase of its scenario.”
Kim stressed that US-South Korean military exercises being staged now are the largest-ever “aggressive war drill” aimed at his country, formally the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“The prevailing grave situation proves once again that the DPRK was entirely just when it increased in every way its military capabilities for self-defense and pre-emptive attack with a nuclear force as a pivot,” he said.
Tensions have escalated over North Korean moves to accelerate its weapons development. The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, defying six Security Council sanctions resolutions banning any testing, and it has launched more missiles this year including a failed attempt this past weekend.
The North’s Foreign Ministry said the missile launches are as part of a normal process of building up the country’s defenses and economy. Ministry official Kim Chang Min also said in the interview in Pyongyang that the UN, the Security Council and big countries ignored South Korean missile launches and Japanese surveillance satellites.
“This is the limit of double standards,” Kim of the Foreign Ministry said. “How can we have any dialogue to get any result with anyone who has this kind of approach?“
On Monday, US Vice President Mike Pence traveled to the Demilitarized Zone dividing the Koreas and warned Pyongyang that “the era of strategic patience is over.”
After 25 years of trying to deal patiently with North Korea’s nuclear and missile ambitions, Pence said, “all options are on the table” to deal with threat.
Deputy UN Ambassador Kim said North Korea’s policy is shaped by the Trump administration’s push for “high-intensity sanctions” against the country, deploying tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea and launching military action aimed at “beheading” the North’s leadership headed by Kim Jong Un.
He said rolling back the hostile US policy toward the DPRK “is the precondition to solving all the problems in the Korean Peninsula.”
Kim called the news conference to “categorically reject” the US decision to hold an open meeting of the Security Council on April 28 on North Korea’s nuclear program which is scheduled to be chaired by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
He called it “another abuse of authority” by the United States, which holds the Security Council presidency this month, and a violation of the DPRK’s sovereignty.
Kim ignored questions about the DPRK’s relationship with China and reports that the government didn’t respond to requests from Chinese officials for a meeting.
Instead he reiterated two Chinese proposals that the US rejected.
One called for “dual-track” talks on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula — the top priority of the United States — and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang. The other called for a freeze on US-South Korean military exercises and a freeze on DPRK missile and nuclear tests.
North Korea accuses US of creating situation for nuclear war
North Korea accuses US of creating situation for nuclear war
UK must weigh repatriating Daesh members in Syria, terror adviser says
- Jonathan Hall KC: ‘It wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done’
- Trump’s counterterrorism adviser has also urged Britain to take back citizens who joined Daesh
LONDON: The UK must consider repatriating British members of Daesh held in Syrian detention camps, the government’s independent terrorism adviser has said.
“Repatriation would not be moral absolution. If someone came back it wouldn’t prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they’ve done,” Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, told the BBC.
The incoming Trump administration’s counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has also urged the UK to follow the US lead and take back its citizens who joined Daesh.
“Any nation which wishes to be seen to be a serious ally and friend of the most powerful nation in the world should act in a fashion that reflects that serious commitment,” Gorka said.
“That is doubly so for the UK which has a very special place in President (Donald) Trump’s heart, and we would all wish to see the ‘special relationship’ fully re-established.”
One high-profile Briton who traveled to Syria to support Daesh is Shamima Begum, who left London as a teenager in 2015.
Her citizenship was stripped in 2019. Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said Begum “will not be coming back to the UK.”
Hall said: “It could be quite a pragmatic decision in the overall interests of national security to bring someone back.
“There is obviously some national security benefit of leaving people there because you don’t have to monitor them.
“On the other hand, there haven’t yet been any attacks in Europe by anyone who has been repatriated in this way and if they are left there ... and then they escape, they would be much more dangerous, actually, to the UK.”
The US and some European countries have repatriated their citizens from Syrian camps. Many have been put on trial and imprisoned.
Lammy said Begum’s case has been reviewed in court and the 25-year-old is “not a UK national.”
Many of the detainees are “dangerous, are radicals,” he told the “Good Morning Britain” show on Thursday.
Opposition leader Kemi Badenoch has also said Begum should not be allowed to return to the UK.
“Citizenship means committing to a country and wanting its success. It’s not an international travel document for crime tourism,” Badenoch said.
IMF chief sees steady world growth in 2025, continuing disinflation
- Georgieva’s comments are the first indication this year of the IMF’s evolving global outlook
- The IMF will release an update to global outlook on Jan. 17, just days before Trump takes office
WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund will forecast steady global growth and continuing disinflation when it releases an updated World Economic Outlook on Jan. 17, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters on Friday.
Georgieva said the US economy was doing “quite a bit better” than expected, although there was high uncertainty around the trade policies of the administration of President-elect Donald Trump that was adding to headwinds facing the global economy and driving long-term interest rates higher.
With inflation moving closer to the US Federal Reserve’s target, and data showing a stable labor market, the Fed could afford to wait for more data before undertaking further interest rate cuts, she said. Overall, interest rates were expected to stay “somewhat higher for quite some time,” she said.
The IMF will release an update to its global outlook on Jan. 17, just days before Trump takes office. Georgieva’s comments are the first indication this year of the IMF’s evolving global outlook, but she gave no detailed projections.
In October, the IMF raised its 2024 economic growth forecasts for the US, Brazil and Britain but cut them for China, Japan and the euro zone, citing risks from potential new trade wars, armed conflicts and tight monetary policy.
At the time, it left its forecast for 2024 global growth unchanged at the 3.2 percent projected in July, and lowered its global forecast for 3.2 percent growth in 2025 by one-tenth of a percentage point, warning that global medium-term growth would fade to 3.1 percent in five years, well below its pre-pandemic trend.
“Not surprisingly, given the size and role of the US economy, there is keen interest globally in the policy directions of the incoming administration, in particular on tariffs, taxes, deregulation and government efficiency,” Georgieva said.
“This uncertainty is particularly high around the path for trade policy going forward, adding to the headwinds facing the global economy, especially for countries and regions that are more integrated in global supply chains, medium-sized economies, (and) Asia as a region.”
Georgieva said it was “very unusual” that this uncertainty was expressed in higher long-term interest rates even though short-term interest rates had gone down, a trend not seen in recent history.
The IMF saw divergent trends in different regions, with growth expected to stall somewhat in the European Union and to weaken “a little” in India, while Brazil was facing somewhat higher inflation, Georgieva said.
In China, the world’s second-largest economy after the United States, the IMF was seeing deflationary pressure and ongoing challenges with domestic demand, she said.
Lower-income countries, despite reform efforts, were in a position where any new shocks would hit them “quite negatively,” she said.
Georgieva said it was notable that higher interest rates needed to combat inflation had not pushed the global economy into recession, but headline inflation developments were divergent, which meant central bankers needed to carefully monitor local data.
The strong US dollar could potentially result in higher funding costs for emerging market economies and especially low-income countries, she said.
Most countries needed to cut fiscal spending after high outlays during the COVID pandemic and adopt reforms to boost growth in a durable way, she said, adding that in most cases this could be done while protecting their growth prospects.
“Countries cannot borrow their way out. They can only grow out of this problem,” she said, noting that the medium-growth prospects for the world were the lowest seen in decades.
China marks muted 5th anniversary of first Covid death
BEIJING: The fifth anniversary of the first known death from Covid-19 passed seemingly unnoticed in China Saturday, with no official remembrances in a country where the pandemic is a taboo subject.
On January 11, 2020, health officials in the central Chinese city of Wuhan announced that a 61-year-old man had died from complications of pneumonia caused by a previously unknown virus.
The disclosure came after authorities had reported dozens of infections over several weeks by the pathogen later named SARS-CoV-2 and understood as the cause of Covid-19.
It went on to spark a global pandemic that has so far killed over seven million people and profoundly altered ways of life around the world, including in China.
On Saturday, however, there appeared to be no official memorials in Beijing’s tightly controlled official media.
The ruling Communist Party kept a tight leash on public discussion throughout its zero-Covid policy, and has eschewed reflections on the hard-line curbs since dramatically ditching them at the end of 2022.
On social media, too, many users seemed unaware of the anniversary.
A few videos circulating on Douyin — the Chinese version of TikTok — noted the date but repeated the official version of events.
FIRST COVID CASE
And on the popular Weibo platform, users who gravitated to the former account of Li Wenliang — the whistleblower doctor who was investigated by police for spreading early information about the virus — did not directly reference the anniversary.
“Dr. Li, another year has gone by,” read one comment on Saturday. “How quickly time passes.”
There was also little online commemoration in Hong Kong, where Beijing largely snuffed out opposition voices when it imposed a sweeping national security law on the semi-autonomous city in 2020.
Unlike other countries, China has not built major memorials to those who lost their lives during the pandemic.
Little is known about the identity of the first Covid casualty except that he was a frequent visitor to a Wuhan seafood market where the virus is thought to have circulated during the initial outbreak.
Within days of his death, other countries reported their first cases of the disease, showing that official efforts to contain its spread had failed.
China was later criticized by Western governments for allegedly covering up the early transmission of the virus and effacing evidence of its origins, though Beijing has vehemently maintained it acted decisively and with full transparency.
According to the WHO, China has officially reported nearly 100 million Covid cases and 122,000 deaths to date, although the true number will likely never be known.
In 2023, Beijing declared a “decisive victory” over Covid, calling its response a “miracle in human history.”
Thai suspect confesses to killing Cambodian ex-lawmaker
- Lim Kimya was gunned down as he arrived in Bangkok by bus from Cambodia with his French wife
- Thai media have reported that the suspect, Ekkalak Paenoi, was a former marine
BANGKOK: A Thai man suspected of killing a former Cambodian opposition lawmaker in Bangkok has confessed to the crime, police said Saturday.
"I confess that I did wrong," Ekkalak Paenoi said to police and media after being charged with premeditated murder and unauthorized gun ownership.
Lim Kimya, a former lawmaker for the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), was gunned down on Tuesday by a motorcyclist as he arrived in Bangkok by bus from Cambodia with his French wife.
Cambodian opposition figures have accused the country's powerful former leader Hun Sen of ordering the shooting.
Police in Cambodia said they arrested the suspect on Wednesday and took him to the Thai border following an extradition request.
He was picked up by a Thai police helicopter on Saturday and taken to Bangkok.
"We can't determine the motives yet, please give us time," said Somprasong Yenthuam, a senior police official.
Thai media have said Ekkalak was a former marine.
Yenthuam told reporters an arrest warrant for a Cambodian accomplice had also been issued.
A Cambodian government spokesman denied official involvement in the slaying.
Scores of Cambodian opposition activists have fled to Thailand in recent years to avoid alleged repression at home. Some were arrested and deported back to the country.
Hun Sen ruled Cambodia with an iron fist for nearly four decades, with rights groups accusing him of using the legal system to crush opposition to his rule.
He stepped down and handed power to his son Hun Manet in 2023, but is still seen as a major power in the kingdom.
France has condemned the killing of Lim Kimya, who also held French citizenship.
Uyghurs detained in Thailand say they face deportation and persecution in China
- Recordings and chat records obtained exclusively by the AP show the men were presented documents asking if they would like to be sent back to China
BANGKOK: A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand over a decade ago say that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back.
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, 43 Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation.
“We could be imprisoned, and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from this tragic fate before it is too late.”
The Uyghurs are a Turkic, majority Muslim ethnicity native to China’s far west Xinjiang region. After decades of conflict with Beijing over discrimination and suppression of their cultural identity, the Chinese government launched a brutal crackdown on the Uyghurs that some Western governments deem a genocide. Hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, possibly a million or more, were swept into camps and prisons, with former detainees reporting abuse, disease, and in some cases, death.
Over 300 Uyghurs fleeing China were detained in 2014 by Thai authorities near the Malaysian border. In 2015, Thailand deported 109 detainees to China against their will, prompting international outcry. Another group of 173 Uyghurs, mostly women and children, were sent to Turkiye, leaving 53 Uyghurs stuck in Thai immigration detention and seeking asylum. Since then, five have died in detention, including two children.
Of the 48 still detained by Thai authorities, five are serving prison terms after a failed escape attempt. It is unclear whether they face the same fate as those in immigration detention.
Advocates and relatives describe harsh conditions in immigration detention. They say the men are fed poorly, kept in overcrowded concrete cells with few toilets, denied sanitary goods like toothbrushes or razors, and are forbidden contact with relatives, lawyers, and international organizations. The Thai government’s treatment of the detainees may constitute a violation of international law, according to a February 2024 letter sent to the Thai government by United Nations human rights experts.
The immigration police has said they have been trying to take care of the detainees as best as they could.
Recordings and chat records obtained exclusively by the AP show that on Jan. 8, the Uyghur detainees were asked to sign voluntary deportation papers by Thai immigration officials.
The move panicked detainees, as similar documents were presented to the Uyghurs deported to China in 2015. The detainees refused to sign.
Three people, including a Thai lawmaker and two others in touch with Thai authorities, told the AP there have been recent discussions within the government about deporting the Uyghurs to China, though the people had not yet seen or heard of any formal directive to do so.
Two of the people said that Thai officials pushing for the deportations are choosing to do so now because this year is the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and China, and because of the perception that backlash from Washington will be muted as the US prepares for a presidential transition in less than two weeks.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive internal discussions. The Thai and Chinese foreign ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Beijing says the Uyghurs are jihadists, but has not presented evidence. Uyghur activists and rights groups say the men are innocent and expressed alarm over their possible deportation, saying they face persecution, imprisonment, and possible death back in China.
“There’s no evidence that the 43 Uyghurs have committed any crime,” said Peter Irwin, Associate Director for Research and Advocacy at the Uyghur Human Rights Project. “The group has a clear right not to be deported and they’re acting within international law by fleeing China.”
On Saturday morning, the detention center where the Uyghurs are being held was quiet. A guard told a visiting AP journalist the center was closed until Monday.
Two people with direct knowledge of the matter told the AP that all of the Uyghurs detained in Thailand submitted asylum applications to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which the AP verified by reviewing copies of the letters. The UN agency acknowledged receipt of the applications but has been barred from visiting the Uyghurs by the Thai government to this day, the people said.
The UNHCR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Relatives of three of the Uyghurs detained told the AP that they were worried about the safety of their loved ones.
“We are all in the same situation — constant worry and fear,” said Bilal Ablet, whose elder brother is detained in Thailand. “World governments all know about this, but I think they’re pretending not to see or hear anything because they’re afraid of Chinese pressure.”
Ablet added that Thai officials told his brother no other government was willing to accept the Uyghurs, though an April 2023 letter authored by the chairwoman of the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand first leaked to the New York Times Magazine and independently seen by the AP said there are “countries that are ready to take these detainees to settle down.”
Abdullah Muhammad, a Uyghur living in Turkiye, said his father Muhammad Ahun is one of the men detained in Thailand. Muhammad says though his father crossed into Thailand illegally, he was innocent of any other crime and had already paid fines and spent over a decade in detention.
“I don’t understand what this is for. Why?” Muhammad said. “We have nothing to do with terrorism and we have not committed any terrorism.”
