SEOUL: North Korea has been condemned and sanctioned for its nuclear ambitions, yet has still received food, fuel and other aid from its neighbors and adversaries for decades. How does the small, isolated country keep getting what it wants and needs?
Some put its success down to the extraordinary nuclear blackmail skills of a country whose leaders could be buying food instead of bombs and missiles. Some see the willingness of outsiders to help people in desperate need, regardless of how odious the government the rules them, and others credit the feeling in South Korea that aid could improve ties.
North Korea has had gradual economic growth in recent years and doesn’t appeal for foreign humanitarian assistance as much as it did in the past. Despite multiple rounds of UN sanctions, the nation’s leader Kim Jong Un has defiantly pushed his scientists to manufacture a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US heartland. It test-launched two intercontinental ballistic missile in the past month, and once Kim perfects such weapons, he may to try to extract bigger concessions from Washington.
An examination of how a country that frustrates and infuriates much of the world manages to get what it wants:
NUKES FOR AID
A relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons has been a major source of the country’s ability to pull in aid and concessions.
Since the North Korean nuclear crisis first started in 1993, Pyongyang has agreed to several now-dormant disarmament-for-aid deals.
One accord was signed with the United States following bilateral talks in Geneva in 1994, while others were struck with several regional powers including Washington during on-and-off multilateral forums that lasted from 2003-2008.
Under those deals, North Korea halted atomic activities or disabled key elements of its weapons programs in return for security guarantees, heavy fuel shipments, power-producing nuclear reactors or other aid. Despite it all, nothing has led to North Korea substantially dismantling its nuclear program.
Washington accused Pyongyang of cheating and covertly continuing its atomic work, while the North often blamed the United States and others for failing to provide aid on time.
SOUTH KOREAN SUNSHINE
Seoul, though the North’s bitter enemy, has also helped its neighbor out regularly.
During the Sunshine Era of inter-Korean detente from 1998-2008, liberals in Seoul espoused a greater reconciliation. This was welcome in North Korea, which had depended on outside handouts to feed many of its 24 million people and revive an economy devastated by a famine that killed hundreds of thousands in the mid-1990s.
South Korea shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and fertilizer to North Korea annually and engaged in cooperation projects that became some of the few legitimate sources of foreign currency for the North. The value of the cash and goods provided to North Korea during that time was $6.8 billion, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.
Liberals credit their engagement with lowering border animosities and allowing two landmark inter-Korean summit talks and emotional reunions of families separated by war. Critics question whether South Korean aid and investment reached those who needed it most or instead helped finance the North’s weapons programs.
Seoul’s large humanitarian assistance programs and cooperation projects were suspended after conservatives came to power in 2008.
CHINESE SUPPORT
China is widely seen as crucial to US-led efforts to strip North Korea of atomic bombs.
China accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s trade, and it sends about 500,000 tons of crude oil to North Korea, mostly for free, every year. China and Russia are also the two biggest hubs for tens of thousands of North Korean workers dispatched abroad — another key source of income for the North.
Critics say Beijing has never fully implemented UN sanctions on the North out of worries about a North Korean collapse that could cause a wave of refugees crossing the border and American troops moving into the North. China is frustrated with North Korea, whose nuclear ambitions put Beijing in an awkward international position, but the Kim government still best serves China’s national interests.
Some believe even a brief suspension of Chinese oil would cause chaos in the North and force Kim to change.
“If China stopped sending fuel shipments for just two to three weeks after the North’s first ICMB launch on July 4, North Korea would not have dared conduct a second firing,” said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at South Korea’s Sejong Institute.
THE FUTURE
Kim may see his future nuclear arsenal as the ultimate bargaining chip.
North Korea will receive fresh UN sanctions for its ICBM launches. But the country is already heavily sanctioned and won’t likely feel real pain unless China halts its oil shipments or takes other harsh measures.
Kim likely won’t talk with Washington or Seoul until he has a proven ICBM arsenal. His government ignored an offer last month by South Korea’s new liberal President Moon Jae-in to resume talks on easing confrontation and resuming family reunions.
After he gets missiles that give him a credible deterrence against US aggression, Kim may try to ease outside sanctions or wrest security guarantees and other concessions by using a proposed freeze of the North’s future weapons activities — but not already-manufactured nuclear missiles — as a bargaining chip in negotiations.
“North Korea knows it can get bigger rewards when it has a bigger (nuclear) capability,” said Shin Beomchul at the Seoul-based Korea National Diplomatic Academy.
North Korea’s evolving ways to get what it wants and needs
North Korea’s evolving ways to get what it wants and needs
Scotland leader refuses to be drawn on Lockerbie bombing inquiry
- John Swinney would not speculate on backing public inquiry into 1988 attack while criminal case against suspected bomb maker underway in US
- Bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over UK that killed 270 people blamed on Libyan intelligence officials
LONDON: Scotland’s first minister has refused to be drawn on whether he supports a public inquiry into the 1988 bombing of a passenger plane blamed on Libyan intelligence officials.
The downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie killed 270 people and remains by far the most deadly terror attack on British soil.
Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Baset Ali Al-Megrahi was jailed in 2001 for his role in the plot to place the bomb on board the flight. Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012, always insisted he was innocent and doubts have been raised about his conviction.
A television series released last week in the UK, which tells the story of the investigation by one of the victim’s fathers, has renewed interest in the case, as has an upcoming court case in the US of the alleged bomb maker, the Libyan Abu Agila Masud.
A member of the Scottish Parliament, Christine Grahame, asked First Minister John Swinney on Thursday if he supported a UK inquiry into the bombing given the “remaining concerns for some, including myself, about the credibility of the conviction” of Al-Megrahi.
She also highlighted what she described as the resistance of the UK Government to releasing relevant documents in relation to the bombing, the Daily Record reported.
Swinney said that while there was a criminal case underway in the US, “I would prefer not to speculate on possible inquiries.”
Al-Megrahi is the only person to have been convicted for the attack and there has been no public inquiry in the UK.
His trial by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands took place more than 11 years after the bombing and followed long negotiations with the then Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to hand him over along with another suspect.
The recent TV series “Lockerbie: A Search for Truth” stars British actor Colin Firth as Jim Swire, whose daughter was killed on the flight as it flew from London Heathrow to New York City four days before Christmas.
Swire believes that Al-Megrahi, who died in 2012 three years after being released on compassionate grounds, was innocent.
Two-thirds of the victims of the bombing were American and 11 residents in the town of Lockerbie were killed when sections of the aircraft fell on residential areas.
Russia breaches frontline river in east Ukraine, official says
- The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region
- The major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult”
KYIV: Russian forces have established a bridgehead on the Ukrainian-held side of a frontline river in the east of the country, a local official said Thursday, pointing to Kyiv’s mounting battlefield struggles.
The Oskil river is the de-facto front line in parts of the eastern Kharkiv region, with Ukrainian troops entrenched mainly on the western bank and Russian forces moving to capture the eastern side.
Kremlin forces have been launching audacious attempts to cross, and local Ukrainian official Andrii Besedin told state television Thursday they had managed to cross and establish positions.
“The enemy is trying to gain a foothold in the town of Dvorichna, which is already on the right bank of the Oskil, and expand the entire bridgehead,” he said.
Besedin, the major of the local hub, Kupiansk, said the situation was “extremely difficult” and warned that Russian troops could use the bridgehead to flank Ukrainian positions.
He said Russian forces were now just two kilometers (about one mile) outside of Kupiansk, which was one of the main prizes of a Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022.
“The enemy is constantly trying to carry out assault operations,” he said.
The advances conceded by the local official come at a precarious time for Ukrainian forces across the sprawling front, where Russian forces have been advancing at their fastest pace in around two years.
If Russia captures more territory around Kupiansk or in the wider Kharkiv area it would undo gains that Ukraine secured in a sweeping 2022 offensive that embarrassed the Kremlin.
Both sides are looking to secure a better position on the battlefield before incoming US president Donald Trump’s January 20 inauguration, almost three years after Russia invaded.
Putin says more needs to be done to clean up Black Sea oil spill
- The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait
- One sank and the other ran aground
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that more needed to be done to clean up an oil spill in the Black Sea, saying efforts so far appeared to have been insufficient to deal with the ecological disaster.
The oil leaked from two aging tankers after they were hit by a storm on Dec. 15 in the Kerch Strait. One sank and the other ran aground.
Approximately 2,400 metric tons of oil products spilled into the sea, Russian investigators said last week, in what Putin on Thursday called “one of the most serious environmental challenges we have faced in years.”
When the disaster struck, state media reported that the stricken tankers, both more than 50-years old, were carrying some 9,200 metric tons (62,000 barrels) of oil products in total.
Since the spill, thousands of emergency workers and volunteers have been working to clear tons of contaminated sand and earth on either side of the Kerch Strait. Environmental groups have reported deaths of dolphins, porpoises and sea birds.
The Kerch Strait runs between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and separates Crimea’s Kerch Peninsula from Russia’s Krasnodar region.
Putin told a government meeting that the clean-up efforts had been poorly coordinated between regional and federal bodies.
“From what I see and from the information I receive, I conclude that everything being done to minimize the damage is clearly not enough yet,” the Kremlin leader told officials.
He called for a commission to be formed to mitigate the disaster and prevent oil products from leaking from flooded tankers in the future.
Firefighters battle devastating Los Angeles wildfires as winds calm somewhat
- Ferocious winds that drove the flames and led to chaotic evacuations have calmed somewhat and were not expected to be as powerful during the day
- Nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in those blazes
LOS ANGELES: Firefighters battled early Thursday to control a series of major fires in the Los Angeles area that have killed five people, ravaged communities from the Pacific Coast to Pasadena and sent thousands of people frantically fleeing their homes.
Ferocious winds that drove the flames and led to chaotic evacuations have calmed somewhat and were not expected to be as powerful during the day. That could provide an opportunity for firefighters to make progress reining in blazes that have hopscotched across the sprawling region, including massive ones in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.
The latest flames broke out Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, striking closer to the heart of the city and the roots of its entertainment industry and putting densely populated neighborhoods on edge during exceptionally windy and dry conditions. But only about a mile away, the streets around the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the TCL Chinese Theatre and Madame Tussauds were bustling, and onlookers used their phones to record video of the blazing hills.
Within a few hours, firefighters had made major progress on the Sunset Fire in the hills. Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Erik Scott said they were able to keep the fire in check because “we hit it hard and fast and mother nature was a little nicer to us today than she was yesterday.”
A day earlier, hurricane-force winds blew embers through the air, igniting block after block in the coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades as well as in Altadena, a community near Pasadena that is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) east. Aircraft had to be grounded for a time because of the winds, hampering firefighting efforts.
Nearly 2,000 homes, businesses and other structures have been destroyed in those blazes — called the Palisades and Eaton fires — and the number is expected to increase. The five deaths recorded so far were from the Eaton Fire.
Some 130,000 people have been put under evacuation orders, as fires have consumed a total of about 42 square miles (108 square kilometers) — nearly the size of the entire city of San Francisco. The Palisades Fire is already the most destructive in Los Angeles history.
As flames moved through his neighborhood, Jose Velasquez sprayed down his family’s Altadena home with water as embers rained down on the roof. He managed to save their home, which also houses their family business selling churros, a Mexican pastry. Others weren’t so lucky. Many of his neighbors were at work when they lost their homes.
“So we had to call a few people and then we had people messaging, asking if their house was still standing,” he said. “We had to tell them that it’s not.”
In Pasadena, Fire Chief Chad Augustin said the city’s water system was stretched and was further hampered by power outages, but even without those issues, firefighters would not have been able to stop the fire due to the intense winds fanning the flames.
“Those erratic wind gusts were throwing embers for multiple miles ahead of the fire,” he said.
The dramatic level of destruction was apparent in a comparison of satellite images before and after the fire.
A swath of about 250 homes in an Altadena neighborhood that had been dotted with the green canopies of leafy trees and aquamarine swimming pools was reduced to rubble. Only a few homes were left standing and some were still in flames in images from Maxar Technologies. Along a stretch of about 70 wall-to-wall homes overhanging the Pacific Ocean in Malibu, fewer than 10 appeared to be intact.
In Pacific Palisades, a hillside area along the coast dotted with celebrity homes, block after block of California Mission Style homes and bungalows were reduced to charred remains. Ornate iron railing wrapped around the smoldering frame of one house Swimming pools were blackened with soot, and sports cars slumped on melted tires.
More than half a dozen schools in the area were either damaged or destroyed, and UCLA has canceled classes for the week.
Another fire has hit Sylmar, a middle and working-class area on the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley that has been the site of many devastating blazes.
Fast-moving flames allowed little time to escape
The main fires grew rapidly in distinctly different areas that had two things in common: densely packed streets of homes in places that are choked with vegetation and primed to burn in dry conditions.
Flames moved so quickly that many barely had time to escape. Police sought shelter inside their patrol cars, and residents at a senior living center were pushed in wheelchairs and hospital beds down a street to safety.
In the race to get away in Pacific Palisades, roadways became impassable when scores of people abandoned their vehicles and set out on foot.
Actors lost homes
The flames marched toward highly populated and affluent neighborhoods, including Calabasas and Santa Monica, home to California’s rich and famous.
Mandy Moore, Cary Elwes and Paris Hilton were among the stars who lost homes. Billy Crystal and his wife Janice lost their home of 45 years in the Palisades Fire.
“We raised our children and grandchildren here. Every inch of our house was filled with love. Beautiful memories that can’t be taken away,” the Crystals wrote in the statement.
In Palisades Village, the public library, two major grocery stores, a pair of banks and several boutiques were destroyed.
“It’s just really weird coming back to somewhere that doesn’t really exist anymore,” said Dylan Vincent, who returned to the neighborhood to retrieve some items and saw that his elementary school had burned down and that whole blocks had been flattened.
Higher temperatures and less rain mean a longer fire season
California’s wildfire season is beginning earlier and ending later due to rising temperatures and decreased rainfall tied to climate change, according to recent data. Rains that usually end fire season are often delayed, meaning fires can burn through the winter months, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association.
Dry winds, including the notorious Santa Anas, have contributed to warmer-than-average temperatures in Southern California, which has not seen more than 0.1 inches (2.5 millimeters) of rain since early May.
The winds increased to 80 mph (129 kph) Wednesday, according to reports received by the National Weather Service. Fire conditions could last through Friday — but wind speeds were expected to be lower on Thursday.
Landmarks get scorched and studios suspend production
President Joe Biden signed a federal emergency declaration after arriving at a Santa Monica fire station for a briefing with Gov. Gavin Newsom, who dispatched National Guard troops to help.
Several Hollywood studios suspended production, and Universal Studios closed its theme park between Pasadena and Pacific Palisades.
As of early Thursday, around 250,000 people were without power in southern California, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us.
Several Southern California landmarks were heavily damaged, including the Reel Inn in Malibu, a seafood restaurant. Owner Teddy Leonard and her husband hope to rebuild.
“When you look at the grand scheme of things, as long as your family is well and everyone’s alive, you’re still winning, right?” she said.
Millions of Filipino Catholics join Black Nazarene procession in Manila
- Original black wooden statue of Jesus Christ was brought from Mexico in 1606
- About 80% of the Philippines’ 110 million population are Catholics
MANILA: Millions of Filipino Catholics joined an annual procession of a centuries-old statue of Jesus Christ in Manila on Thursday in one of the world’s largest displays of devotion.
Clad in maroon and yellow, devotees flooded the streets of the Philippine capital to swarm the Black Nazarene, the black wooden statue of Jesus Christ bearing down a cross, as people jostled for a chance to pull the thick rope towing the carriage across the city.
In Asia’s largest Christian-majority country, about 80 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million population identify as Catholic, a key legacy of Spanish colonization of the archipelago for more than 300 years.
The 6.5 km-long procession, known as Traslacion, or “transfer,” commemorates the 1787 relocation of the Black Nazarene from a church inside the colonial Spanish capital of Intramuros in Manila’s center to its present location in Quiapo Church.
“Quiapo’s site of devotion, located outside the Spanish colonial center of Intramuros, showcases ordinary Filipinos’ appropriation of this faith. Moreover, the tradition of making and keeping panata (pledges) to the Black Nazarene has been passed down through many generations of Filipinos,” Wilson Espiritu, assistant professor of theology at the Ateneo de Manila University, told Arab News.
The original statue, created by an unknown Mexican sculptor, was brought to the Philippines from Mexico in 1606, first staying in the Church of San Juan Bautista in Bagumbayan before it was moved to Intramuros in 1608.
Many devotees believe the statue is miraculous, and that touching it or the ropes attached to its float can heal illness or turn around misfortune.
Part of its miraculous lore derived from the statue surviving multiple earthquakes, fires, floods and even the bombing of Manila in the Second World War.
The annual procession celebrating the statue, also known as the Feast of the Black Nazarene, has parallels in other Catholic-dominant countries, such as the Festival of Cristo Negro of Portobelo in Panama.
“To me, this shows the ‘Catholicity’ of this popular Filipino devotion. Nevertheless, what distinguishes this devotion is its historical background and cultural integration in Filipino society,” Espiritu said.
Manila police have estimated that at least 6 million people will join the procession. This year marks the first time that the feast will be observed nationwide, with churches across the country also expected to hold various celebrations.
Preparations have been underway since Monday evening and as enthusiasm buzzed among thousands of devotees in the lead-up to the procession, church officials had to allow the ritual of pahalik — the kissing of the statue — hours ahead of schedule.
For many Filipinos, religious traditions like this provide an opportunity “to rekindle the sense of collective hope, in aspiring for a better life,” said Robbin Dagle, a lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University who has researched religion and society in the Philippines.
“Little acts, such as sharing food and water among devotees, highlight how religious events reinforce community ties. Here, Filipinos place their faith on each other and to Jesus, who knew and went through suffering himself, rather than on earthly leaders who are distant from them, and have failed them time and time again,” he told Arab News.
“Filipinos continue to find meaning in religious traditions because of what it represents: Community and unceasing hope. Both of these are increasingly challenging to find in urban life.”
