Charged with human trafficking, a 39-year-old woman surnamed Ri, and a 43-year-old surnamed Kang were executed on Aug 31 after a public trial in the northeastern port city of Chongjin, according to Jang Se-yul, head of Gyeore'eol Unification Solidarity, based in Seoul.

Nine other women were sentenced to life in prison on the same charges.

All 11 women were among a group of around 500 North Koreans which China forcibly repatriated in October 2023.

"These two women were executed because they had sent North Korean escapees from China to their enemy country, South Korea," Jang told RFA Korean.

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Kim officially defined suicide as an "act of treason against socialism" and issued a confidential suicide prevention order during emergency meetings of the party leaders all over the country, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on June 5.

An unnamed official from North Hamgyong told RFA that the details of suicide cases shared during the meeting shocked the gathered officials.

"Our meeting was held at the provincial party committee's building located in Pohang district, in the city of Chongjin," the unnamed official said.

He further added that "the large number of suicide cases in the province was revealed and some officials… could not hide their anxious expressions."

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The message was part of a series of ideological lectures arranged by North Korean officials for housewives in the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, Radio Free Asia reported on March 8.

"Last week, a lecture was held on active support for the People's Army, saying that having many children and sending them to the People's Army is the greatest patriotism," an unnamed North Hamgyong source told RFA on the condition of anonymity.

The lectures were conducted in advance as part of International Women's Day on March 8.

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A third teenager was accused of murdering his stepmother, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Dec 2 quoting witnesses.

The officials in the ultra-communist pariah state have claimed that the crimes committed by teens aged around 16 or 17 were "equally evil" and forced the shocked residents of Hyesen city near the border with China to watch the executions.

"They said, ‘Those who watch or distribute South Korean movies and dramas, and those who disrupt social order by murdering other people, will not be forgiven and will be sentenced to the maximum penalty-death,'" said a local resident.

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In recent years, though, as the county has become more open to the outside world, North Koreans have been naming their children gentler, more uplifting names that are easier to say, such as A Ri (loved one), So Ra (conch shell) and Su Mi (super beauty), sources inside the country say.

Instead of names that end on harder sounding consonants, children are being given names that end in softer vowels, which is more like names given to children in South Korea.

But recently, North Korean authorities are clamping down on this trend, requiring citizens with the softer names to change to more ideological ones.

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From hypersonic to medium-range ballistic missiles, Pyongyang test-fired a string of weaponry in January. Then last week launched what it claimed was a component of a "reconnaissance satellite" - although Seoul described it as another ballistic missile.

Despite biting international sanctions over its nuclear weapons, Pyongyang has ignored US offers of talks since high-profile negotiations between leader Kim Jong Un and then-US president Donald Trump collapsed in 2019.

Instead of diplomacy, Pyongyang has doubled-down on Kim's drive to modernise its military, warning in January that it could abandon a self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons.

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Some of the human rights violations occurred as recently as 2019.

The report and accompanying database, documents 167 serious human rights violations perpetrated against 91 Christians.

The report's eyewitness interviews are current: human rights NGO Korea Future conducted them between November 2019 and August 2021.

The interviewers heard of 34 people detained in North Korea for possessing religious items, 23 held for having practiced religious activities in China and 21 people seized for religious practice in North Korea itself.

The NGO was told many times of instances where a person was arrested for being in possession of a Bible.

In one case, a young woman was "beaten with a wooden stick until a superior intervened after hearing the victim screaming".

The beating occurred while the woman was in the custody of the North Korean Ministry of State Security Central Command.

Another victim, a woman in her 50s who was a member of an underground church, was beaten so severely in 2019 that she later died from her injuries.

"Where it could be established that detainees had been associated with Christianity, their crime was considered to be ‘political,'" the report says.

These prisoners were then transferred from city or county-level detention centers to provincial or national-level detention centers or internment camps run by the Ministry of State Security.

The report says many North Korean Christians were first exposed to Christianity while in China.

One of those arrested in China for being a Christian says he was deported to North Korea.

There he was investigated for nearly five months and experienced forms of torture as well as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

He was then sentenced to three years in Chongori re-education camp.

The man says he secretly preached the Gospel in North Korea until 2017, when he escaped after learning that a person he had preached to was an informant for the Ministry of State Security.

The human rights report accused the Chinese government of violating the principle of non-refoulement.

This prohibits the repatriation of an individual when there are grounds for believing that they would be at risk of harm upon their return.

Even incarceration and risking cruel punishments do not prevent Christian detainees from their prayer lives, says a former prisoner who was held in a North Korean cell for two months with Christians.

They "would pray in the corner of the cell that was hidden from the CCTV camera … They would escape a beating if their prayers went undetected by the correctional officers, but they would be beaten if they were caught," he says.

"On one occasion when they were caught praying, they were beaten every morning for 20 consecutive days."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Crowdcast

The horrific reality of life within Kim Jong-un's gulags was exposed by former prisoners who survived the living nightmare of Chongori concentration camp.

North Koreans can find themselves locked up there for acts as simple as watching South Korean TV or following the Christian faith, it is claimed.

For many it's a death sentence with Chongori reported to have a high mortality rate due to "injury, illness, or physical and mental abuse by prison officials." Read more

According to Pope Francis, speaking shortly after the meeting, it was an example of the "culture of encounter."

"In the last few hours we have witnessed a good example of the culture of encounter in Korea," Francis said Sunday.

"I greet the protagonists with the prayer that this significant gesture constitutes a further step on the path of peace. Not only on that peninsula but in favor of the whole world." Read more

According to NK News, some North Koreans have decided to give up alcohol for the duration of Kim's trip to Hanoi in order to demonstrate their loyalty. Continue reading

Yeom, who is the archbishop of Seoul, also serves as the acting chief of North Korea's Pyongyang Diocese.

According to Lee Hae-chan, the chief of the ruling Democratic Party (DP), Yeom made the comment during a meeting where they were discussing the pope's tacit agreement to visit North Korea someday.

They say Francis effectively accepted an unofficial invitation to visit North Korea last month when South Korea's President Moon Jae-in relayed North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's verbal invitation.

Speaking on Francis's behalf, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said last month a visit to North Korea would require serious preparation and consideration.

Parolin, who is the Vatican Secretary of State, added that a papal visit could also "give support to the process of peace and denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula."

Cheong Wa Dae from Seoul's presidential office says he expects a papal visit could help expedite the process to bring peace to the Korean peninsula, which is the world's last remaining vestige of the Cold War.

If he were to visit Pyongyang, Francis would be the first pope to visit North Korea.

Source

• The Korea Herald
• Aju Business Daily
• Image: Vatican News

The group is part of a Christian mission led by a South Korean pastor Kwang Choi.

Park Sung Il a former North Korean labourer, remembers clearly the hazardous journey he had to make to escape the North.

"It was a freezing Korean winter's evening in March, and I had to cross frozen Amrok River to get to China," he said.

"I got injured and nearly died when a sharp sheet of floating ice floated towards me and pierced my body."

In China, Park received help from Christian organisations to get to Thailand and then on to South Korea.

Some North Koreans have already made Auckland their home, and a Christian group is looking to set up a school for them.

They are being taught English, Bible study and given hands-on experience in integrating into Western society.

Bora Choe and Sue Park are two North Koreans who are being housed in a secret location in Auckland.

They are among a group of five women brought here by a Christian group Love Your Neighbour Charity Trust.

After escaping the North both had found starting over in the South to be difficult, challenging and alienating.

Choe dreams of becoming a Bible teacher and Park wants to be a nurse, and described their lives back in Kim Jong Un's North Korea as a "living hell" and remain cynical about the regime's intentions.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• newshub.co.nz
• Image: Screenshot newshub.co.nz

"The Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula is a historical event.

It "opens the era of reunification of the Korean peninsula and is a gospel of hope on this earth," Archbishop Kim Hee-Jung of Gwangju says.

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-In signed the Declaration.

In it they promise "there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace has begun."

The Declaration agrees to "complete denuclearisation [and] a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula."

The two leaders agreed to strive for a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 war, which was halted by an armistice.

The Declaration also binds the leaders to involving China and the United States in negotiations to formally end the war.

Archbishop Kim says he expects "the fruits of this inter-Korean summit [at which the Declaration was signed], which God has made in response to our prayers and efforts, will be more energised by the unification ministry and private exchanges that the Korean Catholic Church has promoted during that time."

In the Declaration the leaders promise to undertake increased exchanges, visits, and cooperation between the North and South.

This aims to promote a sense of unity and to enable families separated during the Korean War to reunify.

Archbishop Kim says the Catholic Church in South Korea has actively engaged in private exchanges and cooperation efforts with North Korea in the past.

It has worked on this through the bishops' National Reconciliation Committee and Caritas International Korea.

"Since 1965, the Korean Catholic Church has been praying for the true peace of the two Koreas and the reconciliation of the nation on June 25 every year," he says.

"Until the day when complete peace is established on the Korean peninsula and divided peoples are united, the Catholic Church of Korea will accompany the journey for reconciliation of the people in unity."

The Declaration presents a turn-around from the situation between the two Koreas last year.

At that time Pyongyang and the President of the United States taunted each other with nuclear threats.

However, in January, the North Korean dictator said he was open to talks.

Within weeks, Korean athletes marched under one flag at the Winter Olympics.

Source

• The Tablet
• Vatican News
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: The Financial Express

He will also actively encourage peace initiatives in the region.

Monsignor Marco Sprizzi has been in charge of the Nunciature in Seoul since the retirement of Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Osvaldo Padilla last year.

He says Xuereb is "one of the closest allies of Pope Francis and reads the pope's thinking very well."

Xuereb is taking up his diplomatic post amid improving relations between the two Koreas.

The two countries have been technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice and not a peace treaty.

North Korea and the United States have been trading insults and threatening war for months over the North's nuclear and missile programmes.

After carrying out a number of tests last year, North Korea stopped its testing programme in November.

This has helped improve relations with the South.

Positive developments include the two Koreas marching together under a united flag in the opening ceremony of this year's Winter Olympics in South Korea.

United States President Donald Trump announced last week that he had accepted an invitation to meet with North Korea's supreme leader Kim Jong-un.

The meeting's aim is to negotiate the North's nuclear weapons programme.

Trump will be the first sitting United States president to meet face-to-face with a North Korean leader.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in helped to facilitate the upcoming meeting.

He sent his National Security Advisor Chung Eui-yong to Pyongyang on Monday and then to Washington to convey the North Korean leader's invitation to Trump.

Moon is a practising Catholic who has pledged himself to peaceful dialogue on the Korean peninsula.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Vatican News
• Image: Eurasia Review

The IOC annual meetings the Vatican delegation will observe are scheduled for 5-7 February. At the meetings, voting members will discuss policy issues relating to the Games.

This is the first time the Vatican has been invited to attend these meetings.

Mgr Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture and head of its Culture and Sport section, is leading the delegation.

The Vatican delegation has also been invited to attend the Games' opening ceremony. This will take place at the Olympic Stadium in Pyeongchang on 9 February.

Mgr Sanchez will present the IOC president and all Korean Olympic athletes with the official yellow and white jerseys worn by members of the Vatican's running club, Athletica Vaticana.

The Games will see athletes from both North Korea and South Korea walking walk together during the opening ceremony and carrying the Korean Unification Flag.

The flag is designed to represent all of Korea when athletes from the North and South participate as one team.

The move comes at a time of heightened anxiety over the North's nuclear programme. In recent months North Korean President Kim Jong-un has ramped up missile tests and conducted the country's sixth nuclear test.

Pope Francis is firmly in favour of nuclear disarmament, and has often spoken out on the subject.

In a speech to diplomats about the Korean peninsula last month, he said it is "of paramount importance to support every effort at dialogue ... to find new ways of overcoming the current disputes, increasing mutual trust and ensuring a peaceful future for the Korean people and the entire world".

• KBS World Radio
• The Table
• Image: Toronto Star

It's a foolishly high-stakes challenge in which two drivers risking death, drive on a collision course towards each other until one of the drivers chooses to swerve away.

Since neither driver wants to be called "chicken," meaning coward, they both push the decision to swerve away to the last possible moment, each hoping that the other driver will be the one to back down and swerve away.

This is a very dangerous game - a game now being played between North Korea and the United States.

But in this game of chicken the high-stakes of two possible deaths increases to hundreds of thousands of probable deaths. And if it goes nuclear, the stakes rise to millions dead.

During the course of this year North Korea has launched over 20 missiles - some flying over Japan - and according to seismic readings may have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. And if not already, it is getting close to being able to hit the U.S. with one or more nuclear armed missiles.

For its part, the U.S. has deployed in the Pacific three aircraft carrier strike groups. This armada of warships carrying attack aircraft and cruise missiles is capable of launching a massive preemptive attack upon North Korea.

Now add to this perilous saber rattling, highly insulting verbal attacks from President Trump on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as "Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission," and the counter insults from Kim Jong-un that Trump is a "mentally deranged U.S. dotard," and we have before us a nuclear-armed war game of chicken.

Mr. Trump and Mr. Un grow up! This is no time to act like macho, self-centered adolescents. Think of the carnage that will result if you continue on this collision course.

Policy analyst for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, James McKeon, told me that the U.S. and North Korea need to have "talks about talks," that is, conversations with no preconditions, in order to set the stage for formal negotiations.

McKeon added that "No preconditions diplomacy is the only viable option. If the Cold War proved anything it is that talking to adversaries is not appeasement, it is smart policy that helped avoid nuclear war."

A clear example here of difficult, serious and successful diplomacy took place between the U.S. and the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missiles Crisis - 55 years ago - when calmer heads prevailed in avoiding nuclear war (see: http://bit.ly/2z7JpRV).

President Trump during his U.N. speech threatened to "totally destroy North Korea" (see: http://cnb.cx/2ypyGFy). This runs completely against Catholic social teaching.

The world's Catholic bishops at the Second Vatican Council solemnly declared: "Any act of war aimed indiscriminately at the destruction of entire cities of extensive areas along with their population is a crime against God and man himself. It merits unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation" (see: http://bit.ly/1lmUu1K).

Like the world's bishops of Vatican II, today's bishops, and every single disciple of the nonviolent Jesus, should condemn this dangerous violent brinkmanship - before it's too late!

Let us never forget that we are called to follow not the god of war, but the Prince of Peace.

• Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist. He is available to speak at diocesan or parish gatherings about Catholic social teaching. His keynote address, "Advancing the Kingdom of God in the 21st Century," has been well received by diocesan and parish gatherings from Santa Clara, Calif. to Baltimore, Md. Tony can be reached at tmag@zoominternet.net

Colecchi is the director of the U.S. bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace.

He was one of three panelists at a Georgetown University forum discussing the issue.

"The only way to open up the relationship is by talking." Read more

Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, urged nations to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which the Vatican signed in 1996.

"Nuclear arms offer a false sense of security.

"Peace and international stability cannot be founded on mutually assured destruction or on the threat of annihilation."

While the CTBT's mechanisms already ensure all nuclear explosions are detected, there is some way to go before its provisions can be fully enacted.

It needs at least 50 countries to sign and ratify the Treaty before it can be brought into force. So far only 42 countries have done this.

If an extra eight countries sign, a complete halt to all nuclear testing will be on the horizon.

Gallagher is disappointed with the delay caused by the lack of signatories.

"Two decades [since 1996] without the Treaty's entry into force have been two decades lost in our common goal of a world without nuclear weapons," Gallagher said.

He also pointed out the CTBT "is all the more urgent when one considers contemporary threats to peace — from the continuing challenges of nuclear proliferation to the major new modernisation programmes of some of the nuclear weapons states.

"The rising tensions over North Korea's growing nuclear programme are of special urgency.

"The international community must respond by seeking to revive negotiations. The threat or use of military force has no place in countering proliferation, and the threat or use of nuclear weapons in countering nuclear proliferation are deplorable."

Gallagher says while he has "no illusions about the challenges involved" in ridding the world of nuclear weapons, there are "far more daunting" challenges.

These challenges are caused by the return to the "status quo ante" [the way things were before] of growing tensions, continuing proliferation and new modernisation programmes."

Source

• CNA
• Orange County Catholic
• Image: Vatican Radio

Tim Kearns knows that, if there were a war, the pupils he taught might well bear arms against the west, but he believes the likelihood of an all-out war is slim.

He says the people in North Korea are just like westerners.

"We constantly see them as robotic automatons, but they have personality, they can have a laugh, they love a bit of humour [and] were very interested in my life and what my life was like in New Zealand."

"The teachers were terrific people to hang around with, and they'd had very little to do with foreigners," he says.

Kearns spent three months teaching in Pyongyang, North Korea, in early 2006.

Originally posted to the Korea-New Zealand Friendship School, he was in great demand and was borrowed by other schools.

It is thought that he is the first Westerner to have taught in the North Korea secondary school system.

He returned to Korea for a further stint of teaching in 2008.

"When you walk in to class, the students all stand in a militaristic sort of way and say Good Morning Sir," Mr Kearns describes.

"They allowed me to teach in my own style andI was surprised with their level of English. They wanted to come up and have a closer look at my eyes because they'd never seen blue eyes before."

He says even though the North Korean regime is present everywhere you look in Pyongyang, he never felt like they were trying to indoctrinate him.

• Look at Tim's photos
• Read what he wrote about his experience

Source

• NewsHub
• Asia Forum
• Image: timbeal.net.nz

The two countries are trading insults, with North Korea threatening to send four missiles into the sea off Guam, as a response to President Donald Trump's escalating rhetoric.

"The only way forth is that of dialogue, because the way of conflict is always wrong, says Italian Archbishop Silvano Tomasi.

The current crisis shows how international relations can easily break down when there is a determination "to violate the minimum standard of common sense in dealing with other people," he adds.

"That's why you need to invest time, energy, money, resources in preventing the necessity of arriving at these boiling points of crisis."

U.S. and South Korean Catholic bishops have also called for the U.S. and North Korea to deescalate the current threat of war between them.

Bishop Oscar Cantu, head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' international justice and peace committee, has written to Secretary Rex Tillerson urging Washington to avoid war and find a dialogue-based solution to the current tensions with Pyongyang.

Cantu says while the threat posed by North Korea should not be "underestimated or ignored," the "high certainty of catastrophic death and destruction from any military action must prompt the United States to work with others in the international community for a diplomatic and political solution based on dialogue."

He also says he and his colleagues support South Korean President Moon Jae-in's proposal to reopen negotiations with North Korea. Catholic bishops in South Korea aslo back this proposal.

Source

• Crux
• The Daily Caller
• Image: Daily Mail