SEOUL, South Korea: North Korea on Thursday vowed to execute reporters from two South Korean newspapers, saying they insulted the country’s dignity while reviewing and interviewing the British authors of a book about life in the isolated country.
Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency carried a state court statement expressing anger over the descriptions of North Korean lives as increasingly capitalist. It also objected to the translated title of the South Korean edition as “Capitalist People’s Republic of Korea” and the book’s cover that replaced the red star in North Korea’s official seal with the US dollar mark.
North Korea’s Central Court also “sentenced to death” the presidents of the newspapers and said the North will “track down to the end and cut off the dirty windpipes” of those responsible for such provocations.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry denounced the North Korean comments as an “absurd threat” and said it “sternly warns” the North to immediately stop threating South Korean citizens. Seoul’s government is ready to take “every measure needed” to protect its citizens, the ministry said in a statement.
The North didn’t directly threaten the British authors of “North Korea Confidential: Private Markets, Fashion Trends, Prison Camps, Dissenters and Defectors,” but said the book “viciously defamed and distorted” the country’s realities.
The book was written by Daniel Tudor, a former Economist reporter, and James Pearson, a Reuters correspondent.
North Korean propaganda is often filled with odd and extreme threats. In June, it vowed to execute South Korea’s former president and her spy chief over an alleged plot to assassinate its leadership. Seoul’s National Intelligence Service denied the claim.
The North also threatened South Korean news organizations in 2012, when its military warned that its troops had aimed artillery at the specific coordinates of some Seoul-based newspapers and TV stations over their critical reports on children’s festivals that had been taking place in Pyongyang. The North didn’t carry out on the threat to wage a “merciless sacred war” over the perceived insults.
Pyongyang threatens to execute South Korean reporters over book review
Pyongyang threatens to execute South Korean reporters over book review
Russian drone attack forces power cuts in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, military says
- Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid
KYIV: Russian drones struck infrastructure in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, forcing emergency power blackouts for more than 45,000 customers and disrupting heat supplies, military administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said.
“Please fill up on water and charge your devices, if you have the chance. It’s going to be difficult,” Vilkul said on the Telegram messaging app.
Water utility pumping stations switched to generators and water remained in the system, but there could be pressure problems.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no comment from Russia about the strike.
Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power plants, substations and transmission lines with missiles and drones, seeking to knock out electricity and heating and hinder industry during the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid.
Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, has been hit repeatedly, with strikes killing civilians and damaging homes and industry.
The city sits close enough to southern front lines to be within strike range, while its factories, logistics links and workforce make it economically important and a key rear-area center supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
