UNITED NATIONS: China opposes a planned United Nations Security Council meeting on human rights abuses in North Korea because it will only “intensify confrontation and antagonism,” a spokesperson for China’s UN mission in New York said on Monday.
The United States, Albania and Japan requested the meeting, which will be held on Thursday. It will be the first formal public meeting of the 15-member council on the issue since 2017.
“China sees no added value for the council to have such a meeting and will be against it,” said China’s UN mission spokesperson, adding that the council’s mandate was “maintenance of international peace and security, not human rights.”
“A council meeting on human rights in the DPRK falls outside the council’s mandate, politicizes human rights issues, and only serves to intensify confrontation and antagonism,” said the spokesperson, referring to the country’s formal name — the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an increase in missile production to help secure “overwhelming military power” and be ready for war, state media KCNA said on Monday, as South Korea and the United States gear up for annual military drills.
It was not immediately clear if China would call a procedural vote on Thursday to try and block the Security Council meeting on rights abuses, but a senior US official has said they were confident they have the minimum nine votes needed to move ahead. Vetoes do not apply on procedural issues.
North Korea has repeatedly rejected accusations of abuses and blames sanctions for a dire humanitarian situation. Since 2006 it has been under UN sanctions over its ballistic missiles and nuclear programs, but there are aid exemptions.
In March, the United States accused China of attempting to hide North Korea’s atrocities from the world by blocking the webcast of an informal meeting of Security Council members on accusations of human rights abuses by Pyongyang.
The council has held annual formal meetings on the issue for the past three years, but behind closed doors. Between 2014 and 2017 the council held annual public meetings on human rights abuses in North Korea.
A landmark 2014 UN report on North Korean human rights concluded that North Korean security chiefs — and possibly leader Kim himself — should face justice for overseeing a state-controlled system of Nazi-style atrocities. The United States sanctioned Kim in 2016 for human rights abuses.
China opposes UN Security Council meeting on North Korea rights
https://arab.news/n3jnx
China opposes UN Security Council meeting on North Korea rights
- The United States, Albania and Japan requested the meeting, which will be held on Thursday
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado has left Oslo
- “She is no longer in the city of Oslo,” Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli wrote on X
- Machado, who has lived in hiding in Venezuela since August 2024, arrived in Oslo last week
OSLO: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, who won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, has left Oslo, a member of her entourage said on Wednesday without providing details of her whereabouts.
“She is no longer in the city of Oslo,” Pedro Urruchurtu Noselli wrote on X.
Machado, who has lived in hiding in Venezuela since August 2024, arrived in Oslo last week.
She was due to attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in the Norwegian capital on Wednesday, but was delayed and did not make it in time.
According to a spokesperson, the 58-year-old opposition leader fractured a vertebra during her secret journey out of hiding in Venezuela to Norway.
She “is doing well and during these days she is attending medical appointments with a specialist as part of her prompt and full recovery,” Noselli said.
Machado has accused President Nicolas Maduro of stealing Venezuela’s July 2024 election, from which she was banned — a claim backed by much of the international community.
She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year for promoting democratic rights and “for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
