News Story: Ex-AUM doctor helps with Malaysia's probe into Kim Jong Nam assassination

Kim Jong-Nam (Image: Flickr User - Conecta Abogados)

A former doctor of the AUM Shinrikyo doomsday cult has provided articles he wrote to the Malaysian government in cooperation with its investigation into the deadly VX nerve agent attack on the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, it has been learned.

Tomomasa Nakagawa, 54, a former AUM Shinrikyo executive who was sentenced to death for murder using VX nerve agent and other charges, received an inquiry about VX poisoning from the counterterrorism unit of the Malaysian government and sent his articles he had contributed to the Japanese monthly journal "Chemistry Today," according to Colorado State University professor emeritus Anthony Tu.

According to Tu, an 87-year-old leading toxicologist originally from Taiwan, Nakagawa received written inquiries from the Malaysian government via a United Nations organization sometime after April. The Malaysian government has been investigating the broad-daylight murder of Kim Jong Nam, half-brother of the North Korean leader, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in February.

During a meeting with Tu on Sept. 11 at Tokyo Detention Center, Nakagawa confessed his aspirations to write a report in English focusing on AUM Shinrikyo crimes using VX nerve agent, which the former cultist was involved in. Tu has interviewed Nakagawa since 2011 for counterterrorism purposes, and the latest meeting was the 12th of its kind. Tu has also cooperated with Japanese police in its investigation into the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system and other crimes perpetrated by AUM Shinrikyo.

Read the full story at The Mainichi

News Story: DPRK denounces CIA director's threat to remove its supreme leadership

PYONGYANG, July 25 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Tuesday denounced the recent threat made by Mike Pompeo, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to "remove the supreme leadership" of the DPRK.

"It has now become clear that the ultimate aim of the Trump administration's hostile policy towards the DPRK is the 'regime change' in DPRK," the Korean Central News Agency quoted a spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry as saying.

The spokesman said Pompeo "mentioned impertinently at a security forum hosted by a civilian organization about 'removal of the supreme leadership' of DPRK."

"What is most dangerous about the North Korean (DPRK) nuclear issue is the character who holds the control over them," Pompeo said Thursday.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Malaysia stops granting work permits to DPRK labourers

Hanoi (VNA) – The Malaysian Government has stopped issuing work permits for people from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) after the murder of a DPRK citizen at a Malaysian airport earlier this year, according to Kyodo news agency.

Diplomatic sources said all employees of a DPRK restaurant in downtown Kuala Lumpur were deported after their work permits expired in May but were not extended.

About 1,000 DPRK labourers are working in Malaysia, mainly in mining and construction in Sarawak state on Borneo island.

Tensions between Malaysia and the DPRK reached boiling point after the assassination of Kim Chol (Kim Jong-Nam), a DPRK citizen on February 13 in Malaysia.

Read the full story at VietnamPlus

News Report: Ex-South Korean President Park Reportedly Had Plot to Bring Down Kim Jong-un

The administration of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye had several scenarios drawn up to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to a report by Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper.

Park, who was succeeded by newly elected South Korean President Moon Jae-in in May following a corruption scandal and subsequent impeachment, had plans drawn up detailing several scenarios in which the leader of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) could be brought down.

The scenarios included staged automobile accidents, train derailments and the staging of a coup, according to Asahi Shimbun.

Documents signed in 2015 by the previous South Korean president referred to the plans for an extrajudicial killing of Kim Jong-un as “regime change,” RT reported.

News Report: North Korean Supreme Leader Paranoid About Navy SEAL Assassination – Spy Agency

SEAL Team 5 conducts an exercise in a
Combat Rubber Raiding Craft in 2000
(Image: Wiki Commons)

If you’ve been thinking you haven’t seen much of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, you’re right. The 33-year-old is apparently so afraid of being assassinated that he’s cut way back on public appearances, according to South Korea’s top espionage agency – making his latest meeting with former NBA star Dennis Rodman extra precious.

Kim has changed his traveling routines, assigned his top commanders to probe possible ‘decapitation operations’ and even given up cruising around in his own Mercedes-Benz over fear of giving shadowy assassins the opportunity they’re apparently waiting for, a South Korean parliamentarian told the Korea Times following a briefing with the National Intelligence Service (NIS). 

“Kim is engrossed with collecting information about the ‘decapitation operation’ through his intelligence agencies,” lawmaker Lee Cheol-woo of the Liberty Party of Korea said following Thursday’s briefing.

News Story: Gunmen assassinate Afghan politician in NW Pakistan - police

ISLAMABAD, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen shot dead an Afghan politician in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, according to local reports.

The killed, Ustad Fareed, was a close aide of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, chief of the Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan, or the Islamic Party.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: China's skepticism may open up new chance to denuclearize North (Korea) - scholar

SEOUL, May 24 (Yonhap) -- China is increasingly suspicious of North Korea trying to get in the way of China's ascent as a global power and the resulting decay in China-North Korea relations may open unprecedented opportunities to mobilize China's cooperation in denuclearizing the North, a historian said Wednesday.

"Great powers, particularly rising great powers ... what they cannot easily tolerate is friends and allies getting in the way of larger pictures. This is what I think has changed with regard to the relations" between Beijing and Pyongyang, Odd Arne Westad, a Harvard University history professor specialized in Asia, said in a lecture arranged by the Korean Foundation for Advanced Studies.

Traditionally, China has long preferred the status quo on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, preserving the situation involving North Korea, primarily because of its fears over Korean reunification under the control of the United States and instability that could follow a rapid collapse of the North Korean regime, according to the professor.

But the China-North Korea relations have never been "as bad as they are today and they seem to be getting worse very quickly," the professor noted.

China increasingly deems North Korea trying to get in the way of China's ascendancy rather than being a geographical asset to buffer its borders.

China is also aware North Korea's internal discussion portraying China as an enemy in the North Korean nuclear project, according to the professor.

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Report: CIA's New Korea Mission Center Tries to Fathom 'Unpredictable' Kim Jong-un

The US is "frightened" by the unpredictability of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and the CIA's new Korea Mission Center is an attempt to more efficiently gather intelligence about him, Professor Alexander Kubyshkin of St Petersburg State University told Radio Sputnik.

On Wednesday, the CIA stepped up its battle against North Korea with the establishment of a "Korea Mission Center" that will combine resources, capabilities and authorities from across the agency and direct them at Pyongyang.

"Creating the Korea Mission Center allows us to more purposefully integrate and direct CIA efforts against the serious threats to the United States and its allies emanating from North Korea. It also reflects the dynamism and agility that the CIA brings to evolving national security challenges," CIA Director Mike Pompeo stated.

Professor Alexander Kubyshkin of St Petersburg State University told Radio Sputnik that the creation of the center is a reflection of US intentions in the region.

News Story: NKorea might meet with US; Wants extradition of SK's spy chief

A senior North Korean diplomat said Saturday Pyongyang would be willing to hold talks with the United States if the conditions are right.

Choe Son-Hui, head of the foreign ministry's North America bureau, told reporters at Beijing's international airport that her country "will hold dialogue under right conditions" with President Donald Trump's administration.

She spoke as she was returning home from Oslo, where she met with US academics and former US officials including Thomas Pickering, former US envoy to the UN, and Robert Einhorn, the State Department's former special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, Seoul's Yonhap news agency said.

The meeting took place amid a let-up in military tensions on the Korean peninsula after concerns over a fresh nuclear test by the North aimed to mark high-profile anniversaries in April failed to materialise.

Read the full story at SpaceDaily

News Report: CIA, Seoul Paid Hit-Man $300K to Kill North Korea's Leader, Ambassador Claims

The US and South Korean intelligence agencies handed over about 300,000 dollars to 'Kim', a North Korean citizen, to stage an alleged plot to assassinate North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, the country's ambassador to Russia said.

Speaking at a press conference in Moscow on Friday, North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyun Joong claimed that the US and South Korean intelligence agencies had handed over about 300,000 US dollars to 'Kim', a North Korean citizen, to assassinate North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.

Kim Hyun Joong declined to reveal the full name of the failed hit-man, who was allegedly recruited by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) in June 2014, when he worked at a logging enterprise in Russia's Khabarovsk Territory.

News Report: DPRK Names S Korea Intelligence Chief as Suspect in Planned Attack on Leader

North Korea's intelligence services have named key suspects in the case of the alleged preparation of a coup and attack on the country' leader Kim Jong Un, including head of the South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) Lee Byung-ho, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Friday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – According to the news outlet, Pyongyang has named two other South Korean intelligence officers as well as Xu Guanghai of the Qingdao Nazca Trade company as suspects and demanded their extradition from whatever country they were currently residing in.

Pyongyang reportedly stressed that the suspects would be investigated under North Korean law, regardless of their citizenship.

Last week, North Korean authorities suggested that both the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and NIS had planned an attack on Kim using biochemical substances.

This story first appeared on Sputnik & is reposted here with permission.

News Report: N Korea Vows to Annihilate Those Behind Attempt to Kill Country Leader

North Korean  Dictator Kim Jong-un

A terror group which allegedly was setting up an assassination attempt on Kim Jong-un, Chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea, has been exposed in North Korea, North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyun Joong said on Friday.

The terror group was acting on the instruction of intelligence agencies of the US and South Korea, according to Kim Hyun Joong.

"[North Korea] has exposed a criminal group planted by the CIA and the South Korean intelligence service to carry out state-backed terror [plot] by the means of biological and chemical weapons against our leadership," the ambassador said during a press conference in Moscow on Friday.

According to the ambassador, the terrorist group had been active since 2014, with the latest preparations taking place in March and April this year. Kim Hyun Joong stressed that, according to the information at the North Korean government's disposal, the terrorists aimed to "remotely" poison the leadership of the country, planning the attack in a way so that the effect of the poisoning would have shown six months later.

News Report: Pyongyang Doubles Down on CIA Terror Threat

A week after accusing the CIA and the South Korean National Intelligence Service of a sinister plot to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a North Korean diplomat reiterated Thursday that “terrorists were recently detected” in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“The terrorists were infiltrated by the CIA of the US and the puppet National Intelligence Service of South Korea in a bid to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of a biochemical substance,” Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol was quoted as saying by KCNA. 

Pyongyang will hence make a “principled stand” in order to “find out all of the terrorist maniacs and mercilessly wipe them out,” Han said. According to his account, such terrorists include the “plot-breeding centers” and “dens of evil” that are the CIA and NIS. 

Han also said the North Korean prosecutor’s office would be making a request “for a handover of the criminals” who hatched the plot “and prosecute them under the relevant laws,” according to a Xinhua report. 

News Story: DPRK says to bring to justice "terror suspects" against top leader

PYONGYANG, May 11 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Thursday it will bring to justice the "terror suspects" involved in what the country alleged was an assassination plot against its top leader Kim Jong Un.

"The Central Prosecutor's Office will ask for the handover of those criminals and prosecute them under the relevant laws of the country," Han Song Ryol, vice foreign minister of the DPRK, told foreign diplomats and reporters here.

"Korean-style anti-terror war" will be launched immediately and in a "consecutive and intensive way" against the United States and South Korea, whom Pyongyang has accused of sponsoring the murder, the official added without elaborating.

The DPRK said last week it had foiled an attempt by the United States and South Korean intelligence services to assassinate Kim with bio-chemical and radio-active substances during his public appearances in mass celebrations on April 15, the day when the DPRK marked the birth anniversary of its founder Kim Il Sung.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Report: US Army Preparing for 'Battle for Seoul' With South Korea Military Shake-Up

The relocation of US army forces further from the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) might seem counter-intuitive given Washington's recent saber-rattling in the Korean Peninsula, but the move is sound from a military-tactical point of view, analyst Dmitry Verkhoturov told Sputnik.

On April 25, the Eighth U.S. Army started the process of relocating forces from garrisons in the northern cities of Seoul, Uijeongbu and Dongducheon further from the shared border with North Korea. 

The US army will be based further south in the city of Pyeongtaek, where its new base, Camp Humphreys, is located.

The relocation, which is intended to consolidate the US bases that are scattered around South Korea, has been in the works since 2003. 

However, the decision to finally get the move underway at this point, as the US ratchets up tensions on the Korean Peninsula, is a tactical one. It gives the US time to regroup its forces in the event of an attack by North Korean ground forces, analyst Dmitry Verkhoturov told Sputnik. 

News Story: DPRK says foiling U.S., South Korean attempt to assassinate Kim Jong Un

PYONGYANG, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Friday that it had foiled an attempt by U.S. and South Korean spy agencies to assassinate the country's top leader Kim Jong Un, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

According to the report, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States and South Korea's Intelligence Service (IS) attempted to murder DPRK's Kim last month with bio-chemical and radio-active substances.

Read the full story at Xinhua

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PacificSentinel: If the CIA, or any Western Intelligence Agency, wanted to assassinate Kim Jong Ding-Dong, it would be made to look like an accident, they wouldn't use some easily traced, hard to use method, he'd simply die in a car crash, or drown in the pool.

News Report: Is There a Way of Removing Kim Jong-un as Leader of North Korea Without War?

North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un

As tensions rise in North Korea, is there a scenario where Kim Jong-un was removed and the communist regime continues and could such a scenario involve Kim's uncle?

As the United States under President Donald Trump makes increasingly bellicose remarks about North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un he has responded with aggression and dire threats, leading many to fear what could be the outcome of the crisis.

It also emerged this week that South Korea still considers the northern half of the peninsula to be "occupied territory" and some hawks in Seoul are itching to restart the Korean War, which ended with a ceasefire in 1953.

But there are doves on both sides of the Demilitarized Zone and China is also keen to not only avoid conflict but retain the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), which forms an important buffer on its eastern border.

Military strategists in Beijing are horrified at the prospect of sharing a border with the US-backed Republic of Korea, especially after Washington installed the THAAD missile system in Korea.

One option for avoiding a full-blown war on the Korean Peninsula is for a regime change in Pyongyang.

News Story: North Korea seeks ASEAN help in row with US

MANILA, Philippines - North Korea has appealed to Southeast Asian countries for support in its row with the United States to prevent what it warned could be a “nuclear holocaust,” according to a letter obtained by AFP.

In the letter to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ secretary general, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho warned the situation on the Korean Peninsula was “reaching the brink of war” because of Washington’s actions.

He urged the ASEAN chief to inform the 10-nation organization’s foreign ministers “about the grave situation” on the peninsula “and give them a proper proposal,” while criticizing at length US-South Korean military exercises.

Tensions have soared in the region in recent weeks in the wake of a series of North Korean missile tests and tough rhetoric from Washington on the isolated nation’s rogue weapons program.

Read the full story at PhilStar

News Story: Top ruling party leader shot dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, April 24 (Xinhua) -- A top leader of Indian-controlled Kashmir's ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) was shot dead by suspected militants Monday, hours after the state's Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for a dialogue with separatists.

A police official said Abdul Gani Dar, the Pulwama district unit chief of the PDP, was shot thrice in his chest by militants who waylaid his car while he was travelling to capital Srinagar.

"Dar was shot at when he was in the Pinglana area. He was rushed to a local hospital in capital Srinagar, some 30 km away, where he was declared brought dead by doctors. A massive manhunt has been launched to nab the assailants," the official said, on condition of anonymity.

Following the attack contingents of police and army rushed to the spot to carry out searches for the assailants. However, reports said the attackers fled the spot immediately.

Read the full story at Xinhua

News Story: Malaysian court postpones DPRK citizen’s death-related hearing

Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – A Malaysian court in Sepang district of Malaysia’s Selangor state postponed a hearing for two women suspected in the death of a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) citizen to May 30.

Judge Harith Sham Mohamed Yasin announced the postponement on April 13.

The hearing was postponed due to lack of documents. As such, the case was not transferred to the Shah Alam High Court for a joint trial.

Read the full story at VietnamPlus