China urges six-party talks over N. Korea nuclear program

In the past, United Nations human rights investigators have said inmates in camps have suffered starvation, torture and other atrocities.

Along with their historical ties, Beijing continues to see North Korea as a crucial buffer against US troops based in South Korea and Japan.

South Korean authorities say Kim had visited North Korea seven times and once tried to erect a memorial in Seoul to the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il after his death in 2011. China categorically labels all North Koreans in China “illegal” economic migrants and routinely repatriates them, despite its obligation to offer protection to refugees under the 1951 Refugees Convention and its 1967 protocol, to which China is a state party.

Thousands of North Koreans have suffered damages to their homes, according to North Korea, and in the aftermath of the disaster Pyongyang had released rare footage of the devastation in the country’s northeast region.

When he was released from the hospital, Lippert “thanked all the well-wishers from the USA and South Korea who reached out during his hospital stay”, as NPR’s Elise Hu reported. US President Barack Obama has repeatedly pledged to close the notorious prison amid mounting concern of human rights abuses, such as force-feeding and torture, but the detention camp in Cuba remains open.

“There is a lunatic in North Korea with dozens of nuclear weapons and long-range rocket that can already hit the very place in which we stand tonight”.

He said the United States was making desperate efforts to “build up public opinion critical of North Korea and drive a wedge between the North and the South”.

It said on Tuesday that the country’s plutonium and highly enriched uranium facilities at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex had started normal operations and have improved the country’s nuclear weapons capabilities.

Now, North Korean officials have signaled that they could mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of its ruling Workers Party on October 10 with a satellite launch, and announced a restart of atomic-fuel plants that prompted speculation that North Korea is preparing for its fourth nuclear test explosion.

Kerry, who in July worked with six other foreign ministers to seal a long-term nuclear pact with Iran to curb its nuclear program, said the Islamic Republic’s leaders “made a fundamental decision that they’re willing to change their direction, end their isolation in the world and that that was more important than pursuing a nuclear weapons program”.

North Korea demands the unconditional resumption of negotiations, while the US says that Pyongyang must first take concrete steps demonstrating its denuclearization commitments.

The North’s last rocket launch in December 2012 triggered a surge in military tensions that culminated in the North’s third nuclear test just two months later.

North Korea has not used its Yongbyon nuclear reactor since 2007, but has kept it safe for aid-for disarmament agreement signed by six nations.

An official at the South Korean Embassy in Jakarta said, “It looks like North Korea mobilized all of its embassy staff in Indonesia to obstruct this event”.