North Korea says it arrested USA student for ‘hostile act’

The school district “has been in touch with the family of Otto Warmbier and we will have no additional comment at this time”, Max said Friday. The agency said they’re investigating the student who it says entered the North as a tourist with a plot to undermine a unity among the North Koreans.

“I’m asking the USA or South Korean government to rescue me”, Kim said during an interview at a hotel in the North Korean capital.

“Gareth Johnson of China-based Young Pioneer Tours confirmed Wambier was on one of its tours and said he had been detained in North Korea on January 2”.

In earlier messages, the U.S. State Department has warned that “U.S. citizens have been subject to arrest and long-term detention for actions that would not be cause for arrest in the United States or other countries”.

“Despite the U.S.-Japan linkage, information sharing will not take place without the agreement from each side and, even if it takes place, it will be confined to subjects on North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missiles”, Yonhap quoted the unnamed official as saying. It did not elaborate.

Warmbier has also visited Cuba, Ireland and Israel, according to his Facebook profile.

The United States and North Korea are in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Warmbier was a top student at his high school and was described as a skilled soccer player.

South Korea’s military is considering responses to the North as Pyongyang continues to send millions of anti-Seoul propaganda leaflets.

Kasich says in his letter released Friday afternoon that North Korea arrests US citizens for diplomatic negotiation motives or to antagonize the United States. He noted that almost all of North Korea’s trade goes to, from or through China.

Domestic critics and worldwide rights groups argue that the law is open to abuse and stifles free speech, but officials insist it is justified by the continued threat from the nuclear-armed North.

Mr. Johnson’s tour agency, Young Poineer Tours, released a statement via their website Friday confirming the news.

The latest test triggered a flurry of diplomatic activity between the 5 non-North Korean members of the defunct talks process, with the US, Japan and South Korea urging China to take the lead in imposing stronger sanctions on its maverick neighbor.

“We believe that China has a special role to play, given the special relationship that it has with North Korea”, Blinken told reporters in Seoul on Wednesday.

In 2014, Pyongyang released three detained Americans.

A Congress-commissioned study by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has recommended deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea in light of the growing missile threat from Pyongyang.