Reuters Military coup in Myanmar and economic crisis in North Korea
Leader Kim Jong Un branded the United States North Korea’s “biggest enemy” to be met with increased military capabilities in remarks at a ruling party congress that experts said reveal that he faces the same limited pathways out of his country’s poverty and isolation that his father did twenty years ago.
North Korea’s economy lies in shambles between the double pinch of international nuclear sanctions and the closure of the border with China due to the coronavirus combined with a summer of natural disasters that ravaged cropland, while Pyongyang has shunned a South Korean government that would eagerly help once progress is made on the nagging nuclear dispute.
South Korea in dilemma over joint military drill
Posted : 2021-01-09 09:34
By Kang Seung-woo
With the need to achieve both an advancement in inter-Korean ties and recovery of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its military forces, the government here is in a quandary over how to program its springtime combined exercise with the United States.
As part of efforts toward inter-Korean reconciliation, South Korea is advised to consider suspending or scaling down the annual joint exercise that North Korea denounces as a rehearsal for an invasion, but considering its plan to regain OPCON from the U.S., Seoul is also required to carry out a set of large-scale drills to verify its preparedness.
KCNA/via REUTERS
As North Korea’s ruling Korean Workers’ Party held its congress this week, residents of the impoverished country reacted cynically, saying that nothing that could be decided during the rare political meeting could improve their lives, sources in the country told RFA.
The eighth party congress opened Tuesday, with the country’s leader Kim Jong Un admitting in a speech that the country “fell a long way short of the set objectives” of the five-year economic plan introduced in 2016, the last time the congress met, which was the first such meeting since 1980.
North Korea’s economy is struggling under a legacy of mismanagement, international nuclear sanctions, closures of the border with China to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and a summer of natural disasters that tore through the country.
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