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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-idUSKBN18113D
North Korea on Friday accused the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and South Korea's intelligence service of a plot to attack its "supreme leadership" with a bio-chemical weapon and said such a "pipe-dream" could never succeed.
Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high for weeks, driven by concern that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test or test-launch another ballistic missile in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Reclusive North Korea warned this week that U.S. hostility had brought the region to the brink of nuclear war.
The North's Ministry of State Security released a statement saying "the last-ditch effort" of U.S. "imperialists" and the South had gone "beyond the limits".
"The Central Intelligence Agency of the U.S. and the Intelligence Service (IS) of south Korea, hotbed of evils in the world, hatched a vicious plot to hurt the supreme leadership of the DPRK and those acts have been put into the extremely serious phase of implementation after crossing the threshold of the DPRK," the North's KCNA news agency quoted the statement as saying, referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"A hideous terrorists' group, which the CIA and the IS infiltrated into the DPRK on the basis of covert and meticulous preparations to commit state-sponsored terrorism against the supreme leadership of the DPRK by use of bio-chemical substance, has been recently detected."
(Score: 2, Interesting) by purple_cobra on Saturday May 06 2017, @07:29PM (3 children)
The BBC's take on it [bbc.co.uk] contained a puzzling statement though:
..."Kim" had been told that the best method was the use of "biochemical substances including radioactive substance and nano poisonous substance" whose results would "appear after six or 12 months".
The 'Kim' referenced there is the alleged assassin. That "6-12 months" is an odd statement; my first thought was that Kim Jong-Un might have developed something terminal and this is his expected lifespan, allowing NK to weaponise - inasmuch as they use everything as propaganda - his death, blaming the US and their "puppets" for sneaking in a biological agent to kill their leader. It wouldn't mean a damn thing to the rest of the world; it seems even the Chinese response to a mention of North Korea is a collective eye-roll and muttering under their breath, something that the NK ruling class is probably not happy about. And that story linked in the comments by an AC about China's halt on buying coal from NK showed that they're batshit crazy enough to spout their usual rhetoric at a country that a) is their only ally, b) is vastly more wealthy than they are, c) is next door, and d) might just decide they've had enough of babysitting the Kim clan and do something about it. It's unlikely that China will send in some "advisers" given the whole can of worms that a unified Korea would open for them, but no-one can foretell the future with any degree of accuracy so it's a bit silly to try and second-guess things.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday May 06 2017, @07:41PM (2 children)
China could just annex NK and make a Hong Kong or Macau out of it?
One China four systems thing.
(Score: 1) by purple_cobra on Saturday May 06 2017, @08:10PM
I suppose China could keep NK as a slum and shovel people in there from areas they're redeveloping. It was a surprise to me to see them using those sabre-rattling statements against their only ally rather than just simply ignoring China's actions with regard to the coal embargo.
(Score: 2) by BK on Saturday May 06 2017, @08:36PM
China and Japan have both tried to rule Korea at different times with basically disastrous consequences. The Koreans have a strong cultural history of resistance to invaders. That doesn't mean it won't be tried again or couldn't be but it's not the most likely outcome.
...but you HAVE heard of me.