North Korea is doing some outreach to one of its few friends:
A North Korean diplomatic delegation led by Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-ho has departed for Mongolia, the North’s state media reported Sunday.
The delegation left from Pyongyang International Airport in the capital Saturday, the Rodong Sinmun, the North’s main newspaper, said, without specifying the purpose of the trip.
The diplomatic delegation’s visit to Mongolia marks the first of its kind since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020. The North last sent a delegation to the country in 2019.
The latest trip is seen as part of the North’s diplomatic efforts to strengthen ties with its traditionally friendly countries.
Mongolia is viewed as having close relations with the North, having maintained its diplomatic mission in Pyongyang even during the pandemic despite strict border restrictions.
Yonhap
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Does a 90% tax on a $100 a month salary make someone a slave?:
More than 2,500 North Korean workers have been forced to work in Mongolia and Poland under poor working conditions with their human rights being violated, a South Korean civic group said Wednesday.
About 1,800 North Korean workers are being forced to work mainly in Mongolia’s construction sector or in sewing factories while around 800 North Koreans are employed in Poland in the shipbuilding and construction sectors, according to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights.
Marzuki Darusman, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea, said in his report that more than 50,000 North Koreans have been forced to work abroad, mainly in China and Russia, as the North seeks to earn hard currency.
The civic group said Mongolia has had close ties with North Korea for a long time and a distinctive geographical location bordering Russia and China where thousands of North Koreans are forced to labor.
Poland had friendly relations with North Korea during the era of the former Soviet Union and it is known as one of two European Union nations including Malta that has hired North Korean workers.
The agency said that North Korean workers in the two countries have repatriated about 90 percent of their salary to North Korea while earning less than $100 per month while working around 12 hours per day. [Yonhap]
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Mongolia will ship 25,000 tons of coal to North Korea’s Rajin port: http://t.co/A16xo7gPDb
— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) February 25, 2015
