Tag Archives: North Korea

Exclusive: South Korea president calls on China’s Xi to do more on North Korea nuclear program

South Korean President Moon Jae-in attends an interview with Reuters at the Presidential Blue House in Seoul, South Korea, June 22, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji

By Jean Yoon and Soyoung Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Thursday China should do more to rein in North Korea’s nuclear program and he would call on President Xi Jinping to lift measures against South Korean companies taken in retaliation against Seoul’s decision to host a U.S. anti-missile defense system.

In an interview with Reuters ahead of his trip to Washington next week for a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, Moon said ‘strong’ sanctions should be imposed if North Korea tests an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) or conducts a sixth nuclear test.

“It must be sufficiently strong enough that it would prevent North Korea from making any additional provocations, and also strong enough that it will make North Korea realize that they are going down the wrong path,” Moon said.

The comments mark the toughest warning yet by the liberal former human rights lawyer, who was elected in May after campaigning for a more moderate approach to the North and engaging the reclusive country in dialogue. As a candidate, he said, sanctions alone have failed to impede Pyongyang’s defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

North Korea will acquire the technology to deploy a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile capable of hitting the mainland United States “in the not too distant future,” Moon said.

EXERT MORE PRESSURE

“I believe China is making efforts to stop North Korea from making additional provocations, yet there are no tangible results as of yet,” Moon told Reuters at the sprawling Blue House presidential compound.

“China is North Korea’s only ally and China is the country that provides the most economic assistance to North Korea,” Moon said. “Without the assistance of China, sanctions won’t be effective at all.”

Moon’s remarks echoed that of U.S. President Donald Trump, who said in a tweet on Tuesday Chinese efforts to persuade North Korea to rein in its nuclear program have failed. Top U.S. officials pressed China on Wednesday to exert more economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea-level in talks with their counterparts in Washington on Wednesday.

“Maybe President Trump believes that there is more room for China to engage North Korea and it seems that he is urging China to do more. I can also sympathize with that message,” Moon said.

China accounts for 90 percent of world trade with North Korea. Diplomats say Beijing has not been fully enforcing existing international sanctions on its neighbor, and has resisted tougher measures, such as an oil embargo and bans on the North Korean airline and guest workers.

Washington has considered imposing “secondary sanctions” against Chinese banks and other firms doing business with North Korea.

G20 MEETING

South Korea and the United States agreed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in response to the growing missile threat from North Korea.

But the move has angered China, which says the system’s powerful radar will look deep into its territory and undermine regional security. China has pressured South Korean businesses via boycotts and bans, such as ending Chinese group tours to South Korea and closing most of South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group’s Lotte Mart retail stores in China.

Lotte handed over a golf course it owned in southern South Korea so the THAAD battery could be installed there.

Moon said that while China has never officially acknowledged economic retaliation, many South Korean businesses face difficulties in China, and he hopes to hold talks with Xi at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany next month to address the issue.

“If I have the chance to meet President Xi, I will ask for him to lift these measures. This is the agenda that we cannot evade,” Moon said.

“If we were to link political and military issues to economic and cultural exchanges, this could lead to some hindrance to the development of our friendly relationship between our two countries.”

Moon said he wants to sit down with as many world leaders as possible in Hamburg — including Xi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin — where he expects the North’s nuclear program will top the agenda.

THAAD MYSTERIOUSLY ACCELERATED

Moon, who pledged to review the controversial decision to deploy THAAD during his election campaign and delayed full deployment of the system this month to review how the system will affect the area’s environment, said it was important to ensure domestic law and regulations are properly enforced.

“But for some reason that I do not know, this entire THAAD process was accelerated.”

In the first disclosure of the details of the schedule of the THAAD deployment agreed by the two countries last year, Moon said the original agreement was to deploy one launcher by the end of 2017 and the remaining five launchers next year.

In a surprise pre-dawn operation, the U.S. military moved two launchers into the deployment site in late April just days before the election. In addition, four more launchers had been brought into the country, which Moon called “very shocking.”

JAPAN’S WARTIME PAST

Japan is an important partner in the effort to resolve the North Korean crisis but Tokyo’s refusal to fully own up to its wartime past, its claims to the disputed islands between the two countries as well as its growing military spending are concerning, Moon said.

“If Japan were to show its strong resolve in looking back on its past history and sending a message that such actions will never happen again… then I believe that this will go a long way in further developing its relations with not only Korea but also with many other Asian nations,” he said.

Moon has said many South Koreans did not accept a deal reached by his conservative predecessor and Japan’s Abe in 2015 to resolve the issue of Korean “comfort women” — a euphemism for women forced to work in the Japanese military’s wartime brothels.

“Japan does not make full efforts to resolve issues of history between our two countries, including the comfort women issue,” Moon said.

Moon said he has “high expectations” for the upcoming summit with Trump next week and said the priority the two leaders have placed on North Korea has raised the possibility the nuclear issue will be resolved.

“I’m very glad that President Trump has made the resolution of North Korea’s nuclear issue as top of his priority list on his foreign affairs agenda.”

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Christine Kim, Heekyong Yang and Haejin Choi in Seoul; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Mourners in Ohio remember U.S. student held prisoner by North Korea

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

By Ginny McCabe

WYOMING, Ohio (Reuters) – Friends and family members will gather in Ohio on Thursday to say goodbye to an American student who died days after being returned to the United States in a coma following 17 months in captivity in North Korea.

Otto Warmbier, 22, was arrested in the reclusive communist country while visiting as a tourist. He was brought back to the United States last week with brain damage, in what doctors described as state of “unresponsive wakefulness,” and died on Monday.

A public memorial will be held on Thursday morning at Wyoming High School, in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. Warmbier will be buried later in the day at a local cemetery.

The exact cause of his death is unclear. Officials at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was treated, declined to provide details, and Warmbier’s family on Tuesday asked that the Hamilton County Coroner not perform an autopsy.

Warmbier’s father, Fred Warmbier, told a news conference last week that his son had flourished while at the high school.

“This is the place where Otto experienced some of the best moments of his young life, and he would be pleased to know that his return to the United States would be acknowledged on these grounds,” he said.

After graduating as class salutatorian in 2013, Warmbier enrolled at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he was studying at the school of commerce and was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity. Warmbier was scheduled to graduate this year.

At a memorial service on Tuesday night, students at the university remembered Warmbier as outgoing and energetic.

“Being with Otto made life all the more beautiful,” Alex Vagonis, Warmbier’s girlfriend, said.

Warmbier was traveling in North Korea with a tour group, and was arrested at Pyongyang airport as he was about to leave.

He was sentenced two months later to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel, North Korea state media said.

Ria Westergaard Pedersen, 33, who was with Warmbier in North Korea, told the Danish broadcaster TV2 that he had been nervous when taking pictures of soldiers, and said she doubted North Korea’s explanation for his arrest.

“We went to buy propaganda posters together, so why in the world would he risk so much to steal a trivial poster? It makes no sense.”

(Wrting and additional reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Trump says China tried but failed to help on North Korea

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and China's President Xi Jinping walk along the front patio of the Mar-a-Lago estate after a bilateral meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

By Steve Holland and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese efforts to persuade North Korea to rein in its nuclear program have failed, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, ratcheting up the rhetoric over the death of an American student who had been detained by Pyongyang.

Trump has held high hopes for greater cooperation from China to exert influence over North Korea, leaning heavily on Chinese President Xi Jinping for his assistance. The two leaders had a high-profile summit in Florida in April and Trump has frequently praised Xi while resisting criticizing Chinese trade practices.

“While I greatly appreciate the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. At least I know China tried!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

It was unclear whether his remark represented a significant shift in his thinking in the U.S. struggle to stop North Korea’s nuclear program and its test launching of missiles or a change in U.S. policy toward China.

“I think the president is signaling some frustration,” Christopher Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, told MSNBC. “He’s signaling to others that he understands this isn’t working, and he’s trying to defend himself, or justify himself, by saying that at least they tried as opposed to others who didn’t even try.”

China’s Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that China had made “unremitting efforts” to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula, and that it had “always played and important and constructive role”.

“China’s efforts to resolve the peninsula nuclear issue is not due to any external pressure, but because China is a member of the region and a responsible member of the international community, and because resolving the peninsula nuclear issue is in China’s interests,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a daily news briefing.

On Tuesday, a U.S. official, who did not want to be identified, said U.S. spy satellites had detected movements recently at North Korea’s nuclear test site near a tunnel entrance, but it was unclear if these were preparations for a new nuclear test – perhaps to coincide with high-level talks between the United States and China in Washington on Wednesday.

“North Korea remains prepared to conduct a sixth nuclear test at any time when there is an order from leadership but there are no new unusual indications that can be shared,” a South Korean Defense Ministry official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Seoul was in close consultation with Washington over the matter, the official added.

North Korea last tested a nuclear bomb in September, but it has conducted repeated missile test since and vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, putting it at the forefront of Trump’s security worries.

U.S.-CHINA DIALOGUE

The Trump statement about China was likely to increase pressure on Beijing ahead of Wednesday’s Diplomatic and Security Dialogue, which will pair U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis with China’s top diplomat, State Councilor Yang Jiechi, and General Fang Fenghui, chief of joint staff of the People’s Liberation Army.

The State Department says the dialogue will focus on ways to increase pressure on North Korea, but also cover such areas as counter-terrorism and territorial rivalries in the South China Sea.

The U.S. side is expected to press China to cooperate on a further toughening of international sanctions on North Korea. The United States and its allies would like to see an oil embargo and bans on the North Korean airline and guest workers among other moves, steps diplomats say have been resisted by China and Russia.

In a sign that U.S.-Chinese relations remain stable, a White House aide said Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, were invited by the Chinese government to visit the country later this year.

Trump has hardened his rhetoric against North Korea following the death of Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who died on Monday in the United States after returning from captivity in North Korea in a coma.

“A DISGRACE”

In a White House meeting with visiting Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, Trump criticized the way Warmbier’s case was handled in the year since his arrest, appearing to assail both North Korea and his predecessor, President Barack Obama.

“What happened to Otto is a disgrace. And I spoke with his family. His family is incredible … but he should have been brought home a long time ago,” Trump said.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States holds North Korea accountable for Warmbier’s “unjust imprisonment” and urged Pyongyang to release three other Americans who are detained.

Chinese state-run newspaper the Global Times, published by the official People’s Daily, said Chinese officials must be wary that Warmbier’s death might push Washington to put greater pressure on Beijing.

“China has made the utmost efforts to help break the stalemate in the North Korean nuclear issue. But by no means will China, nor will Chinese society permit it to, act as a ‘U.S. ally’ in pressuring North Korea,” the Global Times said in an editorial.

If Washington imposes sanctions on Chinese enterprises, it would lead to “grave friction” between the two countries, said the paper, which does not represent Chinese government policy.

Trump’s tweet about China took some advisers by surprise. A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the United States had limited options to rein in North Korea without Chinese assistance.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said a meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is less likely following Warmbier’s death.

Spicer said Trump would be willing to meet Kim under the right conditions, but “clearly we’re moving further away, not closer to those conditions.”

For graphic on Americans detained by North Korea, click: http://tmsnrt.rs/2r5xYpB

(Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, David Alexander and John Walcott in Washington and Jack Kim in Seoul; Editing by Howard Goller, Leslie Adler and Lincoln Feast)

Family declines autopsy for U.S. student released by North Korea

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – An Ohio coroner, abiding by family wishes, has performed an external examination instead of a full autopsy on the body of the U.S. student who was held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months and sent home in a coma, the agency said on Tuesday.

The Hamilton County Coroner’s Office was still conferring on Tuesday with doctors at a Cincinnati hospital who were treating Otto Warmbier, 22, before reaching any conclusions about his death a day earlier, investigator Daryl Zornes said.

Investigators also were continuing to review radiological images and awaiting additional medical records requested by the coroner, Zornes told Reuters.

He declined to estimate how long it would take for the coroner’s office to complete its inquiry. Preliminary autopsy findings had been expected later on Tuesday or on Wednesday.

There was no immediate word from the family about why relatives declined an autopsy, which may have shed more light on the cause of the neurological injuries that left him in a coma.

Warmbier’s death came just days after he was released by the North Korean government and returned to the United States suffering from what U.S. doctors described as extensive brain damage.

Warmbier, an Ohio native and student at the University of Virginia, was arrested in North Korea in January 2016 while visiting as a tourist. He was sentenced two months later to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel in North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, the nation’s state media said.

The circumstances of his detention and what medical treatment he received in North Korea remain unknown. The United States has demanded North Korea release three other U.S. citizens it holds in detention: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song. (Graphic of Americans held by North Korea: http://tmsnrt.rs/2pmE3ks)

Warmbier’s death has only heightened U.S.-North Korean tensions aggravated by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since last year in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. The North Korean government has vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

Warmbier’s family has not specified how he slipped from a comatose state to death, but said in a statement on Monday that the “awful torturous mistreatment” he endured while in captivity meant “no other outcome was possible.”

Relatives have said they were told by U.S. envoys that North Korean officials claimed Warmbier contracted botulism after his trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill. Fred Warmbier, the student’s father, has said he disbelieves this account.

North Korea’s government said it released Warmbier last week on “humanitarian grounds.”

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he had spoken with Warmbier’s family and praised them as “incredible.”

“It’s a total disgrace what happened to Otto,” Trump told reporters in the White House, where he was meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. “And frankly, if he were brought home sooner, I think the results would have been a lot different.”

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the administration would “continue to apply economic and political pressure” on North Korea, in conjunction with U.S. allies and China, “to change this behavior and this regime.”

Trump said on Twitter on Tuesday he appreciated efforts by Chinese President Xi Jinping “to help with North Korea,” adding “It has not worked out. At least I know China tried!”

The government of China, North Korea’s main ally, said Warmbier’s death was a tragedy.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Lisa Shumaker)

Death of U.S. student held by North Korea shocks fellow ex-detainees

Kenneth Bae speaks upon returning from North Korea during a news conference at U.S. Air Force Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Fort Lewis, Washington, United States on November 8, 2014. REUTERS/David Ryder/File Photo

By Jon Herskovitz

(Reuters) – The death this week of an American university student held prisoner for 17 months by North Korea left Ohio municipal worker Jeffrey Fowle shaken.

Fowle, 59, is one of 16 Americans who have been imprisoned by the reclusive state over the last two decades, including three who remain detained. Like student Otto Warmbier, he visited North Korea with a tour group and was taken into custody at the airport when trying to leave.

But Fowle was released in relatively good physical health after a six-month detention. Warmbier, 22, died at a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after he was released from captivity in a coma. The family declined an autopsy.

“Otto Warmbier’s death was a sudden tragedy for all of America,” Fowle said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. “It doesn’t take much to get in trouble in North Korea.”

Both men committed infractions that would be considered minor in most parts of the world. Fowle left a Bible behind in a nightclub in the coastal city in Chongjin. Warmbier was convicted for trying to steal a banner linked to former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il from a Pyongyang hotel used by foreign tourists.

However, in the eyes of North Korea, where Kim Jong Il is revered as a demigod and proselytizing is seen as an assault on the state, the two had committed heinous crimes.

Fowle spent nearly a month of his detention in a hotel for foreigners and then was moved to a guest house in another part of Pyongyang. Like others held under varying terms of detention, from cramped, windowless shacks offering little protection from the country’s bitter cold to hotel rooms, Fowle recalled the sense of isolation he felt.

“The emotional strain was high, especially during the early part of my detention when I was coached on how to formulate my admission of guilt,” Fowle said, adding, “I was never physically abused.”

The longest-serving of the American prisoners, Christian missionary Kenneth Bae, has said he had to shovel coal, haul rocks and had about 30 guards keeping watch over him as their sole prisoner during his two years in captivity beginning in 2012.

“Although we don’t know everything about life in North Korea, this much is sure: innocent people like Otto are suffering,” Bae said in a statement after Warmbier’s death.

The news of Warmbier’s death reminded George Hunziker, 59, of his younger brother Evan’s imprisonment in North Korea after being charged with spying in 1996. Evan Hunziker, then 26, was held for three months and committed suicide about a month after his return to the United States.

George Hunziker said his brother was young like Warmbier and did not realize the seriousness of his actions. He swam from China across the border with North Korea and was arrested. He was later charged with spying.

“You’re in America and you think you can do stuff and there’s no consequences, but in North Korea you don’t have those same privileges,” he said. “I wish somebody could do something about those crazy people over there.”

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. student held prisoner by North Korea dies days after release

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – An American university student held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months died at a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after he was released from captivity in a coma, his family said.

Otto Warmbier, 22, who was arrested in North Korea while visiting as a tourist, had been described by doctors caring for him last week as having extensive brain damage that left him in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness.”

“Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” the family said in a statement after Warmbier’s death at 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT).

His family has said that Warmbier lapsed into a coma in March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he died, said last Thursday that Warmbier showed no sign of understanding language or awareness of his surroundings, and had made no “purposeful movements or behaviors,” though he was breathing on his own.

There was no immediate word from Warmbier’s family on the cause of his death.

The circumstances of his detention in North Korea and what medical treatment he may have received there remained a mystery, but relatives have said his condition suggested that he had been physically abused by his captors.

The University of Virginia student and Ohio native was arrested, according to North Korean media, for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan.

North Korea released Warmbier last week and said he was being freed “on humanitarian grounds.” [nL3N1JC1ZB]

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not available for comment on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement offering condolences to the Warmbier family and denouncing “the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”

The president drew criticism in May when he said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said in an interview. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”

The student’s father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that his son had been “brutalized and terrorized” by the Pyongyang government and that the family disbelieved North Korea’s story that his son had fallen into a coma after contracting botulism and being given a sleeping pill.

Doctors who examined Otto Warmbier after his release said there was no sign of botulism in his system.

Warmbier was freed after the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, Joseph Yun, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded the student’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said last week.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been heightened by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the beginning of last year in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang has also vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

China, North Korea’s main ally, lamented Warmbier’s death.

“It really is a tragedy. I hope that North Korea and the United States can properly handle the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular press briefing.

Asked if the death would have an impact on high-level U.S.-China talks on Wednesday likely to focus on North Korea, Geng said China “remains committed to resolving the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation”.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States holds North Korea accountable for Warmbier’s “unjust imprisonment” and demanded the release of three other U.S. citizens still held by Pyongyang – Korean-Americans Tony Kim, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Hak Song.

Offering condolence to the Warmbiers, South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged Pyongyang to swiftly return the foreign detainees including six South Koreans. [nL3N1JH1F0]

A spokesman for the family of one South Korean detainee sentenced to hard labor for life for spying in 2013 said the Warmbier’s death was “shocking and upsetting”.

“I thought American citizens might be treated better than South Koreans but looking at Otto’s case it is shocking. It also concerns us even more regarding the missionary Kim’s situation,” Joo Dong-sik, spokesman for the family of South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook who remains in custody, told Reuters.

Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who spent two years in North Korean captivity before his release in 2014, expressed sadness at Warmbier’s death, calling it an “outrage”.

“I cannot understand what the Warmbier family is feeling right now. But I mourn with them, and I pray for them,” Bae said in a statement.

Young Pioneer Tours, the group with which Warmbier traveled to North Korea, will no longer be organizing tours for U.S. citizens to the isolated country, Troy Collings, a company director, said in a statement.

Two of the other largest agencies to take Western tourists to North Korea also said they were reconsidering taking U.S. tourists.

Uri Tours, which is based in New Jersey, said on its website it was “reviewing its position on DPRK travel for American citizens”. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official title.

Beijing-based Koryo Tours said it was also reviewing whether or not to take U.S. citizens on tours to North Korea.

“This young man did not deserve the disproportionate sentence given to him,” the company said in a statement.

“What followed was a disgrace, which we categorically condemn – from the paucity of information provided during his detention, and the worrying lack of consular visits, to the distressing and horrifying condition in which he was returned to his family.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Alexander and David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Ju-min Park and James Pearson in Seoul, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Toni Reinhold)

U.N. envoy urges North Korea to explain why freed U.S. man is in coma

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights investigator called on North Korea on Friday to explain why an American student was in a coma when he was returned home this week after more than a year in detention there.

Otto Warmbier, 22, has a severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”, his Ohio doctors said on Thursday.

His family said he had been in a coma since March

2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor

in North Korea.

“While I welcome the news of Mr Warmbier’s release, I am very concerned about his condition, and the authorities have to provide a clear explanation about what made him slip into a coma,” Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said in a statement issued in Geneva.

Warmbier, from a Cincinatti suburb, was arrested for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported. On Thursday, North Korea said that it had released him “on humanitarian grounds”.

The University of Virginia student’s father, Fred Warmbier,

said his son had been “brutalised and terrorised” by the North Korean government.

Fred Warmbier said the family did not believe North Korea’s

story that his son had fallen into a coma after contracting

botulism and being given a sleeping pill.

Ojea Quintana called on North Korea to “clarify the causes and circumstances” of Otto Warmbier’s release.

“His case serves as a reminder of the disastrous implications of the lack of access to adequate medical treatment for prisoners in the DPRK,” he said.

“His ordeal could have been prevented had he not been denied basic entitlements when he was arrested, such as access to consular officers and representation by an independent legal counsel of his choosing,” added Ojea Quintana, a lawyer and veteran U.N. rights expert.

North Korea is believed to operate political prison camps and foreign nationals have also been detained on political grounds, Ojea Quintana said. Two American university professors in Pyongyang were arrested this year for allegedly plotting anti-state acts.

A 2014 landmark report by a U.N. investigators cataloged massive human rights violations in North Korea which they said could amount to crimes against humanity.

Tens of thousands of people are detained across the isolated country in inhumane conditions and subjected to torture and forced labor, it said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Parents of U.S. student to detail his time in North Korean prison

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Ginny McCabe

CINCINNATI (Reuters) – The parents of an American university student who was detained in North Korea are expected on Thursday to detail his mistreatment during 17 months in prison when he fell into a coma.

Otto Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy, are scheduled to speak to the media at their son’s former high school in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming, Ohio.

Warmbier, 22, was “brutalized and terrorized” by the North Korean regime, his parents said in a statement released Tuesday before he arrived in the United States on a medevac flight.

Warmbier is receiving treatment at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, but details of his condition have not been released.

Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

Warmbier’s family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism some time after his trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

The New York Times quoted a senior U.S. official as saying Washington received intelligence reports that Warmbier had been repeatedly beaten in custody.

Joseph Yun, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded Warmbier’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The State Department is continuing to discuss three other detained Americans with North Korea.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been heightened by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the beginning of last year. Pyongyang has also vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. blames North Korea for hacking spree, says more attacks likely

The North Korea flag flutters next to concertina wire at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 9, 2017. REUTERS/Edgar Su

By Dustin Volz and Jim Finkle

WASHINGTON/TORONTO (Reuters) – The U.S. government on Tuesday issued a rare alert squarely blaming the North Korean government for a raft of cyber attacks stretching back to 2009 and warning that more were likely.

The joint warning from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation said that “cyber actors of the North Korean government,” referred to in the report as “Hidden Cobra,” had targeted the media, aerospace and financial sectors, as well as critical infrastructure, in the United States and globally.

The new level of detail about the U.S. government’s analysis of suspected North Korean hacking activity coincides with increasing tensions between Washington and Pyongyang because of North Korea’s missile tests. The alert warned that North Korea would continue to rely on cyber operations to advance its military and strategic objectives.

North Korea has routinely denied involvement in cyber attacks against other countries.

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not immediately available for comment.

Tuesday’s alert said Hidden Cobra has been previously referred to by private sector experts as Lazarus Group and Guardians of the Peace, which have been linked to attacks such as the 2014 intrusion into Sony Corp’s <6758.T> Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Symantec Corp <SYMC.O> and Kaspersky Lab both said last month it was “highly likely” that Lazarus was behind the WannaCry ransomware attack that infected more than 300,000 computers worldwide, disrupting operations at hospitals, banks and schools.

The alert did not identify specific Hidden Cobra victims. It said the group had compromised a range of victims and that some intrusions had resulted in thefts of data while others were disruptive. The group’s capabilities include denial of service attacks, which send reams of junk traffic to a server to knock it offline, keystroke logging, remote access tools and several variants of malware, the alert said.

John Hultquist, a cyber intelligence analyst with FireEye Inc <FEYE.O>, said that his firm was concerned about increasingly aggressive cyber attacks from North Korea.

The hacks include cyber espionage at South Korean finance, energy and transportation firms that appears to be reconnaissance ahead of other attacks that would be disruptive or destructive, he said.

“It suggests they are preparing for something fairly significant,” he added.

Hidden Cobra commonly targets systems that run older versions of Microsoft Corp <MSFT.O> operating systems that are no longer patched, the alert said, and also used vulnerabilities in Adobe Systems Inc’s <ADBE.O> Flash software to gain access into targeted computers.

The report urged organizations to upgrade to current versions of Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight or, when possible, uninstall those applications altogether.

Microsoft said it an emailed statement that it had “addressed” the Silverlight issue in a January 2016 software update. Adobe said via email that it patched the vulnerabilities in June 2016.

North Korean hacking activity has grown increasingly hostile in recent years, according to Western officials and cyber security experts.

The alert arrived on the same day that North Korea released an American university student who had been held captive by Pyongyang for 17 months.

Otto Warmbier, 22, was on his way back to the United States on Tuesday but in a coma and in urgent need of medical care, according to Bill Richardson, a veteran former diplomat and politician who has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea.

“The U.S. government seeks to arm network defenders with the tools they need to identify, detect and disrupt North Korean government malicious cyber activity that is targeting our country’s and our allies’ networks,” a DHS official said about the alert. The official was not authorized to speak publicly.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington and Jim Finkle in Toronto; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Lisa Shumaker, Grant McCool)

U.S. student, said to be in coma, released by North Korea

Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Eric Walsh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Otto Warmbier, a U.S. university student held captive in North Korea for 17 months, has been released, but a former U.S. official said on Tuesday he is in a coma and in urgent need of medical care.

Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was on his way back to the United States, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

“Otto has been in a coma for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care in the United States,” said Bill Richardson, a veteran former diplomat and politician who has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea, said after speaking to Warmbier’s parents.

The family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism sometime after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

“In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” Richardson, whose Center for Global Engagement had directly sought Warmbier’s release with the North Korean government, said in a statement.

Tillerson, at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, declined to comment on Warmbier’s condition. A person who answered the phone at Warmbier’s family’s Ohio residence said: “No comment, thank you” and hung up.

Warmbier’s release came as former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, returning to the increasingly isolated nuclear-armed country where he has previously met leader Kim Jong Un.

U.S. officials appeared to brush aside any speculation of a connection between Rodman’s controversial visit and Warmbier’s release.

A senior administration official said the Trump administration did not authorize Rodman’s trip. “This is him freelancing,” the official told Reuters.

The State Department is continuing to discuss the situation of three other detained Americans with North Korea, Tillerson said.

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has faced growing tensions with North Korea, which has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.S. and international sanctions.

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

“At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea,” Tillerson said.

Richardson, a former Democratic congressman, U.N. Ambassador, U.S. energy secretary and ex-governor of New Mexico, welcomed Warmbier’s release but said “we are deeply concerned regarding his health.”

U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said: “Otto’s detainment and sentence was unnecessary and appalling, and North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior. Otto should have been released from the start.”

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told the Washington Post. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Additional reporting Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Marguerita Choy and James Dalgleish)