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North Korea

North Korea Bans South Korea From Accessing Jointly-Run Industrial Park

YONHAP (South Korea), BBC (UK)

Worldcrunch

PYONYANG – North Korea blocked South Korean workers from accessing a jointly operated industrial park on Wednesday.

North Korea banned South Korean workers from crossing the border to work at the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Complex, only allowing about 800 South Koreans who stayed overnight at the border town to return home, reports Yonhap news agency.

The move comes four days after North Korea threatened to shut down the complex, in retaliation against United Nations sanctions and joint U.S.-South Korea military drills.

The industrial park is home to more than 120 factories, employing more than 50,000 North Koreans and several hundred managers from South Korea, reports BBC News. Permission to cross the border into the complex is permitted on a daily basis, with workers allowed to stay overnight.

[rebelmouse-image 27086558 alt="""" original_size="413x492" expand=1]

The Kaesong industrial region, 10 kilometers north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. Source: ASDFGH/GNU

Pyongyang has been increasingly threatening towards South Korea and the U.S. over the past few weeks, notably vowing to restart a mothballed nuclear plant held to be the source for plutonium for North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

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Ideas

For Every Era, Its Own Fascism — This Is How Ours Is Starting To Look

Right-wing movements have surged in Europe, and fascism is on the ascendancy across disparate regions of the world. As populist leaders gain power, the specter of authoritarianism looms large.

A man with a black hoodie painting a portait of Geert Wilders

A man painting Geert Wilders portrait

Thierry Ehrman/Flickr
Oleksandr Demchenko

-Analysis-

Across the globe, worrying trends are emerging in both politics and society.

In the Netherlands, the Freedom Party, known for its anti-European, anti-Muslim, and anti-Ukrainian stance, recently won the national elections. In Argentina, newly elected president Javier Milei proposes an extreme solution to the economic crisis – destroying the central bank. Right-wing movements are gaining traction among young voters across Europe, seduced by neo-Nazi influences not seen since World War II.

China has long been operating concentration camps for Uyghur Muslims, while racism remains a major problem in Russia. Next year will witness a phalanx of critical elections worldwide, with over three billion people voting for new governments. Concerns over the potential rise of anti-democratic governments are growing in tandem.

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In this climate of deepening polarization and radicalization, many commentators have issued warnings about the free world losing ground to autocracy. But there's another underlying trend that's not being discussed directly enough: the shift towards fascism, itself. Left-wing radicalism, anti-immigrant sentiments, demographic challenges, and terrorism have all contributed to the rise of fascists camouflaged as populist dictators.

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