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North Korea

South Korea Backtracks Earlier Claim, Says North Korea Nuclear Test Not Imminent

YONHAP (South Korea), CNN, (USA), REUTERS

Worldcrunch

SEOUL - South Korea has backtracked from an earlier statement that said there was evidence North Korea was preparing for its fourth nuclear test.

South Korea's Defense Ministry on Monday denied earlier suggestions by South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae that a nuclear arms test was imminent in North Korea, calling vehicle and personnel activities at the northeastern Punggye-ri nuclear test facility "routine."

"We found there had been no unusual movements that indicated it wanted to carry out a nuclear test," a Defense Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s news agency Yonhap revealed Monday that North Korea was withdrawing its 51,000 workers from the jointly operated Kaesong industrial park located near the border, 10 kilometers north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone. The complex was considered as the last remaining symbol of cooperation between the two Koreas.

Pyongyang had already been preventing South Korean workers and managers from entering the Kaesong complex and threatened to shut it down entirely amid weeks of war threats and other efforts to punish South Korea and the U.S. for ongoing joint military drills, CNN says.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

In 2021, Belarus strongman Lukashenko triggered a migration crisis when he actively drove asylum seekers to the EU. According to the German government, those numbers are on the rise again.

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

Migrants on the Belarusian side of the Polish border wall in Bialowieza.

Hannelore Crolly, Ricarda Breyton

-Analysis-

BERLIN — In the nine months between July 2022 and March 2023 alone, Germany's Federal Police registered 8,687 people who entered Germany undocumented after a Belarus connection. This has emerged from the Ministry of the Interior's response to an inquiry by MP Andrea Lindholz, deputy chair of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group, which was made available to Die Welt.

The migration pressure on the Belarus route — which was now supposedly closed after a huge crisis in 2021 that saw Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko threatening to "flood" the EU with drugs and migrants — has thus increased significantly again.

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"Apparently, about half of the people who enter the EU illegally every month via the German-Polish border enter the EU via Belarus," Lindholz told Die Welt. In an autocratic state like this, border crossings on this scale are certainly no coincidence, she said. "It is obvious that these illegal entries are part of a strategy to destabilize the EU."

In addition to flexible controls at the border with Poland, stationary ones are also needed, said Lindholz. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser should agree on a concrete roadmap with Poland "on how to significantly reduce illegal entries into Germany." Lindholz also called on the German government to revoke landing permits for airlines that facilitate illegal migration via Russia and Belarus.

The Belarus route had already caused concern throughout the EU in 2021. At that time, sometimes highly dramatic scenes took place at the border with Poland. Thousands of migrants tried to enter the EU undocumented — many of them transported there by soldiers or border guards of Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Poland even feared an attempt to break through the border en masse.

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