N Korean state media say China dancing to US tune

TOKYO / AP

North Korea’s state-run news agency issued a tough critique of China on Thursday, suggesting Beijing’s criticism of the North’s recent missile test and suspension of imports of North Korean coal are tantamount to the actions of an enemy state “dancing to the tune of the US.” The article took a tone normally reserved for North Korea’s overt enemies — Washington, Tokyo and Seoul.
Without directly using China’s name, but referring to it as “a neighboring country, which often claims itself to be a ‘friendly neighbor,'” the Korean Central News Agency report accused Beijing of essentially abandoning North Korea in favour of the United States by cutting off imports of coal in compliance with United Nations sanctions.
“This country, styling itself a big power, is dancing to the tune of the US while defending its mean behavior with such excuses that it (the suspension of coal imports) was meant not to have a negative impact on the living of the people in the DPRK but to check its nuclear program,” it said. DPRK is short for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
It added that China has “unhesitatingly taken inhumane steps” to comply with UN sanctions. The article, uncharacteristically for the news agency, carried a byline, Jong Phil.
China on Sunday began a suspension of all coal imports from North Korea for the rest of the year as it increases pressure on it in line with UN Security Council sanctions imposed in November in response to the North’s fifth nuclear test two months earlier.

Pyongyang calls Malaysian
investigation ‘full of holes’

KUALA LUMPUR / AP

After more than a week of silence in its state-controlled media, North Korea on Thursday slammed the investigation into the death of one of its citizens in Kuala Lumpur, saying Malaysia’s probe is full of “holes and contradictions.”
The report from the highly-selective official outlet KCNA did not acknowledge the victim was Kim Jong Nam, an exiled scion of Pyongyang’s ruling family, and it largely echoed previous comments by North Korea’s ambassador to Malaysia.
But the publication of at least some news inside North Korea could be a sign of the country’s concern over growing international speculation that Pyongyang dispatched a hit squad to kill Kim Jong Nam.
The death of Kim Jong Nam from apparent poisoning as he waited for a flight at the airport Feb. 13 has unleashed a diplomatic crisis that escalates by the day.