Highest-ranking N.Korean defector found dead
AFP/File – Hwang Jang-Yop, seen here in March 2010, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come to South
SEOUL (AFP) – The highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come to South Korea was found dead at his Seoul home Sunday, police said.
Hwang Jang-Yop, 87, defected via China in 1997 and lived under police guard at a secret address. He had received several death threats.
A city police spokesman confirmed Hwang's death, but gave no immediate details. News reports said he was thought to have died of natural causes.
YTN television quoted sources as saying he was found in the bathroom and apparently suffered a heart attack.
But it said intelligence officials were also investigating the possibility that Hwang, a bitter critic of the regime he once served, may have been killed.
Hwang was a former tutor to current North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and secretary to its ruling party.
Yonhap news agency said police believe Hwang died of natural causes since a security guard was sleeping at Hwang's residence and there was no sign of a forced entry. It said an autopsy would be held.
Police were to give a briefing on the death at 0600 GMT.
Hwang was found dead on the day the North's regime staged a triumphal military parade in Pyongyang. It was attended by Kim and his youngest son and heir apparent Jong-Un.
In April, the North's official website had threatened Hwang with death over his criticism of the regime during trips to the United States and Japan.
Hwang "will not be safe anywhere", the Uriminzokkiri website warned in a commentary.
"You must not forget traitors have always been slaughtered with knives," it said.
The commentary described Hwang, who defected during a visit to Beijing, as a "traitor and human scum" and said he had "viciously slandered our dignity and system" during his trips.
In July, a South Korean court passed 10-year prison sentences on two North Korean agents who posed as fugitives from the communist state in a bid to assassinate Hwang.
The court heard they received their orders directly from the North's military intelligence head Kim Yong-Chol.
The North denied any assassination bid, accusing Seoul of inventing the story to fuel tensions between the neighbours.
Three days after Hwang's defection in 1997, another high-profile defector was assassinated in Seoul.
Lee Han-Young, a nephew of Sung Hye-Rim -- the deceased first wife of leader Kim Jong-Il -- was shot dead outside his apartment.
Lee had lived in the South for 15 years. He was murdered after breaking his long silence about Kim's private life.
Coppied by http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101010/wl_asia_afp/nkoreaskoreapoliticsdefector
Showing posts with label found. Show all posts
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Sunday, 10 October 2010
Saturday, 9 October 2010
Exited things Hungary: Two bodies found -- red sludge death toll rises to seven
Hungary: Two bodies found -- red sludge death toll rises to seven
BUDAPEST - Emergency workers found the bodies of two more victims of the toxic red sludge near the village of Devecser on Friday afternoon, bringing the death toll of the spill to seven.
One person remains missing.
Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the disaster mitigation staff reported finding the two bodies, but gave no details. Two women and one man are believed to have been missing.
An 81-year-old man hospitalized on Monday died of his injuries on Friday. Other victims were an elderly woman, a 35-year-old man drowned in his car, and two children, aged 3 and 1.
The Hungarian Aluminum Manufacturing and Trading Company, owner of the containment reservoir that released the caustic sludge which inundated three villages and wiped out all living matter in the Torna creek and Marcal river, issued a statement on Friday, arguing that it had not violated any rules. The company's measurements of the chemistry in the reservoir, CEO Zoltan Bakonyi said, yielded normal values, and a Monday morning inspection of the retaining wall found nothing of concern.
He said that seepage, reported by staff weeks ago, was normal in a facility of that size and the sludge leaks had been collected and returned to the reservoir.
State Secretary for the Environment Zoltan Illes said on Friday that while the magnesium and calcium nitrates introduced into the Raba and Marcal waterways at their confluence had sufficiently reduced the pH level of the red sludge to save the Danube ecology, most of the mud had been trapped in the Marcal, where all life was destroyed.
The sludge, Illes said, covered an area of 800 to 1,000 hectares, where the contaminated topsoil will have to be removed.
Meanwhile Jozsef Varga, CEO of uranium ore company Mecsekerc and a chemical engineer by profession, told local wire service MTI that it would take months or even years to restore the natural environment. He called it folly to expect people to be able to return to their contaminated homes within a short time, adding that the next major job would be to collect the red dust covering the soil and in the atmosphere. If inhaled it will be caustic, he warned.
coppied by http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=358628
BUDAPEST - Emergency workers found the bodies of two more victims of the toxic red sludge near the village of Devecser on Friday afternoon, bringing the death toll of the spill to seven.
One person remains missing.
Tibor Dobson, spokesman for the disaster mitigation staff reported finding the two bodies, but gave no details. Two women and one man are believed to have been missing.
An 81-year-old man hospitalized on Monday died of his injuries on Friday. Other victims were an elderly woman, a 35-year-old man drowned in his car, and two children, aged 3 and 1.
The Hungarian Aluminum Manufacturing and Trading Company, owner of the containment reservoir that released the caustic sludge which inundated three villages and wiped out all living matter in the Torna creek and Marcal river, issued a statement on Friday, arguing that it had not violated any rules. The company's measurements of the chemistry in the reservoir, CEO Zoltan Bakonyi said, yielded normal values, and a Monday morning inspection of the retaining wall found nothing of concern.
He said that seepage, reported by staff weeks ago, was normal in a facility of that size and the sludge leaks had been collected and returned to the reservoir.
State Secretary for the Environment Zoltan Illes said on Friday that while the magnesium and calcium nitrates introduced into the Raba and Marcal waterways at their confluence had sufficiently reduced the pH level of the red sludge to save the Danube ecology, most of the mud had been trapped in the Marcal, where all life was destroyed.
The sludge, Illes said, covered an area of 800 to 1,000 hectares, where the contaminated topsoil will have to be removed.
Meanwhile Jozsef Varga, CEO of uranium ore company Mecsekerc and a chemical engineer by profession, told local wire service MTI that it would take months or even years to restore the natural environment. He called it folly to expect people to be able to return to their contaminated homes within a short time, adding that the next major job would be to collect the red dust covering the soil and in the atmosphere. If inhaled it will be caustic, he warned.
coppied by http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=358628
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