Joseph Yun Li-sun

The National Human Rights Commission of Korea will release a report with depositions and accounts of the atrocities committed by the Kim regime. Detailed information (names and descriptions) of the culprits has been collected "to provide legal evidence allowing us to punish them after unification."

North Korea stops TV broadcasts to announce a "decisive military response" to South Korea's provocations. The world is concerned about a new nuclear test like those of 2006 and 2009. "We have lived with" these "threats" and must "seek peace", Daejeon bishop tells AsiaNews.

Some press rumors spoke of a shift in Chinese policy of repatriation of North Koreans fleeing the regime. But the activists on the ground deny them: "Nothing has changed." A source in the North: "We all want to escape, the only thing stopping us is the cruelty of China."

The Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace releases Catholic Environmental Teachings, a Catholic handbook on the environment and development. Mankind's own crisis is "causing serious damage to nature," which must be preserved instead.

The young dictator speaks at the centennial celebration of his grandfather's birth. He follows up his "greetings to our compatriots in South Korea and across the world who dedicate themselves to reunification and the prosperity of the nations" with the usual militaristic propaganda, adding however that North Koreans will "never again tighten their belts".

"Since his father's death, the new dictator has been involved in a power struggle with the military," a source in Korea tells AsiaNews. "The explosion of the Unha-3 rocket, launched on the orders of the generals, shows that his line is a winner." The heir was appointed today "first president" of the Central Military Commission.

Surprise as government formation, Saenuri, gets a majority of seats in the National Assembly and paves the way for their candidate, a Catholic, for president in December. A source tells AsiaNews: "Daughter of the Korean dictator, she experienced a long inner struggle, and a conversion."

The fourth Workers' Party conference opens today. The latest dead dictator is appointed as "eternal general secretary" of the party. His son becomes "first secretary". Meanwhile, despite international fears, North Korea prepares to launch its Unha-3 rocket, perhaps on 12-14 April.

The meeting is set for 12 June in the chapel of the Kaesong industrial complex, an inter-Korean joint venture. Tensions remain high on the peninsula because of a missile launch. The presence of Christians in North Korea raises doubts.

After about 60 years, the Jewish community residing in the country has opened its first place of worship. Rabbi: "Never before have we found respect for our religion like here".

The sum is pure folly, considering that at the same price the government could buy 4.75 million tonnes of rice and that about half the population lives on less than 1 dollar a day. A source: " about 10 thousand people invited, all expenses paid." And Pyongyang also wants to send a rocket into space.

The Bishops' Conference and the Korean Missionary Society open first school for mostly lay people who want to experience the foreign mission. For the president of the Committee for the Pastoral Care of Koreans Living Abroad, going on mission "means responding with faith to the word of God".