N Korea video shows invasion of South and US hostages

Seoul (AFP): North Korea posted a new propaganda video on Friday, showing paratroopers descending on Seoul in an invasion scenario that envisages taking around 150,000 US residents in South Korea hostage. The four-minute video, titled "A Short, Three-Day War", begins with images of a massive artillery and rocket barrage, followed by a large-scale land and air assault with North Korean troops streaming over the border. A male narrator then describes how crack stormtroops will occupy Seoul and other cities and take 1,50,000 US citizens as hostages. The video was posted on the North's official website, Uriminzokkiri. The narrator describes different stages of the invasion, including the destruction of forces under the US Pacific Command with powerful weapons of mass destruction. The video showed footage of paratroopers jumping from the sky superimposed over an aerial shot of the South Korean capital, with North Korean helicopters hovering overhead. The airborne troops would engage South Korean soldiers in the streets of Seoul as 4,000 tanks and 3,000 armoured vehicles race to the capital. South Korea has a US expatriate population of more than 1,30,000, as well as 28,000 US troops based in the country. On the third day of the proposed invasion, the narrator said Seoul and other cities would be in a state of total chaos, with no food or water supplies, and no communications network. At this point, the Korean People's Army would step in to 'stabilise' the situation. "Like this, we have a Unification War scenario that will be wrapped up in just three days," the narrator said.

UN resolution rejected North Korea angrily rejected on Thursday a United Nations inquiry into its human rights record and vowed to step up its all-out struggle against the United States. The UN's Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Thursday to establish for the first time a commission to probe "the systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights" in North Korea. The resolution condemned a long line of abuses, "in particular the use of torture and labour camps against political prisoners and repatriated citizens", and also urged Pyongyang to release all political prisoners.