North Korean party hacks get comrade Kim word for word

Ruling party meeting attended by leader Kim Jong-un opens with key policy decisions for 2024 expected to be unveiled.

The meeting of the central committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea opens in Pyongyang. Picture: Korean Central News Agency via AFP

North Korea has opened a year-end ruling party meeting attended by leader Kim Jong-un, state media said on Wednesday, with key policy decisions for 2024 expected to be unveiled.

The 9th Plenary Meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in Pyongyang came as South Korea imposed sanctions on the head of the North’s intelligence agency over illicit cyber activities.

Ri Chang Ho, the head of Pyongyang’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, has been sanctioned for his involvement in “earning foreign currency through illegal cyber activities and technology theft”, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

His activities have contributed to “generating revenue for the North Korean regime and procuring funds for its nuclear and missile activities”, it added.

Ri heads the agency that is believed to be the parent organisation for North Korean hacking groups Kimsuky, Lazarus and Andariel, which have been previously sanctioned by Seoul.

Abandoning a once-traditional New Year’s Day speech, Kim has in recent years used the Workers’ Party of Korea’s plenary meeting as a platform to outline policies in areas such as security, diplomacy and the economy.

This year’s meeting caps off a year in which Pyongyang successfully launched a reconnaissance satellite, enshrined its status as a nuclear power in its constitution and test-fired its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile .

At Tuesday’s meeting, Kim defined 2023 as a “year of great turn and great change” as well as one of “great importance”, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Pyongyang saw “eye-opening victories and events achieved in all fields for socialist construction and the strengthening of the national power,” Kim said, according to KCNA.

He also said that Pyongyang’s new strategic weapons, including its spy satellite, had “unswervingly put” the North “on the position of a military power”.

The meeting will involve six primary points of discussion, KCNA said, including a review of how North Korea’s national policies were implemented during the year as well as a look ahead to the national budget and “direction of struggle” for 2024.

Kim last week said Pyongyang would not hesitate to launch a nuclear attack if “provoked” with nukes.

Kim Jong-un on Tuesday

The North last week tested its solid-fuel Hwasong-18, its most advanced ICBM, for the third time in 2023.

Pyongyang’s launch last month of a military spy satellite, which it claimed quickly began providing images of US and South Korean military sites, further damaged ties with South Korea.

The launch fractured a military agreement between the Koreas established to de-escalate tensions on the peninsula, with both sides then ramping up security along the Demilitarised Zone that separates them.

Pyongyang is already under international sanctions for its atomic bomb and ballistic missile program, which have seen rapid progress under Kim.

The announcement of Santions came weeks after Seoul, Tokyo and Washington launched new three-way initiatives encompassing measures to address North Korea’s cybercrime, cryptocurrency, and money laundering activities, which are believed to fund the country’s nuclear and missile programmes.

Along with Mr Ri, Seoul has sanctioned seven other North Korean individuals, including former China-based diplomat Yun Chol, for being involved in the “trade of lithium-6, a nuclear-related mineral and UN-sanctioned material for North Korea”.

The blacklisted individuals are barred from conducting foreign exchange and financial transactions with South Korean nationals without prior authorisation from Seoul, measures that analysts say are primarily symbolic given the extremely limited trade between the two countries.

AFP