North Korean Defectors' Harrowing Stories

By Mark Stone, Asia Correspondent

In a series of rare and harrowing interviews, defectors have told Sky News of their horrific lives inside North Korea and their extraordinary journeys to escape the country.

The men and women agreed to talk from their new homes in the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Their interviews form part of a special programme to be shown on Sky News this weekend.

Two of the defectors had spent time inside North Korea's notorious political prison camps.

Another was a tank commander in the secretive state's army before managing to escape.

One women describes, for the first time, the torture she endured at the hands of North Korean prison camp guards.

From her Seoul apartment, Cheon YoungSuk sobbed uncontrollably as she recalled the torture.

"With that plank, they hit me until it split into two or they won't stop hitting me. It must split into two. Then the beating stops. They hit me like that, they starved me, kicked me," she said.

Lee Soon Shil managed to escape from North to South Korea

"During the torture the hardest thing was they made me kneel on a chair. The guard had ridges on the bottom of his shoes. He would stand on my bare skin and start twisting (his feet).

"When bare skin and shoe soles are twisted with pressure it grinds the skin. That was the most hard. That was the time I shouted. It hurt too much.

"Because it hurt too much I shouted to him to grind faster. Twist faster to finish it more quickly.

"They wrapped my hair on their hand and start smashing my face on the corner of the desk.... [they are] crueller than beasts. How could a human do that to another human?"

On Thursday, diplomats addressed the United Nations saying that North Korea must act immediately to halt its "litany of abuses" and "crimes against humanity".

"We note with concern that... human rights violations and crimes against humanity continue to take place with impunity," British UN representative Karen Pierce told the Geneva forum.

Sky's Mark Stone speaks to a defector in Seoul

North Korea denies the existence of prison camps. It reacted angrily to a United Nations Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry (COI), published in February.

The COI conducted scores of interviews with defectors all of whom told stories similar to those heard by Sky News.

The UN body concluded that "systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed" by North Korea.

It said that "the gravity, scale and nature of these violations reveal a state that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world".

It described a catalogue of "unspeakable atrocities" which amounted to "crimes against humanity".

The report is currently being considered at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.

The detailed findings of the report were also discussed at informal meeting of the UN Security Council two weeks ago. However, two members of the council, Russia and China, both historically allied to North Korea, failed to attend.

Speaking after the informal meeting, the chairman of the Commission of Inquiry, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, said he was disappointed that China and Russia failed to attend but still hoped that the UN would now act against North Korea.

"The time has come for effective action from the United Nations," he said.

"If ever there is to be a case for referral of a matter to the International Criminal Court, it is difficult to imagine a stronger case than has been made out in the case of North Korea.

"If this is not a case for such a referral, it is difficult to imagine what would be."

The level of abuse uncovered in North Korea, both in the UN report and the interviews conducted by Sky News has been compared to some of the abuses during the holocaust of World War Two.

Mr Kirby said that the descriptions he heard reminded him of Holocaust abuses.

He said: "I never thought that in my professional life, my life as a judge or as an officer of the United Nations, I would sit there and hear descriptions that were so similar to the descriptions of what went on in those places.

"I thought we had said as a world community, 'never again'.

"I thought that was what the charter of the United Nations was about. I thought that was why in the charter it speaks of international peace and security and the protection of universal human rights together."

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British Fighters Filmed In Syria 'War Crime'

By Tom Rayner, Middle East Reporter

Video has emerged implicating British fighters in Syria in an apparent war crime.

Footage uncovered by researchers at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) shows jihadist rebels killing a prisoner, said to be a loyalist of President Bashar al Assad.

The incident is thought to have happened in the last two weeks near Raqqa in northern Syria.

The footage was posted on the Instagram account of a man believed to be from London.

The caption accompanying the video describes the prisoner as one of "Bashar [al Assad's] dogs" and says the killing was retribution for the deaths of four fellow rebels and the rape of a woman.

The ICSR monitors the social media accounts of hundreds of foreign fighters inside Syria.

Researchers say one of the executioners is a Briton seen in other videos

They believe the man that posted the video is part of a group of British fighters, known as Rayat al Tawheed, an affiliate of the Sunni jihadi movement ISIS, which controls large swathes of northern Syria.

Shiraz Maher, a senior ICSR researcher based at King's College London, said the killing of prisoners is a war crime in international law.

"It's incredibly serious," he said.

"We believe the main characters involved with Rayat al Tawheed come from London.

"We have deduced this based on our discussions with foreign fighters, our extensive record-keeping of foreign fighter activity in Syria, and our maintenance of social network maps which allows us to plot activity and associations in a visual form."

In one video a British fighter says a bullet is "the pen of the mujahid"

Although no audible English is spoken in the video itself, analysts from the ICSR believe they have identified one of the gunmen as being a British citizen.

A man is seen in the video firing shots into the body of the prisoner in the seconds after the initial bullet was fired by the main shooter.

Analysis of the gunman's physical build, wristwatch and balaclava led the ICSR to conclude he is the same man seen speaking English with a London accent in other videos posted by the group.

"We don't know if the prisoner was alive or dead when he fired, but he did partake in the execution, he did fire shots at the individual from his weapon, and we believe he is a British citizen," said ICSR researcher Joseph Carter.

On two separate videos posted on YouTube, the man identified as the gunman by the ICSR is heard berating the British Muslim community for failing to provide sufficient financial support for the jihad or the families the fighters have left behind.

The group lobbies for donations to buy more weapons and ammunition

"You know who you are, from the capital, the Midlands, up north, wherever you may be… it's a disgrace, that brothers know where these wives are, where these families are, and yet you are buying your nephew or your child a PlayStation 4 or taking them out to Nando's," he said.

The Government's counter-terrorism programme last week launched a campaign urging the families of young men planning to travel to Syria to intervene.

It is estimated that up to 400 Britons have travelled to fight or train in Syria in the last two years. 

A Foreign Office spokesman said: "This demonstrates why we have consistently called for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court.

"Horrific atrocities have been committed by both the Assad regime and by extremists. The international community must ensure that all those responsible are held to account.

"Our priority is to dissuade people from travelling, but any extremists should know we are prepared to take action to protect national security, and intelligence agencies and police are working to identify potential threats."

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Ukraine In Military Assault On Slavyansk

Two Ukrainian soldiers have been killed after pro-Russian forces shot down helicopters during the first major government offensive in the east of Ukraine.

A spokeswoman for the pro-Russian militants also said one of their men was killed and another injured, according to the AP news agency.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov urged local residents to stay indoors during the "anti-terrorist operation" in rebel-held Slavyansk early Friday morning.

A man, said to be one of the helicopter crew, is taken away

Posting on Facebook, he said the city was "tightly surrounded" after government troops seized nine rebel-held road checkpoints.

"Against Ukraine's special forces, terrorists used heavy artillery, including grenade launchers and portable anti-aircraft missile launchers," Mr Avakov said.

Vyacheslav Ponomarev, the insurgency-appointed mayor of Slavyansk, said self-defence forces had shot down two helicopters and taken one person hostage.

A helicopter lands at Andreevka, 7 km from the centre of Slavyansk

Shoulder-launched missiles had downed the aircraft, according to the Ukrainian defence ministry.

A third helicopter, said to be carrying carrying medical staff, was also hit and one person wounded, according to the ministry.

Ukrainian officials believe the use of such heavy weaponry proves Russian forces are in the area - something repeatedly denied by Moscow.

Separatist forces were still reported to be firmly in control of Slavyansk's streets, with Ukrainian armoured vehicles restricted to the city's outskirts.

The offensive by the Ukrainian government marks the first significant military response by Kiev.

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said the "punitive operation" had destroyed a peace plan agreed with Western powers in Geneva last month.

"While Russia is making efforts to de-escalate and settle the conflict, the Kiev regime moved combat air forces against peaceful settlements, began a reprisal raid, essentially finishing off the last hope for the feasibility of the Geneva accords," Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.

A Ukrainian solider at one of the seized road checkpoints

Officials have been criticised for being slow to act to stop the pro-Russian forces seizing swathes of its Donbass coal and steel belt.

The armed groups seeking union with Moscow have seized a number of government buildings in towns in eastern Ukraine.

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Ukraine: Militia Controls A Million Weapons

At the end of a completely anonymous road on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Artemivsk is the village of Paraskoviyevka.

It has two claims to fame: one of the few still functioning salt mines in the region, and, more importantly, the largest cache of weapons in Europe - over a million of them and they are under the control of separatists.

Outside the gates of the mine, a cluster of tents mark the pro-Russian checkpoint guarding the entrance to this enormous supply of weapons.

The militia say they started guarding the mine in March when efforts were made to move some of the weapons. They say they will not allow anyone to get their hands on them.

But military experts and government sources in Kiev have warned that such a ready supply should not be guarded by groups who wish to separate from the country.

The storage facility was created in the 1950s by the Soviet Union.

About 150 metres below ground and stretching horizontally for kilometres the weapons age back to World War Two but in the 1990s huge numbers of Kalashnikov machine guns were stored in the facility as well.

The men guarding the store say the conditions underground are dry and perfect for storage.

The weapons are held in a storage facility at a salt mine

They say that the armaments, particularly the newer ones, are in perfect working order.

"If anyone got in there they could arm everyone in Ukraine," a masked separatist told me.

He added: "There are rifles, machine guns, heavy weapons and millions and millions of rounds of ammunition. We are here to stop the forces of the west and anyone else for that matter from getting their hands on them.

"For certain the fascists from Kiev won't get them."

The real point of this is that there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to take control of the store from the pro-Russia group.

Soldiers at a nearby camp are powerless here; their authority has gone and do nothing to move the blockade outside the mine.

To a degree this is a perfect microcosm example of what is happening across the east of the country.

Government institutions and police stations in virtually all the main towns and cities have fallen to the pro-Russia militia.

Tents mark the pro-Russian checkpoint guarding the entrance

It is an extremely well-organised takeover. Armed and masked men arrive and disarm police before moving to town halls and regional buildings.

At gunpoint, they impose their authority before civilian activists move in and start building barricades.

Asked who the enemy are, the usual reply is "Fascists from Kiev".

The truth is there isn't a fascist horde wending its way out here.

It is a myth that has been propagated by self-appointed regional leaders with the help of Russian media, whose reporting of events is watched by most people here.

And it is a cross between hysterical warnings of armageddon and comic manipulation of facts and events; comic if people were not dying as a result, which they are.

This is getting increasingly nasty and once again there is nothing anyone can do about it.

A pro-Russian separatist in Ukraine

In Donestsk, where pro-Kiev supporters have staged rallies of support, people have been beaten senseless and in one instance knifed to death by pro-Russian thugs.

The police do nothing to stop the attacks happening and, worse, there is more than a suspicion that they are in cahoots with the mob.

I have seen riot police clad in full protective gear hugging men who minutes earlier were beating an old man.

The Kiev administration admits its forces in the east are not able to intervene or are failing to do their jobs.

But the police themselves say they are getting no orders or guidance from Kiev.

Even if they don't like what is going on here, and many admit they do, they have no intention of taking a beating, or worse, by stick-wielding groups and armed masked men.

From Kiev, they are warning of an imminent invasion by Russian forces and have put their troops on full alert.

But these soldiers are in truth utterly incapable of resistance to an army, or, as we have seen, even a militia.

Eastern Ukraine is drifting away and it seems there is nothing anyone can do to stop it - just like Crimea.

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IMF: Ukraine Crisis Sparks Russia 'Recession'

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned Russia is already in recession as a result of the effects of the crisis in Ukraine.

An economist working for the organisation, Antonio Spilimbergo, made the comment while confirming a huge downgrade in the IMF's growth forecast for 2014 from 1.3% to just 0.2%.

It had predicted the higher growth figure for Russia just three weeks ago.

The move was a response to heightened concerns over the effects of a flight in capital from Russia - expected by the IMF to top $100bn in 2014 alone.

A tightening of sanctions against Russian individuals and firms close to Russian president Vladimir Putin, imposed by the West in response to his annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, was also cited as a core reason for the downgrade.

The tensions surrounding the crisis in Ukraine have pushed relations between Russia and the West to their lowest since the end of the Cold War, sparking a wider flight from risk on world markets.

As the IMF amended its forecasts, Ukraine's acting leader warned his country's forces were on full combat alert in case of a Russia invasion.

Mr Spilimbergo was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying: "If we define recession as negative growth in two quarters in a row, then Russia from that point of view is experiencing recession.

"This all has a very negative effect on the investment climate. We expect that the fall in investments that already took place in 2013 will increase further this year."

Russia's economy contracted by about 0.5% in the first three months of the year compared with the previous quarter.

Standard and Poor's ratings agency on Friday downgraded Russia's ability to repay debt to BBB-, one notch above junk status, and retained its negative outlook.

Mr Spilimbergo, who acts as the IMF's mission chief to Moscow, agreed there were "considerable downside risks" and said the decision by Russia's central bank to raise interest rates last week would reduce inflation but would not be enough.

He argued the depreciation in the rouble over the past few months would put pressure on inflation and forecast consumer prices would rise more than 6% during the course of 2014.

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Ukraine 'Detains Russian Attache For Spying'

Ukraine Mine: Militia Controls Million Weapons

Updated: 11:37pm UK, Wednesday 30 April 2014

By Stuart Ramsay, Chief Correspondent, in Ukraine

At the end of a completely anonymous road on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Artemivsk is the village of Paraskoviyevka.

It has two claims to fame: one of the few still functioning salt mines in the region, and, more importantly, the largest cache of weapons in Europe - over a million of them and they are under the control of separatists.

Outside the gates of the mine, a cluster of tents mark the pro-Russian checkpoint guarding the entrance to this enormous supply of weapons.

The militia say they started guarding the mine in March when efforts were made to move some of the weapons. They say they will not allow anyone to get their hands on them.

But military experts and government sources in Kiev have warned that such a ready supply should not be guarded by groups who wish to separate from the country.

The storage facility was created in the 1950s by the Soviet Union.

About 150 metres below ground and stretching horizontally for kilometres the weapons age back to World War Two but in the 1990s huge numbers of Kalashnikov machine guns were stored in the facility as well.

The men guarding the store say the conditions underground are dry and perfect for storage.

They say that the armaments, particularly the newer ones, are in perfect working order.

"If anyone got in there they could arm everyone in Ukraine," a masked separatist told me.

He added: "There are rifles, machine guns, heavy weapons and millions and millions of rounds of ammunition. We are here to stop the forces of the west and anyone else for that matter from getting their hands on them.

"For certain the fascists from Kiev won't get them."

The real point of this is that there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to take control of the store from the pro-Russia group.

Soldiers at a nearby camp are powerless here; their authority has gone and do nothing to move the blockade outside the mine.

To a degree this is a perfect microcosm example of what is happening across the east of the country.

Government institutions and police stations in virtually all the main towns and cities have fallen to the pro-Russia militia.

It is an extremely well-organised takeover. Armed and masked men arrive and disarm police before moving to town halls and regional buildings.

At gunpoint, they impose their authority before civilian activists move in and start building barricades.

Asked who the enemy are, the usual reply is "Fascists from Kiev".

The truth is there isn't a fascist horde wending its way out here.

It is a myth that has been propagated by self-appointed regional leaders with the help of Russian media, whose reporting of events is watched by most people here.

And it is a cross between hysterical warnings of armageddon and comic manipulation of facts and events; comic if people were not dying as a result, which they are.

This is getting increasingly nasty and once again there is nothing anyone can do about it.

In Donestsk, where pro-Kiev supporters have staged rallies of support, people have been beaten senseless and in one instance knifed to death by pro-Russian thugs.

The police do nothing to stop the attacks happening and, worse, there is more than a suspicion that they are in cahoots with the mob.

I have seen riot police clad in full protective gear hugging men who minutes earlier were beating an old man.

The Kiev administration admits its forces in the east are not able to intervene or are failing to do their jobs.

But the police themselves say they are getting no orders or guidance from Kiev.

Even if they don't like what is going on here, and many admit they do, they have no intention of taking a beating, or worse, by stick-wielding groups and armed masked men.

From Kiev, they are warning of an imminent invasion by Russian forces and have put their troops on full alert.

But these soldiers are in truth utterly incapable of resistance to an army, or, as we have seen, even a militia.

Eastern Ukraine is drifting away and it seems there is nothing anyone can do to stop it - just like Crimea.

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India: Burning Man Hugs Politician On TV Show

An Indian politician has suffered horrific burns after he was grabbed by a man who set himself on fire during a TV election debate.

Kamruzzama Fauji was taking part in the show in Sultanpur, in Uttar Pradesh state, when an audience member doused himself in petrol.

Crowds of people ran from the set as the man, named by police as Durgesh Kumar Singh, set himself alight before embracing Mr Fauji.

Local photographer Pankaj Kumar Gupta, whose pictures show the two men engulfed in flames, said the debate was coming to an end when the man suddenly appeared.

"People were just too shocked to know what was happening," he added.

Onlookers grabbed buckets of water to try to extinguish the flames

Mr Singh, whose motive is unknown, suffered burns to 95% of his body and is unlikely to survive, according to doctors.

Mr Fauji, the local leader of the Bahujan Samaj Party, sustained 75% burns and is in a critical condition in hospital.

Two other politicians were treated for minor injuries they suffered while trying to save the pair.

The debate was being recorded for India's state-owned Doordarshan channel.

A spokesman for the station, which is understood to have stopped filming and packed up its equipment within minutes, described the incident as "sad and shocking".

He said the debate was part of a "roadshow" held by the station, with politicians taking questions from local voters.

Parliamentary elections are being held across India until May 12, with results expected four days later.

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MH370 Debris Discovery Claims Dismissed

Claims that wreckage from the missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 may have been found in the Bay of Bengal have been dismissed by Australian authorities.

Marine exploration company GeoResonance reportedly said it had detected elements on the ocean floor consistent with material from a Boeing 777 aircraft.

"We identified chemical elements and materials that make up a Boeing 777," company representative Pavel Kursa told Australia's Channel Seven.

"These are aluminium, titanium, copper, steel alloys and other materials."

Australian PM Tony Abbott has conceded the aircraft may never be found

But his colleague David Pope downplayed the find. He told the broadcaster: "We're not trying to say that it definitely is MH370, however it is a lead we feel should be followed up."

Malaysia's acting transport minister Hishammuddin Hussein confirmed the new information would be analysed but Australian authorities who are at the forefront of the search dismissed any link.

"The location of MH370 suggested by the GeoResonance report (in the Bay of Bengal) is not in the Australian search and rescue zone," a spokesman for Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre said.

The search for the missing plane is concentrated in an area of some 21,600 square miles (56,000 sq km) of the Indian Ocean.

Marine experts have deployed an unmanned deep-sea submarine to scour the sea bed in an effort to locate the black box recorders from the missing aircraft.

But Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has conceded that after 56 days of searching it is possible that no trace of the missing aircraft may ever be found.

"Of course it's possible, but that would be a terrible outcome because it would leave families with a baffling uncertainty forever," he said.

"The aircraft plainly cannot disappear - it must be somewhere," he added.

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Ukraine On Full Combat Alert Over 'Invasion'

Ukraine's military is "on full combat alert" over a possible invasion by Russian troops massed on the border, Kiev's acting leader has said.

Interim president Oleksandr Turchynov told a ministerial meeting: "Our armed forces are on full combat alert. The threat of Russia starting a war against mainland Ukraine is real."

Russia has denied it has any plans to invade eastern Ukraine after its annexation of the Crimean peninsula in March.

Kiev, however, has accused Moscow of orchestrating an armed uprising in the industrial east by Russian-speaking separatists, who have seized government buildings in a number of towns and cities.

Ukraine's acting president Oleksander Turchinov at the cabinet meeting

Ukraine's army and police appear to be making little progress in a high-profile operation to prevent the rebels expanding their grip over towns in the east.

It came as the International Monetary Fund said Russia was already in recession, while citing the effect of the ongoing crisis on investment in the country.

IMF economist Antonio Spilimbergo was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying: "If we define recession as negative growth in two quarters in a row, then Russia from that point of view is experiencing recession."

The IMF has lowered its 2014 growth forecast for Russia to 0.2% from the 1.3% figure it issued on April 8, Mr Spilimbergo added.

Russia deployed around 40,000 troops to its shared border with Ukraine in March. Moscow initially claimed they were sent for exercises but later said they were ready to respond to Kiev's military offensive against pro-Kremlin rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin insists he has a "right" to send his forces into Ukraine, but has not yet done so.

Kiev and the US say Russian special forces are already active in the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

Mr  Turchynov told the cabinet meeting: "Our number one task is to prevent terrorism spreading from the Donetsk and Lugansk regions to other Ukrainian regions".

He underlined moves announced a day earlier to set up armed civilian "territorial volunteer militia" units to help beleaguered police and troops in the east.

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North Korea Holds Live-Fire Drills Near Border

North Korea has carried out live-fire drills in two areas near the disputed Yellow Sea border with the South, which told its island residents to take cover in shelters.

The Pyongyang regime fired artillery close to the Northern Limit Line (NLL) but no rounds appear to have landed south of it.

The drills came hours after North Korea told Seoul of the areas near populated South Korean islands where it would be conducting the exercise.

A red line marks the Korean peninsula's de facto maritime border

Last month, it carried out similar drills close to the NLL, firing more than 500 artillery rounds, including over 100 that landed south of the border.

The move led to the South firing hundreds of rounds back into the North's waters.

The NLL is an extension of the land border between the two Koreas, stretching into the sea west of the Korean peninsula.

North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un

It was drawn up by the US-led UN Command without Pyongyang's consent after the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with a truce rather than a peace treaty, leaving the peninsula still technically at war.

The North has refused to recognise the line as the sea border and has periodically challenged the South by violating it and demanding a new border be set further to the south.

The existing line curves northwards, effectively isolating five remote, South Korean-controlled islands from the mainland.

The furthest of those islands is closer to Pyongyang than Seoul.

The South has increased its military presence on the islands after four people died during the 2010 bombardment of Yeonpyeong island by the North, which it said was in response to its rival's artillery drills.

Seoul officials have claimed the North could be preparing for its fourth nuclear test and US President Barack Obama recently warned Pyongyang against such a measure.

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