S Korean military culprit of drone incursion over Pyongyang: DPRK defense ministry

China

S Korean military culprit of drone incursion over Pyongyang: DPRK defense ministry

2024-10-28 15:21 Last Updated At：23:37

The South Korean military has been proved to be the "principal" of the drone incursion into Pyongyang, capital city of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), the DPRK official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Monday.

The act was aimed at scattering anti-DPRK leaflets, reported the KCNA, citing the final investigation results released a day earlier by a spokesman for the country's Ministry of National Defense.

The conclusion was made by a joint investigation group composed of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of State Security, among other relevant specialized institutions, after a comprehensive analysis of the flight plans and logs obtained from the flight control module dismantled from the remains of a crashed drone.

The KCNA report offered a detailed flight record showing that after taking off at the Paekryong Island at 23:25:30 on Oct. 8, the drone flew over Jangyon County of South Hwanghae Province and the waters around the Cho Islet and then to the waters around the Namjoap Islet, before it flew over Chollima District, Nampho Municipality and intruded into the DPRK's capital.

The drone scattered the political leaflets above the area between the office building of the DPRK Foreign Ministry and a Pyongyang metro station called Sungri at 01:32:08 on Oct. 9 and above the office building of the Ministry of National Defense at 01:35:11 respectively, according to the KCNA report.

If an act of South Korean infringement upon the DPRK's sovereignty occurs again, the DPRK will respond mercilessly, the spokesman warned.

China-Laos Railway freight volume soars during Spring Festival travel rush

The China-Laos railway freight volume has soared during the travel rush of the Spring Festival.

Since February 2, the beginning of this year's Spring Festival travel rush, the import and export value of goods via the China-Laos Railway has reached 1.48 billion yuan, marking a year-on-year increase of nearly 90 percent.

The freight volume had exceeded 320,000 tons as of Sunday.

Durians and bananas from Southeast Asia are the main imported agricultural products, which can be transported to the Chinese market within 26 hours.

From February 2 to Sunday, the freight volume of ASEAN fruits imported via the railway increased by 17.63 percent year-on-year.

The Spring Festival travel period will run till March 13 this year.

As a flagship project within the framework of the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, the 1,035-km railway links Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province with the Laotian capital of Vientiane. It was put into operation in December 2021.