Top UN court tells Moscow to halt Ukraine invasion

France24 – AFP, 16 March 2022 

Kyiv dragged Moscow to the UN's top court days after Russia's attack
on February 24 Phil nijhuis ANP/AFP

The Hague (AFP) – The UN's top court on Wednesday ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine, saying it was "profoundly concerned" by Moscow's use of force. 

"The Russian Federation shall immediately suspend military operations that it commenced on 24 February on the territory of Ukraine," pending the final decision in the case, presiding judge Joan Donoghue told the International Court of Justice. 

"The court is profoundly concerned about the use of force by the Russian Federation which raises very serious issues in international law," Donoghue told a hearing in The Hague. 

Kyiv dragged Moscow to the UN's top court days after Russia's attack on February 24. 

Ukraine accuses Russia of illegally trying to justify its war by falsely alleging genocide in Ukraine's Donetsk and Lugansk regions. 

Kyiv then asked the court to take provisional measures ordering Russia to "immediately suspend the military operations." 

"Russia must be stopped, and the court has a role to play in stopping that," Ukraine's representative Anton Korynevych told the ICJ last week. 

The hearing on Wednesday comes as the number of refugees fleeing Ukraine topped three million and Russian forces step up strikes on residential buildings in Kyiv.

 At the same time, Kyiv said it wanted its security to be guaranteed by international forces, as it rejected proposals pushed by Russia for it to adopt a neutral status comparable to Austria or Sweden. 

'No genocide evidence'

Russia snubbed hearings on March 7 and 8, arguing in a written filing that the ICJ "did not have jurisdiction" because Kyiv's request fell outside of the scope of the 1948 Genocide Convention on which it based its case. 

Moscow also justified its use of force in Ukraine, saying "it was acting in self-defence." 

The ICJ was set up after World War II to rule on disputes between UN member states, based mainly on treaties and conventions. 

Although its rulings are binding, it has no real means to enforce them. 

A full hearing into the content of the case could still take years, they added. 

Judges on Wednesday also ordered Moscow to ensure that military or irregular armed units "take no further steps" in furthering its offensive. 

But "whether Russia will oblige is an entirely different question", said Marieke De Hoon, assistant international criminal and public law professor at the University of Amsterdam. 

The case is also separate from a Ukraine war crimes investigation launched by the International Criminal Court (ICC), a separate tribunal also based in The Hague.

Greta's father says activism makes her happy: interview

Yahoo – AFP, December 30, 2019

Svante Thunberg (L), father of Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg (C), says
it's clear his daughter is much happier since starting her protest (AFP Photo/
NICHOLAS KAMM)

Stockholm (AFP) - Svante Thunberg, father of eco-warrior Greta Thunberg, thinks his daughter is happier being an activist but admitted in an interview he at first had reservations about her taking up the struggle.

The 50-year-old actor-turned-producer told the BBC he and Greta's mother -- opera singer Malena Ernman -- originally objected to their daughter's decision to become a climate activist.

"Obviously we thought it was a bad idea, putting herself out there with all the hate on social media," he said.

Greta, described as a shy 16-year-old, has found herself in the role of spokesperson for a generation haunted by climate change after she started sitting outside the Swedish parliament in August 2018 with her "School Strike for the Climate" sign.

Instantly recognisable with long braids and impish looks, she has become the face of youth concerns over climate change, inspiring millions and being invited to address the United Nations climate summit.

Greta's family realised just how much the existential threat of climate change weighed on her when she became depressed at age 11.

She stopped eating, started missing school and even stopped talking.

Despite his initial apprehension Svante Thunberg -- who has accompanied Greta on two sail trips over the Atlantic -- also said he thought it was clear his daughter was much happier since taking up activism.

"She changed and she could do things that she could never have done before," he said.

Diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, Greta used to be able to eat only in her own home and "didn't speak to a single person".

She is now "an ordinary child", her father added.

Greta has also faced severe criticism and been subjected to a swarm of online conspiracy theory.

Some have claimed she is a puppet of doomsayers, or paid by the "green lobby".

But her father said she was prepared for the "hate" she would receive even before she started her protest.

"She knew exactly what she was doing and I think quite frankly she's very surprised that she has been so well received," Svante Thunberg told the BBC.

Related Article:

Climate activist Greta Thunberg is Time' 2019 person of the year

Thousands in Brussels protest violence against women

Yahoo – AFP, 24 November 2019

Protesters placed red shoes on the ground as a symbol of the victims of
violence against women

Around 10,000 people took part in a protest march in Brussels on Sunday calling for an end to violence against women, police said, a day after similar demonstrations in France and Italy.

The protesters in the Belgian capital paid homage to women killed by partners or ex-partners, then marched to the Palace of Justice where they placed pairs of red shoes as a symbol of femicide victims.

"Belgium is a very complex country with many levels of power; federal, regional and communal and all these levels of powers do little things to tackle violence against women. But the main thing we are demanding is a national plan," said Celine Caudron, one of the organisers of the protest.

"It is important to punish the perpetrators but what we want most is that the violence doesn't happen in the first place."

The marchers held up placards bearing messages such as "That's enough" and "Not one more life".

Also prominent were the names of the 22 women killed by men in Belgium this year.

Outside the law courts building the demonstrators set off alarms and made noise as a "protest against the silence" which surrounds the deaths of battered women.

According to Mirabal, a Belgium umbrella group of organisation opposing violence against women, there have been 98 femicides in the country since 2017, a figure "which, in proportion to the population, is well above the average for European nations".

Tens of thousands marched in France and Italy on Saturday calling for an end to violence against women.

The marches came ahead of the UN-recognised International day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on Monday.

UN notified of name change to North Macedonia

Yahoo – AFP, 13 February 2019

Workers set up a sign reading 'Republic of North Macedonia' at the
Macedonia-Greece border near Gevgelija on February 13, 2019

The United Nations confirmed on Wednesday that it has been officially informed by the Macedonian government that the country's new name is North Macedonia.

At the United Nations, the country had been known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) because Greece objected to the use of Macedonia, the name used for its own northern region.

The 27-year-old dispute was finally settled in June during UN-brokered talks.

The new name came into force Tuesday after constitutional changes were published in the Official Gazette and Skopje's foreign ministry said both countries had informed the UN by letter that the change is now in force.

A UN official said a notice would be sent to the General Assembly and the Security Council to inform them of the change.

Since 1991, Athens had objected to its neighbor being called Macedonia because Greece has a historic northern province of the same name. Greece has blocked Macedonia's NATO and EU integration until it changes the name.

New border crossings open in divided Cyprus, first in 8 years

Yahoo – AFP, 12 November 2018

United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) officers patrol inside the
buffer zone that slices between the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus
and the Turkish-occupied north, in Nicosia on June 14, 2018

Cypriot officials opened two new border crossings Monday for the first time in eight years, the latest push for peace by the two sides after UN-backed talks collapsed last year.

Dozens of people from the island's Greek Cypriot south streamed across the eastern Dherynia border post, walking past United Nations peacekeepers into the breakaway Turkish-backed north.

At the same time, the Lefka or Aplici crossing opened in the northwest of the eastern Mediterranean island.

Ahead of the Dherynia crossing reopening, soldiers removed barriers wrapped in rusty barbed wire and a small group of riot police stood by.

But despite arguments breaking out among onlookers in the run-up to the midday (1000 GMT) opening, the crowd passed peacefully through the border.

The latest move was welcomed by Elizabeth Spehar, UN special representative and head of the UN peacekeeping force in Cyprus.

"Today is good day for Cyprus," she said in a statement.

Map of Cyprus

"These crossing points will play an important role in helping to increase people to people contacts, contributing to build much needed trust and confidence between the communities on the island."

The development is also seen as a vital step to reviving peace negotiations, which collapsed in acrimony in July last year.

"It's another asset to the peace talks," said Chris Charalambous, who was just 18 when war broke out in 1974.

Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops invaded and occupied its northern third in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta then in power in Athens seeking to unite the island with Greece.

For the first time since fleeing the conflict Charalambous was looking forward to seeing his house, which he said lies in a Turkish Cypriot military zone.

"I'm just going to walk down and then I walk back, I don't know if I can stand spending time in the north," he told AFP.

Cyprus has been divided for more than four decades and the two communities lived isolated from one another until Turkish Cypriot authorities cleared the way for the free movement of people in 2003.

UN Security Council meets over Syria in remote Swedish farmhouse

Yahoo – AFP, Camille BAS-WOHLERT, April 21, 2018

The UN security council is holding its informal meeting in Backakra in
Sweden (AFP Photo/Johan NILSSON)

Backåkra (Sweden) (AFP) - The UN Security Council met in a secluded farmhouse on the southern tip of Sweden on Saturday in a bid to overcome deep divisions over how to end the war in Syria.

In a first for the Security Council, which normally holds its annual brainstorming session in upstate New York, the 15 ambassadors and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres were this year invited to hold an informal meeting in Backakra by Sweden, a non-permanent member of the body.

The United Nations' special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, is expected on Sunday.

"We still face a very serious divide on that (Syria) matter," Guterres said as he arrived along with the ambassadors.

"We really need to find a way in relation to the violation of international law that the use of chemical weapons represents," he added.

The farmhouse is the summer residence of Dag Hammarskjold, the United Nations' second secretary-general who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1961.

Situated in the heart of a nature reserve, just a stone's throw from the Baltic Sea, the farmhouse consists of four buildings around a courtyard and has been completely renovated in recent years.

The southern wing serves as the summer residence for the Swedish Academy which awards the Nobel Literature Prize.

With both New York and Damascus thousands of kilometres away, the council is exploring "the means to strengthen and make more effective United Nations peacekeeping missions," the Swedish government said.

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom welcomed the decision to hold the meeting in Sweden, "where there is a long tradition of peaceful conflict prevention and resolution".

But she warned against being too hopeful the Syrian issue would be resolved over the weekend.

"Hopefully there will be some new ideas on the table and I think it’ll be on those tracks: the humanitarian situation, the chemical weapons," she said.

But "not even the beautiful settings like these can solve all the problems", the minister added.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (L) and Sweden's 

Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom are in Backakra (AFP Photo/Johan NILSSON)

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, said on the Syria issue: "We're not having that much success, we're still deadlocked.

"Retreats like this are very important -- to get away from New York sometimes and discuss these things in a way that we can really try and find a solution."

British ambassador Karen Pierce said: "We are determined to try and find a workable solution, so we will keep doing that with our Russian colleagues."

While the war in Syria is not the only topic of the deliberations, it is high up on the agenda because it was an issue that divided council members deeply in recent months.

Skau said Backakra was a "fitting and inspiring venue" to reconnect with the power of diplomacy.

"It's a place to roll up our sleeves, take off our jackets and ties and come up with some real and meaningful ways forward," he said.

'No excessive hopes'

Air strikes by the US, UK and France on April 14 targeted three sites, which the countries argued were used by the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad for a chemical weapons programme.

Syria has been accused of using chemical weapons in an attack a week earlier in Douma, the last rebel stronghold near Damascus.

Assad and Russian allies have denied that Syria was responsible for the attack, which according to rescuers, left more than 40 people dead. But the Western powers insist that the Syrian regime had crossed a red line.

The air strikes, conducted without a Security Council resolution, have led to fierce tensions between Russia and the other permanent council members, the US, France, Britain and China.

Moscow has used its veto on the council 12 times since 2011.

A fact-finding mission from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to the Syrian town of Douma has finally arrived at the site of the alleged chemical attack, Russia's foreign ministry said.

Some non-permanent member countries of the council have been critical of the trip to Sweden.

With the conflicts the council has on its table, including the one in Syria, it is abnormal that the council would travel so far, said one ambassador, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"What will happen if something bad happens?" the ambassador asked.

Related Article:

Inside the mission to rid the world of chemical arms

Former Dutch Prime Minister Rudd Lubbers dies

Deutsche Welle, 14 February 2018

Ruud Lubbers, the Netherlands' longest serving prime minister, has died aged 78. Lubbers also headed the UN refugee agency on a symbolic $1 salary, and, in 1991, hosted the EU's formative Maastricht summit.

Former Dutch prime minister Ruud Lubbers in B/W (picture alliance/ANP/V. Kuypers)

Lubbers, a conservative who argued for "more markets, less government" and a closer European Union, passed away on Wednesday in his home city of Rotterdam, the Dutch government announced. No cause of death was given.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands had "lost a statesman with huge stature" and went on to praise Lubbers for his commitment to Europe and as a "world citizen" who was "intelligent and wise."

"He knew how to find a solution to every problem," Rutte added.

Lubbers, a Christian Democrat from a Rotterdam engineering and machinery family, who studied economics and then headed an employers' federation, formed his first government in 1982 with the liberal VVD party, on a pledge to cut back the Dutch welfare state.

His slogan "more markets, less government" prompted conflict with trade unions but earned him a reputation for the "Dutch model" of spurring the economy to create more jobs.

Key role at Maastricht

In his third consecutive term, he formed a grand coalition with center-left Social Democrats in 1989, and played a key role in late 1991 when the Netherlands hosted an EU summit that formulated the bloc's Maastricht Treaty focused on political integration.

The accord, signed in early 1992, also laid the groundwork for the shared euro currency.

When he stepped down in the Dutch election year 1994, he had become the Netherland's longest-serving prime minister.

His 12 years in office had included his persuading parliament to accept the deployment of NATO European missiles in the Netherlands and ambitious conservation projects across the densely populated low-lying nation.

WWF and then UNHCR

After stints in academia, bids for top jobs at the European Commission and NATO, and criticism of Germany's then-chancellor, Helmut Kohl, Lubbers went on to serve as president of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 2000, before becoming the head of the UNHCR refugee agency in 2001.

Bombing of Afghanistan wrong

A month after the 9/11 airline hijacker attacks on New York and Washington, Ludders rejected US bombardment of largely Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

He told Germany's Die Zeit newspaper in October 2001 that less US military action, not more, combined with aid agency assistance, would minimize the "danger of a conflagration."

As UNHCR commissioner he had urged the United States: "no revenge, no disproportionate reprisal attacks that will inevitably cause larger refugee flows and human suffering."

Resignation

His UNHCR post was extended in 2003 but in 2005 he was forced to step down over sexual harassment allegations, which he rejected as defamatory.

In latter years, when the Netherlands had difficulties forming coalition governments, Queen Beatrix reportedly called in Lubbers as adviser and intermediary.

Dutch broadcaster NOS said Lubbers had long suffered from an unspecified illness.

ipj/kms (AFP, AP, Reuters, Munzinger-Archive)

Meghan Markle: A feminist among Britain's royals

Yahoo – AFP, Remi BANET, November 27, 2017

US actress Meghan Markle shows off her engagement ring in the Sunken
Garden at Kensington Palace

American, mixed-race and "fiercely independent": Meghan Markle, Prince Harry's actor girlfriend, will breathe fresh air into the British royal family when she marries Queen Elizabeth II's grandson next spring.

Playing a lawyer in the hit television show "Suits", the 36-year-old actress with long flowing black hair was barely known in Britain when her name appeared on newspaper front pages last October.

The tabloids based their report of a relationship between Harry and Meghan, who lived in Toronto, Canada, on pictures showing them wearing the same tricoloured wristband.

The relationship was formalised by Kensington Palace, which handles communication for Prince Harry, in November in a most unexpected way.

Exasperated by the media frenzy, the palace released a statement attacking the "sexism" and "racism" Meghan Markle faced on social media.

It also blasted the press for "harassing" the actress.

Four days earlier, The Sun, Britain's top-selling newspaper, ran a piece on its front page titled "Harry's girl on Pornhub," the adult video website.

The couple made their first official public appearance together in September, 

attending the opening ceremony of the third Invictus Games

But the actress's only crime had been to take off her shirt while filming what the newspaper described as a "steamy scene" for her show "Suits," which then made it onto the pornographic website.

The couple made their first official public appearance together in September, attending the opening ceremony of the third Invictus Games -- created by Harry for disabled or wounded soldiers and veterans.

"We're two people who are really happy and in love," Markle told Vanity Fair shortly before the event.

'A woman who works'

The daughter of an African-American mother and white American father of Dutch and Irish descent, Markle's parents divorced when she was aged six.

She has half-siblings on her father's side, from whom she is estranged, and grew up in Los Angeles.

With a degree in communication, Markle appears to have navigated her career without a hitch.

The 36-year-old actress found success with

the hit television show "Suits"

Like Harry, she does humanitarian work.

She is also telegenic, practises yoga and drinks detox drinks including "green juices," according to her Instagram account.

Tabloids were quick to point out that the actress, three years Harry's senior, is divorced, unearthing pictures of her first marriage (2010-2013) with an American producer.

However, none of this was enough to derail a royal wedding, which will take place early next year, according to Monday's announcement.

Quite the contrary, says Penny Junor, Prince Harry's biographer: "I think that would be no problem at all, and the fact that she is of mixed race might even be a bonus," she told AFP.

"It would show Harry, a senior member of the Royal Family, to be a thoroughly modern man -- not a precious, strange creature from another planet, which is how the royals are sometimes seen".

Some believed, however, that her proud independence -- the actress had maintained a long-distance relationship with the prince for much of their courtship -- could be a source of contention for the Windsor family.

"I've never wanted to be a lady who lunches -- I've always wanted to be a woman who works," Markle once wrote on her blog "Tig".

The actress had maintained a long-distance relationship

with Prince Harry for much of their courtship

'Fiercely independent'

Popular tabloid the Daily Mail wrote that it was "easy to see what happy-go-lucky Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have in common."

"What's less clear is...what some female members of the Royal Family will make of a fiercely independent young woman".

Beyond her role as an ambassador for the charity "World Vision Canada," which works to improve children's lives in developing countries, Markle regularly asserts the feminist beliefs she forged during her childhood in California.

"Aged 11, she forced a soap manufacturer to alter an advert after she wrote a letter to then First Lady Hillary Clinton and other high-profile figures complaining that it implied women belonged in the kitchen," wrote the BBC.

Nowadays, the actress also campaigns for women's rights alongside the United Nations.

In a speech she made on the 2015 International Women's Day, she urged women to make their voices heard, saying: "Women need a seat at the table, they need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases, where this is not available, they need to create their own table". 

Meghan Markle will breathe fresh air into the British royal family when she marries Queen Elizabeth II's grandson https://t.co/EwdyNj8Zdm pic.twitter.com/1dWFg8byLp

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 27, 2017

Related Article:

Prince Harry: The troubled playboy grows up

Britain's Prince Harry and his fiance Meghan Markle pose for a photograph 

in the Sunken Garden at Kensington Palace (AFP Photo/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS)

#UPDATE Prince Harry and his American fiancee Meghan Markle will marry at St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle in May next year: royal spokesman https://t.co/vnkLcT9KlM pic.twitter.com/MOplXSIwxc

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 28, 2017

Meghan Markle's engagement to Prince Harry has her all-girls high school in Los Angeles buzzing with excitement pic.twitter.com/FE9HBBajb8

— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 28, 2017

Assange claims victory after Sweden drops rape probe

Yahoo – AFP, May 19, 2017

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy of
Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/Daniel LEAL-OLIVAS)

London (AFP) - Julian Assange claimed victory Friday after Swedish prosecutors dropped a seven-year rape allegation against the WikiLeaks founder, but insisted the "proper war" over his future was only just beginning.

Assange gave a clenched fist salute as he stepped into the daylight on the balcony of Ecuador's London embassy, where he has been holed up since 2012.

But the 45-year-old Australian said the road was "far from over" and declined to reveal whether he would leave the embassy after five years cooped up inside.

British police would arrest him immediately for breaching earlier bail conditions if he left the embassy, while US authorities have warned they regard WikiLeaks as a "hostile intelligence service".

"Today is an important victory," Assange told reporters and a small band of supporters crowded around the tiny balcony, after emerging wearing a black shirt and jacket.

"But it by no means erases seven years of detention without charge. In prison, under house arrest and almost five years here in this embassy without sunlight.

"That is not something that I can forgive. It is not something that I can forget."

Uncertain future

Earlier in Stockholm, Marianne Ny, Sweden's director of public prosecutions, said the rape investigation had been dropped because there was "no reason to believe that the decision to surrender him to Sweden can be executed in the foreseeable future".

"It is no longer proportionate to maintain the arrest of Julian Assange in his absence," she said.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange raises his fist prior to addressing the media on

 the balcony of the Embassy of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/

Justin TALLIS)

Despite the probe in Sweden being dropped, Assange would still face arrest if he set foot outside the embassy, a flat located just behind the plush Harrods emporium.

Assange jumped British bail by entering the embassy and claiming asylum, saying he feared he would eventually be extradited to the United States.

US justice authorities have never confirmed that they have Assange under investigation or are seeking his extradition.

But US Attorney General Jeff Sessions said last month that "we will seek to put some people in jail", when asked if arresting Assange was a "priority" for Washington.

US prosecutors have been drafting a memo that looks at charges against Assange and WikiLeaks members that possibly include conspiracy, theft of government property and violations of the Espionage Act, according to The Washington Post.

US President Donald Trump's administration has put heat on WikiLeaks after it embarrassed the Central Intelligence Agency in March by releasing files and computer code from the spy agency's top-secret hacking operations.

"While today was an important victory and an important vindication, the road is far from over. The war, the proper war is just commencing," Assange said.

He said his lawyers were in touch with the British authorities and hoped to begin a dialogue about the "best way forward".

And the former computer hacker said that despite the "extremely threatening remarks" emanating from Washington, he was "always ready to engage with the Department of Justice".

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange speaks on the balcony of the Embassy 

of Ecuador in London on May 19, 2017 (AFP Photo/Adrian DENNIS)

The department said Friday it had no comment "at this point" on Assange.

Asked if London would now support a request to extradite Assange to the United States, British Prime Minister Theresa May said: "We look at extradition requests on a case-by-case basis."

Assange's Swedish lawyer, Per Samuelsson, said his client plans to move to Ecuador because "it's the only nation where he is safe".

Decision a 'scandal'

In Sweden, Assange's accuser was left stunned by the prosecutors' decision.

"It is a scandal that a suspected rapist can escape justice and thereby avoid the courts," her lawyer, Elisabeth Fritz, told AFP in an email.

"My client is shocked and no decision to (end the case) can make her change (her mind) that Assange exposed her to rape," she said.

The accusation against Assange dates from August 2010 when the alleged victim, who says she met him at a WikiLeaks conference in Stockholm a few days earlier, filed a complaint.

She accused him of having sex with her -- as she slept -- without using a condom despite repeatedly having denied him unprotected sex.

Assange always denied the allegations, which he feared would lead to him being extradited to the United States and facing trial over the leak of hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents in 2010, which brought WikiLeaks to prominence.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange addresses the media holding a printed report

of the judgement of the UN's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his case

 from the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in central London on February 5,

2016 (AFP Photo/Niklas Halle'n)

Related Articles:

Assange hails 'victory' from embassy balcony after UN panel ruling

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Germany to strengthen sanctions against North Korea

Germany plans to tighten sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear program in line with UN resolutions and EU laws. The North Korean embassy in Berlin will be banned from renting out its property to earn hard currency.

Deutsche Welle, 9 May 2017

In the center of Berlin, between the Brandenburg Gate and Checkpoint Charlie, North Korea is conducting business that helps fund Kim Jong Un's brutal regime and nuclear program.

During the Cold War, North Korea had a sprawling diplomatic compound in East Germany represented by some 100 diplomats. Today, the isolated regime occupies the same property but only has about 10 diplomats.

For nearly a decade North Korea has leased part of its unused property to City Hostel, a low budget travel option where dorm rooms go for as little as 17 euros ($18) a night.  Another building on the property is leased out as an event hall.

North Korea earns tens of thousands of euros in hard currency from the rentals every month. It is only part of the pariah state's use of diplomatic posts around the world to get around sanctions, run businesses and conduct clandestine, often illicit, activities to earn much needed hard currency.

City Hostel leases property from the North Korean embassy in Berlin

The money, according to experts, is used to buy restricted technology, luxury goods and finance diplomatic missions.

Germany now plans to ban North Korea from leasing the embassy property, Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR reported.

"We must increase pressure to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table," said Foreign Ministry State Secretary Markus Ederer. "This means above all that we must consistently apply sanctions that the United Nations and European Union imposed."

"In that regard, it is particularly important that we do even more to dry up the financial resources used to fund the nuclear program," he said. "The German government is in complete agreement and the responsible authorities will now take the necessary steps."

According to UN Security Council Resolution 2321 passed in November in response to Pyongyang's fifth nuclear test, countries shall prohibit North Korea "from using real property that it owns or leases in their territory for any purpose other than diplomatic or consular activities."

Relations between North Korea and the rest of the international community have grown tense in recent months as Pyongyang conducts ballistic missile tests and threatens Japan, South Korea and the United States with a nuclear attack.

The United States has said all options including military force are on the table to stop North Korea's nuclear program. It has also upped pressure on countries, especially China, to enforce UN resolutions and cut financial sources for the regime in North Korea.

Related Article:

N.Korea behavior 'can't continue', Trump advisor warns after missile test

People in Pyongyang watch a public broadcast on February 13, 2017 about 

a missile test by North Korea the previous day (AFP Photo/KIM Won-Jin)

China halts North Korea coal imports after missile test

China restricts North Korea exports

North Korea is a 'big worry for all of us': Obama at G7

"Quantum Patterns" - Jan 23 - 24, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

"... The Darkness Can't See Beyond Itself

I want to give you proof yet again of something unusual and very telling of the way low vibration works. Within the first channel of the year [2016], I spoke about the young North Korean leader. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to do it again as a profound example of how low consciousness cannot see above itself. That means that it can only work with what it sees and knows. As powerful, as smart, as intellectual as it thinks it is, it can't get out of its own circle.

The former leader of North Korea was a classic egotist. When he died, his son took over and could do anything he wanted. This boy had watched his father for decades and knew he would take over someday. Naturally, he inherited the attributes his father taught him of self-importance, and he also became egotistically driven to the max. When he took power, he had the choice to make changes that would allow him to be even greater than his father. He wanted something that would elevate his name and his position to the highest egotistic place imaginable. His father was the model, and now he could do anything he wanted to be even more famous. What happened is classic. He completely missed the greatest opportunity that any man has had to become the most famous and beloved person on the earth. The idea never occurred to him. Even though he had been educated in the western world, he missed it.

If he had considered the high road and included the earth instead of a restricted population of his own country, he could have been the most famous and beloved leader on Earth, all of his life. At the moment he took over, all he had to do was to think beyond his circle. He was in the unique position to be a "wild card" and do something amazing - unify North an South Korea, drop the zone of death that was between those countries, bring families together after generations, stop nuclear programs that he really never needed other than to look important and, thereby, give his people abundance, food for all and peace in his region. All of Korea would worship him and the earth would give a sigh of relief in thanks for his wisdom and courage.

He would have received standing ovations upon entering the United Nations great room and they would bow before him and give him the highest peace prizes. He would have his ego stroked and stroked and stroked and stroked and be far greater than his father had ever been. But it never occurred to him. Instead, he perpetuated the dark box he inherited, and now he presides over the lowest energy possible, representing the most dangerous renegade energy on the planet. At the expense of keeping his people poor and impoverished and creating instability in his region, he gets to be a powerful and famous person for a moment in time from a small population. He will not last long. He can't see that what he is doing has no support within the majority of the planet's population, and he will lose everything. Isn't it interesting how strong the circle is that keeps a low vibration low. All of this is beginning to change, dear ones. If you examine individual people and the way they act, you're going to see this coming. You're going to recognize it.  ..."

THE OLD SOUL 2013 TOOLKIT" – Jan 13, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll)  (Text version)

"... The Change in the Way Things Work

Now I'm going to be very cautious with number five, and I'm going to change a paradigm of the way we channel. For 23 years, we have given you information in the soup of potentials that we read around you as the highest probable potential that exists. These things eventually become your reality because they are your free choice, and we know what you're thinking. We know what the potentials are because we know what the biases are, and we see all of humanity as a whole. Potentials are energy, and it gives us the ability to project your future based on how you are working these potentials. We have done this for a long time. Twenty-three years ago, we told you about many things that were potentially going to happen, and now they are your reality.

But now I'm going to depart from that scenario and I'm going to give you a potential on Earth that is not the strongest. I am going to tell you about a Human Being who has a choice. This potential is only about 50 percent. But I'm going to "read a potential" to you that you didn't expect. It's about a paradigm that is starting to shift.

Let's talk about North Korea. There's a young, new leader there. The potential is that he will never, ever hear this channel, so I can talk freely about him. He is facing a dilemma, for he is young and he knows about the differences in the energy in his land. He feels it. The lineage of his departed father lies upon him and all that is around him expects him to be a clone of this lineage. He is expected to continue the things that he has been taught and make North Korea great.

But he's starting to rethink them. Indeed, he wants to be a great leader, and to be heard and seen, and to make his mark on North Korea's history. His father showed him that this was very important. So he ponders a question: What makes a world leader great?

Let's ask that question to someone in an older earth paradigm from not that long ago. He will be an expert and a successful one. So this is a valid exercise, asking someone from the past who knows. We will ask that question to a man who you know and whose name is Napoleon. For us, this was yesterday and some of you were there. 

If you asked Napoleon, "What makes a world leader great?", he will say, "the size of the army, how much area can be efficiently conquered with a given amount of resources and men, how important the leader appears will then be based upon how many citizens call him emperor or king, the taxes he can impose, and how many fear him." Not only was that Napoleon's reality, but he was right for the energy he was part of at the time. So Napoleon went back and forth between world leader, general and prisoner. He accomplished almost everything he set out to do. His expertise was obvious, and you remember his name to this day. He was famous.

What makes a world leader great? What I am showing you is the difference in thinking between then and now. There are some choices that this evolving young Human Being has that could change everything on the planet if he wanted. His father would tell this boy that what makes a world leader great is the potential of his missile power, or how close he can get to having a nuclear weapon, or how he stands up against the power of the West, or how he continues to aggravate and stir drama as a small country - getting noticed and being feared. His father would tell him that this is his lineage and that is what he's been told all his life. His father did it well and surrounded himself with advisors who he then passed on to his son.

Now, there's a 50 percent chance of something happening here, but this is not a strong potential, dear ones. I'm bringing this forward so you can watch it work one way or the other. For if the son continues in his father's footsteps, he is doomed to failure. The energy on the earth will see it as old and he will be seen as a fool. If, however, he figures it out, he could be the most famous man on the planet... which is really what his father wanted.

If Kryon were to advise this man, here's what I would tell him. He could be the greatest known leader the current world has ever known, for what he does now will be something the world will see as a demarcation point from the old ways. Not only that, but what he does now will be in the history books forever, and because of his youth, he has the potential to outlive every other leader on the planet! So he's going to have longer fame than anyone ever has.

I would tell him this: Tell the border guards to go home. Greet the south and begin to unify North and South Korea in a way that no past prophet ever said could happen. Allow the two countries to be separate, but have them as two parts of a larger Korean family with free trade and travel. Start alliances with the West and show them that you mean it. Drop the missile programs because you will never need them!

This will bring abundance to the North Korean people that they never expected! They will have great economic sustenance, schools, hospitals and more respect than ever for their amazing leader. The result would be fame and glory for the son, which the father had never achieved, something that the world would talk about for hundreds of years. It would cause a United Nations to stand and applaud as the son walked into the Grand Assembly. I would ask him, "Wouldn't you like that?"

Doesn't this seem obvious to most of you? He could achieve instant fame and be seen as the one who made the difference and started something amazing. But watch him. He has a choice, but it's not simple. He still has his father's advisors, but one of which he's already dismissed. He may get it, or he may not. There is a 50 percent chance. But I'll tell you that if he doesn't do it, the one after him will. Because it is so obvious. 

We show you this to tell you that this is the evolvement of the Human species. It is the slow realization that putting things together is the answer to all things, instead of separating them or conquering them. Those who start promoting compromise and begin to create these energies that never were here before will be the ones you're going to remember. Dear ones, it's going to happen in leadership and politics and in business. It's a new paradigm...."