World should send 60m Covid-19 vaccines to North Korea, UN investigator says

Published
0

The international community should form a strategy to provide North Korea with at least 60 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to head off humanitarian disaster, an independent UN human rights investigator has said.

The vaccines could be a way to persuade the country to ease lockdowns that have left some of its 26m people on the verge of starvation, Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, told a briefing in Seoul.

“It is imperative that the population of North Korea start to be vaccinated ... so that the government will have no excuse to maintain the closing of the borders,” he said.

Read more from Reuters here.

Opinion

Editorial

Fixing bond markets
Updated 01 Oct, 2026

Fixing bond markets

Pension funds, insurance companies, mutual funds, retail investors, and eventually, foreign investors must become bigger participants in the market.
Call centre rackets
01 Oct, 2026

Call centre rackets

A NUMBER of recent raids conducted by the authorities in different cities point to the growing threat fraudulent ...
Homeward bound
01 Oct, 2026

Homeward bound

FIVE months after Somali pirates captured an oil tanker carrying a 19-member multinational crew, Somali maritime...
Kashmir unresolved
Updated 30 Sep, 2026

Kashmir unresolved

The just solution lies in India addressing the issue through a trilateral dialogue involving the legitimate representatives of the Kashmiri people and Pakistan.
Water shortage
30 Sep, 2026

Water shortage

THAT the country is entering the Rabi season with an anticipated water shortage of nearly 25pc, the lowest carryover...
Young hearts
30 Sep, 2026

Young hearts

THE observance may have passed, but the message of World Heart Day should not fade with it. The occasion is a useful...