N. Korea: US a 'Living Hell'

Report blasts 'world's worst human rights abuser'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted May 6, 2014 3:14 AM CDT
N. Korea: US a 'Living Hell'
Pedestrians walk by the abandoned Packard plant in Detroit.    (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

In the latest volley of stones from its glass house, Pyongyang has warned that the US is a "living hell" plagued by unemployment and gun crime where "elementary rights to existence are ruthlessly violated." The "news analysis" from the state-run Korea Central News Agency uses official statistics, incidents like the Trayvon Martin shooting, and even President Obama's own remarks on racism to paint a bleak picture of the US as a "tundra of a human being's rights to existence," the BBC finds.

The Pyongyang report, which labels the US the "world's worst human rights abuser," appears to be a response to a United Nations report that called for the North Korean regime to be punished for "unspeakable atrocities" against its own people. But while North Korea is clearly not in a position to criticize other countries for human rights abuses, the report's statistics on issues like house prices and unemployment are correct, notes Adam Taylor at the Washington Post. "In fact, the only truly debatable part is on gun crime," he writes, since homicide rates and violent crime in general have dropped over the last few years. (More North Korea stories.)

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