The memoirs of a US army deserter have added weight to the theory that three young women who went missing 27 years ago in Macau were spirited away to North Korea, a news report said yesterday.
The trio -- Thai masseuse Anocha Panjoy and jewellery shop assistants Hong Leng-ieng and So Mio-chun -- have not been seen since the evening of July 2, 1978, after they accepted a dinner invitation from a wealthy Japanese man who called himself Mr Fukoda.
At the time it was thought the women could have been abducted and forced into prostitution or murdered on the high seas after being enticed on board ships.
However, in his recently published memoirs, the American Charles Jenkins, who spent more than 39 years in North Korea after deserting his unit in 1965, claimed to have met Thai national Anocha Panjoy during his time there.
Jenkins says he knew her well because she was married to fellow deserter Larry Abshier who died of a heart attack in 1983. He also produced a photograph of a beach scene with a woman in the background he claimed was Anocha.
In his book Kokuhaku (To Tell the Truth) he says he believed there were abductees from all over the world in North Korea.
According to a report in Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post, the claim has aroused new interest in a case that had been largely forgotten since 1988 when a similar claim was made by South Korean actress Choe Eunhee.
Choe was kidnapped and taken to North Korea in 1978 but escaped in 1986. She later described a meeting with a woman from Macau who matched the description of Hong in North Korea.
In 2002, the North Korean government acknowledged kidnapping at least one dozen Japanese citizens to help train its spies.
However, it has denied abducting Anocha and says that she is not in the country.
Thai authorities are pressing for further clarification on the issue.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
RSS