detained three officials<\/a> at the northern Chongjin shipyard, where the destroyer was built and where its launch failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThese include shipyard’s chief engineer, its construction head and an administrative manager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim earlier said Wednesday’s incident was caused by “absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not clear what punishment they might face, but the authoritarian state has a woeful human rights record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is uncommon for North Korea to publicly disclose local accidents, though it has done this a handful of times in the past after failed satellite launches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some analysts believe Kim’s swift and severe response was meant as a signal that Pyongyang will continue to advance its military capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This sends a clear message to South Korea and the US that North Korea isn’t going to stop in trying to repair and strengthen its naval technology,” Edward Howell, a North Korea expert at Oxford University told ABC news.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A commentary on Seoul-based Daily NK, a news outlet focussing on North Korea, suggests that Kim’s “transparency, however reluctant” shows he views naval modernisation as such a critical priority, and that “even public failures cannot derail the broader narrative of military advancement”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Last week’s shipyard accident comes weeks after North Korea unveiled a similar warship in another part of the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kim had called that warship a “breakthrough” in modernising North Korea’s navy and said it would be deployed early next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BBC: North Korea has arrested a fourth official over the\u00a0failed launch of a new warship\u00a0that has enraged the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un. Ri Hyong-son, deputy director of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Munitions Industry Department, was “largely responsible for the serious accident” last week, state-run news agency KCNA said on Monday. The 5,000-ton destroyer had tipped over and damaged its hull, in what Kim had described as a “criminal act” that “severely damaged the [country’s] dignity and pride”. The vessel is being repaired under the guidance of an expert group, KCNA said. Mr Ri, who is part of the party’s Central… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47327,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47325\/revisions\/47327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}