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North Korea Says Begins Spy Satellite Operations

FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un visits the Pyongyang General Control Centre of the National Aerospace Technology Administration to inspect operational readiness of the reconnaissance satellites and view aerospace photographs, in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on November 25, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un visits the Pyongyang General Control Centre of the National Aerospace Technology Administration to inspect operational readiness of the reconnaissance satellites and view aerospace photographs, in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on November 25, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS
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North Korea Says Begins Spy Satellite Operations

FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un visits the Pyongyang General Control Centre of the National Aerospace Technology Administration to inspect operational readiness of the reconnaissance satellites and view aerospace photographs, in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on November 25, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un visits the Pyongyang General Control Centre of the National Aerospace Technology Administration to inspect operational readiness of the reconnaissance satellites and view aerospace photographs, in this picture released by the Korean Central News Agency on November 25, 2023. KCNA via REUTERS

North Korea has begun reconnaissance satellite operations, state news agency KCNA said on Sunday, after the country launched its first military spy satellite last month in a move that drew new sanctions from the US and its allies.
The new satellite operations office at the Pyongyang General Control Centre of the National Aerospace Technology Administration (NATA), started to discharge its mission on Saturday and will report acquired information to the reconnaissance bureau at the army and other major units, KCNA said.
North Korea says it successfully launched its first military spy satellite on Nov. 21, transmitting photos of the White House, the Pentagon, US military bases and "target regions" in South Korea.
The move raised regional tensions and sparked fresh sanctions from the US, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Pyongyang has not released any imagery from the satellite so far, leaving analysts and foreign governments to debate how capable the new satellite actually is.
In a separate article carried by KCNA on Sunday, an unidentified North Korean military commentator said the South is blamed for the breakdown of their military confidence-building agreement, justifying its spy satellite launch as what other countries also do.
The article also argued that South Korea's own, first military reconnaissance launch this month proved to be self-contradictory.
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) Chairman Kim Myung-soo on Saturday made a visit to frontline units near the border with the North to assess readiness posture amid heightened tensions, the JCS said on Sunday.
North Korean soldiers brought back heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border and restored guard posts that the two countries had demolished, after Seoul suspended part of a 2018 military accord between the two Koreas in a protest over Pyongyang's launch of the spy satellite.
On Friday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried South Korea's first spy satellite into orbit from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base. South Korea has contracted with the American company to launch a total of five spy satellites by 2025 in an effort to accelerate its goal of having 24-hour watch over the Korean peninsula.

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Cuba Starts Freeing Prisoners Day after US Said it Would Lift Terror Designation

A person uses a cellphone inside a private cab in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley)
A person uses a cellphone inside a private cab in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley)
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Cuba Starts Freeing Prisoners Day after US Said it Would Lift Terror Designation

A person uses a cellphone inside a private cab in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley)
A person uses a cellphone inside a private cab in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley)

Cuba started releasing some prisoners Wednesday as part of talks with the Vatican, a day after President Joe Biden's administration announced his intent to lift the US designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism.
More than a dozen people who were convicted of different crimes — and some of them were arrested after taking part in the historic 2021 protests — were released during the day, according to Cuban civil groups following the cases of detainees on the island.
Among those freed was tattooist Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista, 24, who was detained in the 2021 protests and convicted to four years in prison for attacks and public disorder. She was released from a prison in the province of Camagüey, and told The Associated Press that eight men were also freed along with her.
On Tuesday, the US government said it notified Congress about the intent to lift the designation of Cuba as part of a deal facilitated by the Vatican. Cuban authorities would release some of them before Biden's administration ends on Jan. 20, officials said.
Hours later, the Cuban foreign ministry said the government informed Pope Francis it would gradually release 553 convicts as authorities explore legal and humanitarian ways to make it happen.
Havana did not link the prisoners' release to the US decision on lifting the designation but said it was “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by His Holiness,” referring to the Vatican's once-every-25-year tradition of a Jubilee, in which the Catholic faithful make pilgrimages to Rome.
Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez did not mention the release on Wednesday — consistent with his stance the day before, indicating they were separate issues — but mentioned removing Cuba from the list of states sponsors of terrorism.
“You can reverse a country’s status on that list, but the tremendous damage to U foreign policy cannot be undone,” he told the AP. “It has been proven that this list is not a tool or instrument in the fight against terrorism, but rather a brutal and mere tool of political coercion against sovereign states.”
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, one of the civil groups, said that by 4 p.m. EST, 18 people had been released, including Barreto Batista.
“At three in the morning they knocked," Barreto Batista told the AP over the phone. "I was sleeping (in the cell) and they told me to gather all my things, that I was free.”
She said that she and the eight men were warned it was not a pardon or a forgiveness and that they had to be on good behavior or they could be sent back to prison.
“I am at home with my mother," she said. “The whole family is celebrating.”
In July 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest widespread power outages and shortages amid a severe economic crisis. The government’s crackdown on the demonstrators, which included arrests and detentions, sparked international criticism, while Cuban officials blamed US. sanctions and a media campaign for the unrest.
In November, another Cuban nongovernmental organization, Justice 11J, said that 554 people remained in custody in connection with the protests.
Biden's intention to lift the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is likely to be reversed as early as next week after President-elect Donald Trump takes office and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio assumes the position of America’s top diplomat.
Rubio, whose family left Cuba in the 1950s before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, has long been a proponent of sanctions on the communist island.