* NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG UN TOLD VETERANS THERE WOULD NOT BE ANOTHER WAR DURING A SPEECH ON MONDAY * HUNDREDS OF VETERANS GATHERED CLOSELY TOGETHER AS THEY CHEERED ON THEIR LEADER

DESPITE CORONAVIRUS FEARS * A 24-YEAR-OLD DEFECTOR, KNOWN ONLY BY HIS SURNAME KIM, WAS ACCUSED OF BRINGING COVID-19 INTO THE COUNTRY   * CELEBRATIONS FOR 67TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE END OF THE

1950-3 KOREAN WAR HAD NO SOCIAL DISTANCING IN THE NORTH By EMER SCULLY FOR MAILONLINE Published: 06:33 EDT, 28 July 2020 | Updated: 10:28 EDT, 28 July 2020 Hundreds of veterans have been

photographed gathered together to cheer on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un - despite an increased risk of COVID-19 as it was revealed a defector blamed for bringing coronavirus into the

a 24-year-old defector returned to North Korea the way he left in 2017, authorities say. He has now been accused of bringing coronavirus into the country and the border city of Kaesong,

where he was found, has been put under total lockdown to stop the spread. Meanwhile Mr Kim used his speech to claim his country's nuclear weapons were a 'reliable, effective'

deterrent for any further wars. He said North Korea was now 'a nuclear state', according to the Korean Central News Agency. 'Now, we've changed to a country which can

defend itself reliably and unwaveringly against high-intensity pressures and military threats and blackmailing by imperialistic reactionaries and hostile forces,' he said. 'There

won't be any war on this land again and our national security and future will be guaranteed firmly and permanently because of our reliable, effective self-defensive nuclear

deterrent.'  Meanwhile, South Korea has identified the defector only by his surname, Kim, and said he was the 'runaway' who North Korea accused of illegally crossing their

shared border last week with symptoms of COVID-19. Facing a sexual assault investigation, Kim evaded high-tech South Korean border control systems by crawling through a drain pipe and

swimming across the Han River to the North on July 19, the South Korean military has said.  He appears to have spent several days there before being caught. South Korean military chief Park

Han-ki told parliament on Tuesday that Kim, who is 163 cm (5.35 ft) tall and weighs 54 kg (119 lb), cut his way through barbed wire fences installed at the end of the pipe leading to the

river.  A Seoul official said Kim is believed to have taken a similar path when he defected to the South in 2017, and authorities say he scoped out the area earlier in July, apparently in

preparation. Kim's story as a defector revolves around the city of Kaesong, a North Korean border town that hosted a now-shuttered inter-Korean factory park and liaison office. When the

industrial project was shut down amid rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme in 2016, the economic shock prompted Kim to try his luck in the South in 2017, he

said in a YouTube video filmed with a fellow defector in South Korea in June. Rather than make his way through China, as the vast majority of North Korean defectors do, Kim headed south via

the porous sea border toward the heavily guarded Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas. 'After passing through barbed-wire fences, I encountered minefields, which I bypassed

and came to a reed field near the Han River where I stayed hidden for about three hours,' he said in the video, adding that he was living off mere bread crumbs. He started swimming,

following the lights on the southern bank of the river. When he finally made land, he let out a cry for help, and was found by a unit of South Korean soldiers. Little is known about how Kim

made a living in South Korea, but a source with knowledge of his background said he owed 20 million won ($16,800) to at least one fellow defector from Kaesong. 'He had expressed his

wish to become a security lecturer for students, like many other defectors do, but it never happened, partly because of the pandemic,' the source said on condition of anonymity due to

the sensitivity of the issue. According to police, a female defector in her 20s filed a complaint on June 12, accusing Kim of sexually assaulting her at his home. They interviewed him once

on June 21, and he denied the accusations. The investigation gathered steam when one of Kim's acquaintances reported to police on July 19 that he threatened the woman and planned to

flee to the North, a police official said. A warrant for Kim's arrest was issued two days later, but according to North Korean state media, he had already arrived there. By July 24,

North Korean authorities found him in Kaesong, and said he displayed COVID-19 symptoms.  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the city to be locked down and declared a state of emergency,

state media reported on Sunday. South Korean health officials said there was no sign that Kim was infected with the coronavirus before he left the South, and at least two people who were in

close contact with him have tested negative.   Mr Kim's speech followed recent remarks by both North Korean and US officials suggesting they were reluctant to engage in a new round of

diplomacy on the North's nuclear program. Mr Kim, 36, and President Donald Trump met three times since 2018 - when Mr Kim abruptly reached out to Washington and Seoul for talks. He said

he wanted to deal away his advancing nuclear arsenals.  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said President Trump would only want to engage with Mr Kim again if there were real prospects of

progress. Mr Kim's sister and senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, said a new summit would be 'impractical' for North Korea and that Pyongyang would not gift Mr Trump a

high-level meeting that he can boast as a foreign policy achievement.  Many experts were sceptical of Mr Kim's disarmament commitment and said he only aimed to weaken US-led sanctions

and perfect his nuclear program. The nuclear diplomacy remains largely stalled since a second meeting in February 2019 in Vietnam collapsed without reaching any agreement because Mr Trump

rejected Mr Kim's proposal to get extensive sanctions relief in return for a limited denuclearisation step. Mr Kim entered this year with a vow to bolster his nuclear program and

threatened to unveil a new 'strategic' weapon. He also said he would no longer be bound by a self-imposed temporary pause on nuclear and long-range missile tests. Mr Kim has not

performed such high-profile weapons tests, which some analysts say could completely derail diplomacy with the US. During the celebrations Mr Kim gave out commemorative pistols to army

officers.  They held the pistols against their chests and made firm pledges to fight for their leader at the cost of their lives. It comes after Mr Kim convened an emergency politburo

meeting after the man, suspected of having COVID-19, illegally crossed the border from South Korea into the state earlier this month, state media said on Sunday. If confirmed, it would be

the first case officially acknowledged by North Korean authorities, who have so far said the country has no confirmed cases of the disease. Kim declared a state of emergency and imposed a

lockdown on the border city of Kaesong, calling it a 'critical situation in which the vicious virus could be said to have entered the country,' state news agency KCNA reported.

South Korea has reported a total of 14,203 cases of coronavirus, with 300 deaths so far.  NORTH KOREAN WOMEN WERE REGULARLY TORTURED, BEATEN AND RAPED IN DETENTION CENTRES AFTER TRYING TO

FLEE THE COUNTRY, UN REPORT REVEALS  North Korean women imprisoned in camps suffered from torture, rape and 'multiple and serious' violence at the hands of officials, a UN human

rights report has claimed. More than 100 women detained between 2009 and 2019 after failing to flee the country spoke to UN investigators in Seoul after their release. They said they were

deprived of food, sleep, daylight and fresh air. In a report titled I Still Feel The Pain many said they were subjected to torture, invasive body searches, forced abortions and even rape.

All of the women eventually managed to defect to South Korea.  'I did not sleep and worked because I did not want to be beaten. It was excruciating to a level that I even attempted to

commit suicide,' one woman said. North Korea did not immediately react to the report but it has previously called criticism over its human rights record a 'plot to overthrow'

its regime. Another woman recalled one of her first nights in detention in 2010 when she was raped by an officer. 'He threatened that ... I would be humiliated if I rejected him. He

even told me he could help me to be released sooner if I did as he said,' she said. Gathering information in isolated North Korea is notoriously difficult, and the report acknowledged

the lack of access to the country limited the agency's ability to verify the interviewees' accounts. Daniel Collinge, a U.N. human rights officer who co-authored the report, said

the project was aimed at putting pressure on Pyongyang to improve the situation, while urging other countries not to deport defectors who risk their lives to achieve freedom and prosperity.

South Korea's Moon Jae-in government, which is trying to improve ties with the North, recently came under criticism after revoking the licenses of defector groups and banning their

campaigns to send anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border.   Covid-19Kim Jong-un