North Korea blames 'alien things' near border with South for COVID-19 outbreak in the isolated nation



The North`s first admission of a COVID outbreak came months after it eased border lockdowns enforced since early in 2020 to resume freight train operations with China. But it would have been difficult for Pyongyang to point fingers at China, said Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University.