Going for holidays in North Korea is actually a thing — and provides good content for the ‘gram — but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) have advised Singaporeans to hold off their trips to the hermit kingdom for now.
A travel advisory issued by MFA today urged Singaporeans to avoid all non-essential travel to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea due to “recent developments” there that’s no doubt caused alarm among the international community.
“Singapore has no diplomatic representation in North Korea, which constrains our ability to extend consular assistance to Singaporeans who travel there,” wrote MFA. North Korea-Singapore relations are generally regarded as pretty good, considering that DPRK has an embassy here — a lofty space with nice views at High Street Centre. Singapore on the other hand has accredited a non-resident ambassador to Pyongyang from Beijing.
What’s up with North Korea these days?
It has been quite a troubling past few weeks concerning the socialist state. On Sunday, Pyongyang announced that they’ve successfully tested their sixth nuclear bomb, with experts estimating that the blast was four to sixteen times more powerful than any ones they’ve detonated before. It’s understood that the hydrogen bomb they tested has a bigger destructive power than the bombs dropped in Japan during World War II. Speaking of Japan, North Korea also hurled a ballistic missile over the island of Hokkaido last week in one of its most provocative missile tests in recent years.
This, of course, on top of the country’s notoriety in human rights violations, but that hasn’t stopped tourists from visiting the country.
