May Day merriment
Against the spectre of war, North Korean workers, with their legs tied together, take part in a competition as they celebrate May Day at the Pyongyang Thermal Power Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea, yesterday.
International Workers’ Day, which is also known as Labour Day in some countries, was celebrated worldwide yesterday.
Celebrations in North Korea provided some relief from the tension in the region as Pyongyang and Seoul and Washington rattle sabres and ratchet up tension, causing many, like Pope Francis did at the weekend, to urge the US and North Korea to defuse their increasingly tense standoff and avert a potentially horrific conflict.
The pontiff urged the parties to step away from the brink and avoid a nuclear conflict that could, he said, be disastrous for ‘the future of humanity’.
He added that ‘things have gotten too hot’ and suggested that ‘the US had the duty to reassume, a little, its leadership because it’s been watered down’.
During a 30-minute news conference on his plane, the pope again called refugee camps in Europe ‘concentration camps’.
‘Europe is in danger of breaking apart,’ he said, as he noted that the migrant crisis fuelled fears that destabilised the European continent, ‘but we mustn’t forget that Europe is made by immigrants. Centuries and centuries of immigrants. It’s us.’