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Air China to resume flights to North Korea at the end of the month after train service restarted

BEIJING (AP) — Air China will resume flights flying between Beijing and North Korea from March 30, the airline’s website said Saturday, after passenger train services running between the two nations restarted earlier this week .

According to the website of the stated-owned airline, flights from China’s capital to Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital will run every Monday until May 18, but would scale down to two Mondays in June.

In 2020 with the start of the coronavirus pandemic, North Korea banned tourists, jetted out diplomats and severely curtailed border traffic in one of the world’s most draconian COVID-19 restrictions. Two years later, Pyongyang started slowly easing curbs and reopening its borders.

North Korean Air Koryo resumed flights between the two nations’ capitals in 2023.

In February 2024, North Korea accepted some Russian tourists for sightseeing visits, the first foreign nationals to visit the country. That development surprised many observers who thought the first post-pandemic tourists to North Korea would come from China, Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner and major ally. North Korea later on also started welcoming other tourists.

Beijing bans 4 New Zealand lawmakers from entering China because they visited Taiwan

By WTOP Staff
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Beijing banned four New Zealand lawmakers from traveling to China for a year and demanded they apologize because they visited Taiwan on a parliamentary trip, according to a message from the Chinese embassy conveyed via parliamentary officials and shown to The Associated Press on Thursday. China has hit lawmakers from other countries with sanctions related to contact with Taiwan before, but it's the first time for New Zealand parliamentarians, the government in Wellington said. Beijing has been increasing pressure in recent years on the democratically governed island that it claims as its own territory. Two lawmakers reached by the AP on Thursday rejected the demand for an apology, while the other two could not be immediately reached. New Zealand's government said it would express concern about the travel bans to Beijing. The elected officials visited Taipei in May, as New Zealand parliamentarians have done “for decades,” a spokesperson for Foreign Minister Winston Peters said in a statement.
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