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Monthly Archive: March, 2008

March 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens: The Wrong Person for the Job

A  few months ago, the Korean press reported that State had submitted the name of Kathleen Stephens to be the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, to replace the competent and affable  Alexander Vershbow.  At the time, I did not have strong opinions about Ms. Stephens’s fitness for that position.  Further research has convinced me that Ms. Stephens, though well qualified for the job and apparently a perfectly fine person, is the wrong person to be our next Ambassador to...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
March 31, 2008

LiNK: Project Real Sunshine

[Update:  LiNK reports that they’ve extended the deadline to sign up for Project Real Sunshine through April 7th.]   [Correction:   A reader points out that I’ve confused two LiNK projects, “Project  Real Sunshine” and  the “Chollima Leadership Program.”  My apologies.  The Chollima  Leadership Program  is  actually the  one I  described in the post below; Project True Sunshine is an advocacy project,  which I should have remembered.  Fortunately, Andy Jackson didn’t get confused and put up a perfectly fine post.]...

Categories Activism/Reconstruction/Refugees/Regime Change
March 30, 2008

Human Rights Activists Help 12 North Koreans Enter S. Korean Embassy in Laos

A group of six  human rights activists from Europe,  Asia, and Oceania was  in Vientiane, Laos, recently to coordinate efforts on behalf of North Korean refugees when they  decided to move beyond mere words.  Here is an excerpt from  the letter one of them e-mailed me recently: It has come to our attention that twelve North Korean defectors have recently arrived in Laos after traveling through China.  They were on their way to freedom in South Korea, but have since...

Categories Activism/Refugees
March 28, 2008

South Korea Grows Up

First the Human Rights Commission, now this:      The South Korean government has decided to vote for a resolution on human rights in North Korea to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council this week, it emerged on Tuesday. South Korea has so far boycotted or abstained from all UN votes on North Korea including the General Assembly, except for 2006, when the North conducted a nuclear test. [….] A government official, speaking on the customary condition of...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Military/U.S. & Korea
March 27, 2008

You can check out any time you like, but they can never leave.

Hello?  Room service?  There’s a hissing sound coming from my chandelier! North Korea is converting part of its embassy in Berlin into a hostel to earn foreign currency for Kim Jong Il’s cash-strapped regime, Japan’s Sankei newspaper reported, citing diplomats it didn’t identify. The Cityhostel Berlin will initially have 37 rooms at a charge of 20 Euros ($31) per head a night, Sankei reported. A reception with a grand piano is being built and a Korean restaurant is due to...

Categories Europe/NK Economics
March 27, 2008

Anju Links for 27 Mar 08

NoKo: OPPOSING VIOLENT PROTESTS IS ‘TERRORISM:’ I think they’re referring to this. For the record, here is how North Korea deals with violent protests, and here’s how it deals with peaceful ones. PROTESTORS from Reporters Without Borders disrupted the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony in Athens and interrupted a ChiCom party hack’s speech. The Washington Post has video. Tibetan protestors blocked a nearby road, and several were arrested. In Tibet, the protests continue: In the Chabcha area of Amdo [Hainan/Tsolho Tibetan Autonomous...

Categories Anju Links
March 26, 2008

Radio and Reciprocity

SOMEONE IN CHINA IS RECORDING NORTH KOREAN RADIO broadcasts in English and posting the audio online. If you’re interested in keeping up with  who’s being idolized or purged, or whether songun is in or out, this should be interesting listening.  I listened long enough to hear the North Koreans call on all South Koreans to bow down before the Great General and Lodestar of the Nation, which is funny until you realize that 23 million people have to bear this...

Categories Deprogramming/Terrorism (NK)
March 26, 2008

More Food Shortages Reported in N. Korea’s Main Grain-Producing Regions; A Grim Mood in Pyongyang

There are two new reports from the Buddhist NGO Good Friends, which has good sources inside North Korea.  You will see that I have already blogged about some of the material in these reports when details emerged in press reports, or in the Daily NK.  I will just add a few significant details that I gleaned from the reports, which you can find here and here. There are no rations, even in Pyongyang, except for the city center, where they...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change
March 25, 2008

S. Korean Human Rights Commission Will Investigate Atrocities in N. Korea

South Korea’s human rights agency said yesterday it would launch a probe into abuses in North Korea by interviewing defectors from the communist state.  The National Human Rights Commission has included investigating its neighbor ¡ ¯s record as one of its major tasks this year. “We will conduct a survey on the overall human rights conditions in North Korea this year by hearing from defectors, said commission spokesman Lee Myung-jae.  The number of defectors to be interviewed could be in...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees/The Camps
March 25, 2008

Anju Links for 25 March 2008

HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU HAVE TO KILL to get noticed by Amnesty International?  My theory is that it depends on how much you tell people you hate America, but it looks like North Korea may have exceeded Amnesty’s limit.  Let’s hope this turns out to be something sustained. NAMIBIAN HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST DENOUNCES North Korea’s human rights record  on the occasion of Kim Yong Nam’s visit: Just about a week or two ago about 15 people were executed publicly...

Categories Anju Links
March 25, 2008

S. Korea (Sort of) Links Humanitarian Aid to Return of Abductees

South Korea’s president has asked North Korea to consider sending home prisoners of war and captured civilians in return for receiving humanitarian aid from Seoul. President Lee Myung-bak said in an interview published Monday that he wouldn’t seek to link food and fertilizer aid to international efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. “Still, since we are sending humanitarian aid, the North should consider humanitarian measures, without any condition, on the pending issue of South Korean PoWs and 400...

Categories Abductions/Famine & Food Aid/Korean War
March 25, 2008

Defector Newspaper Reports Food Protests in North Korea

Amid reports  that North Hamgyeong Province (among others) totters on the brink of famine,  the  North Korean regime is desperately trying to shut down markets and regain state control of the food supply.  The regime has long used food to sustain those it trusts and control those it doesn’t.  I’ve written about  North Korea’s accelerating food  crisis  in some detail recently.   Map of protest locations (click to enlarge) This year, food shortages are reported even in elite Pyongyang, a...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change/Resistance
March 24, 2008

WaPo Columnist Reveals NK-Syria Nuclear Agreement

In yesterday’s Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote a column pining for  a “breakthrough” in Chris Hill’s failed Agreed Framework 2.0.  Ignatius defines that as getting our hands on 30-40 kilograms of North Korean plutonium, which happens to  coincide with  North Korea’s own  low-range estimate.  Hill has been eager to accept this lower figure in the interests of declaring victory, although some U.S. estimates have put the actual figure closer to 50 kilograms.  The discrepancy is enough for a couple of...

Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 24, 2008

Anju Links for 24 March 2008

WE PAY HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to get back the remains of our MIA’s, but North Korea lets them lie unclaimed, unmarked, and unmourned. Then again, that’s probably true of plenty of North Koreans today. HARD TIMES FOR BAD PEOPLE: The Washington Post reports from Colombia that the the Marxist, Chavez-backed, coke-dealing FARC guerrillas have suffered serious military setbacks and morale problems. Like Al Qaeda, the FARC has done serious harm to America on its own soil, and also...

Categories Anju Links
March 24, 2008

North Korea Cancels Christmas?

Christmas as  North Koreans have  known it for decades has been the nativity of Kim Il Sung, the dead god-king, eternal president, founder of the state, and  father of Kim Jong Il.   His conception marked The Year Zero on North Korea’s juche calendar.   He  is idolized in statues; in portraits in every home, office, and classroom; and on the money.  Citizens must wear his likeness on pins that they can be punished for losing, and which  sometimes indicate the wearer’s...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Regime Change
March 23, 2008

I Know a Dead Parrot When I See One

This  parrot is no more.  It has ceased to be.  It has expired and gone to meet its maker.  This … is a late parrot.  It’s a stiff.  Bereft of life, it rests in peace.  If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies.  It’s  run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.  This … is an ex-parrot! — John Cleese, Monty Python’s “The Dead Parrot Sketch“ I confess to being less interested...

Categories Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
March 23, 2008

Anju Links for 23 March 2008

BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS: “[D]espite the strong call for government action, South Korea had the largest number of people (41 percent) saying the employers should be allowed to refuse hiring a qualified person because of the person’s race or ethnicity.” The average on this question was 19 percent. Asked if the government should prevent employers from discriminating, 53 percent said yes, below the average 60 percent. [Yonhap, via The Hankyoreh] TIBET’S POLITICAL DEMOGRAPHICS: The Peking Duck explains...

Categories Anju Links