Open Sources, May 21, 2012

SOMEDAY, I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE:

Many of the details remained murky. The Beijing News said the boats were intercepted on May 8 in waters between China and North Korea. The report quoted one of the ships’ owners, Zhang Dechang, as saying that he had spoken by phone to a kidnapped sailor and that the captors were demanding about $189,000. Later reports said that had been reduced to about $142,000.

Another newspaper, The Global Times, quoted Mr. Zhang as saying that the attackers had brandished weapons and that the Chinese sailors had not resisted. “The captured fishermen have been locked in a small house, with no food to eat,” he said.

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G-8 LEADERS ON NORTH KOREA: Yes, it’s the usual stuff you’d expect — condemning rocket launches, opposing nuke tests — but there’s a little more.

“We continue to have deep concerns about provocative actions of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) that threaten regional stability,” they said in a statement on the results of a two-day summit at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. The North’s formal name was used in the diplomatic document titled “Camp David Declaration.”

U.S. President Barack Obama hosted the annual meeting with his counterparts from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, and Britain designed to address major global economic and political challenges. [….]

“We affirm our will to call on the UN Security Council to take action, in response to additional DPRK acts, including ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests,” the leaders said.

They also expressed concern about human rights violations in the North including political prisoner camps and handling of South Korean and Japanese people abducted by Pyongyang decades ago.

The issue of the camps has become too big to ignore anymore.

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OIL EXPLORATION COMPANY PULLS OUT of North Korean investment:

Independent British energy company Aminex PLC has withdrawn from North Korea, citing ‘”the volatile and unpredictable politics of the area”, just two years after signing a deal covering a 50,000 sq km area off the country’s east coast.

Aminex said it was “in the best interests of shareholders for the Company to withdraw from the Korean exploration programme and not participate in seismic acquisition. This decision will allow Aminex to focus on growing its African portfolio.”

But there’s one born every minute.

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God, how I didn’t want to believe this was true.

10 Responses

  1. “But there’s one born every minute”
    Births will become more infrequent should it ever be confirmed that the origin of this oil company’s withdrawal is at all related to the views of the Japanese geologist who posited the 99% possibility of Baekdu mountain blowing its top before 2032. Could have lead Aminex PLC to a wholly different kind of “seismic acquisition” if they’d stuck around.

  2. The powdered, encapsulated dead baby pills really fascinate me. I had heard that Koreans are ‘racist’, but had no information to frame that accusation with. The Joseonjok, ethnic Koreans in China, have received a lot of abuse over this whole thing.

    There’s a whole bunch of really nasty stuff on the following page. It’s an archive of Korean online comments about the Joseonjok and dead babies, translated to English for us Asia voyeurs. Sure looks an awful lot how Americans treat Mexicans.

    http://www.koreabang.com/2012/stories/customs-seize-pills-containing-dead-baby-powder-netizens-react.html

  3. “Marine products are not passing through customs in North Korea due to a ban which became effective on April 15. An official of the Central Party said that, due to an exacerbated food shortage, marine products were to be consumed within the country only.”

    This is Good Friends’ recent report. Assume therefore that the DPRK Navy seized Chinese fishing vessels on some trumped up claim of violating national fishery waters (which can exceed national territorial waters) … and the problem has been solved by Chinese “donations” of fish oils and other foodstuffs.

  4. SOMEDAY, I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE

    As I suggested here, I think the answer to that lies in imagining that the Chinese fish pirates were doing the kind of thing they’ve been doing to South Korea for some time. Unless there was some “there” there, I can’t imagine the North Koreans being so brazen as to kidnap Chinese and demand payment.

    We all loathe the Pyongyang regime for what it does to its people, but that doesn’t mean that it’s automatically wrong in all circumstances. That applies especially when dealing with Benevolent Big Brother China.

  5. I once watched a group of workmen standing around and smoking as they leaned on their diggers in front of the gas station they were supposed to somehow dismantle. They chatted, finished their cigs, climbed aboard their machinery and simply tore into it. We shook our heads and swore, while watching and backing off fast as oil flooded the nearby forecourt. Something like this is bound to happen in the North if they keep splitting atoms in an environment in which they have to share around a single hard hat. Though I guess reactivating magma flows could be the first semi miraculous Kim dynasty act with some foundation in reality. I once heard second hand somewhere I can’t remember that there is an apocalyptic scenario held to by some or other Christian grouping in the South that envisages a nuclear disaster on the peninsula, and I would say an accident is far more likely than an incident. The South scares me too, since this is where I do most of my breathing. 900,000 would apparently die slowly if the Busan plant whose managers sought to cover up a power outage last year ever cracked in half – and with a moniker like Gori-1, something dreadful is clearly foreordained.
    http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/national/2012/05/21/46/0302000000AEN20120521004200315F.HTML

  6. As I wrote at length here, there really does seem to be some real cause for concern regarding the possibility of Mt Paektusan erupting. If it’s one of the once-per-century eruptions, it probably won’t be that big a deal environmentally, although it could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s for the regime, which might lose control in even a minor catastrophe.

    However, if it’s one of the once-per-millennium “super-colossal” eruptions of Mt Paektusan, we’d be feeling it across South Korea and Japan, and possibly in a lot of other places around the globe.

    The last once-per-millennium super-colossal eruption was in 969 AD.

  7. Anthony, if we change it back to Kori-1, its spelling, it will all be better.

    In fact, if we have regular scientists do the emergency studies instead of leftist groups with a pro-Pyongyang, anti-ROK agenda do the studies, forecasts will improve that way as well. 🙂

  8. My blog is still experiencing technical difficulties, so if a volcanic eruption ever does occur and the regime topples, I want people to know I deserve credit by going HERE.