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August 19, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 4: Smoke ‘em While You’ve Got ‘em.

Several months ago, some misguided BBC staffer asked me to fight above my weight and debate former Ambassador Donald Gregg about the allegation that British American Tobacco was secretly making cigarettes in North Korea. (The debate was for a pilot program and never aired.) At the time, I argued that the decision to grow or import tobacco should also be viewed as a decision not to grow or import food. Amb. Gregg, now president of the Korea Society, is a...

Categories Axis of Evil/Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/Japan/NK Economics/Washington Views
July 24, 2006

On Again

Update 7/25: Off again. How do you say “stall” in Korean? The North Koreans now say they’re returning to the six-party talks. Let’s hope the Bush Administration doesn’t call off Stuart Levy. I suspect his variety of communication has been much more effective than Nicholas Burns’s. Odd, isn’t it, that all of that alleged Chinese pressure and dearly purchased South Korean influence couldn’t bring them back to the table for so many months? Yet when a U.S. Treasury official flies...

Categories Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Six-Party Talks
July 4, 2006

Now What?

North Korea’s missile test opens up new options for the United States. Here is a list of them. [Scroll down for updates.] It too easy to say, as many will in the coming days, that there is little that the United States and other nations can do to North Korea diplomatically or economically now that it has done the unthinkably stupid and launched its (taepo)dong and (count ’em!) five smaller missiles [Update: make that six]. Let me express my respectful...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/NK Economics/U.S. Law/WMD
June 25, 2006

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 2

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States, said Saturday he will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Observers speculate that ideas for cooperation between the two countries could include an oil-for-missiles deal. On further consideration, maybe Pat Robertson was right. An eerily similar Part 1, starring Iran, here. I should say that this does not come as a complete surprise to me. Gordon Cucullu told me that such a connection was in the works about a...

Categories Axis of Evil/Drugs & N Korea/WMD
May 16, 2006

Korea Diary, 17 May 06

If you need an even better illustration of the idiocy of the Tokdo distraction, read this moving story about the families of two hostages, one Japanese and one South Korean, who married during their captivity in North Korea. Yokota expressed gratitude that his son-in-law was a South Korean. “I am so lucky to have a South Korean son-in-law, not a North Korean. I am so happy that I can hope that our families may meet one another again. He said...

Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Islam/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
May 15, 2006

A Crime Syndicate With a Seat at the U.N.

Wasn’t it only yesterday when the Japanese caught a North freighter smuggling in amphetamines? Now look: During the last two years, Japanese maritime police officers have frequently caught foreign ships leaving North Korean ports trying to smuggle fake cigarettes, the Japanese newspaper Tokyo Shimbun reported. Citing intelligence data from satellites, the newspaper said that the fake cigarettes were at times transferred onto other ships waiting in the South Korean port of Busan or near Taiwanese waters. The foreign ships were...

Categories Counterfeiting/Drugs & N Korea/NK Economics
May 13, 2006

Japanese Coast Guard Searches N. Korean Drug Ship

They also arrested two people believed to have been part of the smuggling operation. The men are accused of helping smuggle several hundred kilograms of amphetamines from North Korea to Japan, Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK said. Tokyo police arrested Woo Si-Yun, an unemployed 59-year-old South Korean living in Japan, and alleged Japanese gangster Katsuhiko Miyata, 58, the news organizations said. Woo is believed to be the owner of a mobile phone recovered from a North Korean spy ship...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. Law
April 5, 2006

The Other Nuclear Option

Much info on the economic front of late, including some initial, sketchy evidence to back U.S. claims that the sanctions are biting. The Chosun Ilbo continues to tremble over what the U.S. Treasury Department’s next move could be. Have a look at Section 311 (115 Stat. 298) of the USA PATRIOT Act, and if you can bear it, keep reading. It empowers Treasury to declare all of North Korea a jurisdiction of special money laundering concern — as we’ve apparently...

Categories China/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized