Category: Anju Links

Anju Links for June 5th

*   Richardson has some interesting updates on the North Korean family that defected by sailing  hundreds of  miles to Japan in an open boat.  The possession of “personal use” amounts of methamphetamine by one family member suggests that what we’ve heard is true — that drugs are increasingly available to ordinary North Koreans.  What I don’t know is whether the son was a user, or whether the meth was part of their elaborate preparations, in this case,  to help...

Freedom House Will Host Discussion on N. Korean Concentration Camps

Their message: On May 21, 2007, Freedom House released a new report, Concentrations of Inhumanity.  The report written by Hidden Gulag author, David Hawk, carefully details the criminal acts prohibited by Article 7 of the ( Rome ) Statute of the International Criminal Court which are being carried out in North Korea on a massive scale.  You can download the full report at www.nkfreedomhouse.org. Freedom House and Liberty in North Korea (LiNK) cordially invite you to a panel discussion to...

Anju Links for 22 May 2007

*   Freedom House has released an extensive new report on North Korea’s concentration camps.  The author is David Hawk, who wrote “The Hidden Gulag.” *   John Bolton is leading the charge against Agreed Framework 2.0, and his latest effort is this piece at OpinionJournal.com.  He doesn’t quite accuse Chris Hill of conspiring to launder money — I did — but he does a good job of explain our  dizzying series  of  retreats on the Banco Delta issue.  Thanks...

Anju Links for 4 May 2007: Foot-and-Mouth Strikes North Korean Cattle and American Politicians

1. The latest outbreak of disease in North Korea is foot-and-mouth among the cattle, and presumably the oxen that would be used as draft animals for spring plowing. That’s very bad news for a country with a declining food situation and no margin of survival. The U.N., which generally takes pains to avoid offending North Korea, says that the outbreak is “under control.” 2. New, Improved, and Completely Failed! It has now been 20 days since North Korea violated all...

Anju Links for 2 May 2007: North Korea Denies Abducting Any S. Koreans, May Day in Kaesong, and North Koreans’ Growing Meth Problem

*   It has now been 18 days since North Korea violated all of  the denuclearization commitments to which it agreed last February.   I blame  Bill Richardson, who obviously must have said something tactless and belligerent while being led around the deck of the U.S.S. Pueblo.   It’s time for us to get serious about diplomacy and  offer some carrots.   How many of our soldiers’ lives is Catalina Island really worth?   How many times must the canonballs fly, Bill? *  ...

Anju Links for 1 May 2007

*   It has now been 17 days since North Korea violated  its Agreed Framework 2.0  denuclearization commitments. *   Appeasing Terror:   The good news is that State’s new terror list is out, North Korea is still on it, and I have more time to produce my promised update to this post.  The bad news:  the section on North Korea has much of its content stripped out, particularly that relating to Japanese abductees, a subject North Korea refuses to...

Anju Links for 30 April 2007

1 It has now been 16 days since North Korea violated every single pledge it made in the course of the February 13th agreement, notwithstanding our return of $25 million in proceeds of crime, no strings attached, in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. Latest word has North Korea’s demand for the return of the money — which was not part of the February 13th deal — evolving into a demand that the United States grant a general amnesty...

Anju Links for 15 April 2007

*    We’ve Lost the True Meaning of Kim Il Sung’s Birthday.   It’s another OFK exclusive — I have the first video of North Korea’s Kim Il Sung Day parade.  In North Korea, where devotion comes from the barrel of a gun, the object of this  devotion  is now a side of preserved meat; thus,  I urge everyone to  pay their respects  with  a feast  appropriate for the occasion.  If only the people of North Korea were fortunate enough...

Anju Links for 13 April 2007

*   Matters of Life and Death.   The Chosun Ilbo reports that  Lao authorities have arrested six North Korean  women.   I’m not sure if it’s the same group I mentioned here.  Meanwhile, 53 others are still  in imminent danger of being sent back from Thailand.  If you haven’t already done so, please contact the Thai  Embassy (see previous link for e-mail address) and tell them not to send  these refugees  back to the gulag.  Recent reports suggest that...

Anju Links for 11 April 2007

*   Are You Effing Kidding Me?   The Bush administration, reversing a six-year-old North Korea policy based on deep mistrust, said it will now rely on Pyongyang’s “good faith” to ensure that funds released yesterday from a Macao bank are not misused…. Mr. McCormack said the North Koreans had promised “to spend the money for the betterment of the North Korean people,” and not for the personal benefit of its officials. [Wash Times] Stupidity with malice aforethought is its...

Anju Links for 10 April 2007

* Tick, Tock. We’re only a few days from the deadline, but expect our government to be far more permissive with Kim Jong Il’s tardiness  than it will be with American taxpayers (Cha: You’re running out of time; Hill: I’m still hopeful!). If the State Department were in charge of tax collection, our streets would be unpaved and guarded by Canadian occupation forces. * Food Crisis Update. If the World Food Program is sounding increasingly dire about North Korea’s food...

The case against Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations is facing new denunciations for being feckless, ineffective, and corrupt. The sun also rose, obituaries were published, children went off to school, and leaves in the northern latitudes began to change color. There was something different about the latest criticism, however: despite its general similarity of content, it came from The Guardian, the flagship of the British left, and The Hudson Institute, virtually the Jesuit order of Washington neoconservatism. That’s a stunning convergence from two groups with...