Search Results for: Kim Won Hong

After the Election: Mercurial Politics

Every Korean election year, the political parties’ festering grudges and tribal feuds, catalyzed by ambition, render the entire Korean political party system unstable. Parties shatter into mercurial gobs, collide, and reform. — OFK, 5 January 2006 ============= The Center ============== The first test tube hit the laboratory floor today: Goh Kun made it clear on Thursday that he intended to run for the presidency, and the reaction in political circles has been swift. Especially with the Uri Party in disarray...

Exit Comrade Chung; Some Predictions

Adios, MF. Don’t let the Portal to Oblivion hit your ass on your way in. Never in Korea’s short history of electing local officials […] has a party which holds the Blue House performed so badly. My main hope for yesterday’s election was not for a GNP victory, but for an Uri defeat. The result, which officially qualifies as a “meltdown” on the Yangban’s scorecard, has already produced a windfall that far exceeds my limited expectations: the ignominious resignation and...

The Great Famine Has Begun; Discontent Rises

At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death. — UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok The first reports have emerged from North Korea of food refugees on the move due to a sudden deterioration in food supplies. Several of the reports are accompanied by remarkable photographs, including this one, which shows one man bringing food back into North Korea from China. Mr. Lee Hyun Soo (46) who crossed the Tumen...

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...

Reaction to the Arrival of North Korean Refugees

The arrival of the first six North Korean refugees — including survivors of concentration camps and sexual slavery — could mark a tipping point in the politics of North Korean human rights. The timing of the arrival is either a fortunate coincidence or the height of shrewdness. Local elections are coming up in South Korea on May 31st, and with the human rights issue having created a clear schism (see here, here, and here) between the United States and South...

Daily NK: Gov’t Not Delivering Food Rations

Last fall, when the North Korean government ordered the World Food Program out of the country, I wrote a series of alarmist posts based on the simple syllogism that, since 6.5 million North Koreans depended on WFP aid as of last August, and that the aid was cut off as of last December, that millions of North Koreans were going to go hungry in the months to follow. Last week’s North Korea Freedom Week events gave me the opportunity to...

One Big, Leaky Basket

South Korea has arrested a Taiwanese man for spying for North Korea. What’s not entirely clear is whether the man was spying for prodigal son Kim Jong Nam, and what JN’s relationship is to North Korea these days: The information sent to the North, according to prosecutors, included Newsweek Korea magazine’s coverage of the detention and expulsion of Kim Jong-nam from Japan in 2001 after he tried to enter that country on a fraudulent passport. The man also forwarded tapes...

China, Arsenal of Terror

Today comes word of more sanctions on Chinese state-owned companies, all with close ties to the military, for helping Iran with its nuke and missile programs. The sanctions, announced by the State Department, are part of a diplomatically complex effort to cut off the flow of technology into Iran that could aid its weapons programs, while pressing both China and Russia to threaten action against Tehran at the United Nations Security Council. Included in the latest sanctions, first reported Tuesday...

Links of Interest

Too many interesting things in the news today to discuss in too little time– North Korea More Alarming News on the Food Situation, via the World Food Program: The North Korean government has been unable to meet its own food distribution target of 500 grams of cereals per person per day, the World Food Program said in a report issued on Friday.The United Nations agency’s weekly “Emergency Report” said that its workers in North Korea visited public food distribution centers...

The New Right: Remarkably Like the Old Right

In what has to be the most disappointing story about Korean politics I’ve seen all year, a new group that calls itself The New Right National Alliance has formed in Seoul. As you may have noted from previous posts, I had been looking forward to a realignment of political forces in Korea that might offer the voters something better than the choices the voters have now: Old Right, with its authoritarian history, authoritarian instincts that continue to this very day,...

The First New Political Party of South Korea’s Election Season Is Announced

On September 21st, I said this: The jockeying for the South Korean presidential race has started. Like mercurial gobs, parties split into factions and clump together again. The Joongang Ilbo has an interesting article that suggests potential splits in both the Grand National and Uri parties. . . . I’m actually hoping for splits and ferocious ideological power struggles in both parties, particularly the GNP. The Uri’s fresh ideas are all wrung out, and the GNP’s fresh ideas are all...

Washington Freezes Assets of Three More Companies

From the Korea Times: Assets, totaling $31.7 million, of the Choson Mining Trade Company, Choson Ryonbong General Company and Danchong Commercial Bank have been frozen since July 1 when Executive Order 13382 came into effect, the ministry said in a report to Rep. Kim Won-wung of the ruling Uri Party. The three companies were allegedly responsible for importing and exporting the missile parts. The amount of North Korean assets are the fourth largest to be frozen, following $1.24 billion from...

Korean “Progressives” Send Message of Gratitude and Sympathy on 9/11: “Fucking USA!”

UPDATED; scroll down. You haven’t heard the last of this. Call it a prediction. The U.S. media was watching, but (thus far) doesn’t much seem to care. The U.S. government is watching and does. Update on that later. For now, here’s what happened, beginning with pictures from OhMyNews: Much, much more here. Here’s part of : The demonstration started off peacefully with singing, dancing and a speech by Democratic Labor Party central committee member Lee Jeong-mi, but turned violent after...

The Lee Myung Bak Dossier

Asked about their preferences for the next president, 30 percent said they support former Prime Minister Goh Kun, while 16 percent backed Grand National Party chairwoman Park Geun-hye. Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-Bak and Unification Minister Chung Dong-young were third and fourth on the list with 15 percent and 10 percent, respectively. (emphasis mine) —The Joongang Ilbo, August 24, 2005 The Grand National Party’s top two contenders for the presidency both owe much to the legacy of Park Chung-Hee. If Ms....

A Date That Will Live in Irony

August 15, 2005, a date on which more bullshit flowed than one snarky blogger could possibly step around, so I’ll let the stories pretty much speak for themselves. In case you’re new here, this is the anniversary of the date on which American soldiers–supported by Russian invaders further north–entered Seoul before passing the reigns of government to the Koreans themselves. Yes, things could have been faster and smoother, and Korea’s first rulers were certainly not Jeffersonian democrats, but what’s most...

The Death of an Alliance, Part 24

South Korea’s Minister of Silly Talks, Chung Dong-Young, has opened his mouth again, an occurrence that never seems to end well. This time, he’s left no doubt that South Korea and the United States are much further apart on their positions on North Korean nukes than one would except of nominal allies: Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Wednesday North Korea must have the right to use nuclear energy peacefully for agricultural, medical and power-generation purposes. Chung told the online news...