Search Results for “Unplugged”

June 10, 2007

State: N. Korea Spent UN Funds to Buy Property in France, Britain, Canada

The UN has released the results of a preliminary audit report on the UN Development Program’s operations in North Korea. Those operations were shut down following revelations that the UN gave the regime cash with few conditions and little accountability, and essentially became its “ATM machine.” Among the juicy revelations is that the UN was keeping a large sum of counterfeit “supernotes” in a UN safe. The UN now concedes that the UNDP violated UN rules: A statement by UN...

Uncategorized

March 27, 2007

Colin McAskill Threatens to Sue Over Release of Funds to DPRK Gov’t

McAskill, the man who sells Kim Jong Il’s gold and who recently bought the bank through which most of North Korea’s European investment is channeled, has heretofore been a strident and articulate advocate of releasing the $25 million frozen in BDA. Overnight, he has become the main obstacle: In two letters sent to the Monetary Authority of Macao, [Daedong Credit Bank] has said that it will take legal action if any of its frozen funds are moved in accordance with...

Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WTF?

March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

* No.Please.Stop. North Korea is threatening to pull out of the dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.” [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

March 15, 2007

North Korea’s Blood Gold

Question: How can a banker and investor in overseas gold mines get sympathetic innocent-victim treatment from the International Herald Tribune? Answer: Go into business with this man. That’s the upshot of this IHT story on Colin McAskill, successor to Nigel Cowie as the new primary foreign stakeholder in the Pyongyang-based Daedong Credit Bank. Reporter Donald Greenless writes that among McAskill’s other functions, he is “helping to operate North Korea’s foreign gold sales.” McAskill offers “dossiers” of proof to disprove any...

Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics/The Camps

March 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Financial Edition

North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan said Thursday that Pyongyang’s decision to halt nuclear facilities, as outlined in initial steps included in the Feb. 13 six-way agreement, will depend on the U.S. lifting of financial sanctions against North Korea. [Kyodo News; ht Richardson] The U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks, Chris Hill, once said that “[l]ife is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang.” It’s true that the North Koreans do more than their...

"United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Google Earth/Money Laundering/Terrorism (NK)/WMD

February 19, 2007

It’s Time for Jay Lefkowitz to Resign

I recently wrote a piece for publication on North Korea’s finances, the rumors of the then-prospective deal with North Korea, and how to increase the pressure so that we could get a truly verifiable dismantlement of their nuclear program and a real and fundamental movement toward transparency. If no favorable agreement could be achieved, our financial strategy showed real promise in collapsing the regime’s palace economy, and maybe even the regime itself, something for which my aspiration is no secret. ...

Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views

February 14, 2007

Bush’s Korea Sellout Rolls On

[Update: Not Washington, but San Francisco, to meet with (presumably friendly) NGO’s, and New York, to meet Chris Hill for bilateral talks. I wonder if they mean this NGO, or this one. We may soon test the old adage that all publicity is good publicity.] The chief nuclear negotiators of North Korea and the United States are planning to visit each other’s capital soon, a diplomatic source in Seoul was quoted as saying in a South Korean news report...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

February 13, 2007

The Not-Quite-Agreed Framework

[Originally, “Hill: We Have a Deal.”] [Update: I’ve pasted the full text of this “agreement” onto the bottom of this post. Thanks to a reader.] Uh oh. The U.S. envoy to talks on nuclear program said Tuesday that a tentative agreement had been reached on initial moves for the communist nation’s disarmament. “I’m encouraged by this that we were able to take a step forward on the denuclearization issue,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said. He declined to...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD

January 12, 2007

Beyond Empty Threats

Yes, Stealth fighters have some value in deterring a North Korean first strike, if we think that’s a possibility, but I do not believe that any weapon in the U.S. military arsenal (with this possible exception) can deter or prevent a North Korean nuclear test. The threat of a direct, large-scale use of force by either the United States or North Korea against the other is an empty threat. The conventional Korean War has been a standoff since 1953. ...

An Alliance?/NK Military/Resistance/ROK Military/U.S. Military

December 23, 2006

A Highly Successful Conclusion to the Six-Party Talks

It’s the best result we could possibly have hoped for from this worn-out charade. The U.S. delegation seems to have gone out of its way in the talks. Hill was quoted by China’s People’s Daily as saying his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan “is obviously professional, and he has a lot of experience, so because he has more experience than I do in nuclear negotiations, it made me have to work hard. I have to do a lot of homework...

Uncategorized

September 28, 2006

Greeks Intercept Counterfeit N.K. Cigarettes

Officials in Greece nabbed a North Korean freight vessel that was carrying 1.5 million cartons of contraband cigarettes and arrested the seven seamen aboard, it was announced Monday. [link] Let’s hope there’s a trial, and that this one won’t be a goose egg like the Pong Su case was. Whether the Aegean could use another artificial reef, I leave to the Greeks, but Greece is always happy to do the exact opposite of what America asks. The Greek Merchant Marine...

Counterfeiting/Money Laundering

September 14, 2006

Must-Read! ‘The Natural Death of N. Korean Stalinism’

[Updated] With “The Natural Death of North Korean Stalinism,” Andrei Lankov, possibly the Western world’s single authentic North Korea expert, has just provided us with an impressive collection of empirical evidence to support his argument that the North Korean regime’s control apparatus is losing its grip (a big hat tip to Andy Jackson). Those whose interest in North Korea is inversely proportional to the availability of information about it will pore through this article, fascinated at the amount and quality...

North Korea

August 26, 2006

Is He Crazy After All?

A big welcome to the new readers from Gateway Pundit, and as always, many thanks to Jim for his link and his support. All of us who wonder why Kim Jong Il has does some of the bone-headed things he’s done lately have shared a few common assumptions about him as we engaged in this speculative parlor game of ours: * He is sane, rational, calculating, and reasonably well informed about his foes’ thought processes (some, however, would also argue...

Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/WMD

August 17, 2006

BREAKING NEWS: NK May Be Preparing Nuke Test

Thanks to a reader for forwarding; via ABC News: There is new evidence that North Korea may be preparing for an underground test of a nuclear bomb, U.S. officials told ABC News. “It is the view of the intelligence community that a test is a real possibility,” said a senior State Department official. A senior military official told ABC News that a U.S. intelligence agency has recently observed “suspicious vehicle movement” at a suspected North Korean test site. The activity...

NK Military/Proliferation/WMD

July 27, 2006

Now What? Part 4: Someone Didn’t Get the Memo

[Several very interesting updates here; scroll down.] Recently, it has often seemed that different parts of South Korea have been applying different policies to the same issue. Take South Korea’s response to the new U.N. Security Council Resolution 1695, which requires countries and companies to exercise “vigilance” in making sure they don’t supply North Korea with the components or funds to build more missiles. UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok has opted for a “don’t ask, don’t tell” interpretation of that resolution,...

Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/WMD

Search Results for: Unplugged