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Monthly Archive: January, 2008

January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Nick Burns

Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s number three diplomat and the man  whom  a reliable  source told me was the one  who blocked  implementation of the North Korean  Human Rights Act,  will step down for “personal reasons.”  Alas, the reasons are not known to include painful bleeding hemorrhoids, and so I must go on doubting  God’s existence.  Burns’s legacy will include such notable accomplishments as  Iran’s nuclear bomb.  His replacement is the eponymous William Burns  (no relation) who has enjoyed such...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Washington Views
January 18, 2008

Anju Links for 18 Jan 08

NORTH KOREA FINALLY MENTIONS LEE MYUNG BAK, sorta:  “U.S. conservative hardliners broke into cheers upon hearing about the results of the “˜elections’ in South Korea … asserting that the power change in South Korea marks a new occasion of strangling North Korea.   Well, yeah, if he actually does.  Wow.  Did I really just agree with KCNA? TOO MANY NORTH KOREANS ARE HOARDING FOOD, so the  regime is cracking down with layer upon layer of bureaucracy and permits that are...

Categories Anju Links
January 16, 2008

Anju Links for 16 Jan 08

ISN’T IT TERRORISM when someone won’t release a captive without a payment?  Still, paying ransom is undeniably an improvement over paying the money and letting your POW’s and their families  die in place anyway.  I wonder how much this’ll cost. TAZE ‘EM AGAIN, BRO!    The Korean  police are finally talking about  arresting and using a degree of force against violent protestors.   No doubt, this has something to do with the change of government in Seoul.  I’d like to see...

Categories Anju Links
January 14, 2008

I am so ready for a North Korean spy scandal right about now …

[Update: He resigns. Kim Man-Bok claims that his motive in leaking the tape was to dispel speculation that he met with Kim Yang-Gon to try to influence the South Korean election. Using Nordpolitik is a well-established way of trying to influence South Korean elections, and I’m not sure exactly how Kim M.B. expected to reassure anyone about what’s not on the tape. To me, one missed significance of this is the casual ease with which Roh’s people accepted North Korea’s...

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column/WTF?
January 14, 2008

Anju Links for 14 Jan 08

STOP THE PRESSES!   Donga Ilbo:  Lee Says He’s Exceptionally Pro-Business LEAST UNEXPECTED HEADLINE OF THE DAY:   Joongang Ilbo:  “Lee Praises Anticipated U.S. Envoy.”   On second thought, unexpected and dull is just fine, thank you.   As for me, I have low expectations for the  ambassador-designate, Kathleen Stephens, for the simple (maybe too simple) reason that nothing good  or decent comes from the State Department’s East Asia Bureau.  But there is some hope that she won’t be entirely awful:   ...

Categories Anju Links
January 13, 2008

State Dep’t Denies Groundhog Sighting

The only thing worse than shifting deadlines is no deadlines:  The United States on Friday again denied setting a new target date for North Korea to give a full accounting of its nuclear programs that would replace a missed year-end deadline.   ”We are continuing to work towards the end of getting a declaration in, but there has been no new deadline set by the United States, by the North Koreans or by any other party in the six-party talks,” State...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
January 12, 2008

South Korea to push U.N. for return of its POW’s

President-Elect Lee Myung Bak’s transition team  is speaking more about its plans to finally bring home about 560 prisoners of war  it believes North Korea is still holding, in violation of the 1953 Armistice agreement.  South Korea may seek help from the international community in pressing North Korea to return South Korean prisoners of war, the Defense Ministry said Saturday.   North Korea has so far balked at South Korean requests to return POWs, saying it has never held any South...

Categories "United" Nations/Abductions/Korean War
January 11, 2008

Did Chris Hill lie about North Korea’s declaration?

In the last episode of our drama, Chris thought he had convinced Kim to out himself in time for the New Year’s ball, only to have Kim say that he’d said enough when Chris visited his place last November. At moments like this one, when this blog begins to sound like the screenplay for a gay soap opera, I understand why The Lost Nomad went fishing. Several days ago, I believe I caught U.S. nucyular negotiator Christopher Hill in a...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
January 11, 2008

Time running out for the FTA?

Here.  Americans sometimes observe that South Korea shouts for equal treatment while actually expecting to be treated like a coddled infant, and I’d cite the handicaps it demanded on the imports of  cars and agricultural products as a good example to support that.  Based on the two-faced behavior and unreasonable  demands of the South Koreans throughout the FTA talks, the U.S. Trade Representative  should have had the guts to  walk away  and wait for Roh’s clock to run out.  Sadly,...

Categories NK Economics
January 11, 2008

Anju Links for 10 Jan 08

SOMETHING MIGHTY SUSPICIOUS IS GOING ON HERE,  and  I’m not just talking about the shadowy movements of spies and emissaries across the DMZ, either: A top North Korean official paid a secret visit to Seoul on Sept. 26 last year, immediately before the second inter-Korean summit in early October, it was emerged on Thursday. [Chosun Ilbo] National Intelligence Service Chief Kim Man-bok made a secret visit to Pyongyang on Dec. 18, the day before South Korea’s presidential election, it was...

Categories Uncategorized
January 10, 2008

Groundhog Day in Pyongyang

Now that we’ve asked North Korea to tell us about its nuclear programs, and now that North Korea has answered by telling us to perform prostate exams on ourselves, I suppose it’s best if we at least pretend to do otherwise. Not that the pretense is a convincing one. When Chris Hill tells us to react “with patience and perseverance,” understand that translating this into the North Korean dialect yields something that also means, “How about never? Is never good...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
January 10, 2008

One less ransom to pay

One of the 264 people listed by a civic group as possibly abducted by North Korea was found safe in Japan last month, the group investigating North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens said Tuesday. According to the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea, the 48-year-old man from Akita Prefecture went missing in 1981 from a place where he was working part-time in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture. [Kyodo News] I understand that Bill Richardson  has already  claimed credit...

Categories Abductions/WTF?
January 9, 2008

Honor, Delayed

President-Elect Lee Myung Bak will finally  honor six South Korean sailors killed in a North Korean attack on their patrol boat on  June 29, 2002.  The sailors’ surviving family members were embittered, believing that their government and outgoing  President Roh Moo Hyun had  snubbed  them to appease Kim Jong Il.  One young widow  even left South Korea for good: Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk […]  turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight...

Categories Appeasement/ROK Military
January 9, 2008

Kim Jong Bill Drops Out

DLTDHYA on the WO. You remember, right?  And AmericaForRichardson.org?  Vanished … like a line of blow on Keith Richard’s dresser. Update:   I should note that there was some initial uncertainty that Kim Jong Bill was dropping out after all, but all of the recent stories I found on further research suggest that he is indeed dropping out.  I went over to Bill Richardson’s “official” campaign site and didn’t find any statement denying these widespread reports, which is a dog...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 9, 2008

Ron Paul denies decades of racist newsletters published in his name; O.J. still hunting for ‘real killer’

Wow.  Ron Paul  is outed as … a wacky,  racist fringe pamphleteer?  Gee, who ever saw that coming?  Plus, Paul’s campaign offers what must be the single lamest defense ever:  I really should have paid closer attention to the things people were writing in my name for decades.  But take heart, paulbots.  This could mean real momentum for Lydon RaRouche this year. This also raises a serious question for the  Republicans.  Some have suggested that Paul  should be coddled to keep...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 8, 2008

MUST READ: ‘Finding America’s Role in a Collapsed North Korean State’

[Update:   Is this an invitation to Munich?  China promises to  “cooperate” with the West, but admits that it might move into North Korea to “restore order,” and for strictly humanitarian reasons, of course.  We all know what humanitarians rule the People’s Republic of China.] Not a moment too soon, as the Red hordes mass to  reclaim the Outer  Koguryo Autonomous  Zone, there is a much-needed advancement of the discussion of the future former North Korea.  It comes  from  U.S....

Categories China & Korea/Reconstruction
January 8, 2008

The Restoration

No one should take pleasure in seeing another person worry about  losing his job, but there  is much to celebrate about how Lee Myung-Bak’s new administration is shaping up.  Some doubt is now cast on earlier reports that  the UniFiction Ministry would be abolished, although it’s clear that  its size and influence will be reduced  dramatically.  Its days as a foreign policy player are over,  and the the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) will regain its foreign policy...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea
January 7, 2008

North Korea’s Moment of Untruth, and Chris Hill’s

Secretary Rice, embrace your legacy. Agreed Framework 2.0 has stalled, and probably for good. Last month, we thought we were approaching North Korea’s moment of truth. Last week, with the matter of that overdue declaration, it was still possible (though gullible) to believe they’d still offer it in due course. Certainly that was the impression the White House was feeding us when it said on January 3rd that it was “going to keep hammering away” at getting the declaration and...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks