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Monthly Archive: January, 2010

January 14, 2010

“Chutzpah” in Korean = “막무가내”

North Korea, which is ironically quite fond of accusing South Korea of the “suppression” of its puppets in South Korea, is demanding that South Korea prosecute the activists who’ve resumed showering its countryside with anti-Kim Jong Il leaflets: The chief delegate to inter-Korean military talks was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency that “South Korean organizations, swept by anti-communism, caused a disturbance by flying tens of thousands of leaflets from Paju, Gyeonggi Province on Jan. 1. “South...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/Propaganda/Subversion
January 13, 2010

State Department Spokesman on Human Rights Policy

Because of time constraints, all I can give you for now is some quotes from yesterday’s press briefing, below the fold. Thanks to a reader for forwarding. Money quote: “We’ve made clear, going back several months, we’re not going to pay North Korea for coming back to the Six-Party process.” On the role of human rights in the six-party talks, however, the answers were vague to the point of being non-responsive.

Categories Six-Party Talks/Washington Views
January 13, 2010

13 January 2010: Sarah Palin Unwittingly Makes Case for Withdrawing Most of USFK (Update: Palin Denies)

SHE COULD HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT NORTH KOREA: One of the hallmarks of a regime in financial trouble is a complicated regime of “special” exchange rates aimed at getting around the problems caused by financial mismanagement. The devaluation that Venezuela announced last week may have been a good idea, given the country’s recession, and the problems of declining oil revenues. But the way Chavez has gone about the thing is typically ham-fisted. By Sunday, he was threatening to deploy the...

Categories Anju Links
January 13, 2010

North Korea Rejects Capitalism, Experiments with Luddism

Even for North Korea, this idea sounds too strange to be true: Therefore, Japanese cars are no where to be seen in North Korea. According to the source, Japanese cars are now supposed to be destroyed. Except, cars over 20 thousand tons, graters, and other weighty mechines will not be destroyed. These machines, however, willl only be operated at nights. [Open Radio] No doubt, this would do wonders for that “great and powerful socialist economy” the North Koreans are on...

Categories NK Economics
January 12, 2010

Peace Through War, as Explained by Christine Ahn

I see Kim Jong Il is broke again: Fifty-seven years after the end of the bloody Korean conflict, always unpredictable North Korea on Monday proposed a peace treaty to formally end the hostilities. The communist state suggested that once a treaty was underway, it would return to the stalled six-party talks to end the regime’s nuclear ambitions. But first, North Korean officials say, they want international sanctions imposed last year to be lifted immediately. The proposal was met with skepticism...

Categories North-South/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy
January 11, 2010

We Can’t Trust North Korea, or the People Who Do

What is the objective of negotiating with North Korea at all? How you answer that question may depend on whether you believe North Korea cheated on the first Agreed Framework with Bill Clinton. Even before Clinton left office, the evidence that North Korea cheated by trying to build a uranium bomb was too compelling for any responsible president to ignore, yet during the last decade, true believers in diplomacy with Kim Jong Il invested themselves in denying that evidence and...

Categories Anju Links
January 11, 2010

11 January 2010: Will Obama Open U.S. Embassies to N. Koreans at Last?

OBAMA TO OPEN EMBASSIES TO N. KOREAN REFUGEES? That would be huge, and I’ll have much more to say about that later. Also, Robert King says human rights will be on the six-party agenda. NORTH KOREA’S H1NI OUTBREAK has reached Camp 16. Meanwhile, the South Korean government continues to provide aid to the North despite its doubts about the data the North is reporting. TODAY’S “WE ARE ONE” MOMENT is brought to you by the Joongang Ilbo, and features North...

Categories Anju Links
January 10, 2010

Whoa. I Think We Just Found Robert King.

A U.S. envoy says that the human rights situation in North Korea must improve before the country can normalize relations with the United States. President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King is visiting South Korea this week to discuss the issue with government officials. King said of North Korea, ”It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights. The situation is appalling.” He also said that the situation is preventing the...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 10, 2010

10 January 2010: Value of North Korean Won Continues to Plummet

MORE REPORTS OF DRASTIC FOOD PRICE INFLATION in the North: Prices probably also vary dramatically between regions. The series of diktats I’ve called The Great Confiscation has the potential to become the grimmest and most unnecessary humanitarian tragedy since the Arduous March, but unlike the 1990’s, North Koreans know more about life on Earth, and there are no more obedient subjects left outside Pyongyang who’d just die passively. The question isn’t whether North Koreans will resist; it’s is whether the...

Categories Anju Links
January 10, 2010

News Aggregator Updates

Over the last two weeks, I’ve made extensive improvements and upgrades to my news aggregator. If you’re looking for a place to keep up on just about everything that’s being reported about North Korea anywhere on earth, I’ve finally figured out how to customize RSS feeds to display headlines from 26 28 of the newspapers and wire services that are the most interesting to me. The sources I’ve picked include the usual array of U.S. and South Korean papers, plus...

Categories News Links
January 9, 2010

2 Million Dead Later, Kim Jong Il Admits N. Korea One Vast Shithole

I can’t imagine Kim Jong Il (or more likely, his minions) would make this sort of subtle concession if the Bowibu was reporting that the peasants were singing his praises contentedly while dancing merrily to the accompaniment of their accordions: “The president has said that people should be allowed to eat white rice and meat soup, wear silk clothes and live under tiled roofs,” Kim Jong-Il was quoted as saying by Rodong. “But we’ve so far failed to carry out...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Propaganda
January 9, 2010

Good Friends: North Korea Will Close Large Markets in Chongjin, Hamhung

Just minutes after reading of the sprawling Sunam Market in Chongjin, which she called North Korea’s largest market, my ADD got the best of me, I set aside the book, and clicked on Good Friends’s site, where I saw this: Soonam Market in Chungjin to be Closed in March North Korean authorities are to close down Soonam market in Chungjin, North Hamgyong Province in March following the shutdown of Pyongsung market in South Pyongan Province last June. The cabinet decided...

Categories NK Economics/Resistance
January 9, 2010

9 January 2010: The Value of Propaganda

LESS BREAD, MORE CIRCUSES: In addition, Kim went on, “To become a strong and prosperous socialist state we must see a period of renaissance in military-first Chosun,” and stressed, “Movie studios should be established in each province in order to publicize the good conduct of local citizens, and local citizens themselves should also bring about an era where basically anyone can create movies or become a movie star. If I had to make a list of things the North Korean...

Categories Anju Links
January 9, 2010

ROK Foreign Minister: North Korea Began Uranium Enrichment Program in Mid-1990’s

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said North Korea likely began its controversial uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons development in 1996, soon after it had agreed to halt its nuclear program in a deal with the United States. In an interview with Yonhap, Yu said much remains unknown about the North’s uranium program and how advanced it is. But he said it is clear that the program was launched “quite early. “It seems to me that the North began...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
January 8, 2010

For the Love of Christ, People, Please Stop Walking Into North Korea!

Yes, it has happened again. Link in Korean only so far. The man is said to be a South Korean national in his 30’s or 40’s. Ten North Korean guards were there to welcome him, and one gobsmacked Chinese taxi driver was there to see him off. I should note that it’s not confirmed yet why this guy crossed or what his plan was, so I’m speculating. Well, I’ll admit it: if enough people do this, it certainly will get...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 8, 2010

The Indictments Are Coming! The Indictments Are Coming!

Why do I blog? Because of stories like this: U.S. authorities plan to indict a New Zealand company allegedly involved in selling North Korean arms to Iran, sources linked to the investigation say. They are trying to track down shadowy figures using a labyrinth of thousands of Auckland companies registered to an office on Queen Street, Auckland’s main street. [Sydney Morning Herald] The significance of indicting the company is that the feds will probably tack on some criminal forfeiture counts,...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Law