22 February 2010: The End of the Age of Unifictions

Some 56 percent of South Koreans have a negative view of North Korea and 70 percent feel threatened by the North’s nuclear arms, a poll suggests. But 87 percent support another inter-Korean summit. [….]

“The percentage of people with a negative view of the North in the latest poll is now as high as before the Sunshine Policy,” said Choi Jin-wook, a senior researcher at KINU. “It seems that the poll reflects how people were affected” by the North’s second nuclear test, long-range rocket launch, and an inter-Korean skirmish in the West Sea last year.

Some 90.8 percent of respondents said there is a “slim” chance that the North will abandon its nuclear weapons. Some 53.1 percent believe that there has been no big progress in inter-Korean relations while 15.8 percent said relations deteriorated. Some 51.5 percent hold the North responsible for the worse relations. A vast majority, or 80.3 percent, of respondents approved of the South Korean demand to investigate the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist at Mt. Kumgang resort in July 2008 and promise prevention of similar incidents as preconditions for resuming package tours to Mt. Kumgang. [Chosun Ilbo]

The dissolution of the unifiction fad that peaked during my time in Korea relieving, but the distrust of North Korea and hatred of America aren’t mutually exclusive, either. South Korean public opinion is so unstable and fundamentally anti-American that it’s difficult for any South Korean president to behave like an ally of the United States, as opposed to a dependent. Probably the best that can be done is to slowly weed out and fire the teachers who continue to indoctrinate South Korean children with fascist ideology.

[Update: More from the Joongang Ilbo.]

Another sign that South Korea continues to move right: Park Geun-Hye is polling well for the next presidential election, which is still two years away. A lot can change in two years in Korea. []

More evidence that the sanctions are working: weapons interdictions are certainly a good thing, but my suspicion is that Treasury’s warnings to financial institutions are having the greatest impact.

North Korea can’t keep the lights on at night or feed its people, but somehow, it finds the money to buy expensive gear to detect and jam cell phones, and the electricity to run it:

One defector, who uses the alias Han Kyung Il, was previously in contact with relatives in Onsung-kun, North Hamgyong province, in North Korea.

“The North Korean authorities are jamming cell phone signals, and it is practically impossible to make a call,” he said in an interview. “You can switch phone cards, and the call appears to go through, but nobody in North Korea picks up.

North Korea also appears to have made overseas purchases of expensive cell phone tracking and jamming equipment, which it has installed at various locations in Shinuiju, Hyesan, and Hweryong in the border area near China, according to North Koreans living in border areas as well as those in South Korea.

North Koreans in the border areas–still reeling from a recent currency devaluation that wiped out many people’s savings–say this new difficulty in communications has made it harder to request much needed assistance from North Korean defectors in South Korea. [Radio Free Asia]

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North Korea releases census data: While there’s little reason for confidence in any data compiled by the North Korean regime itself, there’s a nice hat tip to Curtis at the end.

Another earthquake in North Korea’s far northeast.

More on the penetration of North Korea by independent journalism.

, from someone who fought and endured loss to accomplish it.

Anti-Semitic incidents are now at their highest level since World War II.