April 2011

April 29, 2011

North Koreans Hard at Work on New Uranium Reactor

Images published yesterday by ISIS show fresh construction adjacent to North Korea’s old 5-megawatt reactor, the one that eventually became the exclusive focus of two failed agreed frameworks. For comparison, here’s an image of the same reactor from February 17, 2007, coincidentally just days after the second agreed framework was signed. The cooling tower in the image was blown up in ceremonial spectacle for the media, and some of the equipment inside the main reactor building (on the right) was...

Anju Links/Proliferation/WMD

April 29, 2011

My Thoughts Exactly!

Enough of this crap already.

Humor/Satire

April 28, 2011

North Korea Sort-of Admits Cheonan Sinking?

Buried within the latest AP report on Jimmy Carter’s visit to North Korea was this wonderful morsel: Carter said North Korean officials expressed deep regret for the deaths on the South Korean warship Cheonan and for the civilians killed in the island shelling. But, he said, it was clear that “they will not publicly apologize and admit culpability for the Cheonan incident.” North Korea denies sinking the ship, despite an South Korea-led international investigation that blamed the country. It says...

Cheonan Incident/Useful Idiocy

April 25, 2011

Even the North Koreans think Jimmy Carter is a tool.

I seldom find myself agreeing with the North Koreans on much, but it gives me strange comfort to find that they share my contempt for America’s worst ex-president: In a memoir about her months as a prisoner in North Korea, Ling records that North Korean officials were infuriated by her suggestion that Carter be enlisted as the high-profile American to come retrieve her. They viewed Carter as washed-up and out of office for too long — a retread unfit to...

Anju Links/Famine & Food Aid/Useful Idiocy

April 21, 2011

Robert Park Op-Ed in the Washington Post

Despite my rather complex views of Mr. Park, one can say that keeping these issues in the public eye means something good coming of his ill-advised actions. At least now, people should disregard that televised “confession” of his. Speaking of North Korea and hostage negotiations, don’t miss Claudia Rosett’s revelations about what the North Koreans really think of Jimmy Carter. Oh, and a Japanese newspaper is reporting that the North Koreans have arrested two Japanese on drug charges. Seriously. What...

Robert Park

April 21, 2011

North Korea Freedom Week Schedule: April 24 – May 1, 2011

Updated: Updated the schedule and fixed a link below. For those of you who haven’t been checking the NK Freedom Coalition website on a near daily basis of late to get the greatly updated schedule for North Korea Freedom Week, it’s finally out! One thing that’s very interesting, and I’ll leave it to Joshua or Chris to comment on, the list of sponsors: The Ministry of Unification; the Ministry of Culture and Tourism; the City of Seoul; various newspapers...

Activism/Human Rights

April 19, 2011

Kucinich Is the One on the Right

I briefly interrupt my hiatus to give you this to gawk upon: The Daily Show – Dennis Kucinich’s Improbable SuccessTags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook Kucinich, the Congressgnome from Middle Earth, has made a few appearances in this blog for being the main congressional backer of Christine Ahn’s National Campaign to End the Korean War. Anyway, it disappoints me to see Kucinich nudged out of Congress by non-democratic means, whether those means involve...

Useful Idiocy/WTF?

April 13, 2011

North Korea Gets Another Free Chip

While we don’t know any of the details, and so my resigned sigh might turn out to have been unfair, I cannot say it surprised me this morning to learn that there are still American citizens capable of getting themselves arrested in and around North Korea despite this, this and this, not to mention this, and it will surprise me even less should I find that the North Koreans use it as a way to try and undercut the ongoing...

Anju Links

April 8, 2011

Jimmy Goes on Vacation (Again)

I would have enjoyed writing about how Jimmy Carter is highly unlikely to help anyone by going to North Korea, how he will be used by the Kim Jong-il regime for its own propaganda purposes, about how, since he has little to no chance of extracting a message of remorse from the North for the killing of innocent civilians on Yeonpyeong Island, he is only likely to burnish his own reputation as a man of peace but without any tangible...