Open Sources, May 23, 2014

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SO, TO SUMMARIZE yesterday’s NLL excitement, North Korea fired artillery “near” a South Korean patrol boat off Yeonpyeong Island (which North Korea shelled in 2010), South Korea (borrowing from the North Korean lexicon) threatened a “merciless counterattack” if provoked, North Korea said it never fired but South Korea did, and South Korea called that “a blatant lie.”

Now tell me which Korea was more transformed by the Sunshine Policy.

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WHY BUILDINGS FALL DOWN IN PYONGYANG, in a nutshell: Corruption, concrete mixed with mud and coal embers, thin wire instead of re-bar, unskilled labor, and corruption (did I mention corruption?). Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un, who had associated himself with the haste of the new construction — and still does — is now also trying to associate himself with safer construction, while scapegoating others for the collapse. Not everyone is buying that line:

Requsting anonymity, one senior defector explained to Daily NK, “Kim Jong Eun goes back and forth. On the one hand he focuses on building up Changjeon Street as part of ‘gift politics’ for high-ranking cadres. It’s like he has nothing to do with this particular collapse. If anyone must pay for this collapse of this apartment, it’s Kim Jong Eun.” [Daily NK]

Much like the failure of the Unha-3 rocket launch two years ago, this is a failure that not even Kim Jong Un can hide.

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BULLSH*T POLL ALERT: A Yonhap news story claims that “[n]ine out of 10 South Korean experts support lifting or easing of sanctions imposed on North Korea four years ago following its deadly attack, a poll showed Thursday.” Read on, however, and you see that this was an e-mail poll of 113 “experts” selected by something called the “Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice.” If the words “economic justice” alone aren’t a dead giveaway, the CCEJ is a political pressure group that advocates redistributionist economic policies and an expansion of the welfare state. It even has a “Central Committee!” Da, tovarishch!

This isn’t to deny that South Korea has real problems with public integrity, business ethics, or crony capitalism, but let’s just say this NGO doesn’t represent South Korea’s political mainstream. Yonhap might have told us this, but didn’t. You may now speculate on your own about how the CCEJ selected its representative sample of 113 impartial experts. It’s a particularly lazy form of journalism that will turn any faxed press release into a “news” story without questioning the source.

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REPORT: CUBA WILL GET OFF with a slap on the wrist for violating the U.N.’s North Korea sanctions resolutions. That does not make a very encouraging first impression of Erik Marzolf, the new leader of the U.N. Panel of Experts.

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THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM would like you to know that (notwithstanding all the other crap Kim Jong Un is spending is money on) “2.4 million infants, children and pregnant women” in North Korea still need food aid.