July 2014 – Page 3

July 8, 2014

Refugees’ lives may depend on interpretations of Sino-Korean consular agreement

Human rights advocates have long contended that China’s repatriation of North Korean refugees violates international law, including obligations China undertook voluntarily in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1969 Protocol. A U.N. Commission of Inquiry recently added its weight to that contention and strongly criticized China’s disregard of that Convention. [Suzanne Scholte and Rep. Park Sun-young protest outside the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, 2012] Some rights advocates have hoped that the COI’s report would force China to alter its refugee-deportation policy,...

China & Korea/Refugees

July 7, 2014

Continental drift: U.S. alliances erode despite “pivot” to Asia

Xi Jingping has departed from Seoul, where he couldn’t quite bring himself to agreeing to a joint statement with Park Geun Hye calling for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. But the statement stopped short of directly urging North Korea to give up its nuclear program, only vaguely calling for all members of the six-party nuclear talks to resolve the issue through dialogue and abide by their 2005 denuclearization-for-aid deal. [Yonhap] Some of the dire declarations I’ve seen that...

Abductions/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Russia & Korea

July 4, 2014

How can NK News cover Pyongyang better than AP’s Pyongyang bureau?

Chad O’Carroll of NK News has managed to collect enough photographs of that collapsed Pyongyang apartment building – all taken from the Juche Tower over a five-week period – to narrow the time of the collapse down to half a day. O’Carroll’s finding actually confirms KCNA’s official account of the time of the collapse, and as O’Carroll admits, also refutes his initial skepticism of that account. O’Carroll has even created and published a .gif animation of these photographs, in which...

AP Watch/Media Criticism

July 3, 2014

Open Sources, July 3, 2014

~ 1 ~ AP’S JEAN LEE WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE that she became a target for lifting the curtain on North Korea, but Jean Lee really became a target for trying to tell us that the curtain was North Korea. Also, I can’t believe she keeps saying things like this: “People often assume that our work is censored, but the North Koreans know that that’s a red line, that the AP would never tolerate censorship. So none of our material is...

Anju Links

July 2, 2014

RFA: N. Korea tells overseas trade reps not to use the internet

In our latest of edition of North Korea Perestroika Watch, Radio Free Asia, citing identified sources speaking on condition of anonymity, reports that Pyongyang has instructed its overseas money-men to stop using the internet. The regime is even threatening to seize their work and personal laptaps to enforce the order. The trade workers tell RFA that the order, which even includes the use of e-mail, is impeding their ability to do their jobs and earn foreign currency. A source living in China along...

NK Economics/Sunshine

July 1, 2014

“Happy Fourth of July!” – Kim Jong Un

It is already the 2nd of July in Korea, where Yonhap is reporting more missile launches off North Korea’s East Coast. This time, the missiles are said to be KN-09 cruise missiles,* a brand whose alleged proliferation to the North recently generated controversy between two bloggers, each of whom is not me. The latest launch follows the weekend launch of two short-range (300-mile) SCUDs missiles into the Sea of Japan from the vicinity of Wonsan. (Here is KCNA’s commentary on...

Abductions/Japan/Missiles

Monthly Archive: July, 2014