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Category: Diplomacy

February 25, 2006

True to Form, World Food Program Caves in to NK Demands

When she’s not exposing the U.N.’s corruption, Claudia Rosett is exposing its general fecklessness and worthlessness on matters of substance. Ms. Rosett’s favorite case-in-point is North Korea, where she nails – dead-on – what’s wrong with the World Food Program’s approach to feeding the hungry. North Korea, unrestrained by any regard for the lives of its less-privileged citizens, pushes for more control over the food and less U.N. monitoring. The U.N. bureaucrats lack the testicular fortitude to push back, go...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/NK Economics/North Korea/Uncategorized
February 23, 2006

Caught in the Act!

I wonder what Roh Moo-Hyun will say this time. Rogue diplomats? North Korean diplomats were caught attempting to smuggle US$1 million and 200 million yen into Mongolia on Tuesday, the Mongolian press reported. Reports said the North Koreans told Mongolian authorities they were planning to put the money in a Mongolian bank account, according to Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. The paper said that it was unclear whether the money was counterfeit or not, and what measures the Mongolian authorities will take....

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Japan/NK Economics/North Korea/Uncategorized
February 22, 2006

Congress Criticizes State Dep’t on NK Refugees

[Updated; scroll down] Thanks to a dedicated group of Congressional staffers who forwarded me a scanned copy, which is signed by members of both parties and both houses. I’m going through WordPress hell trying to publish the entire text, but in the meantime, here’s a scanned copy on the Committee’s site.The executive summary is that Congress believes that State is turning away refugees, thus flouting its unanimous will and throwing away America’s credibility on this issue. Update: OK, full scanned...

Categories Activism/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 21, 2006

A Modest Drumbeat

The Chosun Ilbo and the  Donga Ilbo are looking at their calendars and seeing a slew of events that will further publicize human rights conditions in North Korea.  Will this be the year our nascent movement finally demonstrates some media sophistication? March:  The State Department  will publish its new human rights report (although I don’t have any reason to suspect anything earth-shaking to come of it).  March 23rd:  European Parliament hearings on North Korea; Freedom House conference in Brussels (we’re...

Categories Activism/Appeasement/Europe/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 18, 2006

Sec. Rice: Lefkowitz Will Be More Vocal

It’s the latest suggestion that the Administration is less worried than ever about upsetting Kim Jong Il: The United States will have its North Korea human rights envoy become more active in coming days to get more international attention on the issue, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday. “We are going to get him out more,” Rice said at a U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee hearing. “We need the rest of the international community to also...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 18, 2006

Comrade Chung Dong Young Wins Uri Leadership

Via Kyodo news, Comrade Chung has won an early test of his strength going into the 2007 presidential race. Chung, former unification minister, was elected by a vote at the party’s national convention in Seoul, defeating seven other candidates. He garnered 4,450 votes, beating his main rival and former Health and Welfare Minister Kim Geun Tae who obtained 3,847 votes in the eight-man race, according to Yonhap News Agency. “The Uri Party and I will fiercely compete with the (opposition)...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Korean Politics/Washington Views
February 17, 2006

Will U.S. Finally Let in N.K. Refugees?

It’s long past time we did this.  The U.S. government plans to break with long-established policy and start giving asylum to refugees from North Korea. Wording in the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act that allows it to admit defectors from the Stalinist country has not yet been put into practice due to failure to confirm identities and objections from countries where the refugees were staying. Prominent  activists for human rights in the North – Suzanne Scholte, Jae Ku, and...

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 16, 2006

Banco Delta Sanctions ‘Severe Blow’ to NK Economy

The Chosun Ilbo, relaying an AWSJ story, reports that the Treasury Department’s action against the Macau-based bank “dealt a severe blow to the secretive country,” “dried up its financial system,” and “brought foreign trade virtually to an end.” In December, I noted reports that North Korean front companies and spies were fleeing Macau en masse. According to today’s story, Banco Delta has now announced that it’s ending its financial ties with North Korea in an effort to prevent a run...

Categories Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/NK Economics/U.S. Law/Uncategorized
February 16, 2006

Defector: NK Cheerleaders Sent to Gulag

Who recalls the days when South Korea’s faith in reunification bordered on an obession – a religion, perhaps?  Nothing was more telling of the North Korean regime’s success at self-popularization in the South than the public swooning over a  squad of North Korean cheerleaders,  despite all the procrustean, regimented eeriness surrounding them.  Let’s look back at that time: This bustling South Korean port bid an emotional farewell Tuesday to a North Korean cheering squad whose presence at the Asian Games,...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Human Rights/Inside NK/Korean Politics/Korean Society/North Korea
February 15, 2006

Vershbow: I’ll Believe It When I See the Plates

The U.S. Ambassador to Korea, Alexander Vershbow, is taking the fight back to “enemy” territory, as predicted.  In an interview with OhMyNews, Vershow responded to North Korean comments that some have interpreted as North Korean flexibility on counterfeiting.  Vershbow is obviously familiar with North Korea’s track record, because he wants more tangible proof that North Korea is capable of sincerity and good faith: The U.S. ambassador to Korea, Alexander Vershbow, said yesterday that Pyongyang must show some “convincing evidence” that...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
February 15, 2006

NK ‘Spokesman’: We Have ICBMs!

Today’s WTF headline is this piece of work by Kim Myong Chol, North Korea’s unofficial and unmedicated spokesman in Japan. The real torment of this piece is the difficulty of deciding which of the choicest cuts to serve you: Three factors make North Korea unique. The first is possession of a fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of unleashing retaliatory nuclear strikes on the US mainland. Second, the North Koreans still torment the Americans as a result of their...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Asia/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Humor/Satire/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
February 15, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction: The Pyongyang Charm School

Everyone is ashamed of something in his past.  High on my own list is the time my brother persuaded me to read “The Charm School,” a Nelson Demille spy novel.  The plot premise was that  Moscow took custody American MIA’s from North Viet Nam to create a “charm school,” an exact replica of an  American  neighborhood, complete with American residents.  The idea was to immerse Soviet sleeper agents into their next work assignments. Unlike some other aspects of life in...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Japan/Japan & Korea/North Korea/Southeast Asia/WTF?
February 14, 2006

Ban Makes U.N. Candidacy Official

Ban Ki-Moon, South Korea’s Foreign Minister, chief promoter of appeasement of the North, and occasional provider of adult supervision to Roh Moo-Hyun’s government, is making official what has been known for months: he wants to be U.N. Secretary General. He would succeed Kofi Annan, who presided over the Oil-for-Food scandal, a procurement scandal, sexual abuse scandals, and several partially successful genocides without being driven out of office in shame (as if). Expect the Bush Administration to work quietly, behind the...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Asia/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Uncategorized
February 13, 2006

Bolton Speech Conspicuously Silent on N. Korea

The Friday event, at the Washington  Omni Shoreham, was by invitation only.  My friend, a very experienced news correspondent, forwards these notes in exchange for a promise of anonymity.  I edited slightly  for spelling and grammar: Bolton sounded fine, convincing enough, on the need for UN reform. I kept waiting for mention of N. Korea, thought it might be coming when he touched on Iran, but no. Wonder whether it was deliberate —  [the Administration]  or State Dept saying, “Don’t...

Categories Appeasement/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 12, 2006

Has George Bush Finally Put the Fear of God in Kim Jong Il?

Via Kyodo news: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il thinks his government could collapse if the United States continues to impose financial sanctions against the country, diplomatic sources close to the six-way talks on North Korea’s nuclear program told Kyodo News on Saturday. The sources said Kim made the remarks when Chinese President Hu Jintao asked him at their meeting in Beijing last month to drop the lifting of the sanctions as a condition for Pyongyang to return to the...

Categories China/China & Korea/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
February 12, 2006

$140,000 in N. Korean ‘Supernotes’ Found in Namdaemun

So South Korea really isn’t sure North Korea is counterfeiting our currency? Have a look at this: The South Korean government concealed the fact that U.S. investigators told it US$140,000 in counterfeit dollars found in Seoul’s Namdaemun market last April was made in North Korea, it emerged Sunday. Police at the time arrested three people who tried to exchange 1,400 so-called supernotes at a local money changer. They allegedly bought the supernotes from a broker in Shenyang, China. How do...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Uncategorized
February 12, 2006

Why ‘Liberator’?

One of our inspirations for the new site name is William Lloyd Garrison, an uncompromising abolitionist and editor of “The Liberator,” published from 1831 to 1865. Garrison published his final issue after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, eight months after the conclusion of the Civil War. Garrison was certainly not a man without flaws and rhetorical excesses (nor are we). He had a habit of publicly burning copies of the Constitution for its textual accomodations with slavery. In his...

Categories Activism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Uncategorized