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April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD
April 19, 2007

Anju Links for 19 April 2007

*   Cho Myong Rok, who is probably the second or third-most important North Korean official, is reported to be dying.  Cho is the one Kim Jong Il designated to visit Washington and meet with President Clinton years ago.  Doctors expect the 79-year-old vice marshal to live another month or two, as he already had one of his kidneys removed 10 years ago, and has gone through treatment for cancer in his intestines, the organization said.  Here’s a brief Global...

Categories "United" Nations/Korean Society/Kremlinology/WMD
April 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time: Bracing for a Missed Deadline, and the ‘Good’ Unilateralism

If you wonder just how fundamental our policy shift on North Korea has been — fundamentally bad, that is — just look at the fact that Bill Richardson’s amateur diplomacy toward Kim Jong Il is no longer being ignored by the White House  [AP, Foster Klug].  Six months ago, a Bill Richardson visit to his friends in Pyongyang would have followed some White House statements that Richardson was acting  on his own as a private citizen.  Today, as President Clinton...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/WMD
March 23, 2007

How Many North Koreans Was the World Program Really Feeding?

Update:   Paul Eckert of Reuters did a very fine interview with Marcus Noland.  “It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said. …. “When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said. “One of the saddest things...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/WMD
March 22, 2007

So Much for ‘Peace in Our Time’

[Sorry for the earlier comments glitch; please e-mail me if you have problems.]   OK, now the diplos have flown home.  Talks on halting North Korea’s nuclear program broke down abruptly on Thursday with the country’s chief nuclear envoy flying home after a dispute over money frozen in a Macau bank could not be resolved. Kim Kye Gwan flew out of Beijing after refusing to take part in six-party talks to push forward a February agreement calling for North Korea...

Categories "United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Russia & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 20, 2007

Anju Links for 3/20

*   Renaissance man Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid, has launched his new book, “Water from a Skull.” *    Missed the train, but  not the train wreck.  “Notice me!,” cries Ban Ki Moon, just as the February 13th deal starts to strike immovable objects, one  of which has  an atomic  mass of 238. *   I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:  the Japanese are an odd people. *   Don’t Forget to Ask for Receipts:...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Japan/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/WMD
March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 16, 2007

N. Koreans May Have Given U.N. Counterfeit $100 Bills

[A]  new twist now emerging in the Cash-for-Kim scandal is that while the UNDP has been giving Kim real money, Kim’s regime may have been handing over counterfeit banknotes to the UNDP–which apparently had a stack of counterfeit $100 bills sitting in its office-safe in Pyongyang.  [National Review] We owe this revelation to — who else? — Claudia Rosett.

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/WTF?
March 12, 2007

UN Official: ‘We were being used completely as an ATM machine for the regime.’

Since it looks like we’re about to unfreeze a few million  in North Korean funds from  Banco Delta Asia, it’s worth remembering that another easy source of cash, representing  about as many millions in annual income, has just been abruptly terminated.  The United Nations Development Programme office in Pyongyang, North Korea, sits in a Soviet-style compound. Like clockwork, a North Korean official wearing a standard-issue dark windbreaker and slacks would come to the door each business day. He would take...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid
March 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Financial Edition

North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan said Thursday that Pyongyang’s decision to halt nuclear facilities, as outlined in initial steps included in the Feb. 13 six-way agreement, will depend on the U.S. lifting of financial sanctions against North Korea.  [Kyodo News; ht Richardson] The U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks, Chris Hill, once said that “[l]ife is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang.”  It’s true that the North Koreans do more than their...

Categories "United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Google Earth/Money Laundering/Terrorism (NK)/WMD
February 23, 2007

The Administration’s North Korea Strategy: Pop Smoke

[Update: A friend just sent me John O’Sullivan’s must-read criticism of the deal on National Review Online (thanks!), and it’s an absolute direct hit. O’Sullivan actually attributed Bush’s new policy to Jimmy Carter (ouch!). Safe to say, conservatives pretty much all want this deal euthanized. I could swear I’d seen the Kipling reference before somewhere.] [Update 2: More “Barrel of a Gun” spin from Pyongyang: In another sense, North Korean authorities seem to be trying to re-integrate the disparity of...

Categories "United" Nations/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
February 17, 2007

Except for the Checks Being Written Out to ‘Herr A. Hitler,’ and The Dachau Industrial Park, Yes

Paying off Kim Jong Il is just like the Marshall Plan, says Roh. “There is frequent criticism that we are pouring out aid to the North,” Mr. Roh told South Korean residents in Italy. “After the war, the United States had several plans and investments, and among those the most efficient was the Marshall Plan. He noted the great benefits Washington had reaped from its investments: “Inter-Korean relations are being worked out, and we have the Kaesong Industrial Complex, but...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement
February 7, 2007

Why Is North Korea Even in the United Nations?

Claudia Rosett asks some very relevant questions about North Koreans, who are very likely regime intelligence assets, being given the U.N. equivalent of civil service examinations.  Successful completion of those examination would bring them into the General Secretariat.  I wonder what unsuccessful completion of those examinations would bring.  But I digress. I suppose that spying on the U.N. would not make North Korea unique, but  giving the world’s most  tyrannical  and belligerent nation  a key to  the Secretariat … now...

Categories "United" Nations
January 25, 2007

N. Korea Denies Misuse of UNDP Funds

Update 1/26:   The UNDP North Korea program has pretty much hit the wall.  The UN says  it will “adjust the North Korea program and delay its implementation” until “approved,” which most likely means until the audit is completed.   The U.S. annual allocation to the UNDP remains, but it has decided to withhold  all of those funds for the time being, and may propose an end to all UN programs in North Korea, except the humanitarian ones. Here’s the  one that really...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid
January 23, 2007

Lebanon on the Altar

Michael Totten reports, and has some pretty shocking pictures, and it’s depressingly doubtful that democracy can survive there. The Cedar Revolution will become a victim of Iranian infanticide and the amivalence of Europe, the United States, and other democracies to support it in its hour of need. The lesson comes through clearly: investing your nation’s survival in the United Nations and its French peacekeepers is like investing your savings in a partnership with that exiled Nigerian general who keeps e-mailing...

Categories "United" Nations/Iran/Islam/Terrorism/Iraq
January 22, 2007

Ban Ki Moon Orders Review of U.N. Programs

Update 2:  Reuters reports that Ban is now backtracking and saying that the new audits will focus only on  programs where the financial practices are shady.  Monday’s U.N. statement said Ban would assign auditors only to U.N. funds and programs “in countries where issues of hard currency transactions, independence of staff hiring and access to reviewing local projects are pertinent.”  Audits would be “simultaneously carried out in select cases of countries” identified by the funds and programs, it said.  Funding...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Washington Views
January 21, 2007

Hundreds of North Koreans Freeze to Death

In addition to the reports of a pandemic that’s now  afflicted thousands in  Chongjin, North Korea’s fourth-largest city, there is now word via the London Daily Telegraph that cold weather has  stranded and killed hundreds in the northeastern mountains: The men who finally made it into the remote highland village of Koogang were greeted by an eerie silence and a gruesome sight. Lying among the simple wooden huts and burnt remnants of wooden furniture, they found the bodies of 46...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid