Category: “United” Nations

December 15, 2012

Obama Administration’s N. Korea policy evolves from the 90s to the 60s.

Not surprisingly, North Korea’s missile test is bringing out a lot of criticism of President Obama’s North Korea policy, but sometimes, that criticism writes itself.  Writing at The Cable, Josh Rogin tells us that just as Kim Jong Un was counting down the launch sequence between drags on a smuggled Marlboro, Wendy Sherman and the State Department’s crack team of Asia experts were relaxing at a cocktail party in honor of — smack your forehead now — the Emperor of...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/Diplomacy/U.S. Military

December 6, 2012

North Korea’s missile test will be Susan Rice’s big chance to be effective (for a change). Update: They did it.

As North Korea completes preparations for its latest ICBM test, the United States, Japan, and South Korea are trying to deter it with state-of-the art, laser-guided words.  Success, while unlikely, isn’t completely out of the question; after all, Kim Jong Un seemed to be preparing to conduct a nuke test several months ago, but never went through with it.  If Kim Jong Un really did defer a nuke test, I have no idea why, but it probably wasn’t because he wants...

Categories "United" Nations/Missiles/Sanctions

May 20, 2012

Kim Jong Un Buys up Luxuries; Christine Ahn Attributes Famine, Cannibalism Reports to “Political Bias”

When North Korea tried and failed to launch its Unha-3 rocket this year, it not only chose that launch instead of a big shipment of American food aid as the price of keeping quiet until November, it also lost the six-month supply of grain it could have bought with the money it cost to build the damn thing to begin with. But it’s good to see that those choices haven’t cramped the lifestyles of any North Koreans fortunate enough to...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy

April 15, 2012

Who Else Flubbed N. Korea’s Rocket Launch? The Press, the U.N., and the Obama Administration

By now, everyone knows that the North’s missile test was a fiasco, but North Koreans don’t have this fiasco all to themselves. For example, until the day of the launch, the North had never done a better of job handling of the foreign press. It had successfully co-opted the largest wire service in the United States into a megaphone for its propaganda, and it had so effectively focused much of the rest of the U.S. media on its stage-managed rocket...

Categories "United" Nations/AP Watch/Media Criticism/Missiles

April 8, 2012

Kang Chol Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok Petition the U.N. for the Release of Their Family Members

While researching an unrelated post, I stumbled on this brief (opens in .pdf), filed just this week on behalf of Kang Cho-Hwan and Shin Dong-Hyok, and authored by international human rights lawyer Jared Genser. Kang, for those not familiar with him, is a survivor of Camp 15, author of “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” and now a correspondent for the widely circulated South Korean daily, the Chosun Ilbo. According to the brief, Kang’s sister and her 11-year old son disappeared last...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/The Camps

March 14, 2012

Fisticuffs now officially more likely to save innocent life than appealing to the U.N.

Sure, we can complain that the United Nations has become a farce, but hey, we all elected for ’em, right? So you’ve heard that there are lives to be saved, and international conventions that would save them, if only some effective international body was capable of enforcing those conventions. Enter a group of members of the South Korean National Assembly, who flew to Geneva to make an appeal to the U.N. Human Rights Council to save about 30 North Korean...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Refugees

November 25, 2011

Darusman Disappoints (Me, Mostly)

Maruzki Darusman gave a press conference this morning to convey the results of his six-day trip to South Korea. The contents of my report on the event were published by Daily NK  at the time, and are also republished below; Maruzki Darusman, the UN’s special rapporteur on North Korean human rights issues, believes there has been no improvement since he took on the role in 2010, and has once again urged Pyongyang to take action to remedy its multitude of...

Categories "United" Nations/Abductions/China

June 14, 2011

Another North Korean Vessel Intercepted, Turned Around

In an incident reminiscent of the Kang Nam I incident, a U.S. Navy ship has forced another suspected North Korean arms ship to turn around at sea, rather than face the risk of being searched in port. David Sanger of the New York Times reports: The most recent episode began after American officials tracked a North Korean cargo ship, the M/V Light, that was believed to have been involved in previous illegal shipments. Suspecting that it was carrying missile components,...

Categories "United" Nations/Anju Links/Sanctions/U.S. Military

June 11, 2011

IAEA report concludes that North Korea aided Syria in nuclear proliferation

Recently, a friend provided me a bootleg copy (thanks) of an International Atomic Energy Agency report implicating North Korea and its Syrian client in violating IAEA safeguards by developing a clandestine nuclear weapons capability. The IAEA doesn’t appear to have released the report publicly; it appears to have been leaked. With that said, it’s really nothing we haven’t known since the spring of 2008, when congressional pressure finally forced Chris Hill to lift his embargo on all information related to...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/Proliferation/WMD

May 16, 2011

U.N. Report Implicates China in N. Korea-Iran Missile Transfers; China Tries to Block Said Report

If Iran, Iraq, and North Korea are an Axis of Evil, then China must be the Limited-Slip Differential of the Axis of Evil: North Korea and Iran appear to have been regularly exchanging ballistic missile technology in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to a confidential U.N. report obtained by Reuters on Saturday. The report said the illicit technology transfers had “trans-shipment through a neighboring third country.” That country was China, several diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity. [Reuters] China...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Proliferation/WMD

October 30, 2010

Ban Ki Moon calls on everyone (except Kim Jong Il) to cover North Korea’s grocery bils.

As I noted the other day, North Korea has announced its traditional million-ton food production shortfall for this year. True to form, its government has found a uniquely obnoxious way to address this that has nothing to do with increasing domestic food production or diverting foreign exchange toward the purchase of food: North Korea demanded massive food aid from South Korea in return for concessions over a reunion programme for separated families, a Seoul official said. The demand for 500,000...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid

July 12, 2010

China’s North Korean Puppet Is Getting Away With Murder … Again (Updated, Bumped)

[Update 12 Jul 2010: I’ve located the full text of the Presidential Statement, and contrary to reports I linked below, it does use the word “attack.” It takes note of “the findings of the Joint Civilian-Military Investigation Group led by the ROK with the participation of five nations, which concluded that the DPRK was responsible for sinking the Cheonan” before noting North Korea’s denial. But because the statement is completely toothless, none of this was terribly upsetting to the North...

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/China & Korea

July 1, 2010

In Their Desperation to Meet With Ban Ki-Moon, N. Korean Gulag Survivors Try Borrowing a White Guy

North Korean gulag survivors are knocking on Ban Ki-Moon’s door, asking for a meeting to tell him what he’s known for a decade — that the North Korean prison camps they lived to tell about, no thanks to Ban, are the Mauthausens and Buchenwalds of our time. Odd thing is, it would be a lot easier for Ban to simply not answer if former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik weren’t knocking with them: “The profound suffering of the North...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights/The Camps

June 23, 2010

If You Want the U.N. to Fail, Then Ban Ki Moon Is Your Man

Let it never be said that Ban Ki-Moon’s U.N. can’t fail at more than one thing at the same time. While North Korea’s attack on a South Korean warship goes unanswered at the U.N. thanks to Chinese obstructionism and weak U.N. leadership, North Korea’s refugee crisis goes unaddressed due to … Chinese obstructionism and weak U.N. leadership. When it comes to North Korea, the U.N. has proved a highly effective instrument for China to prop up its puppet, and just...

Categories "United" Nations

June 19, 2010

Is the Obama Administration Ready for Plan B at Last?

Well, finally! The Obama administration is considering going after the assets of North Korean entities and individuals to punish Pyongyang after the sinking of a South Korean warship, sources familiar with the matter said on Friday. Freezing offshore assets would be the first tangible U.S. action to make North Korea pay a price for the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan corvette in which 46 South Korean sailors died. Pyongyang has denied responsibility for the incident. While there have been...

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions

June 7, 2010

China’s Support for Kim Jong Il Undermines the U.N., Nonproliferation, and Regional Peace

Some of us, of course, have never really believed that the United Nations could play much of a useful role in restraining North Korea anyway, other than helping us enlist the support of Old Europe, which is almost alone in paying any heed to the U.N. After all, the institution is led by Ban Ki-Moon, who rose from local obscurity to international obscurity by appeasing Kim Jong Il, and who, by all outward appearances, suffers from a genetic testosterone deficiency....

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Sanctions

June 4, 2010

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen Pays Respects to Cheonan Victims

From Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s staff: U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, had flowers placed on her behalf at South Korea ‘s Daejeon National Cemetery in honor and memory of those lost on the Republic of Korea naval ship Cheonan. Statement by Ros-Lehtinen: “As we conclude Memorial Day observances in the U.S. and South Korea and honor the sacrifices of our military personnel, I would like to take the opportunity to, once again, express...

Categories "United" Nations/Cheonan Incident/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views

June 1, 2010

Human Rights Updates

The former laughingstock called the National Human Rights Commission of Korea is planning to release a North Korea human rights “road map” this fall. On a related note, congratulations to Open News’s Young Howard, who now has the cred and the means to host a conference on human rights in North Korea. Open News also notes that Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has emerged as a leading advocate of this issue to the still-worthless Ban Ki-Moon and a...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Human Rights/Uncategorized