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Category: Kremlinology

September 15, 2009

And Yet, Christine Ahn Wants You to Know that Sanctions Kill North Korean Babies

Italian customs recently confiscated 420 bottles of expensive liquor on their way to North Korea. Italian newspaper Vivere Ancona said customs in the eastern port city seized 150 bottles of brandy and 270 bottles of whisky in containers destined for North Korea at the end of last month. The confiscation follows a UN Security Council ban on the export of arms, high technology and luxury goods to North Korea after the communist country’s nuclear test in May. The liquor is...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy
September 11, 2009

That’s Going to Cause a Lot of Confusion at the Betting Windows

So, depending on which source you’ve just read, Kim Jong Un is now either officially confirmed as successor, or the succession has been suspended until further notice. One rumor has it that Jong Un’s undoing was his premature efforts to fire people, which happens to be exactly Ernst Rohm’s undoing (that, and the publication of his gay love letters in a Munich newspaper). For what it’s worth — and I’d say, very little — Kim Yong Nam denies the Mainichi...

Categories Kremlinology
September 5, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

The Daily Mail has republished photos, released yesterday by KCNA, showing Kim Jong Il visiting what’s described elsewhere as the Kim Jong Suk Sanitarium. The report doesn’t specify what city it’s in, but Kim Jong Suk is Kim Jong Il’s mother and a native of Hoeryong in North Hamgyeong Province. Many of the sites in Hoeryong are named after her. You’d think that a country that’s trying to show the vigor of its geriatric oligarch wouldn’t dress him in funereal...

Categories Kim Jong Il
August 27, 2009

Preventing Another “Three Kingdoms” Era

In The National Interest, Michael Green, the NSC’s primary Asia advisor during President Bush’s first term outlines a series of scary stages that he thinks are approaching rapidly as Kim Jong Il withers away and North Korea dies with him. The lines of fracture in such an opaque regime are extremely difficult to predict, of course, but most of Green’s analysis makes sense to me. First, Green says the current regime can’t be stabilized in the long term, and that...

Categories Kremlinology/Reconstruction/Regime Change
August 13, 2009

China Finally Enforcing N. Korea Sanctions, Kinda?

To say the very least, I remain deeply skeptical that China’s effort will be sustained, complete, or in good faith, but here are two stories that suggest to some degree, China is restricting trade with North Korea.  The first (as the reader who sent the link notes) comes directly from the ChiCom state media, so take it with a tablespoon of salt. Shan, who has run the corporation for 16 years, said he has forged close relations with officials in...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/Sanctions
August 12, 2009

The Palaces of Pyongyang on Google Earth

Congratulations to our friend Curtis Melvin, whose Google Earth imagery of a Kim Jong Il palace in north Pyongyang is currently the Chosun Ilbo’s top story. This palace, I should point out, is one of no less than six very large palaces I know of in the Pyongyang area alone, though I can’t confirm who lives in all of them: This is the one I posted pictures of previously. A Daily NK piece previously confirmed that it’s one of Kim...

Categories Google Earth/Kim Jong Il
August 2, 2009

Kim Kye-Gwan Purged?

Writing in the Asia Times, Don Kirk passes along reports that Kim Kye Gwan, the man who tricked Chris Hill into Agreed Framework II and a host of unilateral concessions that followed it, has been purged. He seems to have disappeared, and nobody has a clue as to whether he’s dead or alive, working on a chicken farm or sent to a prison for re-education. Analysts here believe Kim may have become a scapegoat for hardliners in the ascendancy in...

Categories Diplomacy/Kremlinology
July 17, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

Here at OFK, many posts and comments have ruminated about whether the North Korean regime really cares about how it’s portrayed in the foreign media.  That may be a silly question to ask in light of South Korea’s unnatural obsession with its image:  the ridiculous Tokdo evangelizing, the many Chosun Ilbo stories about the popularity of Korean food overseas, or the mischaracterization as a “Korean Wave” of Korea carving out its own proportionate market share of global culture.  An obsessive...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
July 13, 2009

S. Korean Sources Claim Kim Jong Il Has “Serious Disorder” of the Pancreas (Updated, Bumped: Pancreatic Cancer?)

This report comes from “a South Korean intelligence official” to “a Japanese television network” to AFP, and contains no detail about the alleged condition, so the uncertainties about the accuracy of this should be obvious: The TBS network reported that Kim has been resting and is being treated at his villa in the southeasten area of Wonsan by a team specialists.  The unidentified official told TBS Kim would be aware of the disorder which was made known to US and...

Categories Kim Jong Il
July 9, 2009

Succession Watch

According to Open Radio for North Korea, party officials are already announcing Kim Jong Un’s succession.  Me:  maybe so, but that doesn’t translate to him holding real power.  I’m still waiting for the KNCA tributes to his academic achievements, martial spirit, invention of a new edible grass, and his single-handed responsibility for the Great DOS Attack of 2009.  Nor is there any reason to think that KJU would rule differently than his father did.  Strawman: But he went to school...

Categories Kremlinology/Propaganda
July 8, 2009

Is Kim Jong Il Dying?

Broadly speaking, we all are, but if you ever see a face this dessicated in the mirror, seek medical attention.  Kim Jong Il emerged from his seclusion, reportedly from one of his seaside palaces where he’d been recovering from a stroke, to attend a memorial for his late god-king father.  The man looks liked warmed-over death, and he needs some Rogaine:   (Photo credit:  Reuters / KRT) A comparison of these pictures to images of the 67 year-old thug from...

Categories Kim Jong Il
July 3, 2009

Kremlinology Update

Kim Jong-Il’s third son, the likely successor to the North Korean leader, has been appointed acting defence chief under his ailing father, a Japanese newspaper reported on Saturday. Kim Jong-Un started supporting his father as acting chairman of North Korea’s National Defence Commission, the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun said, quoting unnamed sources close to North Korean leadership. [AFP] I don’t believe one word of it. Even if Kim Jong Il were incapacitated — a possibility I certainly wouldn’t...

Categories Kremlinology
June 26, 2009

Nothing Says “Democratic Peoples’ Republic” Like a New S-Class

A recent report claims that even as North Korea was preparing missile and nuclear tests, China helped North Korea flout a U.N. Security Council Resolution for which it voted and which it has promised to implement in good faith.  UNSCR 1718, in effect since October 2006, bans the export of luxury goods to North Korea.  It has since been reinforced by UNSCR 1874: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il doled out foreign-made cars to senior intelligence officials to ensure their...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology
June 25, 2009

Ling and Lee Families Hold Vigil in San Francisco

The husband of an American journalist jailed in North Korea says his wife sounded scared during a recent phone call and described her confinement as “bearable.” Iain Clayton, the husband of Laura Ling, said Wednesday his wife called him on Sunday night. He said although she tried to be strong on the phone, he could tell she was worried. [….] Clayton also says Ling’s medical condition has deteriorated and Lee has developed a medical problem. Ling reportedly suffers from an...

Categories Kremlinology/Ling/Lee Incident
June 20, 2009

Chosun Ilbo: Kim Jong Il’s Health Failing Rapidly

If he looks like Jagger in Vegas at 4 a.m., there might be a reason: The health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is rapidly deteriorating, prompting the hasty decision to name his third son Jong-un as heir apparent, sources told the Chinese press. The Global News, a sister paper of the official People’s Daily, on Thursday quoted a foreign ambassador in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il’s fragile health made the situation in North Korea “very complicated.”  [….] A...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 15, 2009

Did Kim Jong Un Try to Assassinate Kim Jong Nam?

Life imitates Austin Powers! An aide to Kim Jong Un, the third and youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, planned to assassinate Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, KBS television reported Monday.  The plan was foiled by Chinese authorities, KBS said, citing a Chinese government source.  [Kyodo News] Well, maybe, but it’s too good not to blog.  Other Kim Jong Un rumors hold that he was actually in China recently as a “special...

Categories Kremlinology/WTF?
June 13, 2009

Change Has Come to North Korea!

How much hope do you suppose the sullen masses in Hamhung feel at the prospect of another generation of this? The youngest son of North Korea’s leader has been given the title of Brilliant Comrade, a newspaper reported on Friday, another sign that the Communist regime is preparing to name him as successor to its leader, Kim Jong-il. Intelligence authorities from the United States and South Korea disclosed this week that Kim Jong-un, 26, is now being referred to in...

Categories Kremlinology/Propaganda