Category: Anju Links

The most ironic argument the administration has advanced to support the bombing of Syria is that it’s necessary to send a message of credible deterrence to North Korea, against its own use of weapons of mass destruction. There’s a lot to unpack there, so I’ll summarize my arguments first and expand on them below. First, I agree that we (and many other nations) have a compelling interest in deterring the use of WMD. I wouldn’t have put it quite that...

THREE MILLION DEATHS IS A STATISTIC, BUT A DEAD PORN STAR IS A HEADLINE! Sure, I guess the nominal leader of a regime that starved 2.5 million people to death and killed another 400,000 in concentration camps is capable of having his ex and a bunch of her musician friends machine-gunned. I can even believe that North Koreans can buy video cameras and make porn, although I incline more to the view that, if any part of this story is...

CALL ME OLD FASHIONED–it’s fine, really, I’m used to it–but I fail to see what’s so hard-line about the idea, most recently advanced by John McCain, that restarting six-party talks ought to be contingent on North Korea demonstrating its seriousness about disarming, such as by beginning to disarm. That’s pretty much the same view the Obama Administration had stated publicly, although it seems necessary to clarify it when North Korea has, more times than I could count, said it will never give up its nukes, when...

NOW THAT EVERYONE HAS SUDDENLY DISCOVERED THAT North Korea has a meth problem, I thought I’d link this five-year-old post and let you read (or reread) what OFK readers read way back when. (There’s plenty more where that came from if you put “meth” or “heroin” in the search window.) This is a perfect example of why we need sources like the Daily NK so badly.  They are the first harbingers of emerging social, economic, and political trends that will have important...

HAVES AND CAN’T HAVES:  Two million North Koreans have “authorized” cell phones; meanwhile, the regime is cracking down on the unauthorized kind.  I default to skepticism of any self-serving claims that a transaction involving the government of North Korea will result in social or political changes in North Korean society, but Orascom may be the one exception I’m willing to acknowledge.  I don’t think any state can monitor that many phones, and in a society where money can buy anything, more...

To all of the regular and not-so-regular OFK readers– Thank you for your regular visits, comments, criticisms, and interest over the last nine years. This morning, I begin work on an important project that is incompatible with continued posting, so I must suspend posting for a few months. That won’t be easy for me. This site had become an outlet for recreational thinking, and for beliefs I hold strongly. It had also become a part of my daily mental equilibrium...

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR PROFILES Alejandro Cao de Benos, who was interviewed for OFK by our friend Enzo in 2010. For a starving country, North Korea certainly does a brisk trade in size 52 extra-fat uniforms. What’s most striking about Cao’s claims that North Korea has no hunger or human rights violations isn’t their blatant mendacity, really. It’s the fact that a KCNAP consumer could easily believe every word of it. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~...

MUST SEE: Marcus Noland, speaking to the Lowy Institute in Australia, thinks that North Korea is slipping back into famine.  He thinks that the North Korea people have adapted enough that a 1990s-scale famine can be avoided, but consider this in the context of Noland’s finding that the regime itself has probably had a current account surplus since 2011. On the other hand, Kim Jong Un loves Mickey Mouse, amusement parks, the NBA, and dolphins, so reform, prosperity, and perestroika are...

WATCH THIS: HT to LiNK and to Rodney. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ YES, JAY, like Hitler. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ANOTHER NORTH KOREAN SPY has been caught posing as a defector....

THE PIANIST KIM CHEOL WOONG, whom Melanie Kirkpatrick wrote about in “Escape from North Korea,” will be here in the D.C. area to play two performances this weekend.  One will be at the “home theater” of conductor Lorin Maazel, of all people, in Castleton, Virginia, on Saturday evening.  The other will be on Sunday, March 24th, and will be sponsored by a new group, NKUS (site in Korean only).  Henry Song of the North Korean Freedom Coalition calls them the...

SPOILER ALERT: The AP says “UN sanctions may play into North Korean propaganda.” I’m sure they’re in a perfect position to forecast that. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ NORTH KOREA, WHICH WAS REMOVED from the list of state sponsors on October 11, 2008, has moved some long-range 170mm guns and 240mm rockets (which are capable of...

Since we last visited Kim Jong Il’s big dig almost five years ago, North Korea has continued to make progress on its most sinister-looking airfield.  According to Global Security, it’s called Kang Da Ri. The first image is from November 11, 2002.  This series of images shows how the project has progressed steadily up through August 9, 2011: These final images show close-ups of the north tunnel entrance … … and this bridge, which will allow aircraft to cross over...

Hearings at the House Foreign Affairs Committee have traditionally been occasions when Special Envoys related their latest efforts to get North Korea to agree to behave until it chooses not to. Invariably, most of the Democrats would applaud them for it, most of the Republicans would express mild skepticism, and the Congress as a whole would defer. Until now, there was never any other alternative up for discussion.  Today’s hearing was a break with that tradition. It was the first...

THE U.S. GOVERNMENT WILL BACK a long-belated U.N. human rights probe of North Korea. *          *          * NOT FOR THE FIRST TIME, North Korean defectors allege that the regime uses political prisoners to dig tunnels for its nuclear tests, and then executes them.  I found no evidence to support that charge in the imagery, but I couldn’t rule it out, either. *          *          *...