Category: Anju Links

So I wasn’t able to make it to Korus House to see the Venerable Pomnyun speak, but the Hankroyeh, of all places, cites him as saying that two thousand people have starved to death in North Korea since The Great Confiscation. I’m tempted to fall back on ordinarily reliable maxim that everything the Hanky publishes is false just because it’s published in the Hanky, but in this case, it’s slightly more complicated than that. First, it’s likely that that many...

The Wall Street Journal’s Melanie Kirkpatrick, a very nice person with whom I’ve exchanged some e-mails, has an article on Christianity in South Korea. Interesting reading, even for those of us who prefer our religion much less organized. The statistic that 40% of South Korean Christians are Pentecostal is both remarkable and unsurprising. (Corrected, thanks.) ________________________________ Because I’m a sucker for such things, let me direct you to Coming Anarchy’s fascinating Google Map of drone strikes in Pakistan. The anti-anti-terrorist...

It may be almost as revealing as the White House’s concern about growing military (and nuclear?) cooperation between North Korea and Burma that David Albright, asked to comment by the Washington Post, takes a strikingly alarmist point of view about these new developments. Albright, you will recall, had said for years that the Bush Administration had inflated fears that North Korea had an undeclared uranium enrichment program. I don’t suppose that I will ever be in agreement with David Albright...

South Korea is still in the dark about the four alleged South Korean “trespassers” in North Korean custody: Yet no NGOs, religious organizations or defectors’ groups operating near the North Korean border with China say any of their members have been nabbed in the North. “Even a North Korean border official I spoke with over the phone recently had heard no rumors related to the latest announcement,” one NGO worker said. [Chosun Ilbo] _____________________________ Open News explains why it may...

So North Korea claims to have detained four South Korean “trespassers.” Even worse, KCNA denies us the amusement of the term “relevant organ.” I was waiting to post on this until I actually knew who they were or where they were detained, but several days later, the North Koreans are still the only ones who do know. Then there is still the matter of the American whom the North Koreans claim defected to them several weeks back. Assuming this isn’t...

Only a few more days left to vote for LiNK! ____________ Must Read No. 1: Christian Whiton, “How to Weaken Kim’s Grip” ____________ Must Read No. 2: B.R. Myers, “North Korea’s Race Problem” ____________ Must Read No. 3: Don Kirk writes on China and sanctions-busting. ____________ Despite all the food aid North Korea is receiving, one-third of North Koreans are still in need. ____________ Oh, No: I sense a great disturbance in the force. ____________ You Don’t Say, Pt. 1:...

Kim Jong-Eun still has a way to go to gain the adoration, much less acceptance, of the North Korean elites: According to a high-level source, the nickname of Kim Jong-il’s heir, Kim Jong-Eun, is “the little one.” According to multiple sources, the North Korean elites officially call Kim Jong-Eun “the great leader” and “successor of the great accomplishments of the military-first policy,” but inofficially, Kim Jong-Eun is referred to as “the little one. “The little one” is usually used in...

Some 56 percent of South Koreans have a negative view of North Korea and 70 percent feel threatened by the North’s nuclear arms, a poll suggests. But 87 percent support another inter-Korean summit. [….] “The percentage of people with a negative view of the North in the latest poll is now as high as before the Sunshine Policy,” said Choi Jin-wook, a senior researcher at KINU. “It seems that the poll reflects how people were affected” by the North’s second...

Two must-read articles in Foreign Policy by my friend Professor Sung Yoon Lee, on the topics of Kim Jong Il’s mortality and how to manage North Korea’s reconstruction. I don’t agree with all of the ideas, but they’re well worth reading. I wish I had time to analyze them in more depth, but I haven’t had time to so much as skim them myself yet.____________________________________ Been meaning to link this one for a few days — Kushibo notes that President...

Not that they’d likely accomplish much anyway, but Kim Jong Il continues to balk at returning to six-party talks. The absence of any excuse to pay Kim Jong Il off is always a good thing, I suppose. Not that China needs one.________________________ North Korea launches another crackdown on cell phones. I don’t understand how Orascom hopes to establish itself in this sort of environment. A serious question for anyone who knows: why does North Korea think it can control Orascom...

I’m a sports agnostic and the Olympics especially boring to me, but I’m gratified there will be no wretch-inducing hippie unifiction of the Korean Olympic teams this year. The dishonesty of it — the moral decision to intentionally overlook what the North Korean regime really represents — always grated on me.________________ South Korea says the time is not ripe for cross-border tourism. A good case could be made that the exorbitant price the North Koreans charge for these tours triggers...

The folks at Slate (and one reader, thanks) e-mailed me this review of Nothing to Envy, which contemplates the problem of breaking down North Korea’s isolation: The answer is one that policy-makers from Washington to Seoul often overlook, fixated as they are on two stark options as they confront North Korea’s nuclear threat: either impose harsh sanctions or promise a “grand bargain” of complete normalization and massive financial assistance in return for denuclearization. Either put a stone slab on top...

Some perspective for those of you in Washington now: the weather right now in Verkhoyansk (55 below, as I write this). As a native of South Dakota, I never thought I’d see this place get a respectable blizzard._____________ An interview with Ha Tae Keung, a/k/a Young Howard, of Open News._____________ North Korea tries to keep the lid on dissent, which Alejandro Cao de Benos assures us does not exist._____________ The Korea Herald interviews Todd Zitin, the creator of Korean News...

State Department denies deal for Park’s release; also, Larry Craig still isn’t gay. If by some miracle the truth actually leaked out, State would probably say that President Obama’s announcement — the day before North Korea announced Park’s release — that he would not to re-add North Korea to the list of state sponsors of terrorism was a mere “goodwill gesture,” or an “understanding,” but not really a quid-pro-quo. When the transcript of the State Department news conference for February...

I’ve mostly ignored the speculation that the Koreas will hold a summit because I think the chances of it actually happening are still pretty vaporous. One thing I will observe is that South Korea is saying that it won’t reward North Korea just for showing up, but I don’t see any chance that Kim Jong Il would attend without a payoff. Really, I think Kim Jong Il’s dispositive motivation is that payoff, while Lee’s is to look like he’s open...

The Wall Street Journal has a feature about North Korea’s political monument export industry: This month, workers from Mansudae Overseas Project Group of Companies, a North Korean design firm, were putting the finishing touches on a giant copper sculpture of a family. Senegal President Abdoulaye Wade will inaugurate the African Renaissance Monument in April to mark the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence from France, a ceremony he expects the president of North Korea’s Parliament to attend. “Only the North...

A South Korean lawyer sits down to dinner with a group of North Korean defectors and has an epiphany: “Listening to such painful stories, I naively wondered why the rest of the world is not doing more to help these desperate people. They are not some criminals or fugitives. Their only crime was to be born into a nation which is ruled by a dictatorship that cares more about the survival of its regime than the wellbeing of its people.”...