Category: Anju Links

*   Can we really separate nukes from human rights?  North Korean defectors say that the regime used political prisoners to help prepare its nuclear test.  The report is given plausibility by the proximity of the nuclear test site to Camp 16.  You will recall that this site may have been the first to publish pictures of that camp on the Web, though it was no more than a matter of finding the place on Google Earth. *   This...

*   Freedom House has released an extensive new report on North Korea’s concentration camps.  The author is David Hawk, who wrote “The Hidden Gulag.” *   John Bolton is leading the charge against Agreed Framework 2.0, and his latest effort is this piece at OpinionJournal.com.  He doesn’t quite accuse Chris Hill of conspiring to launder money — I did — but he does a good job of explain our  dizzying series  of  retreats on the Banco Delta issue.  Thanks...

1. The latest outbreak of disease in North Korea is foot-and-mouth among the cattle, and presumably the oxen that would be used as draft animals for spring plowing. That’s very bad news for a country with a declining food situation and no margin of survival. The U.N., which generally takes pains to avoid offending North Korea, says that the outbreak is “under control.” 2. New, Improved, and Completely Failed! It has now been 20 days since North Korea violated all...

*   It has now been 17 days since North Korea violated  its Agreed Framework 2.0  denuclearization commitments. *   Appeasing Terror:   The good news is that State’s new terror list is out, North Korea is still on it, and I have more time to produce my promised update to this post.  The bad news:  the section on North Korea has much of its content stripped out, particularly that relating to Japanese abductees, a subject North Korea refuses to...

1 It has now been 16 days since North Korea violated every single pledge it made in the course of the February 13th agreement, notwithstanding our return of $25 million in proceeds of crime, no strings attached, in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. Latest word has North Korea’s demand for the return of the money — which was not part of the February 13th deal — evolving into a demand that the United States grant a general amnesty...

*   Matters of Life and Death.   The Chosun Ilbo reports that  Lao authorities have arrested six North Korean  women.   I’m not sure if it’s the same group I mentioned here.  Meanwhile, 53 others are still  in imminent danger of being sent back from Thailand.  If you haven’t already done so, please contact the Thai  Embassy (see previous link for e-mail address) and tell them not to send  these refugees  back to the gulag.  Recent reports suggest that...

* Tick, Tock. We’re only a few days from the deadline, but expect our government to be far more permissive with Kim Jong Il’s tardiness  than it will be with American taxpayers (Cha: You’re running out of time; Hill: I’m still hopeful!). If the State Department were in charge of tax collection, our streets would be unpaved and guarded by Canadian occupation forces. * Food Crisis Update. If the World Food Program is sounding increasingly dire about North Korea’s food...