Category: Anju Links

~  1  ~ BRIAN MYERS’S TAKEDOWN OF “ENGAGEMENT” proponents at NK News is a must-read, a more erudite version of the argument I’ve made about North Korea changing the Associated Press rather than the opposite. What worries me is the subversion of our media. This usually comes about through interviews with self-styled engagers: charity workers, tour operators, exchange organizers, industrialists, film-makers. On the one hand they make claims of a decidedly political nature, to the effect that their work is...

~ 1 ~ OH LOOK, North Korea restarted a nuclear reactor. ~ 2 ~ AND NOW, A LIST OF POLITICIANS WHO DID GOOD: H.R. 1771 has some new co-sponsors in the House. Rep. Pete Sessions (R, Tex.), Rep. Jeff Duncan (R, S.C.), and Rep. Adam Smith (D, Wash.) have signed on. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D-HI), joins early supporter and fellow Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard. The biggest surprise? Rep. Jim McDermott, who is known for his outspoken liberal views on foreign...

~ 1 ~ NORTH KOREA PLANNED AN ATTACK ON INCHEON AIRPORT? If Park Geun Hye seems “skeptical about North Korea’s recent conciliatory proposals” and suspects that they could be “a prelude to an attack on South Korea” this may be why: North Korea secretly carried out military exercises simulating an attack on a civilian airport in South Korea, mobilizing special jet fighters designed to infiltrate Southern territory, a source told the JoongAng Ilbo. A South Korean government official who is...

~ 1 ~ PARK GEUN HYE, WHO HAS a (ruthlessly) capable intelligence agency to inform her, sounds quite convinced that North Korea is about to “provoke” the South, and at least publicly, some U.S. officials say they’re worried, too. President Park Geun-hye called for an “airtight” security posture against North Korea from South Korean soldiers and other officials on Saturday, viewing the North’s recent charm offensives as a possible prelude to imminent military provocations. “In India, Park ordered the (South...

~ 1 ~ THE SOFT BIGOTRY OF LOW EXPECTATIONS: North Korea threatens South Korea with “an unimaginable holocaust,” Yonhap calls it “a camouflaged peace offensive,” and the Park Administration calls it “a fake peace offensive.” I sure would hate to see them when they’re feeling surly. More here. ~ 2 ~ REIGN OF TERROR UPDATE: In the immediate aftermath of Jang Song-Thaek’s purge, the authorities conveyed a message of “business as usual” to the people. That didn’t last. Rimjingang reports...

~  1  ~ I’M GLAD I WATCHED “SECRET STATE OF NORTH KOREA” last night. I might not have stayed up late to watch it had I known that the next morning, I could watch the entire program online (Hat Tip), but it was still well worth seeing. I can’t say I learned much new information, but I can say that many things I already knew became much more real, believable, and tangible to me. And plenty of people who had...

~ 1 ~ REPORT: KIM JONG UN PIMPED HIS PLEASURE SQUAD TO RODMAN: Well, this seems as easy to believe as it is hard to prove. It comes via a Taiwanese website I’ve never heard of: Chris Nelson, Washington’s top insider source on Asia, says Rodman’s real reason for visiting North Korea extends further than just helping to set up a domestic basketball league. According to the September edition of the private newsletter the Nelson Report: “Sources in the region...

~  1  ~ WHERE IS KIM KYONG-HUI? Last week, I posted about reports that she had left North Korea for medical treatment abroad, following a seizure brought on by the execution of her husband, Jang Song-Taek. A reader wrote in to ask how this could have happened without the Japanese press seeing her at the Beijing airport, and via The Chosun Ilbo, we have one possible explanation — the treatment is (or was) being performed in Russia. The Chosun Ilbo...

~  1  ~ L.A. TIMES CONFIRMS HIGH-LEVEL DEFECTION: Several days ago, I posted about reports in the South Korean press that a senior North Korean official with extensive knowledge of North Korea’s offshore finances had defected, and was in the care of South Korean officials in an undisclosed location in China. South Korea later denied the reports, but today, The L.A. Times is reporting that, denial notwithstanding, the reports were true. The individual is a military officer, was a “confidant” of Jang...

~  1  ~ LINK HAS RESCUED 204 NORTH KOREANS since 2010. Please support them if you can afford to. If you can’t — or even if you can — please go to this page and vote for LiNK’s “Project for Awesome” page. It helps to keep their fund-raising project where it gets more views. ~  2  ~ SHIN DONG HYOK TELLS DENNIS RODMAN how he can help the North Korean people, in case Rodman actually cares about that. But in a way,...

~ 1 ~ DON’T CRY FOR JANG. With all the talk about Jang Song Thaek being a “reformer,” I thought I should remind you that Jang was in charge of the Kuk-Ga Anjeon Bowi-Bu (roughly, National Security Protection Bureau), the secret police organization that runs the North’s prison camps and arrests people for political crimes. If Jang and others associated with this organization wind up before a firing squad, personally, I’d only regret that they didn’t face a more legitimate...

~ 1 ~ THIS COULD BE BIG, even if the conclusion seems exaggerated: Yonhap reports that North Korea is dumping gold in China, and calls it a sign of “imminent economic collapse.” Yonhap says the last time that happened was when Kim Jong Il died, but to me, it’s reminiscent of North Korea’s behavior after the Banco Delta Asia action froze their money. I wonder if this is because the purge of Jang disrupted their financial network. If so, it...

~ 1 ~ NOT THAT “AXIS OF EVIL” NONSENSE AGAIN: New reports claim that “the U.S. intelligence community has determined that Iran and North Korea continue to develop” an ICBM together. Plaintive cries about starving babies in Iran notwithstanding, the mullahs are “financing much of the North Korean missile program in exchange for the transfer of technology, expertise and components.” More here, and much more here, in Bruce Bechtol’s new book. I’ll leave the commentary on the Iran deal to...

~ 1 ~ U.N. UPDATE: “The United Nations unanimously adopted a resolution that denounces North Korea’s worsening human rights violations, including its brutal treatment of political prisoners in the communist country, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.” China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela did not participate, which I suppose is less bad than voting against or abstaining. The vote by the Third Committee is not a vote by the General Assembly or the Security Council, nor does it adopt the findings...