Category: Miscellaneous

DON KIRK HAS JUST RETURNED from a trip to Pyongyang and Hamhung, and files a series of stories and commentaries (see also here and here). Kirk sees modest improvements in the standard of living in Pyongyang, but doesn’t think he knows what’s really going on behind the facade, or that any of his journalist colleagues really do, either. He seems skeptical about the regime’s sincerity about any deeper commitment to reform and openness. That sounds about right to me, but...

You’d think that the profession of journalism would have learned something from Vogue‘s embarrassment over its Asma Al-Assad pictorial, but to expect moral depth from some people might be expecting too much. The Asma Syndrome requires a meeting of evil minds that hold nations with shallow minds that hold syndication agreements, but a little corruption also helps to catalyze things: The glowing article praised the Assads as a “wildly democratic” family-focused couple who vacation in Europe, foster Christianity, are at...

MYSTERY SOLVED? So, according to the world’s least credible TV news service — also, our most credible source here — the mystery woman standing next to Kim Jong Un is his wife, and her name is Ri Sol Ju. We know almost nothing else about her. Assuming the new report is true, contrary to previous reports sourced to South Korean officials, she is not married former entertainer Hyong Song-Wol. Or maybe, as the Daily NK reported, Hyong Song-Wol is actually...

WELCOME BACK, SOUTH KOREA: Readers in South Korea and my visitors’ log tell me the site is now accessible from the ROK. With the assistance of my ISP and faithful reader, we traced the problem down to a bad node at Korea Telecom. KT actually sent a report back to my reader in English, and here’s where it gets interesting: After reviewing your request , we found that your requested IP address was blocked by our team member according to...

COMMS CHECK:  Some of you are reporting difficulty accessing this site, particularly from South Korea, and my visitors’ log agrees.  I suspect shenanigans, and I’ve been in contact with my ISP, but I’ve just been too busy to pursue the problem.  If you’re reading anywhere in the Asia-Pacific region, I’d be interested in hearing whether you can access this site. —————————————- THIS TIME, THE WOLF IS REAL — HONEST!  I don’t doubt that this is an exceptionally dry year in...

AS REGIME FORCES SHELL REBEL-HELD SUBURBS of their own capital, reports emerge that the CIA is funneling anti-tank weapons to some rebel groups, who are steadily expanding their reach throughout the country. The regime, heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction that could hit one of America’s closest allies in minutes, is backed by China, Russia, and Iran. The war follows years of steady proliferation and a corresponding frustration of diplomatic efforts to disarm it and settle its territorial disputes...

ON RARE OCCASIONS, I CONSIDER KCNA to be authoritative, and this is one of those occasions: In a dispatch headlined “To Expect ‘Change’ From DPRK Is Foolish Ambition,” the North’s Korea Central News Agency in stark terms confronted and put down speculation and comments by outsiders that its authoritarian government might change its ways. [….] Then the spokesman said that South Korea’s government – which it blames for many of its problems  –  “let experts in the north affairs and...

I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST being provocative to achieve some diplomatic or political purpose, but what exactly is the purpose we achieve by using the North Korean flag as a live fire target?  This looks like a case of the South Koreans involving our forces in their childish tit-for-tat.  Take this principle to its logical conclusion and you can see one of the reasons I’ve wanted our Army out of South Korea ever since I was a part of it....

U.N. + NORTH KOREA = KLEPTOCRACY: The U.N. is funneling millions of dollars worth of tradable carbon credits to corrupt nations worldwide, including Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Uzbekistan in an attempt to encourage clean energy projects in the developing world. [….] North Korea is hosting seven hydroelectric dams, which may generate over $1 million in CERs annually. North Korea, Sudan, and Uzbekistan are among the 10 most corrupt nations worldwide, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index. It...

BRIGADIER GENERAL NEIL TOLLEY, whose poor choice of words led to a myriad of (almost certainly) untrue reports that U.S. Army special forces were parachuting into North Korea, has been canned. ____________________________________ I’M NOT OPPOSED TO THE IDEA THAT THE United States should help its allies who seek to check China’s regional expansionism, but rather than asking whether America is serious about defending its allies in Asia, we ought to be asking just how serious our Asian allies are about...

NO ONE SHOULD EVER SAY “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY,” but everyone ought to be able to enjoy this day without feeling that it’s wrong or ungrateful to do so. This country exists to elevate the individual over the state, to be a safe place for the pursuit of individual happiness. Our obligation is simply this — to reflect on the fact that our happiness was secured by a few, who were willing to give everything away for our sake. ______________________________________ YES,...

SOMEDAY, I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE: Many of the details remained murky. The Beijing News said the boats were intercepted on May 8 in waters between China and North Korea. The report quoted one of the ships’ owners, Zhang Dechang, as saying that he had spoken by phone to a kidnapped sailor and that the captors were demanding about $189,000. Later reports said that had been reduced to about $142,000. Another newspaper, The Global Times, quoted Mr....

So barring some major technical problem, I hope I’m done messing with upgrades, themes, and plugins for a while, though I may set up another aggregator page and make some other organizational changes. There is one persistent problem that I can’t fix, however — the menus. As you can see, those link buttons are like U.N. resolutions. I’ve tried disabling the plugins, switching menus, changing and changing back the permalink settings, but nothing fixes the problem. I have a terrible...

IT’S BEING REPORTED THAT Chen Guangcheng is on his way to the United States. This is great news, and it won’t be lost on the Chinese people where Chen went when he feared the thugs of his own government. I suppose credit is due to the Obama Administration for negotiating this solution, but credit is also due to the Congress, which was making an election-year issue of the Administration’s initial bungling of the matter. In the end, China decided it...

SO FAR, NO NUKE TEST, and China is trying to take credit for that: “China is unhappy … and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. Assuming this isn’t all disinformation — after all, China has openly encouraged North Korea to conduct nuclear tests until now — there’s also the question of what “near Changbai Mountain” means (Changbai Mountain, also...

NORTH KOREA LOSES A CUSTOMER, MAYBE?  The Burmese junta says it will stop buying weapons from North Korea, but that’s what you expect them to say, given that any such purchases would violate UNSCR 1874, and have previously attracted unwanted attention from the U.S. Navy. We’ll see soon enough if they’re serious about that.__________________________________ DO YOU SUPPOSE IT’S A COINCIDENCE that Kim Yong Nam recently chose to make a state visit to Indonesia, which also happens to be the home...

SPLITTERS! ________________________________ THE WORLD’S LEAST REASSURING THEME PARK: “It’s a shame that North Koreans are treated by their rulers as basically an expendable race of people. Before we were allowed on the ride, the guys in charge sent a few terrified farmers on test runs like a shipment of human flour sacks.” Read the whole thing. ________________________________ CAT-AND-MOUSE JOURNALISM IN CHINA: For all the kvetching I’ve done lately about junk reporting from Pyongyang, it’s easy to forget that some dedicated...