Category: Miscellaneous

I hope he means it: “Any resumption of U.S. food aid to North Korea should be contingent on North Korea allowing access and accountability by monitors in accordance with international standards,” Sen. Richard Lugar (R-In) said in a statement. “It is essential to ensure that the U.S. assistance is actually received by hungry North Korean children and their families rather than reinforcing the North Korean military whose care is already a priority over the rest of the population.” More here....

For some time, I’ve been reading reports that North Korea has been stricken by foot-and-mouth disease, which doesn’t directly affect human beings, but kills cattle. According to Radio Free Asia, the disease has now spread across North Korea, including Pyongyang. Previously, I hadn’t attributed too much significance to the reports; after all, how many North Koreans can afford to eat meat anyway? But then there’s this: North Korea’s medieval agriculture relies on oxen. If the oxen die, farmers can’t plow...

The Donga Ilbo carries this heartbreaking photograph of the homecoming of South Korean POW who escaped after 61 years in captivity: “He escaped from North Korea in March last year and returned home in November. He settled at his sister`s home in Seoul after spending three months at a government-provided safe house.” ____________________________________ In an article co-authored by our friend Chris Green, the Daily NK looks how the regime works to prevent a coup d’etat in North Korea. Unless the...

Damn. It’s still Groundhog Day! “Military talks between the rival Koreas have “collapsed,” a unification ministry official in Seoul said on Wednesday, dealing a setback to efforts to restart international aid-for-disarmament talks.” _________________________________________ Robert King on food aid: “The United States policy is that when we provide assistance, humanitarian assistance, it is based on need and no political consideration should be involved. That’s the first condition,” King said in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul. The two...

And by the way, he’s a full-time envoy! Two years into the Obama Administration, just look at the empty gobbledygook his Special Envoy on human rights is telling South Korea’s nuclear negotiator: “We’ve had very good, very serious, very thoughtful discussions,” King told reporters after talks with Wi Sung-lac, Seoul’s main nuclear envoy who oversees North Korea issues at the foreign ministry. “It’s extremely important for the United States, as we pursue our policies towards North Korea, to coordinate with...

Is it still Groundhog Day? John Everard, who served as British ambassador to Pyongyang for two and half years from February 2006 […] told a seminar hosted by Korea Economic Institute of America in Washington that rice in sacks with labels marked “Republic of (South) Korea” or “World Food Program” was traded openly at black markets in North Korea. Food that South Korea and international aid organizations gave to the North are traded in black markets after being embezzled by...

Gee, but won’t that upset them? “During the Key Resolve joint drill to be held in March, the two nations’ forces will jointly conduct exercises to remove North Korea’s nuclear weapons and WMDs,” a military source said, asking not to be identified. “Although this exercise first began in 2009, (the military) will strengthen the program this year.” ______________________________________ Writing at the Shadow Government blog, Michael Green worries that President Obama is about to “go wobbly” on North Korea. I’m worried...

I’ve said that an uprising along the lines of what’s going on in Egypt is implausible in North Korea. In the case of China, however, it’s unlikely (for now) but not implausible. And apparently, the Chinese government agrees: Newspapers can only publish accounts of the protests from the official Xinhua News Service, a policy often invoked on stories the government considers sensitive. Censors have blocked the ability to search the term “Egypt” on microblogging sites, and user comments that draw...

The State Department gets one right on food aid: “One of the sticking points in the past discussions we have with North Korea have always been confidence in the ability to ensure that humanitarian assistance provided get to those in need,” he said. “Our policy regarding the provision of humanitarian assistance is based on the level of the need of given countries, and competing needs of other countries and our ability to ensure that the aid is reliably reaching the...

So when I read last week that according to an anonymous “senior South Korean official,” a North Korean admission that it sank the Cheonan and an apology for shelling of Yeonpyeong Island would not be “a precondition to the resumption of the six-party nuclear disarmament talks,” I decided to wait for the clarification before concluding that the Lee Administration had been neutered. Those clarifications haven’t really cleared much up. One one hand, there’s the newly hard-line Unification Minstry: Unification Minister...

I cringed when I saw that someone at The Washington Post let Glenn Kessler fact-check President Obama’s SOTU mention of North Korea, given how many corrections Kessler still owes his readers: President Obama: “Because of a diplomatic effort to insist that Iran meet its obligations, the Iranian government now faces tougher and tighter sanctions than ever before. And on the Korean peninsula, we stand with our ally South Korea, and insist that North Korea keeps its commitment to abandon nuclear...

Among reporters who aren’t terribly experienced as North Korea watchers, there’s been much recent excitement about the prospect of North Korea and South Korea talking again. I see little harm and some good in working-level talks between generals, but I think the exuberance of these cub reporters is misplaced. Look more closely, and all of the obstacles to Agreed Framework III are still in place. South Korea is still demanding that North Korea apologize for sinking the Cheonan and shelling...

Open News has published a whole series of articles about the conditions at Camp 12, Chongo-Ri, based in part on interviews with a newly escaped female prisoner: – Female prisoners at the camp make wigs and false eyelashes for export. – Visitation rights afforded to prisoners. – How prisoners are stripped of their dignity. – How prisoners are prepared for release. I believe these are images of Camp 12, although the lack of a perimeter fence surprises me, and it’s...

“In the order, the party stressed that soldiers standing guard over the border are surviving on canned cornmeal porridge and threatened to assess the amount of donations by individual entity,” the RFA said, adding the North failed to attain its goal of securing 1.6 million tons in provisions for the military last year.” [Yonhap] Whoever can smuggle food into North Korea now can trade it for information, the use of a truck, weapons, or ammunition. Just use your imagination. __________________________________...

Did North Korea cheat, you ask? North Korea has been developing a uranium enrichment programme — a potential second way to make nuclear bombs — since the late 1990s, a senior defector was Wednesday quoted as saying. The defector, quoted by South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, said centrifuges for the programme are being made at the city of Heechon, 57 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon. [AFP] More here. Selig Harrison was unavailable for comment....

The Obama Administration’s China policy has come full circle from its deferential beginnings.____________________________________ President Lee wants to bring North Korea to the Security Council over its uranium enrichment program.____________________________________ Well, this story is rich in revelations. Apparently, Iran has sent payments to North Korea from the previously sanctioned Hong Kong Electronics to the Seoul branch of Iran’s Bank Mellat. Less shocking are more reports of China’s assistance to North Korea’s ballistic missile program. If you’re keeping count, that would violate...