Category: Miscellaneous

~  1  ~ HE SAYS HE’S NOT DEAD! Choe Ryong-Hae resurfaces. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un’s half-sister, Kim Yeo-Jong, has been appointed to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament. ~  2  ~ NORTH KOREA THREATENS THE U.S. AGAIN, in response to U.S. criticisms of North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. For those who track North Korean rhetorical levels, KCNA seems to be going relatively easy on Seoul, but has been cranking out some exceptionally violent anti-American...

 ~  1  ~ CHOE PURGED, TOO? Several readers have pointed me to this Korea Herald story, which cites Free North Korea Radio, reporting that Choe Ryong-Hoe has now been purged (see also). We’ll probably have a better idea in a few days (weeks at most) whether that’s true, but North Korea Leadership Watch reports that Choe has made fewer public appearances recently, so the report seems plausible enough. If it is true, Choe was supposed to be Kim Jong Un’s...

~  1  ~ “N. KOREA LISTED AS ‘HIGH-RISK’ COUNTRY IN MONEY LAUNDERING” shouts this Yonhap headline. So does that mean that Treasury has finally designated North Korea as a primary money laundering concern, something that would severely restrict its access to the global financial system? No. This is actually a non-binding advisory by an international body called the Global Financial Action Task Force, and in fact, the new FATF statement is virtually identical to other advisories that are as many...

~  1  ~ THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT has finally gotten around to dismissing the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report with some classic KCNA prose that (sadly) fails to deploy either “madcap” or “brigandish” for this special occasion: The Commission was set up highhandedly at the meeting of the Council last year by the U.S. and its satellite forces out of inveterate repugnance towards the DPRK. The DPRK, therefore, has never recognized its existence as it is no more than a...

~  1  ~ SOUTH KOREA’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY STILL HASN’T MOVED on a North Korean human rights law, although I expect that next’s week’s release of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report will likely put pressure to the Democratic Party to stop trying to turn it into the Kim Jong Un Recreational Facility Stimulus Act. The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights is adding some pressure of its own, by demonstrating at the National Assembly building in Yeoido. ~  2 ...

~  1  ~ HERE COMES THE PARK DOCTRINE: The government plans to announce a set of guidelines on the Park Geun-hye administration’s national security policies next month to better publicize her handling of national security issues, an official said Tuesday. [….] He said the guidelines may also delve into Park’s global push for the unification of South and North Koreas and lay out in details each policy step of Park’s so-called Korea Peninsula Trust Process, aimed at denuclearizing North Korea....

~ 1 ~ ROK, U.S. MILITARIES PREPARE “TAILORED” DETERRENCE: In 2010, North Korea attacked South Korea twice without eliciting any military response at all. If you ask me, that isn’t entirely a bad thing. Bombing a few shriveled conscripts wouldn’t perturb Kim Jong Un a whit. He might even spin that as a great military victory. We have other, non-military options (banking sanctions and subversive information operations) that would deter him much more. Unfortunately, but for understandable reasons, military planners...

~  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...