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March 25, 2006

The Forked Tongue of Lee Jeong-Seok

Newly installed anti-Unification Minister Lee Jeong-Seok isn’t the fool his predecessor was. Being as manifestly stupid as Chung Dong-Young carries an implicit excuse for the feeble defense of policies for which a more intelligent man, like Lee, would be called out for deceit. This week, Lee deservedly gets called out for his vicarious “expression of regret” for South Korean journalists’ use of the k-word, “kidnapping,” to describe North Korea’s kidnapping of South Korean citizens. The reporters’ stubborn honesty resulted in...

Categories Appeasement/Censorship/Media Criticism/North Korea
February 28, 2006

Korea’s ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ Bubble

This week, several new reports, chiefly those from the New York Times and the LA Times, describe a journalists’ group tour of the Kaesong Industrial Park, possibly the only place on earth where the spirits of P.T. Barnum(*) and Lavrenti Beria cohabitate. A Paradise Within a (Worker’s) Paradise In North Korea, a nation that is essentially one vast open-air prison, Kaesong is the new prison laundry — a relatively cushier, marginally less despotic part of the institution into which you...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Inside NK/NK Economics/North Korea
February 26, 2006

The NYT: Coming to a Supermarket Checkout Near You

If you’d like a case-in-point in media bias, look no further than this NYT piece on Christian human rights activists for North Korea by Norimitsu Onishi. There is plenty of good North Korea coverage at the Times, most of it written by James Brooke and David Sanger, but seldom by Onishi, who tends to write puff pieces about social trends and other more superficial matters. Part of Onishi’s problem is that he may be somewhat out of his league, but...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Defectors/Human Rights/Media Criticism/North Korea/Refugees
February 25, 2006

True to Form, World Food Program Caves in to NK Demands

When she’s not exposing the U.N.’s corruption, Claudia Rosett is exposing its general fecklessness and worthlessness on matters of substance. Ms. Rosett’s favorite case-in-point is North Korea, where she nails – dead-on – what’s wrong with the World Food Program’s approach to feeding the hungry. North Korea, unrestrained by any regard for the lives of its less-privileged citizens, pushes for more control over the food and less U.N. monitoring. The U.N. bureaucrats lack the testicular fortitude to push back, go...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/NK Economics/North Korea/Uncategorized
February 23, 2006

Caught in the Act!

I wonder what Roh Moo-Hyun will say this time. Rogue diplomats? North Korean diplomats were caught attempting to smuggle US$1 million and 200 million yen into Mongolia on Tuesday, the Mongolian press reported. Reports said the North Koreans told Mongolian authorities they were planning to put the money in a Mongolian bank account, according to Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun. The paper said that it was unclear whether the money was counterfeit or not, and what measures the Mongolian authorities will take....

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Japan/NK Economics/North Korea/Uncategorized
February 21, 2006

Anti-Kim Jong Il Leaflets Reported at Onsong

Via the refugee-run DailyNK: Feb 10, Onsung-gun, North Hamkyung province, anti-Kim Jong Il flyers were found, reported North Korean internal source on Feb 17. The source said the flyers read, “Stand Kim Jong Il Upside Down” and tens of them were found near the Wangje Mt. Grand Monument and the Security Agency along with other government agencies. Read the rest here.

Categories Defectors/Inside NK/North Korea/Refugees/Resistance
February 21, 2006

House Staffer: Congress to Demand Progress on NKHRA Implementation

If historians were both omniscient and judicious, they would record that Doug Anderson was a great friend of the North Korean people. Anderson, a thin, quiet, and precise young lawyer and staffer for Rep. James Leach, never misses a House hearing on North Korea policy. He is also a key behind-the-scenes advocate of more humane treatment for the people North Korea (meaning I’m not sure he’d want this kind of recognition, warranted though it may be). I’ve never heard an...

Categories Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 21, 2006

A Modest Drumbeat

The Chosun Ilbo and the  Donga Ilbo are looking at their calendars and seeing a slew of events that will further publicize human rights conditions in North Korea.  Will this be the year our nascent movement finally demonstrates some media sophistication? March:  The State Department  will publish its new human rights report (although I don’t have any reason to suspect anything earth-shaking to come of it).  March 23rd:  European Parliament hearings on North Korea; Freedom House conference in Brussels (we’re...

Categories Activism/Appeasement/Europe/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 19, 2006

Europe Takes Up N.K. Human Rights Mantle

The EU’s human rights dialogue with North Korea’s regime may be predictably “moribund,” but  a new report shows that Europe is outperforming the United States in accepting refugees: Seven European nations have granted asylum to 280 North Korean defectors since the mid-1990s, Radio Free Asia reported on Saturday. RFA said Germany, Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Norway gave asylum to 280 out of 700 North Korean refugees who applied there. Germany topped the list, accepting 232 out of...

Categories Defectors/Europe/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Refugees
February 17, 2006

Will U.S. Finally Let in N.K. Refugees?

It’s long past time we did this.  The U.S. government plans to break with long-established policy and start giving asylum to refugees from North Korea. Wording in the 2004 North Korean Human Rights Act that allows it to admit defectors from the Stalinist country has not yet been put into practice due to failure to confirm identities and objections from countries where the refugees were staying. Prominent  activists for human rights in the North – Suzanne Scholte, Jae Ku, and...

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 16, 2006

Defector: NK Cheerleaders Sent to Gulag

Who recalls the days when South Korea’s faith in reunification bordered on an obession – a religion, perhaps?  Nothing was more telling of the North Korean regime’s success at self-popularization in the South than the public swooning over a  squad of North Korean cheerleaders,  despite all the procrustean, regimented eeriness surrounding them.  Let’s look back at that time: This bustling South Korean port bid an emotional farewell Tuesday to a North Korean cheering squad whose presence at the Asian Games,...

Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Human Rights/Inside NK/Korean Politics/Korean Society/North Korea
February 15, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction: The Pyongyang Charm School

Everyone is ashamed of something in his past.  High on my own list is the time my brother persuaded me to read “The Charm School,” a Nelson Demille spy novel.  The plot premise was that  Moscow took custody American MIA’s from North Viet Nam to create a “charm school,” an exact replica of an  American  neighborhood, complete with American residents.  The idea was to immerse Soviet sleeper agents into their next work assignments. Unlike some other aspects of life in...

Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Japan/Japan & Korea/North Korea/Southeast Asia/WTF?
February 14, 2006

Kim Jong Chol Reported Sidelined as Successor

Today’s WTF News  comes courtesy of the Donga Ilbo, which reports that Kim Jong Chol, previously named as the likely heir to Kim Jong Il, has been sidelined in the succession struggle. Kim Jong Chul (photo), the 25-year-old second son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and his most likely heir, is reportedly suffering from a medical hormone problem, and there is speculation that he may have lost his spot in the country’s succession hierarchy. . . . ....

Categories Kremlinology/North Korea/WTF?
January 30, 2006

Interpreting “Axis of Evil;” an unnecessary debate

Probably President Bush has no idea that the “Axis of Evil” phrase in his January 2002 State of the Union Address would stir up so much controversy. For myself and what I must assume most viewers or listeners, the metaphor was so obvious so as not to warrant much comment; it was a catchy phrase conveying that those three nations were the highest priority in the areas of security and proliferation. Not so obvious for others.

Categories North Korea/Uncategorized
June 24, 2005

A LESSON FROM ‘TEAM AMERICA’ ON WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE UN

I recently watched “Team America: World Police,” which although was full of needless vulgarity (another point they were trying to make, I think), make some very good, and funny, observations. I do wonder why it take a satirical comedy with dolls to drive home the point about the UN. As a Korea-watcher, this is a classic scene; Kim Jong Il: Hans Brix? Oh no! Oh, herro. Great to see you again, Hans! Hans Blix: Mr. Il, I was supposed to...

Categories Geopolitics/Media Criticism/North Korea