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Category: Proliferation

July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts).  Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits.  The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years.  I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

Categories "United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 14, 2009

The HEU Debate Is Officially Over

From December 2002 until March 2009, it was the shared narrative of the shrill left, mainstream Democrats, and much of the spin circus in tow behind them that Kim Jong Il’s successful development of nuclear weapons was really George W. Bush’s fault.  This narrative held as infallible dogma that Agreed Framework I was successfully containing Kim Jong Il’s nuclear programs until Bush showed up to wreck it with suspect claims about WMD programs — specifically, the accusation that North Korea...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
July 11, 2009

Burmese Dissidents Worry About Junta’s Purchases of North Korean Weapons

The Burmese diaspora has become one of our best sources of information: One of the first signs of warming relations was a barter agreement between the two countries that lasted from 2000 to 2006 and saw Burma receive between 12 and 16 M-46 field guns and as many as 20 million rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition from North Korea, according to defense analyst Andrew Selth of Griffith University in Australia. In exchange, Burma bartered food and rice.  [….] The two...

Categories Proliferation/Southeast Asia
July 7, 2009

Fireworks

Not that I paid much attention, but North Korea did in fact live up to expectations that it would test missiles on the 4th of July.  So often, our media get excited about the testing of anti-ship missiles which probably aren’t nuclear capable and probably couldn’t do much damage to ground targets in Japan or South Korea.  This time, however, the North fired off seven short-range missiles.  They were SCUD-C’s or Nodong’s, which could do serious damage to a South...

Categories "United" Nations/Missiles
July 6, 2009

The Nukings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

It must not be easy being the tyrannical overlord of a country you’ve single-handed transformed into a famished, backward prison yard while trying to persuade your subjects that they’re still the envy of the world. There’s always soul-crushing brainwashing, smothering isolation human civilization, extra meat rations for people who rat their your neighbors, the timeless dark arts of racism and xenophobia, and the fear of public execution or a prolonged death in the gulags. Did I mention isolation and brainwashing?...

Categories NK Military/WMD
July 6, 2009

Malaysian Bank Linked to North Korean WMD; Happy 5th to GI Korea (Updated)

GI Korea explains what Philip Goldberg was doing in Malaysia. By the way, let me add my belated good wishes to GI Korea on the fifth anniversary of the founding of his blog.  The fact that it’s one of two with feeds on my sidebar should be some testament to my high regard for the amount and quality of information he posts (NKEconWatch would be the third if its RSS worked there).  It’s one of my daily reads, and the...

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
July 1, 2009

ROK Defense Minister: N. Korea Steps Up Uranium Enrichment

I can only thank God for Chris Hill, whose Jedi mind tricks completely, verifiably, and irreversibly disarmed these people in the nick of time … not: North Korea appears to be enriching uranium, potentially giving the state that has twice tested a plutonium-based nuclear device another path to making atomic weapons, South Korea’s defense minister said on Tuesday. “It is clear that they are moving forward with it,” Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee told a parliamentary hearing, adding such a programme...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
July 1, 2009

How China Helps North Korea Proliferate

Who still thinks the Chinese want to help us make North Korea play nicely? But tighter controls by the international community of weapons of mass destruction and restraints on the North’s arms industry meant Pyongyang had to look for more devious ways. For instance, the North took a roundabout land route via China and Russia, which is harder to trace, or used transport planes at night. It also exported weapons by building assembly factories in importing countries. To circumvent an...

Categories China/Proliferation/Uncategorized
July 1, 2009

Plan B Watch: Treasury Sanctions Iranian, N. Korean Companies for WMD Financing

Treasury has sanctioned an Iranian company under Executive Order 13382 for its dealings with previously sanctioned North Korean entities suspected of involvement in WMD development and proliferation.  It has also designated a new North Korean entity, Namchongang Trading Company.  Treasury’s full announcement itself is interesting and worth reading.  I’ve posted the full text below the jump, interlaced with a few editorial comments of my own.

Categories Axis of Evil/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
June 30, 2009

Kang Nam I Turns Around, Heads North

U.S. officials said Tuesday that a North Korean ship has turned around and is headed back in the direction it came from, after being tracked for more than a week by American Navy vessels on suspicion of carrying illegal weapons. The move keeps the U.S. and the rest of the international community guessing: Where is the Kana Nam going? Does its cargo include materials banned by a new U.N. anti-proliferation resolution?  [AP, Pauline Jelinek] The ship apparently turned around last...

Categories "United" Nations/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 29, 2009

WaPo on China’s Trade with North Korea, and Its Rulers’ Darkest Fears

China, which the unmitigated chutzpah we’ve come to expect of it, reassures us that it is “deeply committed” to the enforcement of UNSCR 1874.  Today, Blaine Harden of the Washington Post reports the facts that shatter that mendacious claim.  In a new report, he provides fresh evidence of China’s economic colonization of North Korea, which fits neatly with its agenda of undermining U.N. sanctions against the North.  It’s a must-read, but here’s a money quote: As U.N. sanctions mount and...

Categories China/NK Economics/NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
June 29, 2009

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Navy Tracks “Multiple” Suspicious N. Korean Ships It Won’t Actually Stop

The United States said it was monitoring “multiple” North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons and that it would discuss with its allies what to do with one suspect vessel it is tracking.While the United States has been tracking the Kang Nam since last week, the Pentagon said it is closely monitoring several other North Korean ships allegedly carrying weapons. “We have been interested in this one ship [the Kang Nam], but we’ve been interested in, frankly, multiple ships,” Pentagon...

Categories "United" Nations/Proliferation
June 26, 2009

U.S. Won’t Board Suspected N. Korean Arms Ship

The North Korean ship Kang Nam I may be carrying missiles to Burma, and then again, it may be headed for a stopover in Burma as it transits to points west.  And then again, it may merely be carrying “small” arms and bullets for shooting dissidents and uppity monks (for which their next of kin will be duly billed).  The official Burmese version is that they aren’t expecting the Kang Nam I in any of their ports. For some reason,...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Proliferation
June 20, 2009

Sanctions Updates

The United Nations is getting to work on a list of North Korean entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1874, as Pentagon officials head to China to press their hosts on implementation and compliance. Off the Chinese coast, the U.S.S. John S. McCain continues to shadow the Kang Nam I and prepares to invoke the awesome mandate of the Security Council’s “pretty please” resolution.  Asked the obvious question, the State Department gives a quintessential State Department answer: “We would hope...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 19, 2009

In Other News, North Korea Plots Attack on Hawaii

Tora! Tora! Tora! The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.  [AP] Satellite imagery of the Dongchang site here.  This is a new site, whose construction apparently continued in flagrant violation of U.N. Security...

Categories Missiles/U.S. Military
June 18, 2009

Collision Course? U.S. Navy Tracking N. Korean Ship

Less than a week after the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, the U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship off the coast of China.  The ship is suspected of carrying prohibited cargo: Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Missile Shell Game

The North Koreans appear to be trying to wrong-foot our satellites, and may be about to do a multiple ICBM launch: A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North...

Categories Missiles