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March 23, 2021

For the first time, the Justice Department extradites a North Korean to stand trial in the U.S.

Today, the Justice Department announced that for the first time, it has extradited a North Korean national to the United States. Mun Chol Myong, who was based in Malaysia, and whom DOJ claims to be an agent of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, allegedly laundered money through the United States to do deals between the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea (designated in 2013 for WMD proliferation financing), the military electronics manufacturer, Glocom, and other wholesome types. Funny, no mention of...

Categories Luxury Goods/Money Laundering/Southeast Asia/U.S. Law
December 5, 2017

So, who else has cut trade with North Korea lately, and who still hasn’t?

With the pace of news of North Korea sanctions news lately, my bookmarks folder is starting to look like what the paramedics found at the Cat Lady’s house after the neighbors noticed a foul odor. Today, I want to catch up with our efforts to deny Pyongyang a haven for its money laundering network, with a focus on Southeast Asia. To review the administration’s progress since January, you may want to start here and here. Ambassador Nikki Haley also gave...

Categories Arms Trafficking/Diplomacy/Sanctions/Southeast Asia
November 17, 2017

Singapore’s trade ban with North Korea yields more questions than answers

At first glance, this looks like the State Department’s biggest coup yet in its campaign of progressive diplomacy against Pyongyang. “Singapore will prohibit all commercially traded goods from, or to, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK),” the city-state’s customs said in the notice sent to traders and declaring agents last Tuesday, referring to the country by its official name. The suspension would take effect from Nov. 8, Fauziah A. Sani, head of trade strategy and security for the director-general...

Categories Luxury Goods/Money Laundering/Sanctions/Southeast Asia
June 1, 2017

What the Chinpo Decision doesn’t mean for the U.N.’s North Korea sanctions

Since the High Court of Singapore reversed part of the conviction of Chinpo Shipping for its role in financing the 2013 Chong Chon Gang arms shipment just over two weeks ago, and despite the crush of other (still unfinished) commitments that have eaten up my blogging time, I’ve wanted to set a few minutes aside to post some thoughts on the decision. (If you haven’t already looked up “chinpo” at Urban Dictionary, you really shouldn’t.) Let’s start with what the decision...

Categories "United" Nations/Arms Trafficking/Sanctions/Southeast Asia
April 13, 2017

Malaysia may expel North Korean miners (if it can find them)

Kim Jong-un is getting away with murder in Malaysia, thanks to the weakness and corruption of its government. Four North Korean suspects in the assassination of Kim Jong-nam fled immediately after the fatal attack. Because the world has taught Kim Jong-un that terrorism works, the Malaysian government let three other suspects leave after North Korea took several Malaysians (including diplomats) hostage. Malaysia has since said that it will not cut diplomatic relations with Pyongyang, which (as some | excellent  | investigation | and | journalism | have revealed)...

Categories Human Trafficking/Southeast Asia
February 27, 2017

Malaysia’s lax enforcement of North Korea sanctions has finally come home

Over the weekend, Malaysian authorities painstakingly decontaminated a terminal of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport where North Korean agents – including a diplomat – carried out a lethal attack with the nerve agent VX, a substance so deadly that a tiny droplet can kill an adult. The authorities are clearly concerned that the use of a persistent chemical weapon of mass destruction in a crowded airport terminal will cause panic among Malaysian citizens and members of the traveling public, as...

Categories Arms Trafficking/Money Laundering/Sanctions/Shipping sanctions/Southeast Asia
February 24, 2017

N. Korea just killed a guy with one of the WMDs that caused us to invade Iraq … in a crowded airport terminal, in a friendly nation.

Last night, Malaysian police revealed that Kim Jong-nam’s killers murdered him with VX, the deadliest of the nerve agents. I had hypothesized before that the killers almost certainly acted on orders from His Porcine Majesty. Saddam Hussein’s suspected possession of stockpiles of VX was at the core of our justification for invading Iraq. This time, the case doesn’t rely on grainy satellite photos or shadowy, unnamed sources. (And this time, an invasion is also the wrong answer to the problem;...

Categories Anju Links/Southeast Asia/Terrorism (NK)
July 1, 2016

Sanctions Diplomacy: Yesterday Uganda, today Namibia, tomorrow Cambodia

Earlier this week, when a senior Namibian official who had defended her government’s military cooperation with North Korea showed up in Pyongyang, I conceded that she could be there to terminate that cooperation, but didn’t assess that possibility as very likely. But yesterday, the Namibian government announced it was ending its joint projects with North Korea, including a North Korean-run arms factory, to comply with new U.N. sanctions: “The Government of the Republic of Namibia, in fulfilling her international obligations...

Categories Africa/Sanctions/Southeast Asia
November 16, 2015

Treasury blocks assets of North Korea’s ambassador to Burma

Although I suppose it’s probably a complete coincidence that Treasury finally blocked the assets of four North Korean proliferators in Burma last Friday, I’d like to think it stung a bit when, a few weeks ago, at this conference at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, I said this: Here’s a link to Treasury’s announcement of the designation of four individual North Koreans, including Pyongyang’s Ambassador to Burma: HWANG, Su Man (a.k.a. HWANG, Kyong Nam); DOB 06 Apr 1955; nationality Korea, North;...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions/Southeast Asia/WMD
July 27, 2010

Dealing with Khmer and North Korean Killers

As the first sentence is finally handed out to a former member of the Khmer Rouge regime, it reminds us of a human rights catastrophe still in progress. Admittedly, I don’t know much about the history of Cambodia, including the nightmare under the Khmer Rouge, but this is a reminder that someday (may it be very soon), decisions made today will determine the fate of many now running the regime in North Korea. The details and issues addressed in South...

Categories History/Human Rights/Southeast Asia
November 25, 2009

The LA Times on a Mission along SE Asia’s Underground Railroad

As an active member of Justice for North Korea, maybe I’m a bit biased, but I highly recommend this one. John Glionna of the Los Angeles Times has the story behind the 9 refugees who successfully received asylum in the Danish Embassy in Hanoi in late September and now are safely in South Korea.  There also is a bit of an update on the 5 refugees who were caught by the Chinese government at the border. Here’s the link:  Aiding...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
October 20, 2009

Nine Refugees Leave Danish Embassy in Hanoi for Seoul

“The nine North Koreans left the Danish embassy this morning and they are now at Noi Bai International Airport checking in before flying to Singapore and then Seoul,” the Vietnamese diplomatic source told AFP, asking not to be named. [….] The nine entered the Danish compound on September 24 hoping to reach South Korea, Kim Sang-Hun, an activist who said his group helped them reach the embassy, told AFP earlier. [AFP] That must be the same Kim Sang Hun whom...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia
August 5, 2009

Yesterday Syria, Today Burma, Tomorrow Al Qaeda

The “experts” told us that North Korea would have no reason to threaten us if we’d only “engage,” talk, and appease them. We did, and they sold Syria a nuclear reactor anyway. Others say we should just ignore them. We did, and they’re selling Burma a uranium enrichment program: The two defectors whose briefings have created such alarm are both regarded as credible sources. One was an officer with a secret nuclear battalion in the Burmese army who was sent...

Categories Proliferation/Southeast Asia
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
February 5, 2009

Rising Traffic on the Underground Railroad

NOW THAT THE OLYMPICS ARE OVER, the flow of North Korean defectors into Thailand is on the rise once again. Thai police statistics quoted by the Japanese daily show a mere 140 North Koreans arrested there between January and August last year. But in the period from September to November after the Beijing Olympics, 250 North Koreans were arrested in 14 areas in northern and northeastern Thailand bordering Burma and Laos. The number of North Koreans arrested in December and...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia
January 6, 2009

Conscience in Unlikely Places

The Myanmar junta released 19 North Korean defectors into Thailand on Wednesday following their arrest in December, a diplomat said Thursday. The 19 North Koreans, including 15 women and a 7-year-old boy, were arrested at the Myanmar-Thai border town of Tarchilek on Dec. 2 while trying to cross into Thailand en route to South Korea, the same source said. [Kyodo News] It’s hard to understand why that regime, with its bizarre reliance on numerology, does anything. I suspect this doesn’t...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia
June 1, 2008

LiNK: S. Korea Is Speeding Up Admissions of Refugees in Thailand

This came to me  by e-mail a few days ago,  not from LiNK, but from Human Rights Without Frontiers,  another NGO that works with them  to assist North Korean refugees: Dear Friends, Thank you all for stepping up and voicing your concern for the welfare of North Korean refugees in Thailand. Last month, on April 23, I traveled to Bangkok and met with officials at the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressing all of our concern over the treatment and...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia