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June 5, 2007

Anju Links for June 5th

*   Richardson has some interesting updates on the North Korean family that defected by sailing  hundreds of  miles to Japan in an open boat.  The possession of “personal use” amounts of methamphetamine by one family member suggests that what we’ve heard is true — that drugs are increasingly available to ordinary North Koreans.  What I don’t know is whether the son was a user, or whether the meth was part of their elaborate preparations, in this case,  to help...

Categories Anju Links/Uncategorized
May 7, 2007

Soju for You = Hennessey for You-Know-Who

[Update:   I’ve made indirect contact with a North Korean defector familiar with how Pyongyang Soju is made.  Based on that information, the product is not manufactured in a forced labor camp.  I  hope to  have more specific information about the materials and labor practices later.]   The Chicago Tribune and the  Hankook Ilbo are both reporting that North Korea is about to export of shipment of soju to the United States. US-North Korean trade is rare as Washington imposes...

Categories Google Earth/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics/U.S. Law/Uncategorized
May 5, 2007

A Denuclearization Agreement, But Without the ‘Denuclearization’ Part

It’s Day 21 since Peace in Our Time Day, and here’s the latest “peace in our time” update: Yonbyong is running; no IAEA inspectors have gone to North Korea and none have been invited; there have been no substantive six-party sessions since March; North Korea denies having the uranium program it previously admitted; North Korea may or may not be running away with the ransom in dirty money that held this deal up, even though it wasn’t part of the...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD
April 5, 2007

Anju Links for 4/5

The New York Sun has more on the “supernotes” found at U.N. Headquarters  and the investigation that follows. It looks like North Korea will fail to meet the April 13 deadline to shut down its reactor at Yongbyon.  Chris Hill is still  saying he’s “confident” that North Korea can meet it, meaning that he still expects them to.  The Chinese are not so optimistic. Our capitulations strengthen our enemies.  Roh’s popularity rises following a the signing of an FTA that...

Categories Uncategorized
March 1, 2007

Why You Have to Read this Blog: Yonhap Gets Lefkowitz’s Testimony Wrong

Standing amid a crowd of journalists today, a thought entered my mind at such velocity that it shattered  a tumor of remorse forming around the idea that any of them has a thousand times my audience.  True, I thought.  But unlike them,  every word I write will be published.  Oh, the power!   It fills and swells my cranium!   And no sooner do I see the stories they’ve filed, the frustrated resignation hits me all over again.  Because they’re...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/Media Criticism/Uncategorized/Washington Views
February 16, 2007

A Seven-Step Plan to Save NATO

First story: Senator John McCain, a Republican contender for the White House in 2008, chastised Europe on Saturday for failing to supply the troops and money to win in Afghanistan and said NATO’s future was at stake. In tough comments that singled out specific countries, McCain told NATO allies to move beyond the “false debate” over security and development priorities in Afghanistan — a dispute that dominated a defense ministers’ meeting earlier this week.  [Reuters] Second story: An Italian judge...

Categories Uncategorized
February 15, 2007

Escape from Munich

[Update:    The Washington Post declares a  conservative revolt against the Not-Quite-Agreed Framework.  E-mailing another activist today, I noted the irony that after years of being on President Bush’s side and getting no media traction, we’re far more likely to attract media attention now that we oppose his new policy.  Just watch.  This will be  a fascinating experiment in media behavior.] [Update 2:   More at MSNBC.  The Administration is now  furiously “clarifying” that it will  interpret the terms strictly, which...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
December 23, 2006

A Highly Successful Conclusion to the Six-Party Talks

It’s  the best result we could possibly have hoped for from this worn-out  charade. The U.S. delegation seems to have gone out of its way in the talks. Hill was quoted by China’s People’s Daily as saying his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan “is obviously professional, and he has a lot of experience, so because he has more experience than I do in nuclear negotiations, it made me have to work hard. I have to do a lot of homework...

Categories Uncategorized
December 18, 2006

Phillip Buck Featured in WSJ

Underground railroad worker Phillip Buck,  recently released from a Chinese prison,  has told Melanie Kirkpatrick  about his activities, his  arrest, and even his new identity: Pastor Buck is nothing if not determined. In 2002, while in a Southeast Asian country with a group of refugees he had guided there, his apartment in Yanji city, in northeast China, was raided. Nineteen refugees were captured and a copy of his passport was confiscated. With his identity now compromised, Mr. Buck returned to...

Categories China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized
December 8, 2006

Arrest Galloper, Part 2

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare is over. We finally have closure in a terrible tragedy in which  innocent Korean  pedestrians were cut down by  a reckless foreigner,  who managed to evade local justice and (the outrage!) face a quickie trial and light punishment  in his home country’s courts.  Remember the protests and the vigils?  No?  Probably because the driver was a drunk South Korean Hyundai Asan  employee, and the victims were North Korean soldiers.  Two were injured, one...

Categories Korean Law/Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA/Uncategorized
December 6, 2006

Three Cheers for Silvestre Reyes

You may recall my previous post on Silvestre Reyes, the Texas Democrat picked to lead the House Intel Committee. Reyes is now setting a new standard for “realism” worthy of the name. Reyes, whom news reports then described as an “Iraq war opponent,” has called for putting more troops into Iraq. In the process, he’s given the sort of that I’ve been waiting in vain to hear from President Bush, and he begged the questions that the escapists can’t answer:...

Categories Diplomacy/Uncategorized
November 17, 2006

Proliferation Security Watch

The AP has a very detailed story on the search of a North Korean ship in the Indian Ocean, along with a nice summary of other searches in the recent past.  In this case, it sounds like all they found was cement. In other searches, Hong Kong authorities detained two North Korean cargo ships in October for safety violations apparently unrelated to the U.N. sanctions. Myanmar permitted a North Korean cargo ship in distress to anchor at a port in...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WMD
November 13, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 60

The United States and its allies are moving forward with active naval operations  to contain the North Korean proliferation threat.   The strikingly odd thing about this is that South Korea isn’t going to be one of them.  Here is a list of nations with which the United States has more diplomatic and military synergy today than with South Korea:  Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Australia, … and France.  I guess you’re officially no longer  a U.S. ally when...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
November 3, 2006

Someone Please Staple Kim Geun-Tae’s Lips Together

This is an act that damages our national pride and is not appropriate for the South Korea-U.S. alliance.” — Kim Geun Tae, head of S. Korea’s ruling party and North Korea’s favorite dancing piggy, on hearing that the United States actually intends to implement U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718. When I worried aloud that the United States would ease sanctions on North Korea during the pendency of the next round of endless, pointless six-party extortion denuclearization talks, I based my...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Unintended Humor/WMD/WTF?
October 30, 2006

Proliferation Security Update

A second North Korean ship has been inspected  in Hong Kong,  but  there aren’t many details. The officials from the Hong Kong Customs and Marine Department said the North Korean vessel, Kang Nam 5, has been barred from leaving the port after its inspectors found about a dozen safety violations Thursday. Details of the suspected violations were not available. Another vessel, the Ponghwasan, apparently was not stopped or inspected, despite fears that it carries banned cargoes.

Categories Uncategorized
October 27, 2006

Kim Jong Il Saved by a Fortune Teller?

The idea had crossed my mind, since there don’t seem to be rational explanations for so many of the things he’s been doing lately.  Via the Daily NK: Explosives targeting Kim Jong Il were found set up at the Yongcheon explosion. They were small explosives that cannot be made with North Korean technology, leading people to believe that they came from outside the country, and causing Kim Jong Il to become concerned over his safety. At the time of the...

Categories Uncategorized