Category: Uncategorized

Breaking the Blockade

[Update: Andrei Lankov has a must-read piece on radio broadcasting in the Asia Times Online.] Where there is demand, there will be a supply, and the trickle of alternative information to North Korea, though small, shows signs of persistence and of having a receptive market. In addition to Radio Free NK and Open Radio for North Korea, there is now a Japan-based broadcaster, Shiokaze. The DailyNK interviews its director. Although their original focus is on sending messages to Japanese abductees,...

TKL Saves Washington’s Upstanding Moral Reputation

The questionable massage parlor James blogged about here has been raided and shut down. In the District, federal agents targeted five brothels that were masquerading as massage parlors or spas. The establishments were 14K Spot, which operated in a basement in the 1400 block of K Street Northwest; Downtown Spa, in the 1000 block of Vermont Avenue Northwest; OK Spa, in the 2400 block of Wisconsin Avenue Northwest; Cleveland Park Holistic Health, on the second floor of a building in...

Journalistic Absurdity of the Day

Yonhap News gives us this head-scratcher in the course of reporting on North Korea’s new demand for its missile launches not to affect the Kaesong Industrial Complex: Nevertheless, the joint industrial complex has been a burden for the South Korean government as there are concerns that a portion of the wages paid to North Korean workers there could be used to develop missiles. (emphasis mine) I’m in awe. Those people labor long hours in sweatshops for a pittance and still...

Axis, Schmaxis, Part 3

There is a theory in this city that a fundamentalist Sunni Muslim terrorist group would not dream of establishing an operational relationship with a secular Sunni Muslim terror-supporting tyrant or a fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tyrant. Believers in that theory are going to have real trouble wrapping their heads around the idea that the latter fundamentalist Shiite Muslim terror-supporting tryant’s minions joined a group of pork-eating, soju-swilling aetheist idolator infidels for a night of fireworks on the Fourth of July....

NYT: Iraq’s Sunnis Want U.S. to Stay

This certainly seems significant: As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces. …. The new stance is one of the most significant shifts in attitude since the war began. It could influence White House plans for a reduction of the 134,000 troops here and help the Americans expand dialogue...

Get Rid of the Dane

In many ways, Rudyard Kipling was a product of the backward times in which he lived, but what a timeless thing North Korea’s idea of diplomacy is: Dane Geld It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: — “We invaded you last night–we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away.” And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it...

Report: N. Koreans Will Allow Lefkowitz into Kaesong

If true, interesting. He should be prepared for an ambush before dozens of cameras, since recent visits make it apparent that North Korean guides at Kaesong are pre-loaded with approved harangues. The disadvantage of those is that the haranguer can’t adapt flexibly to questions like, “have you ever wanted to wander the streets of Rome, eat a mango, hear reggae, drive, or vote against the President?” Still, Lefkowitz will be set up as the overdog, and should not underestimate the...

Simple, Neat, and Wrong: Lugar and Hagel Go Wobbly on North Korea

[With a tip of my hat to H.L. Mencken.] Now that Democrats are suggesting that we bomb Kim Jong Il’s ballistic showpiece on the launching pad, we only need one more really dumb idea to make the role reversal complete. “It would be advisable to bring about a much greater intensification of diplomacy, and this may involve direct talks between the United States and North Korea,” said [Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard] Lugar, R-Ind. . . . “We need...

The End of Sunshine?

[Update 6/20: As predicted, the North Koreans aren’t taking this well.] “We have the right to speak.” — North Korean government official, talking about South Korean politics Has international pressure has finally forced South Korea to abandon years of official apathy about the phobocracy that is North Korea? Finally, South Korea declares, it will ask the North to treat the lives of its people with a modicum of respect.

Please, Please, Please Test It!

Plenty of people have asked me if Kim Jong Il will test a long-range Taepodong II missile, and really, I have no more idea that anyone else this side of the Taedong. On one hand, the North Koreans are desperate for some attention. They’re running out of money and friends, and they’ve added liquid fuel to a rocket, that’s corrosive to the fuel and oxidizer tanks and is thus more than an empty gesture. On the other hand, North Korea...

The Congo Question, The Heart of Darkness, and Accountability

The enforcement of standards of civilized behavior is what distinguishes us from our enemies, and today, we must again make that distinction plain. The Army has charged two soldiers and an NCO with murder in Iraq, based on an alleged incident that took place just last month. A three-star general ordered the investigation after following up reports about it. We eagerly await a John Murtha coverup allegation. The case will now proceed to an Article 32 investigation, a cross between...

European Parliament Condemns North Korea’s Human Rights Violations

Thanks to Human Rights Without Frontiers for sending. What follows is the full text of a resolution passed in the European Parliament on June 15, 2006: ======== Text of resolution follows ======== European Parliament adopted resolution on human rights violations in North Korea At its plenary session in Strasbourg on 15 June 2006, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on human rights violations in North Korea. The Resolution was tabled by MEP Dr. István SZENT-IVÁNYI (Group of the Alliance of...