Nothing Good Can Possibly Come of This

I posit the following: Jimmy Carter would not have agreed to go to North Korea had North Korea not agreed to release Aijalon Gomes. The North Koreans know Carter is the best friend they have in this country, and not even they are foolish enough to humiliate him by sending him home empty handed. I also posit that North Korea would not have induced Carter’s visit without the expectation of some benefit to the regime. At a minimum, they can...

That’s funny, I thought North Korea liked the idea of unification. The traitor talked about “unification tax,” sheer nonsense, at a time when the situation prevailing in Korea is so tense that a war may break out any moment. This is no more than sophism let loose by an idiot who knows nothing about reunification, insensitive to what is happening in the world and ignorant of the inter-Korean relations, a profiteer who knows nothing but money and a political imbecile....

Good Riddance, Chris Hill

Regular readers already know that Christopher Hill is one of the few career civil servants I write about here whom I loathe almost unreservedly. The first job of an American diplomat is to represent American interests and values. Hill did neither. In his parting remarks before heading off into obscurity — if history is kind to him — Hill encapsulates in one statement what made him the best diplomat North Korea ever had: “We know the Iraqis don’t have nuclear...

North Korean Fighter Pilot Dies in Possible Defection Attempt

A fighter plane from North Korea has crashed in China, killing its pilot. The pilot may have been trying to flee North Korea. Yonhap has a photograph of the aircraft, which has a delta wing characteristic of a Soviet MiG-21 or an early-model ChiCom F-7. [Yonhap photo] China may seem an unlikely destination for a defector who must have known that he’d be repatriated and killed if caught, but Yonhap, quoting South Korean government sources, claims that the pilot was...

North Korea is on Twitter … unless you happen to be a North Korean, of course. ___________________________ The Washington Post looks at Jang Song Thaek’s emerging role as svengali to Kim Jong Eun. ___________________________ “I have a sneaking suspicion that Kim Jong-il’s son, who wants to take over, has to earn his stripes with the North Korean military,” Gates said at the U.S. Marines’ Memorial Club in San Francisco. “My worry is that that is behind the provocation like the...

President Lee Drags South Korea Toward Its Destiny (Updated)

If there is such a thing as cautious enthusiasm — particularly for something that’s implausible on its face — that describes my reaction to President Lee’s proposal for phased unification with North Korea: Lee’s plan, similar to proposals from previous South Korean leaders, calls for North Korea’s denuclearization. If North Korea meets that demand — and years of international persuasion have not succeeded — Lee’s plan calls for a “peace community,” improved economic cooperation and then the establishment of a...

Toronto: 10th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees; Seoul: Beautiful Dream Concert

On August 19-22 Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights in Seoul is partnering with this year’s host HanVoice in Toronto for their 10th International Conference on North Korean Human Rights and Refugees.  This will be the first time the conference has been held in North America; to date the ICNKHRR has been in Seoul (3x), Tokyo, Prague, Warsaw, Bergen (Norway), London, and Melbourne. The main session this year is Saturday, August 21st, from 9 – 6.  Events open to...

Washington seems to believe that North Korea will return to the six party talks and stop its belligerent behavior if its sources of overseas funding are cut off. If that’s what “Washington” actually does believe, I think it’s wrong about that, but I do think that sanctions will do several other very useful things, like destabilize the power structure during the succession process, slow North Korea’s progress at proliferation, and break up the financial and logistical infrastructure of its proliferation...

Repatriated South Korean POW Sent to Yodok

An octogenarian South Korean POW has been sent to a North Korean prison camp after he was caught attempting to escape the country and return to his homeland more than 55 years after being captured during the Korean War. [Open News] According to the report, the “peace forest” that will be Jung’s final destination is the infamous Yodok, or Camp 15. Follow me in a slightly cynical thought. If we’re going to start using the I.C.C. as a means to...

Rumor: North Korea Planning Biological Attack on the G-20 Summit

North Korea is trying to launch a biochemical attack against the South prior to the G20 Summit in Seoul in November, a conservative activist claimed Thursday citing a North Korean source. Choi Sung-yong of the group Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea said the North is preparing to send 20 different deadly biochemical weapons attached to balloons and parachutes across the border. He said the campaign is led by Gen. Kim Kyok-sik, who commands the North’s frontline fourth corps, at...

So, it might have been “the game of their lives” after all.

Several of you have e-mailed me (thank you) about the announcement that FIFA will open an investigation into reports that North Korea has ordered “harsh ideological criticism” sessions and hard labor for the players and coaches of its unsuccessful World Cup team. “We sent a letter to the football federation to tell us about their election of a new president and to find out if the allegations made by the media that the coach and some players were condemned and...

Kim Jong Il, Call Your Lawyer

I think it’s safe to say that North Korea is going through something of a legal rough patch. Boycotting talks has worked well for North Korea, but boycotting trials, not so much: A state-run North Korean bank has lost a lawsuit for not paying back a loan it borrowed from a Taiwanese bank nine years ago, the New York district court said Friday. The District Court of New York confirmed it ordered the Foreign Trade Bank of Korea to pay...

The demographics of defection are shifting: since the currency reform, more middle-class North Koreans have been fleeing the North, a South Korean security official speculated. A North Korean source on Tuesday said the currency reform alienated many people from the regime, and the spread of South Korean pop culture through videos and CDs clandestinely circulated in the North has also encouraged some middle and higher-class North Koreans to flee. In recent days, many people who lost their savings due to...

North Korea has executed three leaders of a house church it raided in North Pyongan Province, and sent the remaining members to a labor camp. The report comes via North Korean Intellectuals’ Solidarity: According to the sources, the arrests and executions were carried out in mid-May. “At that time, right after the disastrous currency reform, police discovered 23 Christians in Kuwal-dong, Pyungsung County, in Pyongan Province, who met at an underground church. After their arrest, they were interrogated at length....

North Korea Celebrates Exclusion from Terrorism List by Abducting South Korean Fisherman

So North Korea has now seized a South Korean fishing boat in the Sea of Japan: Four South Korean and three Chinese fishermen were questioned for an alleged violation of the North’s exclusive economic zone, South Korea’s coast guard said in a statement. It said the fishing boat was being taken toward the North Korea’s eastern port of Songjin. A South Korean fisherman told South Korea via a satellite phone that his boat was being towed by a North Korean...

Sit Down for This One: 9/11/05 Riot at MacArthur Statue Was a North Korean Job

I know this probably stuns you as much as it stuns me: Seoul police arrested two pro-Pyongyang activists on charges of starting a campaign to remove a statue of U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur from a park in Incheon under orders from North Korea. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, two leaders of the Korean Confederation Unification Promotion Council were arrested on charges of receiving directives from a North Korean agent from 2004 to 2005 to stage a series of...

Plan B Watch: Einhorn Goes to Tokyo, Pressure Builds on China

The latest reports in the Korean press tell us that the President will soon sign an over-arching executive order that will subsume the authorities of Executive Order 13,382 (see sidebars), and will also allow the blocking of assets used for proliferation, drug trafficking, and currency counterfeiting: In a press briefing on Monday, Department spokesman Philip Crowley said, “We have no doubt that North Korea has engaged directly in counterfeit operations as a means of bringing currency into the country. This...

North Korea raised the stakes in its face-off with the United States and South Korea on Saturday, threatening to use nuclear weapons if Washington and Seoul go ahead with military exercises planned for regional waters this summer. [WaPo] President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 to reward it for giving up its nuclear weapons, and as of June 23, 2010, President Obama saw no particular reason to disturb that decision....