South Korea is considering cutting aid to, and trade with North Korea in response to the North’s seizure of assets at Kumgang: The government is reportedly considering limiting the volume of agricultural and marine products from North Korea or tightening regulation of imports in other ways. Certain North Korean items, such as sand, hard coal and mushrooms, already require the unification minister’s approval each time someone wants to bring them into the South. Seoul could expand the number of such...

The North Korean authorities are hunting for those clandestine correspondents who give us those independent reports about events in North Korea as if the regime’s very existence depends on it: A radio broadcaster run by North Korean defectors here reported this week that security guards in Hoeryeong, North Hamgyeong Province, directed its residents to turn in photos of their family members who have been missing from 2005. If the families say that these photos have been lost, security guards pay...

Professor Sung-Yoon Lee, writing a lengthy Outlook piece for the American Enterprise Institute, predicts that history will be unkind to Kim Dae Jung (and if you read Don Kirk’s book, already is to a degree). I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but Lee is an all-time OFK favorite, and I’ve read enough to see that it’s up to Lee’s high standards of writing. What’s more, this article has fired up spittle-flecked fulmination from a lot of the right people...

Things You Can’t Eat: “North Korea spent more than US$5.4 million on fireworks displays along the banks of the Taedong River in Pyongyang on Wednesday to celebrate former leader Kim Il-sung’s 98th birthday the following day. And President Lee Myung Bak, sounding more like an OFK guest blogger than ever, asks, “How much corn could you have bought with that money?” It’s on. _______________________ Is North Korea expanding its army again? _______________________ Did Kim Jong Il cancel his trip to...