Are you happy to see me, or is that just a cargo train? _______________________ Make that two officials executed over The Great Confiscation. Just to show that North Korea hasn’t lost its flair, it forced a crowd of economic officials to observe the proceedings. How many executions does it take to make this officially a purge? _______________________ Some surprisingly interesting observations from Hwang Jang Yop, via Don Kirk. _______________________ The collapse of North Korea’s educational system is creating a lost...

Sounds like the perfect time for a coup: Kim Jong Il, and possibly his son Jong-Eun, are rumored to be in China. ______________________________ North Korea has accused South Korean soldiers of firing on a police post on the North Korean side of the DMZ. ______________________________ Vitit Muntarbhorn calls for the U.N. to set up a commission of inquiry into North Korea’s crimes against humanity. If only someone at the U.N. really understood and cared about the history, suffering, and han...

Nearly a year after voting for UNSCR 1874, Russia gets around to implementing anti-proliferation sanctions. Let’s hope that Russia takes enforcement more seriously than China, though I’m not particularly optimistic. ________________________ Projection: “The south Korean conservative regime is no more than a marionette as it acts according to the script written by outsiders, bereft of any independence. This reactionary ruling group is bound to go to a ruin any moment as it goes against the requirements of the times and...

Writing in the Asia Times, Andray Abrahamian, a doctoral candidate at a small South Korean university, finally gets around to publishing — apparently unedited — the term paper that’s been on his hard drive for the last three years: At present, goods from Kaesong are excluded [from the U.S.-Korea FTA] but could be used as enticement for North Korean reform. The requirements for Kaesong-produced goods to be included in the FTA are deliberately vague: they are dependent on US interpretations...