October 14, 2009

Sanctions Update

Either Hillary Clinton reads The New Ledger or I’m not the only one who is worried that the Obama Administration will relax sanctions too early because of vaporous North Korean promises that it will return to talks. Either way, she seems to have wanted to put such fears to rest: “We have absolutely no intention of relaxing or offering to relax North Korean sanctions at this point whatsoever,” Clinton said. [AFP] Meanwhile, Chris Hill’s replacement as Assistant Secretary for East...

Categories Sanctions
October 14, 2009

Lankov in the NYT, on Changing North Korea

My friend Andrei begins by advocating “cultural exchanges” as a means to change North Korea, a topic we’ve often debated in the past. If only such exchanges had the potential he suggests they do. North Korea only permits them on an infinitesimal scale, with people whose loyalty is thoroughly vetted, and when it calculates that the regime-stabilizing financial benefits outweigh the risk that the participants will be corrupted. Look no further than the Kaesong experience, or that of the North...

Categories Deprogramming/Propaganda/Subversion/Sunshine
October 14, 2009

Two years from now, carpet-bagging traders from Chongjin could be buying up real estate in Kangnam

… if Jasper Kim is correct that Korea’s housing bubble is about to burst. There are some eerie echoes of the U.S. subprime mania as well. The first sign of trouble is the general consumer confidence that real-estate prices will go up. A recent Bank of Korea consumer survey index for housing found the highest level of optimism since the survey started a year ago. Purchasers of Korean real estate have a sense that a broader economic recovery is underway....

Categories South Korea
October 13, 2009

How North Korea Selects Family “Reunion” Recipients

The criteria for selection are political value and propaganda potential. South Korean prisoners of war and citizens who were abducted by the North are picked for their political value. North Korea believes that South Korean demands for the release of all POWs and abductees can be appeased if such people are included. [….] Once selected, North Koreans go through between one and three months of ideological education at the Unification Bureau. In the early days of the family reunions, the...

Categories Abductions/North-South
October 13, 2009

All Animals Are Equal, But Some Are More Equal Than Others

Because under capitalism, man exploits man. But in the Workers’ Paradise, it’s exactly the opposite! Affluent households get children from the lower classes to repair fences, harvest crops, produce charcoal briquettes and perform other household chores. For poor children, it serves as a good opportunity to get fed somewhat well. The trend is even clearer in rural areas; wealthy families ask children from poor families to cultivate their private fields, sowing them in spring and harvesting the crops in fall...

Categories Class Warfare
October 13, 2009

ROK Food Aid Policy Misses the Point

Is Seoul’s resumption of food aid about saving lives, national pride, or something else? The government has decided to resume food aid to North Korea, which was stopped in summer 2007, and is considering when to start and how much to give. [….] Another government official said the government is considering giving “10,000 to 30,000 tons” of food. If Seoul were to resume food aid on the scale of previous administrations, which was between 300,000 and 400,000 tons, it “would...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
October 10, 2009

North Korea Finally Finds a Minority to Persecute: Chinese

North Korean authorities have apparently stepped up regulations and monitoring of Chinese residents there since Beijing backed UN sanctions against the North in June. Sources in China and North Korea say North Korean intelligence officials are increasingly treating Chinese residents who recently visited their home country as spies. Sources say this has prompted many Chinese residents to avoid visiting China. The number of Chinese residents passing through customs in Rajin has dropped to one-third of the number seen last year...

Categories China & Korea
October 10, 2009

The Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (and How You Can Help)

I’m very glad I took Dan B’s advice and attended the presentation on the North Korean Database Center (NKDB) for Human Rights. The event was held at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, last Thursday. NKDB founders Kim Sang Hun and Yoon Yeo Sang gave the presentation. The NKDB has created an extensive database of alleged human rights abuses in North Korea, one that is both comprehensive and subject to detailed statistical analysis for journalists, policymakers, and perhaps...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
October 9, 2009

October 9, 2009

THE BALLOON PEOPLE are back! OBAMA IS “LEERY” of direct talks with North Korea: “[A] State Department official said Tuesday that the U.S. will not agree to one-on-one talks unless it is given assurances in advance that the outcome will be a deal to resume six-party negotiations.” Well, good for them. No talks will ever disarm North Korea, but always good to show them we mean what we say. SOUTH KOREA PLACES A CAP on what local Commie-sympathizing fifth-columnists can...

Categories Anju Links
October 9, 2009

But What Has He Actually Done?

OK, Europe, we get it already: you love Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. But what has Barack Obama has done to justify the award of a Nobel Peace Prize? I hope President Obama is sensible enough to be embarrassed by this. I see no reason to believe — and hope that I never will — that President Obama campaigned for this. As such, the award says nothing about Obama himself, something perhaps about a segment of his supporters who will...

Categories Europe
October 9, 2009

N. Korea Expands Special Forces

For two of the four years I spent in Korea, I lived, not in a tent or a Quonset hut, but in apartments in Seoul, directly adjacent to the Han River, with breathtaking views of the city lights reflecting on the river at night. It was, ironically, the most comfortable and luxurious existence of my life. Yes, there was the occasional annoyance of rising early to come to a PT formation and the other petty despotisms of Army life —...

Categories NK Military/U.S. Military
October 9, 2009

N. Korean Containers Seized in S. Korea Contained Hazmat Suits Bound for Syria

Reports from unnamed government sources in the capital have stated that the four containers impounded in the port of Busan, and reported in the Handy Shipping Guide story recently, contained clothing “to guard against nuclear, biological or chemical infection. Syria was also pronounced as the intended destination and the goods were declared as either of Russian manufacture or copied from Russian original designs, probably by North Korea, where the items apparently originated. [Handy Shipping Guide] And to think we only...

Categories Proliferation/WMD
October 8, 2009

Your Money or Your Life: WaPo on North Korea’s Gulag Shake Down

The Washington Post’s terrific Blaine Harden has written a must-read story, based in large part on the research of Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard, about an ugly new turn of events in North Korea’s gulag system. North Korea’s infamous penal system, which for decades has silenced political dissent with slave labor camps, has evolved into a mechanism for extorting money from citizens trading in private markets, according to surveys of more than 1,600 North Korean refugees. Reacting to an explosive...

Categories Human Rights/The Camps
October 7, 2009

NKDB Event at SAIS Tomorrow

I apologize for the last-minute notice, but the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) will be holding an event at the US-Korea Institute at SAIS in Washington, D.C., from 12 to 2 p.m. tomorrow (Oct. 8th). The topic will be the Center’s 2009 White Paper on North Korean Human Rights; NED is also a sponsor of the event. It looks like they want you to RSVP, but lunch is provided. And for anyone looking to “get involved,” I...

Categories Human Rights
October 7, 2009

The Health Care Crisis (in North Korea)

Open Radio reports new outbreaks of diseases — including malaria, tuberculosis, typhoid, and hepatitis — throughout North Korea, save Pyongyang. Meanwhile, in a country that somehow manages to to raise hard currency for the regime, ordinary people can’t afford basic pharmaceuticals like penicillin and aspirin. As a result, a black market has arisen to supply those basic needs. Unfortunately, the makers often add toxic impurities to the drugs. Sure, you say, just import them from Canada. Unfortunately, the Inner Party...

Categories Inside NK