Search Results for “luxury”

April 17, 2008

U.N. World Food Program Reports Skyrocketing Food Prices in Pyongyang

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned today that time is running out to avert looming food shortages and a potential humanitarian crisis in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) following confirmation of a critically low national harvest stemming in part from last year’s heavy August floods. “The food security situation in the DPRK is clearly bad and getting worse,” said Tony Banbury, the World Food Programme’s Regional Director for Asia. “It is increasingly likely that external assistance...

Famine & Food Aid

February 13, 2008

Six months later, deafening silence about North Korea and Syria

Last Sunday, a friend invited me to attend an event at Bethel Israel Synagogue in Alexandria. The subject was “The North Korea-Syria Connection,” although the event seems not to have caught the notice of many Korea watchers or journalists. I was invited by a friend who happens to attend the synagogue. The host was NPR’s Robert Siegel, and the guests were Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times. Kessler consistently toes the State...

Proliferation/Washington Views

January 1, 2008

2007: A Lost Year

[Update 2 Jan 08: “North Korea failed to fulfill its October promise to declare all its nuclear programs by the end of 2007 — and the United States did not make a big deal out of it.” — WaPo, Blaine Harden] SO ENDS THE YEAR 2007, with this terse statement from the State Department spokesman: In September 2005, the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea agreed on a Joint Statement with North Korea that charted the way forward...

Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks

North Korea F.A.Q.

Why blog about North Korea? North Korea’s nuclear program and the diplomacy that has attempted to end it for decades are widely covered in the media, but the media has done a poor job reporting the wider North Korea story: its people and their suffering, the society in which they live, and what these things say about the failure of the international community to respond to a grave humanitarian crisis. Those missing pieces of the story are the pieces that...

Comments: 73

July 11, 2007

China Attacks Dissent in America and It Expands Its Power to Intimidate the Neighbors

Strategy Page says they are, and that the FBI is so busy looking for terror cells that China can get away with it: In the past year, many copies of the Epoch Times have been stolen and destroyed, and editorial staff have been physically attacked by men who appear to be Chinese. Editorial offices have also been attacked, often at night, to make it look like a burglary. China has also been putting pressure on Chinese language newspapers in the...

Censorship/China/NK Military/U.S. Military/Washington Views

June 10, 2007

To Your Health, Part 2

[Update: Mostly dead or slightly alive? The Daily NK passes along an alleged eyewitness report of a recent sighting in which Kim seemed relatively healthy. Once again, I strongly suggest a fresh consignment of whiskey, bacon, and maybe some Italian sausage as a gesture of, you know, friendship. Heck, if we can get him to consume enough of it, we might eventually be able to get some corn into the bellies of his poor subjects. If the report is...

Kim Jong Il

April 19, 2007

Anju Links for 19 April 2007

* Cho Myong Rok, who is probably the second or third-most important North Korean official, is reported to be dying. Cho is the one Kim Jong Il designated to visit Washington and meet with President Clinton years ago. Doctors expect the 79-year-old vice marshal to live another month or two, as he already had one of his kidneys removed 10 years ago, and has gone through treatment for cancer in his intestines, the organization said. Here’s a brief Global...

"United" Nations/Korean Society/Kremlinology/WMD

April 14, 2007

Agreed Framework 2.0: A Day 60 Scorecard

[Update: I decided to append various newsworthy or interesting reactions to the passage of this deadline at the end of this post; please scroll to the bottom to read. For new readers, the man on the right is Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who expended years of connivance on getting us to make this deal, and who personally negotiated its amorphous terms. Hill has staked his reputation on the idea that North Korea is capable of abiding by the...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD

April 10, 2007

North Korea by Google Earth: Kim Jong Il’s Largest Palace

[Updated; The Mystery of the Tangun Tomb] Remember my March 28th post, a stream of consciousness that washed against the subject of EU sanctions against North Korea? Among the items sanctioned were pure-bred horses, which are the kind not even North Koreans would dare eat — because of who owns them. That led me to the one location in North Korea where I suspected that such horses might be kept. I had recently found that location on Google Earth while...

Google Earth/History/Kim Jong Il

March 28, 2007

A novel definition for ‘denuclearization;’ and where to keep a horse (from being eaten) in N. Korea

According to this Chosun Ilbo report, North Korea recently floated a novel interpretation of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” under which it could, you know, keep its nuclear weapons. I wonder what they expected: The assistant secretary of state made it clear that Washington’s goal is complete denuclearization saying, “The U.S. will not form any kind of ties with a nuclear-armed North Korea. He stipulated that “the case of India (which signed a nuclear pact despite possessing nuclear programs) will...

Human Rights/Kim Jong Il/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 23, 2007

How Many North Koreans Was the World Program Really Feeding?

Update: Paul Eckert of Reuters did a very fine interview with Marcus Noland. “It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said. …. “When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said. “One of the saddest things...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/WMD

March 20, 2007

N. Korea Boycotts Talks Over Funny Money Proceeds

[Talks stall; See updates below] BEIJING – International talks on North Korea’s nuclear program stalled again Tuesday, with Pyongyang refusing to take part until it receives $25 million from a bank blacklisted by the United States, Japan’s chief envoy said. Kenichiro Sasae said a meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon between the chief delegates of the six nations involved in the disarmament talks was canceled because Pyongyang refused to attend. “There was no progress at all today,” Sasae said. “China as...

Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 18, 2007

Ill-Gotten Gains: Who Still Remembers Resolution 1718?

[Scroll down for updates.] (d) all Member States shall, in accordance with their respective legal processes, freeze immediately the funds, other financial assets and economic resources which are on their territories at the date of the adoption of this resolution or at any time thereafter, that are owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the persons or entities designated by the Committee or by the Security Council as being engaged in or providing support for, including through other illicit means,...

"United" Nations/An Alliance?/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 15, 2007

North Korea’s Blood Gold

Question: How can a banker and investor in overseas gold mines get sympathetic innocent-victim treatment from the International Herald Tribune? Answer: Go into business with this man. That’s the upshot of this IHT story on Colin McAskill, successor to Nigel Cowie as the new primary foreign stakeholder in the Pyongyang-based Daedong Credit Bank. Reporter Donald Greenless writes that among McAskill’s other functions, he is “helping to operate North Korea’s foreign gold sales.” McAskill offers “dossiers” of proof to disprove any...

Human Rights/Human Trafficking/NK Economics/The Camps

March 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time! Financial Edition

North Korea’s top nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan said Thursday that Pyongyang’s decision to halt nuclear facilities, as outlined in initial steps included in the Feb. 13 six-way agreement, will depend on the U.S. lifting of financial sanctions against North Korea. [Kyodo News; ht Richardson] The U.S. negotiator at the six-party talks, Chris Hill, once said that “[l]ife is too short to overreact to every statement coming out of Pyongyang.” It’s true that the North Koreans do more than their...

"United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Google Earth/Money Laundering/Terrorism (NK)/WMD

January 10, 2007

Two Questions for Lee Jae-Joung

1. If poverty is really the reason why North Korea builds nukes, then why is it that the people who actually built the thing have so much higher a standard of living than I do (contrarily, I wonder how much Lee really knows about what poor North Koreans think about this)? 2. If the key to denuclearization is ending poverty in North Korea, why has your government tolerated the North Korean regime’s theft of your government’s aid from the neediest...

Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/WMD

January 7, 2007

Chinese Police Raid LiNK Refuge, Arrest Three U.S. Activists and Six Refugees

Update 1: I’m going to bump this post up a few times. Meanwhile, I second Kyochan’s advice: Digg the story. I didn’t have an account, but it only took a few seconds to sign up. And I see that Reporters Without Borders is e-mailing half the world over … Saddam Hussein’s execution! Well, here, here! Let’s exhume the old bus-bombing rapist. Scroll down to see my response, and RSF’s reply to that. They claim not to have an opinion on...

Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees

December 19, 2006

If I Were a Member of the North Korean Elite, I, Too Would Be Buying Up Gold and Chinese Real Estate

One of the least recognized moral responsibilities assumed by authoritarian states is the responsibility for misspent words and wealth they choose to get into the business of controlling. For example, when the South Korean government dabbles in the control of objectionable speech, whether for political or nationalistic reasons, it assumes responsibility for the decision to license, by omission, (and sometimes, even to subsidize) other objectionable or controversial speech. To a much greater extent, North Korea, which aspires to a higher...

"United" Nations/China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights

Search Results for: luxury