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September 16, 2009

What I Think of the Bilateral Talks Talk

I’ve let much of the sturm and drang over the announcement of a bilateral meeting with the North Koreans pass while I tried to acquire a sense of what this really means, and whether it necessarily suggests that Obama’s not-bad North Korea policy is going to revert to something weaker, something ironically like the policy George W. Bush ultimately adopted, and which failed so completely to achieve American interests. Conservatives have gotten into the habit of opposing bilateral talks with...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

September 15, 2009

North Korea Extends Mass Mobilization

That “150-day battle” which had caused such discontent among the wrung-out North Korean proles has been extended for another hundred dreary days. Interestingly, some reports have associated this campaign with the planned succession of Kim Jong Eun. With campaign tactics like these, Jong Eun risks alienating such key swing voting blocs, such as displaced factory workers, starving widows, labor camp prisoners, and homeless orphans.

Inside NK

September 15, 2009

And Yet, Christine Ahn Wants You to Know that Sanctions Kill North Korean Babies

Italian customs recently confiscated 420 bottles of expensive liquor on their way to North Korea. Italian newspaper Vivere Ancona said customs in the eastern port city seized 150 bottles of brandy and 270 bottles of whisky in containers destined for North Korea at the end of last month. The confiscation follows a UN Security Council ban on the export of arms, high technology and luxury goods to North Korea after the communist country’s nuclear test in May. The liquor is...

Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Sanctions/Useful Idiocy

September 15, 2009

Rumor: N. Koreans May Have Disabled River Alert System

Well, this would be strong evidence for the “water attack” theory: North Korea may have disabled alert systems that monitor water levels before it opened floodgates on Sept. 6, killing six South Korean campers, the Korea Economic Daily said, citing unidentified government officials. Four automatic alert systems near South Korea’s Imjin river weren’t working three hours before North Korea opened the floodgates to one of its dams, the Korean-language newspaper said. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service is investigating the matter,...

North-South

September 14, 2009

Another Nuke Test?

On Saturday, I had coffee with a very well-connected South Korean friend, who suggested in passing that North Korea might respond to this-or-that sanction with another nuke test. After having expostulated for the next 45 seconds about why such a move wouldn’t further North Korea’s interests at this time, I think I now understand why my friend just sat there and smiled while I yammered on: According to a high-level source in North Korea, Kim Jong-Il instructed at the meeting...

Proliferation/WMD

September 12, 2009

Lisa Ling to Appear at LiNK Benefit Gala Tonight

[Liveblogging below. Paul Song is speaking, and Laura Ling will appear at the gala.] Wonderful. And you can watch it all here, live at 6 p.m. Eastern. For all the understandable criticism of Laura Ling, Euna Lee, and Mitch Koss for crossing into North Korea, a sentiment I’ve never understood has been the hostility by some toward Lisa Ling, whom to my eyes is guilty of nothing whatsoever here. Some have even appeared to criticize her for using her access...

Activism/Human Rights/Ling/Lee Incident/Media Criticism

September 11, 2009

That’s Going to Cause a Lot of Confusion at the Betting Windows

So, depending on which source you’ve just read, Kim Jong Un is now either officially confirmed as successor, or the succession has been suspended until further notice. One rumor has it that Jong Un’s undoing was his premature efforts to fire people, which happens to be exactly Ernst Rohm’s undoing (that, and the publication of his gay love letters in a Munich newspaper). For what it’s worth — and I’d say, very little — Kim Yong Nam denies the Mainichi...

Kremlinology

September 11, 2009

Unification Minister: N. Korea Intentionally Caused Fatal Flood

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek told parliament that the government believes the North deliberately discharged some 40 million tons of water from its Hwanggang Dam north of the demilitarized zone on Sunday. [Yonhap] Well, who really knows? What I would say is the North Koreans aren’t the sort to let concern for the welfare of their own people or anyone else get in the way of sending a political message. For them, killing a few kids could easily be just another...

North-South/Sunshine

September 11, 2009

Alleged Chinese Police Report Supports Allegations of 2003 Massacre of North Koreans

Writing in the Wall Street Journal in October 2006, Melanie Kirkpatrick first raised shocking claims about North Korean border guards’ massacre of a large group of people trying to flee from North Korea to China across the Yalu River. Her report was based on documents purporting to come from official Chinese documents, including a local police report from Badaogou Precinct, near Baishan City: “At 7 a.m. on Oct. 3, 2003,” Case Report No. 055 begins, “a report was received from...

China & Korea/Refugees

September 10, 2009

Open Radio: China Prepares N. Korea Occupation Force

Open Radio, one of the broadcasting services that edits the reports of North Koreans and broadcasts them back into their homeland, claims that the force is being composed from ethnic Koreans in China: According to the source, Shenyang and Jangchoon districts have special force with a size of a brigade. There is also a force composed only of Korean-Chinese, while the size of this force has not been confirmed. These forces were created in order to respond to any sudden...

China & Korea/Reconstruction

September 9, 2009

Seoul Train Screening, Weekly Demonstration, LiNK Gala Live Online

For those living in Seoul, a couple events of note. Thursday, September 10th, 8-10 p.m., there is a screening of Seoul Train near Hapjeong Station (lines 2 & 6), take exit 5 to Yogiga Gallery. After the documentary, a couple activists from the film will talk. Translation will be provided, all are encouraged to attend. (Disclosure – this is being organized by a member of Justice for North Korea, a group of which I am an active member. We don’t...

Activism/Books & Films/Human Rights

September 9, 2009

U.S. Sanctions More N. Korean Entities

The U.S. Department of State today designated under Executive Order 13382 the General Bureau of Atomic Energy (GBAE) and Korea Tangun Trading Corporation. Both entities were designated by the United Nations on July 16, 2009, for their involvement in North Korea’s WMD and missile programs. GBAE oversees the DPRK nuclear program and manages operations at the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center. Korea Tangun Trading Corporation is subordinate to North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences and is primarily responsible for the...

Proliferation/Sanctions

September 8, 2009

Sunshine and Cold Water

Historians, take note. South Korea has actually demanded an apology from North Korea for something: South Korea demanded an apology and further explanation from North Korea on Tuesday over a sudden discharge of dam water that left six people dead or missing, saying the North’s response was not satisfactory. Some 40 million tons of water from the North’s Hwanggang Dam pushed through the Imjin River, which flows out to South Korea’s west coast, at pre-dawn hours on Sunday, sweeping away...

North-South

September 8, 2009

A Nominee for the Unfortunate Photo Op Hall of Fame

Good for Stephen Bosworth, trying to stay relevant while Philip Goldberg shows us the kind of diplomacy North Korea really understands … but is this really the way he wanted to say, “Hey, remember me?” The good news is that the Obama people still appear to be sticking to their guns — demanding complete and verifiable denuclearization as a precondition to all of the goodies. Not that that will ever happen, but I’m happy to see the sanctions tightened until...

Diplomacy

September 6, 2009

Revealed: The First Published Images of Camp 12, Chongo-Ri, North Korea

Recently, Chosun Ilbo reporter and North Korean gulag survivor Kang Chol Hwan published this story about a remote labor camp in North Korea, its recent expansion to support a crackdown on defectors, and the horrific conditions there: The Chongori reeducation center in North Hamgyong Province that went through the greatest change. The center has been reorganized as a concentration camp exclusively for arrested defectors. It has reportedly turned into a living hell, where labor is much heavier than at ordinary...

Google Earth/Human Rights/Inside NK/The Camps

September 6, 2009

Americans Do Not Admire China, and This Is Why

I was immediately suspicious yesterday when I heard that some ChiCom mouthpiece rag had claimed that the Chinese flag would fly on the South Lawn of the White House later this month. Here is China Daily’s report: The national flag of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) will be hoisted at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on September 20, media reported Sunday. Chinese associations in the United States [read: Commie puppet fifth column] had applied to...

China/China & Korea/Refugees/Uncategorized

September 5, 2009

Photos of North Korean Soldiers Smuggling Across the Yalu River

The Daily NK caught them in flagrante delicto in the broad daylight, acting very much like they have nothing to fear: See the rest of the photos here. If Kim Jong Il is as rational as I suspect he is, he knows that the danger of an invasion from his southern border is remote, while the danger of a more subversive kind of invasion across his northern border is both mortal and immediate. Wouldn’t that suggest that if Kim Jong...

NK Military

September 5, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

The Daily Mail has republished photos, released yesterday by KCNA, showing Kim Jong Il visiting what’s described elsewhere as the Kim Jong Suk Sanitarium. The report doesn’t specify what city it’s in, but Kim Jong Suk is Kim Jong Il’s mother and a native of Hoeryong in North Hamgyeong Province. Many of the sites in Hoeryong are named after her. You’d think that a country that’s trying to show the vigor of its geriatric oligarch wouldn’t dress him in funereal...

Kim Jong Il