August 14, 2009

How Kim Jong Il Got Away With Counterfeiting Our Money

Having finally found time to read all of David Rose’s excellent Vanity Fair piece on North Korea’s supernote counterfeiting operation, I agree absolutely with Richardson and Curtis; it’s an excellent piece of journalism. For a fuller understanding, it should be read in the context of two others. Stephen Mihm’s New York Times report explained how North Korea assembled Intaglio printing presses and optically variable ink from the same Swiss manufacturer that supplies them to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/Sanctions
August 13, 2009

China Finally Enforcing N. Korea Sanctions, Kinda?

To say the very least, I remain deeply skeptical that China’s effort will be sustained, complete, or in good faith, but here are two stories that suggest to some degree, China is restricting trade with North Korea.  The first (as the reader who sent the link notes) comes directly from the ChiCom state media, so take it with a tablespoon of salt. Shan, who has run the corporation for 16 years, said he has forged close relations with officials in...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Kremlinology/Sanctions
August 13, 2009

The Winding Road to Redemption

It may be the ultimate case of paving someone else’s road to hell with good intentions. You may have heard it reported that on a lark, Laura Ling and Euna Lee crossed into North Korea and were captured while carrying video showing the faces of refugees and rescuers, whom Chinese police duly rounded up to send back to a firing squad or worse in North Korea.  Intentional?  Of course not.  Reckless?  Yes, perhaps fatally; yet it’s damage that can’t be...

Categories Human Trafficking/Ling/Lee Incident/Refugees
August 12, 2009

The Palaces of Pyongyang on Google Earth

Congratulations to our friend Curtis Melvin, whose Google Earth imagery of a Kim Jong Il palace in north Pyongyang is currently the Chosun Ilbo’s top story. This palace, I should point out, is one of no less than six very large palaces I know of in the Pyongyang area alone, though I can’t confirm who lives in all of them: This is the one I posted pictures of previously. A Daily NK piece previously confirmed that it’s one of Kim...

Categories Google Earth/Kim Jong Il
August 12, 2009

Mary Robinson Is Not Worthy

President Obama, for God-knows-what reason, has decided to award former U.N. bureaucrat Mary Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation’s highest civilian honor.  Years ago, I expressed my intense distaste for Mary Robinson: Mary Robinson was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2001, during the height of the Great North Korean Famine, while China flagrantly violated the U.N. Convention on Refugees to keep the starving millions outside its borders. While millions more died in a...

Categories "United" Nations/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
August 11, 2009

Treasury Knocks Over Another North Korean Bank

The Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation (KKBC) was been sanctioned under Executive 13382 today, for facilitating WMD proliferation: “North Korea’s use of a little-known bank, KKBC, to mask the international financial business of sanctioned proliferators demonstrates the lengths to which the regime will go to continue its proliferation activities and the high risk that any business with North Korea may well be illicit,” said Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey. Since 2008, Tanchon has been utilizing KKBC to...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions
August 11, 2009

Claudia Rosett’s Modest Proposal

Over at Pajamas Media, investigative reporting legend Claudia Rosett — she broke the oil-for-food scandal — has a proposal for Laura Ling and Euna Lee’s book/movie rights, which I heartily endorse: Though in light of the talk now circulating about a payola of book and movie deals, I have another suggestion. It would be entirely fitting for Laura Ling and Euna Lee to donate whatever money they make from their  story to some of the private charitable organizations whose staff...

Categories Ling/Lee Incident
August 11, 2009

North Korean Ship Boarded in Indian Waters Not Carrying Banned Cargo

That North Korean ship that was boarded, searched, and investigated after being caught lurking suspiciously in Indian waters turns out to have been carrying “genuine” cargo after all.  As we all eagerly anticipate John Feffer and Christine Ahn’s outcry that the ship’s captain was unfairly profiled for “boating while North Korean,” the rest of us can only shake our heads and wonder why the ship was behaving so suspiciously: A day after a North Korean ship was detained at Port...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions
August 10, 2009

Hillary Clinton’s Death-Glare Renders African Student Permanently Impotent

OK, so Hillary Clinton has had a few stumbles in her diplomatic outreach to old enemies (it’s probably for the best anyway). Maybe this would be a good time to clear the palate with a gauzy “public diplomacy” photo op in some backward place where the natives will show deference to Her Majesty: Whooooa — he stands corrected! I think that poor fellow’s voice rose a whole octave. I wonder what has the Secretary so sensitive about her position and...

Categories Diplomacy
August 10, 2009

Kremlinology Watch, Washington Edition: Did the Clintons Just Screw Up Our North Korea Policy Again?

How far has Kim Jong Il’s skillful use of two American hostages set back our efforts to disarm him? Assuming, as we safely can, that President Obama made some concessions for their release, all now depends on whether the President is willing to let himself be upstaged by the Clintons, be cornered into making concessions under the duress of an implicit threat to the safety of two American hostages, and give needlessly fastidious honor to a deal between two men...

Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
August 10, 2009

Rumors Persist That Laura Ling and Euna Lee Were Lured; China Uses Video to Launch Pogrom Against Refugees

It wouldn’t make crossing the border any less dumb, but it would make North Korea much more culpable: “There is a strong suspicion that he [the guide] was heavily involved and it was a trap,” said an experienced activist who has led dozens of refugees to safety. There has been no word of Kim. Such suspicions are bolstered by a first-hand account given to The Sunday Times by an American missionary who was warned by Chinese police a month earlier...

Categories Media Criticism/Refugees
August 9, 2009

Whoa. That’s just cold.

I’d have to say that this is the nastiest thing I’ve read yet about Laura Ling and Euna Lee.  And that said, it contains much interesting information that may or may not be at all true.  This, for example: Kim Jong Il has ruled it with absolute authority since 1994. He was born in the Forties, but his exact birthday is asecret. He wears platform shoes and a teased hairdo and is reputed to have had a string of lovers,...

Categories Ling/Lee Incident/U.S. Politics
August 9, 2009

Hey, Over There! Isn’t that a North Korean WMD Smugging Ship?

Some ferry passengers off the Andaman Islands probably never figured they’d be signing up to join the Proliferation Security Initiative when they bought their passage: The sources said the observant passengers were on their way from Port Blair to Hut Bay on a ferry called “˜”˜M V Hut Bay”. They first noticed the ship about 7 km from Hut Bay, the entry point for the Little Andaman islands, in a highly isolated stretch of the sea. One of the passengers...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions
August 8, 2009

Henceforth, All Art Must Serve the State

In a world fully possessed of its senses, Lanny Davis would have marked himself indelibly as a national laughingstock by now.  It worries me that as one, the “artistic community” has wheeled from near-unanimous opposition to the state to near-unanimous opposition to any dissent against it.  And now that I mull it some, it may be the very term “artistic community” that scares and confuses me the most: Consider the recent flurry of debate over the Obama “Joker” posters that...

Categories Censorship/Democracy/U.S. Politics
August 7, 2009

Lanny Davis Impersonates KCNA, Beclowns Self

So intricately forked is Lanny’s tongue that he’s apparently capable of performing analingus on three subjects at the same time: The release of the two journalists by the North Koreans on Tuesday night D.C. time was the result of a tour-de-force, trifecta combination of the three most talented and truly great political leaders of our times — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; her husband, former President Bill Clinton; and President Barack Obama.  [Lanny Davis, The Hill] He forgot to...

Categories U.S. Politics/Unintended Humor