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July 24, 2009

WTF? Michael Jackson Wanted to Ask Kim Jong Il to Free Laura Ling and Euna Lee?

If this doesn’t win “WTF of the Decade,” it’s an honorable mention: The last time I spoke to my friend Michael Jackson was about a month ago, 3 weeks before his shocking death. He had called me late one night to ask about another of my close friends who he had read about in the news. Laura Ling, a former colleague and friend, was detained originally by North Korean border guards along with her colleague Euna Lee on March 17th....

Ling/Lee Incident/WTF?

July 23, 2009

Wanted: Korea Bar Association Report on North Korean Concentration Camps (Update: Thank you)

Blaine Harden’s Washington Post article on Monday cited a report by the Korean Bar Association that contains an extensive collection of interviews of North Korean concentration camp survivors and witnesses. If I had a copy of that report, I would undertake a detailed examination of those witness’s statements for consistency with each other, with previous reports, and with satellite imagery of the camps. If possible, I would use that report to greatly expand my Google Earth posts about the camps. ...

Human Rights

July 22, 2009

John Kerry Tries, Fails to Stop Amendment Calling for N. Korea to be Re-Listed as Terror Sponsor (Update: Dems Defeat Amendment, 54-43)

Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends…. Now the president must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term. —...

Appeasement/Ling/Lee Incident/Sanctions/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics

July 21, 2009

An Inside Look at Hanawon

It is rare to be granted a look inside Hanawon, the first stop for North Korean defectors arriving in the South, but this summer the center opened its doors to international media in recognition of its 10 year anniversary, allowing journalists (and readers/viewers) a rare glimpse into the facility. As a result of the media invite, the L.A. Times ran a story about the rehabilitation center earlier this month and just recently VOA released a video story about Hanawon and...

Defectors/Refugees

July 21, 2009

Absolute Must Read: Washington Post on North Korea’s Concentration Camps

At last. The Washington Post has done a truly detailed, comprehensive, well-researched story on North Korea’s concentration camps. It’s a story that the Post wouldn’t have done had Anthony Faiola or Glenn Kessler been doing the reporting; Blaine Harden deserves much credit for writing what deserves to become a major exhibit in the indictment of our State Department for its culpable complicity. The satellite imagery of the camps features prominently in the story. (Disclosure: I provided Mr. Harden and one...

Human Rights/The Camps/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

July 20, 2009

Sanctions Upates

The big headline this week is the U.N.’s agreement on a list of entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1718 and 1874 (see links on my sidebar for the texts). Frankly, I think that’s a story that’s getting a great deal more attention than it merits. The sanctioned entities have largely been sanctioned under Executive Order 13,382 for years. I doubt that the U.N. imprimatur is going to fend off many of North Korea’s WMD clients that the Treasury Department’s...

"United" Nations/Axis of Evil/China/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD

July 20, 2009

Gates’s Advice to Kim Jong Il: “Don’t Do Anything Stupid.”

On a visit to lovely Fort Drum, New York, last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates discounted the threat of a conventional North Korean attack: “Frankly, this is an army that’s starving. The average North Korea, at this point, is seven inches shorter than his South Korean counterpart. This is a country where the famine of the mid-1990s has affected the physical and even intellectual development of those that are now coming into the zone who would be eligible for...

NK Military/U.S. Military

July 20, 2009

Seoul Should Join in Constricting North Korea’s Palace Economy

OFK favorite Sung-Yoon Lee, writing in the Far Eastern Economic Review, presses a point that the South Korean government ought to be ready to hear by now. After a sophisticated recitation of the U.S. Treasury Department’s own constriction of the North, he argues: The current ROK government now has its own chance to play a crucial role in determining the future of the Korean nation. As the self-professed sole legitimate government representative of the Korean people, Seoul must pursue a...

An Alliance?/Sanctions/U.S. & Korea

July 18, 2009

The Iranian Revolution: On Again

Two weeks ago, I had resigned myself to the view that it was all over except for the show trials. But the discontent just won’t go away. After the sermon, downtown Tehran erupted in violence. Security forces attacked demonstrators, older and grayer than recent gatherings, who were chanting “Death to the dictator!” and “God is great.” Tear gas filled streets as protesters sought to enter the gates of the university, which riot police had locked. The crowds swarmed through downtown,...

Iran

July 17, 2009

Kim Jong Il Death Watch

Here at OFK, many posts and comments have ruminated about whether the North Korean regime really cares about how it’s portrayed in the foreign media. That may be a silly question to ask in light of South Korea’s unnatural obsession with its image: the ridiculous Tokdo evangelizing, the many Chosun Ilbo stories about the popularity of Korean food overseas, or the mischaracterization as a “Korean Wave” of Korea carving out its own proportionate market share of global culture. An obsessive...

Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology

July 17, 2009

Was North Korea Really Behind the Cyber Attacks?

The London Times reports that a Vietnamese computer forensic company has traced the attacks from computers in North Korea back to UK, causing some papers’ headlines to strongly suggest that North Korea has been absolved. Reading further into the Times’s piece, one reads that the attack was traced back to a “master computer” operating from a Brighton, UK ISP, but makes no conclusions as to who was controlling that computer. The New York Times explains why it can be so...

Technology

July 16, 2009

Still Having Trouble Reading this Site With Firefox?

Firefox has been all I ever use since shortly after I got a computer pre-infected with Vista. Vista causes IE to crash and ate several of my posts. With Firefox, there are far fewer crashes, but if there is one, I can usually restart and the half-finished post will still be there in WordPress. So with that said, try going to your upper toolbar under Tools/Clear Private Data and then check all of the boxes except “Saved Passwords” and “Offline...

Blogs & Blogging

July 15, 2009

A Glimpse at the Growing Pains Connected with Reunification

While living in Korea, I was always surprised at some South Korean citizens’ belief that reunification, whenever it should happen, will be smooth sailing. Indeed, one would think that is the message the ROK government is trying to sell. Has anyone seen the video they play at the DMZ? I’m not sure if they’ve since changed it, but when I saw it, they had smiling, well-fed, healthy children running around a grassy field with butterflies and flowers and a little...

Korean Law/North-South

July 15, 2009

Gary Samore on North Korea Policy

In addition to his comments on North Korea’s HEU program, Gary Samore talked about President Obama’s North Korea policy. As someone who found Bush’s North Korea policy to be incoherent and disappointing, but who didn’t have high expectations for Samore’s boss, either, I could not be more pleased to read things like this: I think we have to create, in the case of both North Korea and Iran, a narrative by which, if the big powers work together, and if...

"United" Nations/Diplomacy/Sanctions/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized

July 14, 2009

Suzanne Scholte: A War Crimes Tribunal for North Korea

With the mounting evidence that Kim Jong Il won’t burden this world for long, the civilized world faces the prospect of inheriting jurisdiction over people who’ve done some pretty awful things: On a recent trip to Seoul, a North Korean mother told me she and her 14-year-old daughter fled North Korea but were separated in China. The mother waited in China to reunite with her daughter only to discover that Chinese security agents had forced the girl back to North...

Human Rights/Reconstruction

July 14, 2009

On Second Thought, Let’s Not Talk to Our Enemies Without Preconditions!

As someone who openly seeks the violent overthrow of the regime by cultivating and arming an internal opposition, I never thought I’d see the day when the Obama Administration moved to in a diplomatic direction at least as extreme as mine, and possibly more so: American diplomatic efforts on North Korea are coming under fire within the Obama administration from officials who consider talks futile and instead want to focus on halting the regime’s trade in nuclear weapons and missile...

Diplomacy/Uncategorized/Washington Views

July 14, 2009

China Agrees to Sanction North Korea

Not much time to comment on this as I’m running late, but it seems China has agreed to sanction the DPRK over its nuclear test conducted earlier this year. From Bloomberg: China agreed for the first time to punish senior North Korean government officials for defying United Nations resolutions barring nuclear and missile tests, China’s deputy ambassador said. Ambassador Liu Zhenmin said his government would support imposing a travel ban and asset freeze on a “large percentage” of 15 North...

China/Uncategorized

July 14, 2009

The HEU Debate Is Officially Over

From December 2002 until March 2009, it was the shared narrative of the shrill left, mainstream Democrats, and much of the spin circus in tow behind them that Kim Jong Il’s successful development of nuclear weapons was really George W. Bush’s fault. This narrative held as infallible dogma that Agreed Framework I was successfully containing Kim Jong Il’s nuclear programs until Bush showed up to wreck it with suspect claims about WMD programs — specifically, the accusation that North Korea...

Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD