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An Update on the Ling-Lee Situation

While there isn’t a lot of new news to report, there are a few things worth mentioning. First of all, after weeks of silence, Laura Ling again contacted her sister Lisa, most recently last night, with a specific message including a confession that she and Lee broke North Korean law: “I know that our government has been working behind the scenes very hard trying to bring the girls back home,” she said. But she added, “Our countries don’t talk, and...

Ling/Lee Incident/Uncategorized

High-Level Defector Describes Regime’s Illicit Income

I’d previously mentioned that I recently had the opportunity to meet Kim Kwang Jin, a high-level North Korean defector with detailed knowledge of North Korea’s illicit financing and money laundering. Now, Kim adds much to our understanding of how North Korea pays for all those Mercedes-Benzes and missiles. Having guessed that most of the cash came from flipping houses and the inventing some of the novel kitchen applicances I’d seen Billy Mays selling on my TV, this was a cruel...

Deprogramming/Money Laundering/NK Military/North Korea/Refugees/Regime Change/Religion/Uncategorized

North Korea Suspected in Cyber Attacks (Update: White House Also Targeted)

If the South Korean leak ticker is right about this, ballistic missile tests weren’t the only mischief Kim Jong Il had in mind for us on the Fourth of July: The sites of 11 South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House and the Defense Ministry, went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. [AP, Hyung-Jin Kim] To be precise about it, South Korean intelligence reports leaked by staffers of National...

NK Military/The Fifth Column

Is Kim Jong Il Dying?

Broadly speaking, we all are, but if you ever see a face this dessicated in the mirror, seek medical attention. Kim Jong Il emerged from his seclusion, reportedly from one of his seaside palaces where he’d been recovering from a stroke, to attend a memorial for his late god-king father. The man looks liked warmed-over death, and he needs some Rogaine: (Photo credit: Reuters / KRT) A comparison of these pictures to images of the 67 year-old thug from...

Kim Jong Il

Updated Google Earth Post: Agony and Ecstasy in Wonsan

Reports that Kim Jong Il is now staying in his coastal palace at Wonsan led me to a few discoveries, which I share with you in this updated post. As it turns out, there are two large palaces at Wonsan, and there’s plenty lot of evident misery for everyone else.

Google Earth

Fireworks

Not that I paid much attention, but North Korea did in fact live up to expectations that it would test missiles on the 4th of July. So often, our media get excited about the testing of anti-ship missiles which probably aren’t nuclear capable and probably couldn’t do much damage to ground targets in Japan or South Korea. This time, however, the North fired off seven short-range missiles. They were SCUD-C’s or Nodong’s, which could do serious damage to a South...

"United" Nations/Missiles

Hey, That Was Nice of You

President Lee Myung Bak has donated $26 million worth of real estate, representing 80% of his personal wealth, to a charity that helps poor kids attend school.

Korean Politics

North Korea’s Great Leap Backward

It’s not just on this blog where the ill-informed and the self-deluded continue to defy years of bitter experience and advocate “engagement” with the North Korean regime as a way to encourage economic reform. You can still hear academics in Washington cite the potential for economic reform in North Korea as a reason not to impose sanctions after North Korea’s nuke and missile tests. Some day, we must make a point of tabulating the amount of money spent on this...

China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics

The Nukings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

It must not be easy being the tyrannical overlord of a country you’ve single-handed transformed into a famished, backward prison yard while trying to persuade your subjects that they’re still the envy of the world. There’s always soul-crushing brainwashing, smothering isolation human civilization, extra meat rations for people who rat their your neighbors, the timeless dark arts of racism and xenophobia, and the fear of public execution or a prolonged death in the gulags. Did I mention isolation and brainwashing?...

NK Military/WMD

Malaysian Bank Linked to North Korean WMD; Happy 5th to GI Korea (Updated)

GI Korea explains what Philip Goldberg was doing in Malaysia. By the way, let me add my belated good wishes to GI Korea on the fifth anniversary of the founding of his blog. The fact that it’s one of two with feeds on my sidebar should be some testament to my high regard for the amount and quality of information he posts (NKEconWatch would be the third if its RSS worked there). It’s one of my daily reads, and the...

Blogs & Blogging/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD

State Dep’t: NK Trades in Slave Labor

What the State Department is saying about North Korea’s use of forced labor is at least as strident as anything we heard during George W. Bush’s second term. I suspect we’re seeing a combination of two things here — first, the State Department has internal politics of its own, and the bureaus that deal with labor and refugee issues tend to subscribe less to the diplomacy of connivance than the East Asia Bureau. Second, with North Korea’s recent behavior pushing...

Human Trafficking

Chosun Ilbo: Ling and Lee Likely to Be Sent to “Special” Labor Camp

The Chosun Ilbo speculates — and that’s pretty much all there is to this — that Laura Ling and Euna Lee will miss the opportunity to report on the conditions in a real North Korean labor camp. Lucky for them. Instead, they will probably be sent to a special camp originally built to accommodate ranking members of the Workers Party and other figures thought to merit special treatment. Special camps are better furnished than general camps, and inmates reportedly do...

Ling/Lee Incident/The Camps