June 22, 2009

North and South Korea According to the 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report

While I was gone, the U.S. State Department released the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, revealing few surprises in terms of North Korea’s record on the issue. The DPRK remains a Tier 3 country meaning “the government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. Furthermore, in 2009 “[t]he North Korean government made no significant efforts to prevent human trafficking. It did not acknowledge the...

Categories Human Rights
June 22, 2009

Kaesong Death Watch

North and South Korea failed to reach agreement in talks Friday on the fate of a joint industrial estate which is their last remaining reconciliation project, officials said. The South insisted it cannot accept demands for hundreds of millions of dollars in extra payments for the Kaesong estate just north of the heavily-fortified border, Seoul’s unification ministry said. The North refused to discuss the fate of a South Korean employee it has detained since March 30, it said.  [AFP] What...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
June 21, 2009

Let There Be Blood!

It’s a rare moment when I express even mild interest in metric football, otherwise known as soccer. This year, however, North and South Korea have both qualified for the World Cup, which holds the distant promise to beat down the saccharine we-are-one, brotherly-love hippie crap of the 90’s. According to this pernicious stupidity, sports could overcome differences between nations with diametrically opposed interests, values, and psychologies. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. It’s enough to make you retch. On...

Categories North-South/Sunshine
June 21, 2009

Not that we should care, but it’s still “illegal” to search North Korean ships on the high seas (Updated: Missiles to Burma?).

Today, a reader and friend e-mailed me and asked whether it would be legal to board and search the Kangnam I on the high seas. Here, slightly paraphrased, is how I responded to that question. As a strictly legal matter, we have no such right. And in the end, so what? First, UNSCR 1874 does not authorize the use of force or the boarding of ships on the high seas, and does not invoke Chapter VII. It requires us to...

Categories Uncategorized
June 20, 2009

Sanctions Updates

The United Nations is getting to work on a list of North Korean entities to be sanctioned under UNSCR 1874, as Pentagon officials head to China to press their hosts on implementation and compliance. Off the Chinese coast, the U.S.S. John S. McCain continues to shadow the Kang Nam I and prepares to invoke the awesome mandate of the Security Council’s “pretty please” resolution.  Asked the obvious question, the State Department gives a quintessential State Department answer: “We would hope...

Categories "United" Nations/China/Proliferation/Sanctions
June 20, 2009

Iran on the Brink

It has started: Witnesses said police fired tear gas and water cannons at thousands of protesters who rallied in Tehran Saturday in open defiance of Iran‘s clerical government, sharply escalating the most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Eyewitnesses described fierce clashes near Revolution Square in central Tehran after some 3,000 protesters chanted “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to dictatorship!” Police responded with tear gas and water cannons, the witnesses said. English-language state TV said a blast...

Categories Iran
June 20, 2009

Chosun Ilbo: Kim Jong Il’s Health Failing Rapidly

If he looks like Jagger in Vegas at 4 a.m., there might be a reason: The health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is rapidly deteriorating, prompting the hasty decision to name his third son Jong-un as heir apparent, sources told the Chinese press. The Global News, a sister paper of the official People’s Daily, on Thursday quoted a foreign ambassador in Pyongyang as saying that Kim Jong-il’s fragile health made the situation in North Korea “very complicated.”  [….] A...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
June 19, 2009

In Other News, North Korea Plots Attack on Hawaii

Tora! Tora! Tora! The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2 with a range of up to 4,000 miles (6,500 kilometers), would be launched from North Korea’s Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan’s top-selling newspaper. The report cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by U.S. reconnaissance satellites.  [AP] Satellite imagery of the Dongchang site here.  This is a new site, whose construction apparently continued in flagrant violation of U.N. Security...

Categories Missiles/U.S. Military
June 18, 2009

Collision Course? U.S. Navy Tracking N. Korean Ship

Less than a week after the passage of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, the U.S. Navy is tracking a North Korean ship off the coast of China.  The ship is suspected of carrying prohibited cargo: Officials said the U.S. is monitoring the voyage of the North Korean-flagged Kang Nam, which left port in North Korea on Wednesday. On Thursday, it was traveling in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of China, two officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Breaking News: Treasury Issues Money Laundering Alert Against North Korea

This is going to be a big deal.  By the time I have time to update this post, the world financial system will have started purging itself of its links to North Korea.  More later. Update:   Call it Plan B light, and quite possibly a prelude to better things, but this by itself will have a significant effect. Why, you ask?  After all, this alert doesn’t freeze anything.  It’s merely a warning: The U.N. Security Council’s adoption of specific...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Sanctions
June 18, 2009

Missile Shell Game

The North Koreans appear to be trying to wrong-foot our satellites, and may be about to do a multiple ICBM launch: A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday. South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North...

Categories Missiles
June 18, 2009

Why Do Journalists Still Quote Selig Harrison?

The Joongang Ilbo summarizes the history of North Korea’s denials, and America’s accusations, that it had a highly enriched uranium program. Although David Albright and Selig Harrison were understandably not available for comment, I’ll extend a hand of generosity — just because the North Koreans are admitting it again today doesn’t mean they won’t be back to denying it tomorrow.  Maybe in between all those interviews he’s giving to some of America’s most gullible reporters, Harrison will find time to...

Categories Media Criticism/Proliferation/WMD
June 18, 2009

David Sanger: Obama Tired of Kim Jong Il’s B.S.

Regardless of what you think of N.Y. Times correspondent David Sanger or his paper, Sanger is rightly known for the quality of his access to the White House, regardless of who occupies it.  Here, he reveals the administration’s thinking about North Korea: The decision to confront North Korea with overwhelming pressure — designed to bring its shipping and financial transactions to a virtual standstill — is based on the conclusion that re-entering negotiations to buy the dismantlement of the country’s...

Categories Diplomacy/Washington Views
June 18, 2009

WaPo on North Korea’s Global Insurance Scam

For Kim Jong Il’s birthday, North Korean insurance managers prepared a special gift. In Singapore, they stuffed $20 million in cash into two heavy-duty bags and sent them, via Beijing, to their leader in Pyongyang, said Kim Kwang Jin, who worked as a manager for Korea National Insurance Corp., a state-owned monopoly. Kim said he helped arrange the shipment and watched in February 2003 as the cash was packed. After the money arrived, Kim Jong Il sent a letter of...

Categories NK Crime/NK Economics
June 17, 2009

Iranian Regime Lays the Groundwork for a Crackdown

In Tehran, the Revolutionary Guards and Basij are “disappearing” journalists and prominent reformers — probably starting at the bottom and working their way up.  Like Ramin Ahmadi, I see this as a prelude to a violent crackdown. What can we do about this?  I had given serious consideration to President Obama’s first position, which was that by supporting the opposition, we’d be playing into Ahmedinejad’s hands.  Then I read this piece by Dan Senor and Christian Whiton (former Special Assistant...

Categories Iran