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
June 17, 2009

Lee, Obama Still Talking Tough, North Korea Still Not Back on the Terror List

This week’s visit to Washington by South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has produced some nice, tough-sounding words that may or may not come to fruition, and which probably won’t mean a thing a year from now: Obama said a nuclear armed North Korea poses “a grave threat” to the world and said “we are going to break” the pattern of North Korea being rewarded for threatening actions. Lee thanked the United States for its “selfless sacrifice” in defending his...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea
June 17, 2009

Take the Money and Run

Like I said:  the North Koreans snore though all those threats from Perry, Gingrich, and Eagleburger, but Stuart Levey scares the bejeezus out of them: North Korea is rushing to withdraw money from its overseas bank accounts after the United Nations imposed financial and other sanctions for its nuclear test, a report said. South Korea’s Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting sources in Beijing, said the North had begun withdrawing funds from accounts in Macau and elsewhere for fear they would be...

Categories Japan/Money Laundering/Sanctions
June 17, 2009

KCNA: Ling and Lee Filmed Themselves Entering North Korea (Updated, Bumped)

[Original post, 16 Jun 09] I’ll certainly reserve judgment until we see the videotape and until Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee can freely authenticate it, but if that’s true, it would be, well, stupid, even if it were done with the purpose of informing us about an important issue: “We’ve just entered a North Korean courtyard without permission,” the Korean translation of their narration on the videotape said, according to KCNA. One of them picked up and pocketed a stone...

Categories Ling/Lee Incident
June 16, 2009

Some Good Reads

Both appear in the Wall Street Journal, and both are too good to just graf and go.  Read them both in their entirety. Nicholas Eberstadt:  A New Plan for Pyongyang Paul Wolfowitz:  Resettle the North Korean Refugees Plus this from Melanie Kirkpatrick:  “I pray Ms. Lee and Ms. Ling will come home soon. But if the Americans’ ordeal raises international awareness of the horrors of North Korea’s gulag, it will not have been in vain.”

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
June 16, 2009

Selig Harrison: Obama Shouldn’t Say Mean Things to North Korea

Sometimes, a news organization’s selection of guests tells you almost everything you need to know about its biases.  In one corner, we have Balbina Hwang, formerly of the Heritage Foundation before she sold out and went to work for Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill.  In the other, Selig Harrison presents that valuable “from beneath contempt” perspective.  This interview is a little old — from just after the toothless U.N. presidential statement that served as North Korea’s perfectly suitable excuse to walk...

Categories Appeasement/WMD
June 16, 2009

Poll: Obama Too Soft on North Korea

Admittedly, I’m ambivalent about this.  On the one hand, I’ve noted signs that Obama’s North Korea policy is headed in the right direction — a far better one than Bush’s, if carried out in a sustained and comprehensive way — although I think Obama will probably do a Chris Hill and buy the same horse all over again the minute North Korea offers to sign Agreed Framework III.  Still, my idea of “loyal opposition” extends an elected president and its...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
June 16, 2009

Latest “New Ledger” Piece

Although the piece nods toward recent events, such as President Lee’s visit to Washington, its central theme is really the inescapable relevance of human rights and North Korea’s disinterest in the kind of coexistence that too many diplomats, academics, and grad students long for in much the same way that Borat longed for Pamela Anderson.  Also, I am not responsible for selecting the photo of that priceless pose by Mrs. Clinton, or for her choice of a pantsuit color.

Categories Blogs & Blogging/Human Rights/WMD
June 16, 2009

Great Iran Demo Photos

The Boston Globe has some terrific pictures of the protests in Iran, of the regime’s fascist thugs beating men and women in the streets, and of the victims of that violence. Like most of you, I’ve been watching events in Iran with great interest.  Many other bloggers, including some who are getting camera phone pics and twitter updates straight from Tehran, are saturating that topic far better than I could, so I won’t wade into that field.  Because of well-armed...

Categories Uncategorized
June 15, 2009

Did Kim Jong Un Try to Assassinate Kim Jong Nam?

Life imitates Austin Powers! An aide to Kim Jong Un, the third and youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, planned to assassinate Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, KBS television reported Monday.  The plan was foiled by Chinese authorities, KBS said, citing a Chinese government source.  [Kyodo News] Well, maybe, but it’s too good not to blog.  Other Kim Jong Un rumors hold that he was actually in China recently as a “special...

Categories Kremlinology/WTF?
June 15, 2009

The Hankyoreh: A Wealth of Embarrassments

The Hankyoreh watches North Korea TV for instructions analysis following U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874 and pronounces North Korea’s reaction “moderate,” even finding reason to believe that it creates “room to negotiate.”  No, seriously: In a Foreign Ministry statement released immediately after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 1874, North Korea announced it would weaponize all newly extracted plutonium, begin uranium enrichment and react militarily to a blockade. All three of these threatening measures fell within a range...

Categories Media Criticism/Propaganda
June 15, 2009

North Korea May Have More Nuke Test Sites

The ROK intelligence leak ticker reports: North Korea may have built more underground nuclear test sites in the northeastern district where it staged its first two tests, a news report has said. South Korean intelligence sources quoted by Yonhap news agency said the North could have built two or three such sites in and around Punggyeri in Kilju district near the coast. [AFP] I wonder how many concentration camp prisoners are entombed in those new sites.

Categories Human Rights/Proliferation/WMD
June 15, 2009

Another day, another North Korean nuclear threat, another post that writes itself

You know, I really should come up with a macro for these posts, or even a bot that posts them automatically. It only takes three easy steps. First, simply copy and paste North Korea’s latest threat(s) to nuke Seoul … KCNA news agency quoted an unnamed North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying in a statement, “We’ll take firm military action if the United States and its allies try to isolate us. [Reuters] North Korea’s communist regime has warned of...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
June 15, 2009

Biden, Lee: Won’t Get Fooled Again

He’s best known for saying things that make us cringe, but even Joe Biden is on message on North Korea: “It is important that we make sure those sanctions stick and those sanctions prohibit them from exporting or importing weapons,” Biden said. “This is a matter of us now keeping the pressure on.”  [AP] And since everyone else is, Joe, why not psychoanalyze the North Koreans’ motives?  Nope, he wouldn’t touch that one: “God only knows what he wants,” Biden...

Categories Appeasement/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea
June 14, 2009

Hey DJ, What’s That Big Pink Animal With the Prehensile Trunk? (Updated)

Admittedly, I don’t have high expectations of NPR, but I would expect that even they would at least mention the circumstances surrounding the summit that bought Kim Dae Jung his Nobel Peace Prize.  Instead, NPR lets his grandiose claims go unchallenged: “The Sunshine Policy has been and still is supported by the majority of South Koreans and the whole world,” Kim says, sitting in his living room. “It’s the reason I won the Nobel Peace Prize. People are telling President...

Categories Appeasement/Censorship/Democracy/Media Criticism