April 8, 2008

Do you suppose China is having second thoughts about that whole ‘Olympics’ idea?

[Update: A new Zogby poll finds that 70% of likely voters believe the IOC was wrong to award the Olympics to China, and 48% believe that “U.S. political officials should not attend the opening ceremony due to China’s poor human rights record.” Dissatisfaction with the IOC’s choice is strong across the political spectrum, with 70% of Democrats and Republicans, and 68% of political independents who said they disagree with the decision to have China host the summer games. A Zogby...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights
April 7, 2008

China Steps Up Efforts to Undermine U.S. and U.N. Sanctions Against N. Korea

The single most important provision of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, for which China cast a disingenuous “yes” vote, is the provision that requires member states to “ensure” that funds flowing into North Korea are not used for its WMD programs. Similarly, Resolution 1695 requires states to “exercise vigilance” against efforts to fund U.N. sanctions. Now, in the wake of U.S. Treasury sanctions that have put the North Korean regime under unprecedented pressure to meet its disarmament obligations, China is...

Categories China/China & Korea/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/WMD
April 7, 2008

Another Public Execution in North Korea

On the March 30, in Hyesan, Yangkang Province, three residents were publicly executed and 30 households were forcibly expelled after a public trial. Aggravated uneasiness and growing horror spread among residents. “Three residents were executed for human trafficking at a vacant lot in the Hyesan Airport while a crowd watched,” a source from Yangkang Province told Daily NK. [Daily NK] If the people of North Korea were better armed, the Chinese and North Korean authorities might have to consider alternatives...

Categories Human Rights/Inside NK
April 7, 2008

Coreana Tries to Suppress Blogger Criticism of Nazi Ads

So instead of engaging in a moment of introspection about its tasteless Nazi-chic advertising, Coreana goes after Brian for putting the ads up on YouTube. And while they have removed Hitler’s name from the ad, the obvious Nazi symbols remain. Says CNN: A Korad official, Seo Sang-hee, confirmed the ad was meant to invoke a Nazi soldier and Hitler, which she said symbolize “revolution” in keeping with the lotion’s “revolutionary” dual functions. Seo said the commercial was not designed to...

Categories Censorship/Korean Society/WTF?
April 6, 2008

KCNA Trips Over the Truth on Human Rights

Writing in the Asia Times, Professor Sung Yoon Lee describes reading KCNA in the original Korean and finding, among the hackneyed sloganeering, that the writers “inadvertently rang with uncommon common sense, not to mention striking validity:” A staple of the KCNA diet, such oft-stated claims [about Japanese abuses during colonial times] are indeed valid historical grievances that North Korea and Japan will have to resolve if the two are ever to normalize diplomatic relations. [OFK note: as if.] But the...

Categories Human Rights/Korean History
April 5, 2008

Watching Porn in Pyongyang (Part 2)

Because man cannot live on diverted food aid and crystal meth alone: The demand for X-rated movies among North Korea’s high cadres is so great that a single VCD sells for 50 US dollars. The latest publication of Good Friends, a North Korea-related aid organization, tells the story of Mr. Park, a resident of Hyesan, Yangkang Province. Mr. Park was arrested for making copies of South Korean adult movies–called “colored movies” in North Korea–and selling them in Pyongyang. Despite the...

Categories Deprogramming/Inside NK/Korean Society
April 5, 2008

MUST READ: BBC on Clandestine Journalism in N. Korea

[Update: The Daily NK has more.  There is no English Rimjingang yet, unfortunately, but you can read a somewhat clunky google translation of their home page here.] The North Korean regime has a name for journalism that it does not control: espionage. I need not elaborate on the penalty for those caught. Seven months ago, North Korea reminded us (ht) of how seriously it takes the surreptitious possession and use of a camera, and we’ve seen relatively little of that...

Categories Inside NK/Resistance
April 4, 2008

N. Korea Food Situation Continues to Worsen: Protests Continue in Chongjin; Food Prices Skyrocket; Kim Jong Il Asks China for ‘Massive’ Food Aid

[Update: A reader — one you and I both respect — writes to warn that we shouldn’t rely too heavily on the reports of Good Friends. Well, yes, the obvious caveats apply here: this being North Korea, we tend to treat third-hand rumors and hearsay, possibly further garbled by translation, as news. What I try to do here that news sites don’t do is to put each report in the context of other facts reported by other sources, either previously...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Regime Change/Resistance
April 3, 2008

North Korea’s Food Situation ‘Far More Hopeless Than Expected’

Good Friends has published its latest dispatch from the Untergang in Pyongyang: all food rations in the capital appear to have stopped, and there are rising fears of famine in the countryside: North Korea’s food shortages are so bad that even its elite citizens in Pyongyang will not get state food rations until September, a local relief group said Thursday. Seoul-based Good Friends said the North has decided to suspend state food rations in the capital city for six months...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
April 3, 2008

Not Another Nazi Ad Campaign in Korea …

Yes, I’m afraid it is. Hurry and see the video on this Naver page before it’s taken down. [Update: Brian, praise be unto him, made YouTube videos, which you can see on a previous post at his blog. Oddly enough, I looked for something about this on YouTube and didn’t find them, but it’s good to record these things for posterity.] “Even Hitler didn’t unite the East and West.” Isn’t fascism erotic? I wonder how long she would have lasted...

Categories Korean Society/Racism/WTF?
April 3, 2008

What Should the Senate Ask Kathleen Stephens?

A reader tells me that the nomination hearing for Kathleen Stephens, State’s pick to be our next Ambassador to Seoul, will take place on April 16th, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So if you sat on that panel, what would you ask? Naturally, I presume that every single answer to that kind of question will be thoughtful and intelligent, and the most intelligent and thoughtful questions have some unquantifiable chance to be seen by the people who will write...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
April 3, 2008

North Korea Violates UNSCR 1718 Again

The resolution, passed after North Korea’s diplomatically successful and technologically marginal nuclear test, prohibits the North from trading in major weapons systems. Reuters reports that for the last year, since North Korea restored diplomatic relations with Burma, North Korea has been selling its fellow tyrannical ChiCom satellite rocket launchers of “the same type as those deployed near the demilitarised zone.” It’s now fodder for popular satire that Kim Jong Il doesn’t really care what the U.N. prohibits, but still, for...

Categories "United" Nations/NK Military/Southeast Asia
April 2, 2008

Hill expects N. Korean declaration ‘in the next few days.’

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said Wednesday that Washington was waiting for a North Korean move “in the next few days” to end an impasse over Pyongyang’s promise to provide a complete declaration of its nuclear programs. Washington says the North so far failed to do so, missing a deadline that expired at the end of last year. Hill said the U.S. had hoped to resolve the issue by the end of March, which did not happen. “We...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
April 2, 2008

Treasury: North Korea Still Counterfeiting, Still a Financial Pariah

The State Department and Bill Richardson  may harbor illusions to the contrary, but Stuart Levey, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence may be only man in Washington with real influence  over Pyongyang.  Yesterday, Levey  appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to testify.  A reader (thank you) forwarded me a copy of his testimony, and I excerpt the North Korea portion for you here.  The key points  here are that (a) North Korea continues to be an international financial...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime
April 1, 2008

A North Korean Runs in a Real Election

The Daily NK introduces us to North Korean defector Lee Ae Ran, who represents another step forward in the development of a class of post-Kim Jong Il leaders for North Korea. “I know it is laughable that a North Korean defector is running for a seat in the South Korean National Assembly,” the candidate admitted during a phone interview with Daily NK on March 28. She added, “In North Korea, if you come from a bad family background, there is...

Categories Defectors/Democracy/Korean Politics
April 1, 2008

Oh, You Meant Those Nuclear Scientists in Syria ….

You have to wonder what Chris Hill thought this inspired move would accomplish, other than to put  intelligence sources and methods at risk:  The U.S. in recent bilateral talks reportedly gave Pyongyang a list of North Korean officials involved in the supply of nuclear technology to Syria, a suspicion the North denies. A high-level diplomatic source on Monday said that the U.S. obtained the list of officials including nuclear engineers, who were involved in the supply of nuclear technology to...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
March 31, 2008

Kathleen Stephens: The Wrong Person for the Job

A  few months ago, the Korean press reported that State had submitted the name of Kathleen Stephens to be the next U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, to replace the competent and affable  Alexander Vershbow.  At the time, I did not have strong opinions about Ms. Stephens’s fitness for that position.  Further research has convinced me that Ms. Stephens, though well qualified for the job and apparently a perfectly fine person, is the wrong person to be our next Ambassador to...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views