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January 24, 2008

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Senate Subcommittee Finds Massive Irregularities in UN’s North Korea Development Aid

[Scroll down for updates.] The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has just released its report on the UN Development Program’s North Korea scandal. Previous postings here concern the U.S. Ambassador’s original complaint, Ban Ki Moon’s unrealized promises of a full investigation, and the suspicious termination of a whistleblower. First, the main findings: 1. UNDP operated in North Korea with inappropriate staffing, questionable use of foreign currency instead of local currency, and insufficient administrative and fiscal controls. 2. By preventing...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/U.S. Politics

January 23, 2008

Just What We Needed: Our Very Own Ministry of Unification.

From a White House press briefing today: Q Is the administration about to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism? MS. PERINO: No. Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities. So we’re continuing to wait for that. We still have people on the ground helping with the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility. So at this...

Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

January 23, 2008

Classless Condi

[Update: Miss that warm, moist pungence rising around your ankles? Here’s your fix for that: “I’m going to have a great deal more to say about elevating the issue of human rights in North Korea, which is clearly a priority for the president and Congress,” he said. [N.Y. Times, Helene Cooper] Exactly how stupid do these people think we are? Condi Rice has scarcely uttered a word about this in four years, has prevented anyone else but the marginalized...

Diplomacy/Human Rights/Washington Views

January 23, 2008

Anju Links for 23 Jan 08

WHAT HE SAID: Richardson has a must-read commentary on State’s persistent clinging to the assinine idea of removing non-complaint, non-performing, unreformed North Korea from the terror-sponsor list. He does a terrific job on tracking how State airbrushes its justification for listing North Korea year-by-year. I could only add that the idea of rewarding people who do absolutely everything we want them not to do has to be the dumbest idea since Windows Vista. I have to wonder if Congress would...

Anju Links

January 22, 2008

Plan B: How to Disarm Kim Jong Il Without Bombing Him

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein Plan A, gentle diplomacy, has again failed to disarm Kim Jong Il. Whenever this happens (every time it’s tried) advocates of doing the same thing over and over again fall back on The False Choice, whether expressly or by implication: it’s their way or war. They know better, of course, which technically makes this a lie. And usually, this lie stands uncorrected: “People lambaste...

Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks

January 19, 2008

Gridlock and infighting stalk collapse of Agreed Framework 2.0

You could write the epitaph for the President Bush’s North Korea policies in six words: There are worse things than gridlock. Now that Agreed Framework 2.0 has reached its failure point and not even sympathetic media can still deny it, the New York Times reports that the same old factions have formed up to battle about the fruitlessness of dealing with Kim Jong Il. With North Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out Mr. Bush’s time...

Google Earth

January 19, 2008

The Candidates on North Korea (Fred Thompson)

Whew. I had expected these primary things to make this project a little less ambitions. I expected wrong. Next: SIMON: Well, here’s our final question, though. As you probably know, I’m sure you know, Ambassador Bolton has become very critical of the Bush administration since his resignation from the United Nations. He wrote a book about it and he’s made a lot of public statements. Do you think — and implying that the Bush administration is essentially walking backwards on...

U.S. Politics

January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Ministry of Silly Talks

After weeks of conflicting reports, Lee Myung Bak’s transition team had made it official: the UniFiction Ministry goes to the ash-heap, along with the Ministries of Truth Information and Communication, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Science and Technology, and the Anti-Sex League Gender Equality and Family. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will become a much larger and more powerful Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Unification. As a whole, the government will shrink by more than 5%, about 7,000 employees....

Appeasement/Korean Politics

January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Nick Burns

Nicholas Burns, the State Department’s number three diplomat and the man whom a reliable source told me was the one who blocked implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act, will step down for “personal reasons.” Alas, the reasons are not known to include painful bleeding hemorrhoids, and so I must go on doubting God’s existence. Burns’s legacy will include such notable accomplishments as Iran’s nuclear bomb. His replacement is the eponymous William Burns (no relation) who has enjoyed such...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Washington Views

January 18, 2008

Anju Links for 18 Jan 08

NORTH KOREA FINALLY MENTIONS LEE MYUNG BAK, sorta: “U.S. conservative hardliners broke into cheers upon hearing about the results of the “˜elections’ in South Korea … asserting that the power change in South Korea marks a new occasion of strangling North Korea. Well, yeah, if he actually does. Wow. Did I really just agree with KCNA? TOO MANY NORTH KOREANS ARE HOARDING FOOD, so the regime is cracking down with layer upon layer of bureaucracy and permits that are...

Anju Links

January 16, 2008

Anju Links for 16 Jan 08

ISN’T IT TERRORISM when someone won’t release a captive without a payment? Still, paying ransom is undeniably an improvement over paying the money and letting your POW’s and their families die in place anyway. I wonder how much this’ll cost. TAZE ‘EM AGAIN, BRO! The Korean police are finally talking about arresting and using a degree of force against violent protestors. No doubt, this has something to do with the change of government in Seoul. I’d like to see...

Anju Links

January 14, 2008

I am so ready for a North Korean spy scandal right about now …

[Update: He resigns. Kim Man-Bok claims that his motive in leaking the tape was to dispel speculation that he met with Kim Yang-Gon to try to influence the South Korean election. Using Nordpolitik is a well-established way of trying to influence South Korean elections, and I’m not sure exactly how Kim M.B. expected to reassure anyone about what’s not on the tape. To me, one missed significance of this is the casual ease with which Roh’s people accepted North Korea’s...

Korean Politics/The Fifth Column/WTF?

January 14, 2008

Anju Links for 14 Jan 08

STOP THE PRESSES! Donga Ilbo: Lee Says He’s Exceptionally Pro-Business LEAST UNEXPECTED HEADLINE OF THE DAY: Joongang Ilbo: “Lee Praises Anticipated U.S. Envoy.” On second thought, unexpected and dull is just fine, thank you. As for me, I have low expectations for the ambassador-designate, Kathleen Stephens, for the simple (maybe too simple) reason that nothing good or decent comes from the State Department’s East Asia Bureau. But there is some hope that she won’t be entirely awful: ...

Anju Links

January 13, 2008

State Dep’t Denies Groundhog Sighting

The only thing worse than shifting deadlines is no deadlines: The United States on Friday again denied setting a new target date for North Korea to give a full accounting of its nuclear programs that would replace a missed year-end deadline. ”We are continuing to work towards the end of getting a declaration in, but there has been no new deadline set by the United States, by the North Koreans or by any other party in the six-party talks,” State...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks

January 12, 2008

South Korea to push U.N. for return of its POW’s

President-Elect Lee Myung Bak’s transition team is speaking more about its plans to finally bring home about 560 prisoners of war it believes North Korea is still holding, in violation of the 1953 Armistice agreement. South Korea may seek help from the international community in pressing North Korea to return South Korean prisoners of war, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. North Korea has so far balked at South Korean requests to return POWs, saying it has never held any South...

"United" Nations/Abductions/Korean War

January 11, 2008

Did Chris Hill lie about North Korea’s declaration?

In the last episode of our drama, Chris thought he had convinced Kim to out himself in time for the New Year’s ball, only to have Kim say that he’d said enough when Chris visited his place last November. At moments like this one, when this blog begins to sound like the screenplay for a gay soap opera, I understand why The Lost Nomad went fishing. Several days ago, I believe I caught U.S. nucyular negotiator Christopher Hill in a...

Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views

January 11, 2008

Time running out for the FTA?

Here. Americans sometimes observe that South Korea shouts for equal treatment while actually expecting to be treated like a coddled infant, and I’d cite the handicaps it demanded on the imports of cars and agricultural products as a good example to support that. Based on the two-faced behavior and unreasonable demands of the South Koreans throughout the FTA talks, the U.S. Trade Representative should have had the guts to walk away and wait for Roh’s clock to run out. Sadly,...

NK Economics

January 11, 2008

Anju Links for 10 Jan 08

SOMETHING MIGHTY SUSPICIOUS IS GOING ON HERE, and I’m not just talking about the shadowy movements of spies and emissaries across the DMZ, either: A top North Korean official paid a secret visit to Seoul on Sept. 26 last year, immediately before the second inter-Korean summit in early October, it was emerged on Thursday. [Chosun Ilbo] National Intelligence Service Chief Kim Man-bok made a secret visit to Pyongyang on Dec. 18, the day before South Korea’s presidential election, it was...

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