December 26, 2007

Two more North Korean refugees coming to U.S.

Two North Korean defectors are in the U.S. with the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.The UNHCR’s Beijing office says a man in his 20s and a woman in her 30s have been under UN protection since July last year and were granted approval for asylum in the U.S. by Beijing and Washington. [Chosun Ilbo] The report marks only the second known occasion of the UNHCR performing its assigned mission on behalf of North Korean refugees, and...

Categories "United" Nations/Refugees
December 26, 2007

N. Korea will miss year-end deadline to declare nukes

No surprise there.  At this point, it would really only be news if North Korea actually met the deadline, or made a full disclosure at all during Kim Jong Il’s life span. A South Korean government official on Tuesday said, “There is no sign yet that North Korea has decided to make an accurate declaration. It’s improbable that the North will declare its nuclear programs by the end of the year, with only a week remaining before the New Year.”...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
December 23, 2007

N. Korean Dissident Yoo Sang-Joon freed

To those who responded to my request to spam e-mail the Chinese government to demand Yoo Sang Joon’s release, reach up and pat yourself on the back. You just might have saved a life. Yoo’s wife and one child died in the Great Famine, and his remaining son, Chul Min, died of exposure trying to escape through the Mongolian desert. Not long ago, Yoo appeared to be headed for a post-mortem reunion with his family. He was under arrest by...

Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
December 22, 2007

Experts predict Lee Myung Bak’s behavior; Still no comment from Miss Cleo, Nostradamus, or KCNA

My “what to expect from Lee MB” updates have outgrown and seceded from this post. As for what we should expect from a Lee presidency, any prediction rows into some pretty treacherous water. Lee strikes me as a guy who begins with dry cost-benefit analysis, but one with an autocratic streak as wide as that asinine canal he’s proposing to build. Lee’s history and my gut suggest a term punctuated by emotional, stubborn, and vindictive behavior, which means that national...

Categories Korean Politics
December 21, 2007

U-Tubed! Enriched uranium found on N. Korean sample

Say it aint so. U.S. scientists have discovered traces of enriched uranium on smelted aluminum tubing provided by North Korea, apparently contradicting Pyongyang’s denial that it had a clandestine nuclear program, according to U.S. and diplomatic sources. [Washington Post, Glenn Kessler] But where and when did we find this incriminating sample? The United States has long pointed to North Korea’s acquisition of thousands of aluminum tubes as evidence of such a program, saying the tubes could be used as the...

Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
December 21, 2007

U-Tubed, Part 2

[Part 1] An honest appraisal of this new discovery means that those of us who are skeptical of AF 2.0 should grudgingly admit that it has produced at least one significant intelligence windfall, even if it was due to a North Korean oversight. Since that oversight will probably land a few people in front of firing squads, AF 2.0 proponents should at least draw the obvious conclusions to which this new intelligence leads. It seems difficult to deny that AF...

Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
December 21, 2007

Their long national nightmare is over (Updated)

[Updated and Bumped — scroll down — original post 19 Dec 07] Following record low voter turnout, Yonhap has Lee Myung Bak winning by a landslide with over just under 50%. This is unbad news to me; I always root for a lying stock manipulator over a lying abettor of genocide with untamed abandon. I can hear the celebratory gunfire all the way out in Centreville. I’m also pleasantly surprised that the last-second leak of a video proving that Lee...

Categories Korean Politics
December 20, 2007

Behind the scenes, a deepening crisis for Agreed Framework 2.0

Maybe the Dear Leader will save us all yet. From ourselves, that is. If he does, it will be because he’s overplayed his hand again. A reader forwards a scan of a letter sent by three Republican U.S. Senators — Brownback, Grassley, and Kyl, the new minority whip, to Chris Hill, the architect of Agreed Framework 2.0. The letter requests that State specifically respond to this Congressional Research Service report’s allegations that North Korea continued to materially support Hezbollah and...

Categories Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
December 18, 2007

House resolution honors Henry Hyde

The resolution passed unanimously last night (suspension of the rules, voice vote).  You can read the full text of the resolution here. It’s sad to think of Hyde’s own passage; sadder still to contrast him with the rudderless party he left behind.  For purposes of Korea policy, we might as well be in a second Carter Administration with a 1975 Congress.  Yes, a few isolated Republicans (and one or two Democrats) take a principled stand here and there, but it...

Categories U.S. Politics
December 17, 2007

Iraq Phantom Count

Jim  Gateway Pundit  raises serious questions about the accuracy of  no less than six recent mass casualty reports from Iraq and Afghanistan, including some that appear to have been  manipulated by the enemy.  The significance of this does not end with the fact that we can’t believe the news that’s reported, because in a democracy, the quality of our public policy decisions is only as good  as the quality of  our news.  Our media  have become accomplished at resisting perceived...

Categories Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq
December 17, 2007

Another bad harvest in North Korea

The Rural Development Administration of South Korea, via the Daily NK, reports that  this year’s cereal crop in North Korea  may be  2.5 million (metric?) tons short of the country’s needs, at just over 4 million tons.  Although these figures are obviously of questionable reliability, when compared to prior-year harvests,  a 4M-ton cereal harvest  would be about mid-range between the harvest figures at the height of the Great Famine and the years since then.   In relative terms, however,  food deficit...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
December 17, 2007

Don’t let the absence of tact, polish, logic, and stability fool you: Ron Paul slithers like a true pol

Please don’t take this as a reflection on my personal  life, but perhaps  because I’ve lived in Nevada, Korea, and Washington, D.C.,  I  have only  mild moral objections to voluntary exchanges of sex for money between adults.  I’d think that this would be a rare point on which I’d agree with Ron Paul.  But when asked if he was  “shocked” to learn that  the Moonlight Bunny Ranch had contributed to his campaign, Paul missed  the chance  to  defend social libertarianism by...

Categories U.S. Politics