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,...

Categories 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...

Categories Uncategorized
January 10, 2008

Groundhog Day in Pyongyang

Now that we’ve asked North Korea to tell us about its nuclear programs, and now that North Korea has answered by telling us to perform prostate exams on ourselves, I suppose it’s best if we at least pretend to do otherwise. Not that the pretense is a convincing one. When Chris Hill tells us to react “with patience and perseverance,” understand that translating this into the North Korean dialect yields something that also means, “How about never? Is never good...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks
January 10, 2008

One less ransom to pay

One of the 264 people listed by a civic group as possibly abducted by North Korea was found safe in Japan last month, the group investigating North Korea’s abductions of Japanese citizens said Tuesday. According to the Investigation Commission on Missing Japanese Probably Related to North Korea, the 48-year-old man from Akita Prefecture went missing in 1981 from a place where he was working part-time in Yamato, Kanagawa Prefecture. [Kyodo News] I understand that Bill Richardson  has already  claimed credit...

Categories Abductions/WTF?
January 9, 2008

Honor, Delayed

President-Elect Lee Myung Bak will finally  honor six South Korean sailors killed in a North Korean attack on their patrol boat on  June 29, 2002.  The sailors’ surviving family members were embittered, believing that their government and outgoing  President Roh Moo Hyun had  snubbed  them to appease Kim Jong Il.  One young widow  even left South Korea for good: Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk […]  turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight...

Categories Appeasement/ROK Military
January 9, 2008

Kim Jong Bill Drops Out

DLTDHYA on the WO. You remember, right?  And AmericaForRichardson.org?  Vanished … like a line of blow on Keith Richard’s dresser. Update:   I should note that there was some initial uncertainty that Kim Jong Bill was dropping out after all, but all of the recent stories I found on further research suggest that he is indeed dropping out.  I went over to Bill Richardson’s “official” campaign site and didn’t find any statement denying these widespread reports, which is a dog...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 9, 2008

Ron Paul denies decades of racist newsletters published in his name; O.J. still hunting for ‘real killer’

Wow.  Ron Paul  is outed as … a wacky,  racist fringe pamphleteer?  Gee, who ever saw that coming?  Plus, Paul’s campaign offers what must be the single lamest defense ever:  I really should have paid closer attention to the things people were writing in my name for decades.  But take heart, paulbots.  This could mean real momentum for Lydon RaRouche this year. This also raises a serious question for the  Republicans.  Some have suggested that Paul  should be coddled to keep...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 8, 2008

MUST READ: ‘Finding America’s Role in a Collapsed North Korean State’

[Update:   Is this an invitation to Munich?  China promises to  “cooperate” with the West, but admits that it might move into North Korea to “restore order,” and for strictly humanitarian reasons, of course.  We all know what humanitarians rule the People’s Republic of China.] Not a moment too soon, as the Red hordes mass to  reclaim the Outer  Koguryo Autonomous  Zone, there is a much-needed advancement of the discussion of the future former North Korea.  It comes  from  U.S....

Categories China & Korea/Reconstruction
January 8, 2008

The Restoration

No one should take pleasure in seeing another person worry about  losing his job, but there  is much to celebrate about how Lee Myung-Bak’s new administration is shaping up.  Some doubt is now cast on earlier reports that  the UniFiction Ministry would be abolished, although it’s clear that  its size and influence will be reduced  dramatically.  Its days as a foreign policy player are over,  and the the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) will regain its foreign policy...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/U.S. & Korea
January 7, 2008

North Korea’s Moment of Untruth, and Chris Hill’s

Secretary Rice, embrace your legacy. Agreed Framework 2.0 has stalled, and probably for good. Last month, we thought we were approaching North Korea’s moment of truth. Last week, with the matter of that overdue declaration, it was still possible (though gullible) to believe they’d still offer it in due course. Certainly that was the impression the White House was feeding us when it said on January 3rd that it was “going to keep hammering away” at getting the declaration and...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
January 7, 2008

The Candidates on North Korea (Edwards, Giuliani, McCain, Obama, Richardson)

I have my own biases, of course, but I don’t do endorsements, chiefly because (a) you don’t care, and (b) this is single-issue analysis in a multiple-issue campaign. This is simply a presentation of what the various candidates have said in relation to Korea issues, but mainly North Korea. If it’s of interest to you or helps you make one part of your decision, great. If you can find a more detailed relevant statement by another candidate I wrote about...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 4, 2008

Anti-Slavery International: ‘Forced Labor in North Korean Prison Camps’

[Update:   Kathreb responds here, but VanMidd comes the closest to the truth:  “[A]ll us lefties are scoob smoking hippies on welfare ….”  Good on you for  admitting it, and I’d gladly return the favor by recommending a decent barber and springing for  bus fare  to the day labor center or the  nearest Home Depot.  It’s going to be a long road, VanMidd, but we’ll be here for you when you decide to take that first step.]   Over at...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 3, 2008

UniFiction Ministry to be abolished?

[Update:   The Marmot  is giddy about this.]   Had George Orwell lived in modern-day Korea, reality would have  mooted his most sardonic fiction.  After all, a  lying Ministry of Truth  is only marginally sillier than  a Ministry of Unification whose primary function is  keeping the slaves on the other side of the mine fields through the lavish financing of their overseers.  Today comes word that president-elect Lee Myung-Bak may put an end to this cruel joke by abolishing the...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
January 2, 2008

Rep. Tom Lantos, diagnosed with cancer, will not seek re-election

Routine medical tests have revealed that I have cancer of the esophagus. In view of this development and the treatment it will require, I will not seek re-election. It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a Member of Congress. I will never be able...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 2, 2008

Condi Going to Pyongyang?

Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, citing a report from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, reports that Secretary Rice intends to accompany the New York Philharmonic to Pyongyang this February.  I’m agnostic on the visit of the orchestra, but  a visit  from America’s senior diplomat will rightly be interpreted as an expression of American approval. This begs a question:  approval of what, exactly?  North Korea is ignoring its obligations under Agreed Framework 2.0, is still  lying about the full extent of its...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
January 2, 2008

U-Tubed! (Part. 3)

Washington has long suspected North Korea of having a program to make highly enriched uranium (HEU) since shortly after it agreed to denuclearize in the first Agreed Framework.  North Korea  denied this at first, admitted it to two U.S. diplomats and three translators in 2002, and  then went  back to denying it.    Those denials  just got even less likely. As I previously noted here,  the U.S. asked for, and North Korea recently provided, samples of aluminum tubes we know it...

Categories Proliferation/Six-Party Talks