Search Results for: "agreed framework iii"

~ 1 ~ AGREED FRAMEWORK III WATCH: Yesterday, I fisked Ambs. Bosworth and Gallucci for calling for talks with North Korea despite the concession by one of them (Bosworth) that a deal could never be verified, and despite North Korea’s repeated statements that they would never disarm. As if on cue, the North Koreans have said it again! SEOUL, Oct. 30 (Yonhap) — North Korea said Wednesday that its nuclear weapons program is not a bargaining tool and slammed South...

PEACE IN OUR TIME, Part 1: South Korea says that the North is ready for another nuke test any old time, and reveals that at the height of Sunshine and Agreed Framework II, the North was building missile silos: Several South Korean government sources confirmed yesterday that the North has numerous underground missile launch facilities around 2,000 meters (2,190 yards) south of Mount Paektu. The silos, they said, were constructed in the mid-2000s and were determined to have been completed...

IT’S CALLED AN ARMISTICE, STUPID. We learned today that our Secretary of State has been busy begging North Korea for Agreed Framework III, offering them a “Non-Aggression Pact” if they give up their nukes. Where to begin with this? First, the North Koreans reacted to that idea about as favorably as I did. Second, would this be like the non-aggression pact that North Korea signed in 1953, only to violate in 1968, 2002, 2010–and most of the years before and since–and...

~          1          ~ MADE IN NORTH KOREA: NK News has done us a service by identifying a factory in North Korea that’s making Land’s End clothing, which the Chinese subcontractor then sells as “Made in China.” I suspect there’s more of this going on than we know. Land’s End ought to terminate all relationships with the Chinese supplier.  If it doesn’t, it implies tolerance of illegal violations of North Korea sanctions, and immoral exploitation...

THE ONION: Seed Of World War III Planted In Beijing Middle-School Gym Class. ————————————————– AGREED FRAMEWORK III WATCH:  North Korea still isn’t interested in nuclear disarmament, and our diplomats are still secretly chasing a deal, knowing full well that North Korea won’t disarm.  But for what conceivable purpose?  I repeat my suspicion that these contacts wouldn’t be happening if the Obama Administration wasn’t laying the groundwork for more “flexible” post-election diplomacy.  Those involved (Bosworth, Wit, etc.) are connected with the...

SO FAR, NO NUKE TEST, and China is trying to take credit for that: “China is unhappy … and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter. Assuming this isn’t all disinformation — after all, China has openly encouraged North Korea to conduct nuclear tests until now — there’s also the question of what “near Changbai Mountain” means (Changbai Mountain, also...

PRESIDENT OBAMA, in a joint news conference with the visiting Prime Minister of Japan, says North Korea’s provocation are a sign of weakness, and this: “The old pattern of provocation that then gets attention and somehow insists on the world purchasing good behavior from them, that pattern is broken,” Obama said in a joint news conference with Noda at the White House. Let’s check back on that after November, when Wendy Sherman runs to the Oval Office with the blueprint...

NO ONE REALLY KNOWS what the population of North Korea is, so I’m not sure how anyone can really claim to know that life expectancy in North Korea is 11 years less than in South Korea, or that two-thirds of its children are malnourished (and one-third of them stunted as a result). I do think it’s safe to say, however, that North Korea compares unfavorably to all of its neighbors with respect to the welfare and happiness of its people,...

Here’s something else the consumers of Selig Harrison’s next op-ed should try not to remember: North Korea on Wednesday upped its rhetoric against South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, branding him as a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac” and “chieftain of evils without an equal in the world” in view of measures his government took last month in the wake of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The virulent name-calling came in a report released by the secretariat of...

Things that Kim Jong Il is buying that you can’t eat, Part 1: As Allison Kilkenny once learned the hard way, John Bolton has a pretty good track record for predicting North Korean nuclear tests. He’s predicting another one soon, and I suppose it’s about time for one. Along with this, Bolton criticizes President Obama for his public silence on North Korea. But as we learned from George W. Bush, strident rhetoric is no substitute for a not-half-bad policy. This...