Search Results for: Choe Ryong Hae

December 9, 2015

Treasury plays catch-up on North Korea sanctions, designates 10 proliferators & shippers

Yesterday afternoon, the Treasury and State Departments designated ten more North Korean targets: six individual North Koreans for involvement in WMD-related financial transactions, three shipping companies, for being fronts of Ocean Maritime Management, and one entity, North Korea’s Strategic Rocket Forces. From Treasury’s press release: OFAC designated six individuals pursuant to E.O. 13382, which targets proliferators of WMD and their supporters.  Kim Kyong Nam was designated for acting, or purporting to act, for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly,...

Categories Sanctions
December 3, 2015

NIS: More senior cadres flee purges in North Korea

In recent weeks, our speculation about Choe Ryong-Hae — described by some (but not all) observers as North Korea’s third-highest official — has been resolved, if you believe South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, which says Choe was “sent … to a rural collective farm for reeducation” over “the alleged collapse of a water tunnel at a power station.” To let Choe live would depart from recent precedent for Kim Jong-Un, who made sure that Jang Song-Thaek and Hyon Yong-Chol would be safely out...

Categories Anju Links/Kremlinology/Regime Change/Resistance
July 9, 2015

The summer of their discontent: Is Kim Jong Un losing the elite classes?

Over the last few weeks, we’ve seen a spate of reports about defections from North Korea. Broadly, this is nothing new. The defection, for example, of three crew members of a fishing vessel is life-changing for three men, but is no more likely to rend the fabric of Kim Jong-Un’s regime than 27,000 other defections, almost all of them of people the regime had written off as expendable.  Recently, however, we’ve seen multiple reports suggesting something very different, and vastly more consequential...

Categories Defectors/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
January 10, 2015

But wouldn’t Su-35s divert money needed for flat-screens and ski resorts?

I could be wrong, but I doubt even Vlad Putin would violate U.N. Security Council Sanctions so blatantly as this: North Korea made an attempt to purchase advanced fighter jets from Russia by sending a special envoy, a senior South Korean military official told the JoongAng Ilbo on Thursday. “Choe Ryong-hae, who visited Moscow as a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in November last year, asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to provide Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets,” the...

Categories Anju Links
December 16, 2014

And then again, some rumors are true

In October, I posted about rumors that several senior North Korean officials had lost their jobs, including Ma Won-Chun, who showed up shortly thereafter. But another subject of the rumors, Gen. Ri Pyong-Chol, the Commanding Officer of North Korean People’s Air Force, has lost his job. ~   ~   ~ Update: A reader wonders whether Ri has necessarily lost his job, or might have been promoted. Technically, I suppose it’s possible that both of those things could be true....

Categories Kremlinology
November 16, 2014

Defectors spread rumors, warns news service that spreads propaganda, disinformation, and fake photos

The Associated Press, the guardian of the grotto that holds the cuneiform clay tablets recording the sacred commandments of the journalistic profession, has published a hit piece warning its readers to beware of the North Korean guerrilla news services that have stepped forward to fill the void left by corporate news organizations, including the AP. Its lede: Video secretly taken in North Korea shows public executions by firing squad. The country is said to begin a currency revaluation that turns disastrous. Leader Kim Jong Un is...

Categories AP Watch
October 9, 2014

North Korean official, asked about human rights problems, cites … lack of public baths.

And even this is really the fault of imperialist sanctions, which prohibit the import of “luxury goods” to North Korea: When the North Korean officials at the U.N. briefing were asked Tuesday to identify human rights problems in their country, Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean responded, “We need some facilities where people go and enjoy a bath… Right now, due to problems in the economic field — that is due to the external forces hindrance — we are running...

Categories Human Rights/North-South/WTF?
October 3, 2014

New Focus: No one in or out of Pyongyang (updated)

The report is now a few days old, and I’m curious to know whether this can be confirmed by anyone else, and whether this has changed since it was published. North Korea restricted entry and exit permissions to Pyongyang three days ago, a New Focus correspondent reports. The source could not confirm whether this move was related to Kim Jong-un’s disappearance from the public eye for the past 26 days. On the ground, the measure is informally being suggested to...

Categories AP Watch/Kim Jong Un/Kremlinology
October 1, 2014

Global Times denounces N. Korea coup rumors; State Dep’t says “no confirmation”

China’s Global Times, which must be on edge over the burgeoning protest movement on Hong Kong’s streets, angrily denounces internet rumors of a coup in North Korea. The rumors that Jo Myong-rok, a late North Korean vice marshal who died four years ago, arrested Kim in a coup and sent his lieutenants to South Korea for negotiations, were quickly denied by South Korean diplomats in Beijing. In the commentary titled “For those who make up rumors of coup in North...

Categories Kim Jong Un/Kremlinology
September 26, 2014

Blessed are the cheesemakers: His Porcine Majesty Kim Jong Un has eaten himself sick, possibly on Swiss cheese.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is “not feeling well,” a state-run television station reported this week, in a rare revelation about his health. In a documentary broadcast on Thursday, the North’s Central TV showed Mr. Kim, who has not been seen in public in recent weeks, walking with a limp while visiting a factory in Nampo, a provincial town southwest of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last month. A narrator intoned about the tireless work of Mr. Kim, “our...

Categories Europe/Kim Jong Un
September 26, 2014

Kim Jong Un is sick, another purge may have begun, and …. Oh, look! AP has an exclusive report from Pyongyang on ladies’ footwear!

Jesus wept. The U.N. is debating North Korea’s crimes against humanity, state TV admits that Kim Jong Un is “not feeling well,” his Number Two, Chae Ryong Hae, was just removed from his post, and the Comcast of Journalism brings us this exclusive report from Derek Zoolander: While rubber boots and utilitarian flats remain the norm elsewhere in North Korea, high heels in a wide array of colors and styles are commonplace in Pyongyang. They range from basic black to glittery sequined styles...

Categories AP Watch
May 18, 2014

If a building falls in Pyongyang and AP doesn’t hear it, why the fuck is it even there?

This weekend, we hear news of a terrible tragedy in Pyongyang, the collapse of a 23-story apartment building in the central Phyongchon District. The building was still under construction, but apparently, North Koreans move into apartment buildings before the construction is completed. Sources in South Korea’s Unification Ministry told Reuters that hundreds may have died, and KCNA’s expression of “profound consolation and apology … to bereaved families” seems to corroborate that there were many dead. KCNA says the accident “claimed casualties,” but doesn’t...

Categories AP Watch/Inside NK/Media Criticism
May 7, 2014

China leaks contingency plan for N. Korea collapse

Last week, North Korea unexpectedly announced that Hwang Pyong So had replaced Choe Ryong-Hae as North Korea’s top military officer and number two official. Choe had held this status since the December purge of Jang Song-Thaek. It may be a complete coincidence that Kyodo News has since reported on allegedly leaked contingency plans by the Chinese Army to seal the border and protect North Korean officials from, shall we say, summarized judicial proceedings in the event of a collapse of...

Categories China & Korea
May 6, 2014

Open Sources, May 6, 2014

~   1   ~ EVENT AT THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION, TOMORROW AT 10: “With China characteristically blocking UN action, what can be done to address human rights violations and improve conditions for the North Korean people? Join us as distinguished panel of human rights experts discuss potential follow-on actions.” The panel will include Greg Scarlatoiu of HRNK and John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. Jared Genser, unfortunately, can’t appear because of a scheduling conflict. Bruce Klingner will host and moderate....

Categories Anju Links
March 10, 2014

Open Sources, March 10, 2014

~  1  ~ HE SAYS HE’S NOT DEAD! Choe Ryong-Hae resurfaces. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un’s half-sister, Kim Yeo-Jong, has been appointed to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament. ~  2  ~ NORTH KOREA THREATENS THE U.S. AGAIN, in response to U.S. criticisms of North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. For those who track North Korean rhetorical levels, KCNA seems to be going relatively easy on Seoul, but has been cranking out some exceptionally violent anti-American...

Categories Anju Links
March 3, 2014

Open Sources, March 3, 2014

 ~  1  ~ CHOE PURGED, TOO? Several readers have pointed me to this Korea Herald story, which cites Free North Korea Radio, reporting that Choe Ryong-Hoe has now been purged (see also). We’ll probably have a better idea in a few days (weeks at most) whether that’s true, but North Korea Leadership Watch reports that Choe has made fewer public appearances recently, so the report seems plausible enough. If it is true, Choe was supposed to be Kim Jong Un’s...

Categories Anju Links
January 14, 2014

N. Korea’s new “reign of terror” stirs fear, flushes out dissent

Rimjingang, the guerrilla news service that brought us the footage we’ll see in Frontline: Secret State of North Korea, has published a spate of reports that give credence to Park Geun-Hye’s prediction that a “reign of terror” would follow the purge of Jang Song-Thaek. The reports clearly rely heavily on third-hand rumor, so I wouldn’t necessarily consider them so much for the truth of the matters asserted as for what they say about the mood on the street. But amid...

Categories Inside NK/Regime Change/Resistance
July 21, 2012

Really, AP? You think there’s too much speculation about those North Korean coup rumors? Here’s a news tip.

If Kim Jong Un’s handlers, Jang Song-Thaek and Choe Ryong-Hae, really did just suppress an attempted coup in Pyongyang that killed 20 or 30 soldiers, it would have made a hell of a racket, and you’d think at least one diplomat or journalist would have heard it. That’s why I tend to doubt that the story is true, but if it is true, it might be the biggest North Korea story since the revelation of the concentration camps a decade...

Categories AP Watch