November 28, 2007

The Unhappiest Place on Earth

A combination of last summer’s floods and political idiocy have again combined to worsen the lot of North Koreans: [I]n August, no food was distributed in the east Pyongyang area. In September, only a half of residents in the area received food rations. In the following month, all received their food. In November, not all received their rations as in September.  [Daily NK] When rations aren’t passed out, citizens have to rely on markets for their food supply.  But in...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
November 28, 2007

They Followed Us Home

Update:   This story says the report below is  “not credible.”    If we’d just  run away from  Iraq and Afghanistan  — and everywhere else — this war would end!   End, I say! Fort [Huachuca, Arizona] officials changed security measures after sources warned that possibly 60 Afghan and Iraqi terrorists were to be smuggled into the U.S. through underground tunnels with high-powered weapons to attack the Arizona Army base, according to multiple confidential law enforcement documents obtained by The...

Categories Uncategorized
November 28, 2007

Chris Hill (Possibly) Heading for P’yang

Hill has already left for Tokyo and Beijing; the stopover in Pyongyang is still unconfirmed.  In Japan, I suppose we can expect Hill to tell his hosts to forget about ever seeing their abducted citizens again, to hurry up and pay ransom, or perhaps both.  In China, after performing a full kowtow before  Jiang  Zemin, Hill will  not mention the impending repatriation, torture, and execution of the dissident  Yoo Sang Joon or any other North Korean refugee.  Ever so stealthily,...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
November 27, 2007

Jane’s: Chemical Explosion in Syria Killed Iranians, N. Korean Engineers

When Israel bombed a mysterious site in Syria last September, the newspapers reported a dizzying number of theories about what was attacked and where.  Before summarizing those theories in this post, I warned you that they weren’t necessarily  mutually exclusive, and here’s another piece of evidence to throw into the hopper.  Jane’s Defense Weekly, a highly respected publication to be sure, claims that last July, the Syrians were loading chemical warheads onto their North Korean-made SCUD-C missiles for a test. ...

Categories Proliferation
November 27, 2007

The Pressure Is Off on Human Rights in North Korea

North Korea no longer feels the constraint of international pressure — particularly American pressure —  so it  believes that  it has a free hand to try to increase its  internal control by any means necessary.  Witness last week’s decision  by South Korea to abstain again from a U.N. resolution condemning the North, a reversal of a hard-won gain.   Two of the ways the regime is trying to reassert itself:  tightening its border controls and carrying out more public executions. It’s...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights
November 27, 2007

Terrorism, Plain and Simple

If you stick with me for a modest amount of law, I promise you that this post will end with a nice little adventure in participatory democracy.  But to get there, we must begin with how the United States Code defines “international terrorism,” at section 2331 of Title 18: As used in this chapter –       (1) the term “international terrorism” means activities that –                 (A) involve violent acts or...

Categories Appeasement/Terrorism (NK)
November 27, 2007

Still Collapsing?

The Weekly Standard publishes a very non-specific, unsourced prediction that North Korea is on the verge of collapse.  Read it for yourself, but I don’t find it very persuasive.  While collapse is a distinct possibility for the reasons Andrei Lankov has recently repeated (see yesterday’s post), I don’t see signs that it’s more imminent today than it was a  year ago.  If anything, the North Korean leadership has gained strength from its acceptance by the Bush Administration.

Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology
November 26, 2007

Impervious to Evidence: State’s Appeasement Express Arrives at the Koryo Hotel

[Update:   Richardson links to State’s quasi-denial:  why, yes, we have stationed a State Department  employee in Pyongyang, but he’s strictly there to supervise the equipment for the technical process of disabling North Korea’s nuclear programs.  That’s peculiar.  If this employee’s job is strictly scientific or technical, why not avoid giving people the wrong idea and  send someone from the Department of Energy or Defense  instead?  At best, this is a trial balloon.   More likely, we’ve just seen  the camel’s...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Proliferation
November 25, 2007

If you’re hungry for dog meat, why not dine with ‘The Pariah Family?’

You’ve seen the unintended comedy of Japanese, Chinese,  and Koreans decorating their wares with English, badly.  You’ve seen the hilarity of  British people  tattooing such Chinese  marks of distinction  as, “Coca-Cola” or  “At the end of the  day, this is an  ugly boy,” on their bodies. Now, see what happens when Hangul-challenged Chinese try to ride the Korean Wave.  And fail (one, two, three, four).

Categories Humor/Satire
November 24, 2007

Casualties of Banalities: The Arrest and Coming Death of Yoo Sang-Joon

One of the bravest men I have ever met is locked in a Chinese prison this weekend, facing the risk of being sent back to certain execution in his native North Korea.  His story stands for the human suffering that endures while diplomats craft a controversial agreement to disarm North Korea of its nuclear weapons and to grant its dictator, Kim Jong-il, the peace treaty and the recognition that his regime has sought for decades.  [The Sunday Times, Michael Sheridan]...

Categories "United" Nations/Activism/China/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees/U.S. Politics
November 24, 2007

Bush Administration’s Blackout Can’t Silence Syria-N. Korea Speculation

The latest theory, via  Prof. Uzi Even, an  Israeli scientist interviewed in Haaretz, is this: “In my estimation this was something very nasty and vicious, and even more dangerous than a reactor,” says Even. “I have no information, only an assessment, but I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely a factory for assembling the bomb.” In other words, Syria already had several kilograms of plutonium, and it was involved in building a bomb factory (the assembling...

Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation
November 23, 2007

South Korea Abstains Again

. . . in a U.N. vote  to condemn  North Korea’s human rights  atrocities (via Korea Unification Studies).  They abstain, for the record, from condemning this, or this, or this.  Or this. Almost exactly a year ago, after years of abstentions, the South Koreans finally yielded to intense pressure and voted in favor.  What changed?   My theory is that America’s betrayal gave the South Koreans cover.  Remember that next time anyone tries to argue that our diplomacy with North Korea...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
November 21, 2007

No Legacy for You

The Washington Post declares: The war in Iraq seems to have taken a turn for the better and the opposition at home has failed in all efforts to impose its own strategy. North Korea is dismantling its nuclear program. . . .  Yet none of this has particularly impressed the public at large, which remains skeptical that anything meaningful has changed and still gives Bush record-low approval ratings. No, not if the Washington Post does not choose to make it...

Categories Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
November 20, 2007

Global Protest Against China’s Brutality Toward N. Korean Refugees — Nov. 30 – Dec. 1

The list of locations scheduled to hold demonstrations is impressive; organizers will target Chinese embassies and consulates in Washington, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Brussels, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Oslo, London, Amsterdam, Seoul, and Madrid. That represents significant growth since past demonstrations, something that’s very welcome at a discouraging moment when the Bush Administration has pretty much sold out the entire cause. If you don’t know what we’re upset about, here’s a good introduction to the issue....

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Refugees
November 19, 2007

Beyond the U.N. Experiment

What serious thinker still believes the United Nations still reflects the values of its own charter, much less contributes to seeing them realized?  Much has been said about what was unexpectedly not found in Iraq, much less so about what was unexpectedly found:  proof of just how completely the U.N. had been corrupted by arguably the second-worst dictator on earth.  Not that all of the U.N.’s corruption is monetary: Recall what Churchill told the audience at Fulton about the United...

Categories "United" Nations
November 18, 2007

It Takes Many Wards to Make an Asylum

Maybe this will help support my efforts to talk one of you off the Ron Paul ledge.  The favorite candidate of “truthers” and other conspiracy theorists the mainsteam won’t embrace is  also the favorite of  white supremacists and neo-Nazis.  Andrew Walden lays it all out in meticulous detail.  Call it guilt by association if you will, but weeks after the questions  were raised,  Paul isn’t refusing their money or blocking those donate links from white supremacist sites.  I’ll save you...

Categories U.S. Politics