April 8, 2007

Hey everyone! Roh Tae-Woo’s brother is going to make me rich!

Well, just imagine my feeling of serendipity at seeing this in my in-box today!    My rat race is over at last!   Just whatever you do, don’t tell the crack cyber-cops at the Ministry of Information and Communications…. Greetings from me and my family. Getting your contact was not an easy task because since I am not computer literate, I ordered my son to seek  a partner very far away and he went to the institute of International Business...

Categories Unintended Humor

April 5, 2007

Anju Links for 4/5

The New York Sun has more on the “supernotes” found at U.N. Headquarters  and the investigation that follows. It looks like North Korea will fail to meet the April 13 deadline to shut down its reactor at Yongbyon.  Chris Hill is still  saying he’s “confident” that North Korea can meet it, meaning that he still expects them to.  The Chinese are not so optimistic. Our capitulations strengthen our enemies.  Roh’s popularity rises following a the signing of an FTA that...

Categories Uncategorized

April 4, 2007

Thailand and Laos Planning Mass Repatriations of N. Korean Refugees

[Update:   Please click the comment link, look for the “Digg” link at the bottom of the post,  and Digg.  The e-mail address of the Thai  Embassy is info@thaiembdc.org.]   Two e-mail messages in as many days convey some very bad news about North Korean refugees in two Southeast Asian nations, Thailand and Laos.  Both nations, apparently seeing no U.S. objection and a new U.S. disinterest in the subject of human rights for North Koreans generally, are catching refugees and...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia

April 4, 2007

Stage 4 Watch: Are North Korean Diplomats Going Native?

An order from Pyongyang directing North Korean diplomats in overseas posts to send their children back home has been met with defiance, sources in Beijing said yesterday. Pyongyang has extended the deadline for sending the children home until the end of this month in the face of the diplomats’ reluctance to obey. On March 6, the JoongAng Ilbo reported that the communist Workers’ Party of North Korea had issued the order in February, but no explanation was provided. Under the...

Categories Kremlinology/Resistance

April 4, 2007

Richard Lawless Resigns

Lawless was responsible for pushing the South Koreans into USFK restructuring and cost-sharing agreements, and unlike years of predecessors, had been tough enough to sit down and negotiate as firmly as his counterparts.  No one pushed Richard Lawless around.  As a result, the Korean government and press were not fans.  See, e.g., this picture the Joongang Ilbo printed.  “Hulk angry!” Lawless cited personal reasons for his resignation, according to one official. He will leave his post in a few weeks,...

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics

April 3, 2007

FTA Hits Opposition in U.S. Congress

The Economist’s blog reports, After a long drawn out, and highly fraught, negotiation that pushed right up against the deadline, America and South Korea have inked a new trade deal. It is the largest America has signed since NAFTA. However, tensions between the Bush administration and resurgent protectionists in America’s new Democratic Congress make it highly uncertain that the pact will be ratified. I don’t yet know if the opposition will be enough to defeat the deal, but some key...

Categories Human Trafficking/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. Politics

April 2, 2007

Tough Neighborhood

Writing in the Washington Post, Samuel Songhoon Lee relates the experiences of some of the North Korean students who taught him English, including this rather remarkable report: [B] graduated from School 34 a few weeks ago and is studying at Sungkyunkwan University, one of the nation’s top colleges. He grew up a few minutes away from one of North Korea’s most notorious political prisons, Prison 22 in Hyeryung, Ham-Kyung Province, at the northern tip of North Korea. Because food and...

Categories Human Rights

April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2: Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive. Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions. Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over 15 years, which is a long time. (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.) Korea also gets to protect its rice market. There’s really only one bright spot I can see:...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

April 1, 2007

A Souvenir from Kim Jong Il

My comparison yesterday between North Korean ideology, Nazism, and Stalinism led me to conclude that in terms of intrusive state control and deification of its political leaders, North Korea was the outlier. Speaking of deification, I nearly forgot this: (Click for full size) The protector of our race’s destiny, unification [gu-song, possibly N. Korean vernacular] North and South shall bask together in the glow of General Kim Jong Il’s embrace We should follow our great general Kim Jong Il eternally!...

Categories North Korea/The Fifth Column/U.S. Military

March 31, 2007

Chosen Soren Sues Japanse Government for Malicious Prosecution!

[Update:   OK, I can top this.  North Korea calls South Korea “fascist” for blocking  pro-North Web sites.]   This deserves at least a footnote in the Funk & Wagnalls  History of Chutzpah.  Chosen Soren, a/k/a Chongryon, is a North Korean-controlled organization of ethnic Koreans in Japan.   A decade ago, Chosen Soren was a powerful and politically connected organization that poured millions into Kim Jong Il’s accounts through remittances, pachinko parlors, and a network of costly private schools teaching juche...

Categories Abductions/Japan & Korea

March 31, 2007

An FTA Pre-Post Mortem

At this hour, it looks like free trade talks with South Korea are about to fail, despite their extension for another 48 hours.   It may be  a bit  early for  the Chosun Ilbo  to have  published this post-mortem, but any free-trade agreement we reach now will be unworthy of the name and hardly worth doing from an American perspective.  Yes, I still  believe an US-Korean FTA is a good idea, but it’s pretty hard to  write a good one when...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

March 30, 2007

Back (Nationalism, Meet Socialism, Part 3)

For those who noticed my absence, thanks.  Work became too busy to allow any time for blogging, and what time wasn’t spent reading First Amendment cases was spent cleaning up kid-puke. So, have you seen UsInKorea’s video?  You really, really should.  Especially if you’ve ever considered going to the Arirang Festival. Update:   You may recall that I’ve noted some of the same similarities of ceremony,  as well as the  similar ideology of racial purity  shared by North Korea and...

Categories Racism

March 28, 2007

A novel definition for ‘denuclearization;’ and where to keep a horse (from being eaten) in N. Korea

According to this Chosun Ilbo report, North Korea recently floated a novel interpretation of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” under which it could, you know, keep its nuclear weapons.  I wonder what they expected: The assistant secretary of state made it clear that Washington’s goal is complete denuclearization saying, “The U.S. will not form any kind of ties with a nuclear-armed North Korea. He stipulated that “the case of India (which signed a nuclear pact despite possessing nuclear programs) will...

Categories Human Rights/Kim Jong Il/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD

March 27, 2007

Colin McAskill Threatens to Sue Over Release of Funds to DPRK Gov’t

McAskill, the man who sells Kim Jong Il’s gold and  who recently bought  the  bank through which most of North Korea’s European investment is channeled, has heretofore been  a strident and articulate advocate of releasing the  $25 million  frozen in BDA.  Overnight, he has become the main obstacle: In two letters sent to the Monetary Authority of Macao, [Daedong Credit Bank] has said that it will take legal action if any of its frozen funds are moved in accordance with...

Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WTF?

March 27, 2007

As N. Korea Reverts to Form, Hill Warns Kim Jong Il

Via Richardson: The U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks said Monday that Pyongyang needs to meet international standards, especially in human rights, in order to have relations with Washington. “It’s a price of admission to the international community,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.  [Yonhap] Does this encourage me?  I’m not sure.  It’s not a bad thing that Chris Hill is tipping his hat  comb-over in this direction, although “international standards, especially in human rights” are a...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/WMD

March 26, 2007

N. Korea Admits 1M-Tonne Food Shortfall

As with every “revelation” that even partially originates from the North Korean government, treat this  with some skepticism: North Korea has admitted for the first time to food shortages of a milion tonnes, the World Food Programme said on Monday, adding that in the absence of better donor support, millions are vulnerable to hunger.  [Reuters, Lindsay Beck] Note that this estimated shortfall is  250,000 tonnes higher than  the WFP had last  estimated, and  consistent with  the U.N. Food and Agriculture...

Categories Famine & Food Aid

March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

*   No.Please.Stop.   North Korea is threatening to pull  out of the  dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over  the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.”  [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

Categories An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

March 24, 2007

Anju Links for 3/24: Another Stolen Life, More Measles in N. Korea, Cowardly Capital, and the Diplomacy of Blame

*   Doina Bumbea, artist, 1950-1997.    From this photo, it’s  almost as if she could foresee the tragedy of her own  life. The circumstantial proof seems strong, though  not conclusive, that the  North Koreans lured  Doina from  Bucharest  to Japan and kidnapped her for the use of U.S. Army deserter James Dresnok,  who by all accounts is an utterly comtemptible person.  But  Doina’s family, which didn’t know what happened to her for all these years, seems convinced.  And there’s...

Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD