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Somewhere in Hell, Josef Goebbels Is Smiling: Klaus Bender’s Big Lie

Update: In my visitors’ log today: Original Post: You may recall that a few weeks back, I noted that the Korean press had picked up a story from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one that many of its readers will no doubt be eager to believe. The story reported that North Korean supernotes are actually made by the CIA at an undisclosed location near Washington, D.C. Not being much of a German linguist, I made myself a reminder to find an...

Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Europe/Media Criticism

al-Yahoo Watch: News Consumers Need Warning Labels, Too

[Updated, scroll down] The headline: 25 U.S. troops killed in Iraq Saturday I have my home page set to Yahoo because I use Yahoo e-mail, and there are two things about Yahoo’s home-page headlines that I’ve noticed and meant to start picking at for a long time. One is the tendency for the headlines to emphasize only negative developments in Iraq, chiefly casualties. This headline, for example, could just as well have told us that Mookie Sadr, under pressure...

Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq

North Korea Seeks Those Who Aided Abductee’s Escape

It’s been a bad week for North Korea’s P.R. machine, with the embarassments of abducted South Korean fisherman Choi Uk-Il’s escape and the repatriation of nine family members of South Korean POW’s (one of whom is already dead). Both incidents — and the small matter of North Korea’s latest threat to nuke Seoul — proved embarassing to North Korea’s friends in South Korea, who have problems enough already. But good neighbors take care of their friends, so North Korea is...

Abductions/Appeasement

Hundreds of North Koreans Freeze to Death

In addition to the reports of a pandemic that’s now afflicted thousands in Chongjin, North Korea’s fourth-largest city, there is now word via the London Daily Telegraph that cold weather has stranded and killed hundreds in the northeastern mountains: The men who finally made it into the remote highland village of Koogang were greeted by an eerie silence and a gruesome sight. Lying among the simple wooden huts and burnt remnants of wooden furniture, they found the bodies of 46...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid

Opposition Legislator Responds to Shenyang-Gate with Refugee-Protection Bill

SEOUL, Jan. 21 (Yonhap) — South Korea’s main opposition party plans to introduce a law revision aimed at helping North Koreans and South Korean abductees fleeing the communist country, a senior party official said Sunday. Rep. Hwang Woo-yea, secretary-general of the Grand National Party (GNP), said the bill will help prevent the forced repatriation of defectors from North Korea and expedite Seoul’s diplomatic efforts to bring them to South Korea. “The National Assembly passed a similar GNP-initiated bill in 2004...

Appeasement/China & Korea/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Refugees

January 20, 2007

Court Order Extends Uri’s Life Support

It’s a setback for Comrade Chung and Kim Geun Tae* The Seoul district court yesterday dealt a crucial blow to the Uri Party leadership by ruling that its revision of party regulations is invalid, accepting arguments in a petition filed by party members associated with President Roh Moo-hyun. The ruling effectively invalidates the plans of the party leadership, who had been gearing up to launch a new party, whereas pro-Roh members want to stay under the Uri Party umbrella. Eleven...

Korean Politics

The UN’s Latest North Korea Scandal

I’ve often criticized the UN World Food Program (WFP) for the inadequate monitoring of its food aid program in North Korea, but as it turns out, there was something I didn’t know then: compared to the UN Development Program’s (UNDP) operations there, the WFP’s were a paragon of accountability. Ever since the days when the disgraced team of Maurice Strong and Tongsun Park began advising and representing Kofi Annan on North Korea, the UNDP has been funneling millions of dollars...

"United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid

One POW’s Repatriated Wife Already Reported Dead

She apparently was in ill health and froze to death in police custody, according to Yonhap. I’ll have a link and more details later. [Update: here:] One of the nine, who was the wife of a South Korean prisoner of war, apparently froze to death one month ago while she was being questioned by North Korean security authorities after they were deported to the North, a source familiar with North Korean affairs said. The woman, the source said he...

Abductions/Appeasement/China & Korea/Human Rights/Korean War

The Death of an Alliance, Part 64: Thank You, Secretary Obvious!

The first Democratic-controlled hearing of the International Relations Foreign Affairs Committee has met. No bold intiatives, brilliant proposals, or clear theme emerged. Instead, it was a dizzying variety of views and partisan mutual cancellation that rendered the entire excercise inconclusive and confusing. One could expect little else: both parties are advocating more talks backed by threats that North Korea does not fear. Both sides fail to grasp, or at least to admit, that North Korea will not disarm for any...

An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views

Six-Party Talks Will Restart

If you still care, you can read more here. If you wonder how we’ll ever reach a solution with a government that has been stalling and negotiating in bad faith for a decade and a half, read this. To me, however, the most interesting comment of the week came from former SecDef William Perry ….

Six-Party Talks

Three Minutes for Lieutenant Mark Daily

Lieutenant Mark Daily gave you his life; will you give him three minutes? Knowing what he was getting himself into, Mark Daily sat down to write what he knew could be his epitaph. It is composed with the poetic zen that so few writers can manage, the expression of complex ideas in clear prose. It is the eloquence of a man who applied courage to his compassion and principle: Maybe the reality of politics makes all political action inherently crude...

Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Military

Things Not to Say in North Korea

Ju Tong-il, minister of power and coal industries, was fired late last year by the leaders of the impoverished Communist state, the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun daily said in a story from Beijing. “Our country’s energy situation is extremely severe,” Ju told a meeting of energy-related officials last spring, according to the daily, quoting unnamed sources close to the North Korean government. “Or better yet, why don’t we get back electricity fed to the guesthouses of our general?”...

Inside NK/Kremlinology

Caught on Tape: Drug Smuggling in North Korea

The footage also captured the North Korean drug dealers sniffing the drugs as well as the dealers talking about the transaction. Of the dealers, one person was a worker managing the level of humidity at a manufacturing factory and seemingly the intermediary supplier who obtained the drugs. It seems that the 3~4 people sitting in a circle are personally testing the quality of the drugs before purchase. Although the dealer’s child has entered the room, the buyers continue to inhale...

Drugs & N Korea/Inside NK

Teachers Arrested for Posting N. Korean Propaganda On-Line

Two middle school teachers who allegedly posted pro-North Korean propaganda on Web sites have been arrested, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said yesterday, for violating the National Security Law. The teachers, whom police did not identify, allegedly posted North Korean photos and captions reading, for example, “Long Live the Great Victory of the Military-First Politics. They are both members of the left-leaning Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union [link to other OFK posts]. Both teachers have also served as...

Korean Education/The Fifth Column