January 22, 2007

Wobble Watch

Here I go again,  elevating my metabolism  about the latest U.S.-North Korean “breakthrough” that will probably amount to nothing. North Korea has reportedly agreed to halt nuclear activities including operations at a reactor in Yongbyon, and allow on-site monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency as the first steps to abandoning its nuclear program. The agreement came during a meeting of the chief nuclear negotiators of the U.S. and North Korea that ended Friday in Berlin, sources said. According to...

Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
January 22, 2007

It’s All a Matter of Perspective

Does it sometimes seem to you like we are two ships that pass in the night?  The South Korean government should not disgrace itself by obeying foreign powers and imposing sanctions on its brethren….  South Korea’s political parties, groups and the public in all walks of life should be aware of the maneuvers of conservatives to take power ….   South Koreans should form a broad anti-conservative alliance to destroy pro-American and anti-unification politicians and their conspiracies. You say that like...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/WTF?
January 22, 2007

Ban Ki Moon Orders Review of U.N. Programs

Update 2:  Reuters reports that Ban is now backtracking and saying that the new audits will focus only on  programs where the financial practices are shady.  Monday’s U.N. statement said Ban would assign auditors only to U.N. funds and programs “in countries where issues of hard currency transactions, independence of staff hiring and access to reviewing local projects are pertinent.”  Audits would be “simultaneously carried out in select cases of countries” identified by the funds and programs, it said.  Funding...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Washington Views
January 22, 2007

KTU Update

Are you ready for your second story in just four days about Korean Teachers’ Union members being caught in possession  of pro-North Korean propaganda, with intent to distribute?  On closer examination, these appear to be the same suspects I blogged here.   Hat tip to The Nomad, who points out that there’s no evidence that the stuff was actually used in class, although we’ve advanced a step in that direction.  Unlike the case of the previous report, which was about mere...

Categories Korean Education/The Fifth Column
January 21, 2007

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...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Counterfeiting/Europe/Media Criticism
January 21, 2007

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...

Categories Media Criticism/Terrorism/Iraq
January 21, 2007

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...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement
January 21, 2007

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...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid
January 21, 2007

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...

Categories 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...

Categories Korean Politics
January 19, 2007

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...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid
January 19, 2007

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...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/China & Korea/Human Rights/Korean War
January 19, 2007

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...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
January 19, 2007

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...

Categories Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Military
January 18, 2007

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?”...

Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology
January 18, 2007

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...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Inside NK