December 18, 2006

Wobble Watch: Desperation Isn’t Enough

My fear:  the U.S., desperate for the appearance of a last-minute  diplomatic success, would sign up for Agreed Framework II at Beijing.  The reality:  the North Koreans and the Americans are both acting as if they expect the other to give more, with the North Koreans enjoying a clear advantage in chutzpah: North Korea defiantly declared itself a nuclear power Monday at the start of the first full international arms talks since its nuclear test and threatened to increase its...

Categories Six-Party Talks
December 14, 2006

Chinese Diplomats on the Town, Behaving Like … American Infantry!

Heard in the Forbidden City:  “Those uppity vassals won’t get away with  indignities like this  when we build our governor’s mansion on top of Kwanghwamun!” Police pulled over a car with the diplomatic license plate of the Chinese Embassy near the main gate of Ewha Women’s University around 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday. The driver and three passengers declined to take the test or confirm their identities and kept doors and windows locked. Police guided the car into a corner, where...

Categories China & Korea/UCMJ & SOFA/WTF?
December 13, 2006

Fun With Konglish

Although history may eventually record that the Daily NK was the most important Korean newspaper of this century, I sometimes wish I had the time to help them out with their English edition: The newspaper also reported that while N. Korea has screwed most of salaries of its workers recently dispatched in Czech and Poland, it has seemed to actively export their workers to the Middle-East areas. Somehow, I don’t think that came out quite as meant.  It’s an interesting...

Categories Media Criticism/Unintended Humor
December 13, 2006

South Dakota Moves One Step Closer to Global Hegemony

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota suffered a possible stroke Wednesday and was taken to a hospital, his office said. If he should be unable to continue to serve, it could halt the scheduled Democratic takeover of the Senate. Democrats won a 51-49 majority in the November election. South Dakota’s governor, who would appoint any temporary replacement, is a Republican. “Senator Tim Johnson was taken to George Washington University Hospital this afternoon suffering from a possible stroke,” read a...

Categories America
December 13, 2006

Korean Apartheid Watch

Arnold knew of only one pool in town, but when she went there she was told, ‘No Foreigners Allowed.”’ She asked a Korean co-worker to call for her and explain that she had to swim for health reasons. “I explained about you (doctor’s order) but they said no,” the co-worker wrote in a follow up e-mail. “Foreigner(s) cannot use the pool.”   [link] The article is incorrect when it states that discrimination is legal in Korea.  As I explained in...

Categories Korean Society/UCMJ & SOFA
December 13, 2006

Wobble Watch: Interesting Comment from S. Korean Delegate to Talks

“As the BDA account case shows us well, if we mention bilateral issues between North Korea and the U.S., we will not see much progress in the denuclearization of North Korea. Matters such as the BDA issue should not be mentioned during the six-party talks, and should be discussed in a working group or at least should be a separate part of the six-party talks. I read this as a good sign, given that the South Koreans had previously pressured...

Categories America/Six-Party Talks/WMD
December 13, 2006

N. Korean Agent Received Orders Through Korean-Canadian ‘Comrade’

We have more details about Kang Soon-Jeong, co-chairman of the pro-North Korean group that led the violent 9/11/05 protests that attempted to tear down the MacArthur statue in Incheon, and who also played a role in the much more violent Pyeongtaek protests last spring. Kang allegedly took orders via a Korean-Canadian and over five years sent some 500 reports to North Korea. They included photos of the massive anti-American protests following the death of two schoolgirls who were killed by...

Categories Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
December 12, 2006

Bracing for Catastrophe

The Daily NK has more bleak reports from the North.  The first deals with how the regime’s block committees are feeling the strain of the people’s desperation to survive: More specifically, “Requests were made to be cautious of any act of anti-socialism such as secretly watching or spreading news of video tapes, anyone who uses a car to sell goods, any act of offering accommodation or receiving money for lease of accommodation and acts of brewing home-wine. In particular, in...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK
December 12, 2006

The Speech Kofi Annan Should have given

During my decade as secretary-general, and indeed for some time before that, I have indulged in more than my share of half-truths, quarter-truths, cover-ups, immoral inanities and staggering hypocrisies. I have shuffled paperwork while ignoring genocides, I have rushed to shake hands with tyrants while deriding democrats; I have suffered from memory gaps while adroitly recalling just enough to know what needs covering up. I took office promising to reform the U.N., and instead produced a record that deserves to...

Categories "United" Nations
December 12, 2006

Fifth Column Update

Prosecutors have identified additional suspects in the Il Shim Hue cell, who they think provided the following types of information to the North Koreans: The suspects reportedly provided information on the six-nation talks and the internal split of the Grand National Party over the National Security Law to Mr. Jang starting early last year. Internal conflicts in the army and developments in the judicial and media communities were also provided to Mr. Jang. That information was delivered to Pyongyang, sources...

Categories Six-Party Talks/The Fifth Column
December 12, 2006

On Second Thought, We Can Too Remain Silent (Updated)

Update:   To extend the Marmot’s comment on this issue, sometimes it is necessary to call bullshit to cry freedom.  I thought it would be fun to contrast the South Korean Human Rights Commission’s  refusal of jurisdiction  to investigate or talk about human rights in North  Korea with its March 26,  2003  condemnation of the U.S.-coalition invasion of Iraq.  As I found this morning, the English versions of the HRC’s previous statements and annual reports  had recently and mysteriously vanished...

Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Unintended Humor/WTF?
December 11, 2006

Two N. Korean Soldiers Rescued from Raft in the Sea of Japan*

The wooden raft was simply drifting, off Sokcho. When the two were discovered, they were wearing dark green that looked to be a military uniform and one of the men was suffering from hypothermia to the point that he had lost consciousness. No word on whether the soldiers plan to defect, although I can’t think of another reason why two soldiers (presuming they are soldiers) would go AWOL and take to an unpowered wooden raft in December. (*Take that, you...

Categories Defectors/NK Military/Refugees
December 11, 2006

Talks Watch

North Korea sounds serious about wanting to exclude Japan from the six-nation talks. “Japan is nothing but a swindler who doesn’t even have the qualifications to attend the six-party talks,” the ruling Workers’ Party daily Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. I continue awaiting an explanation of just why it’s America’s fault that we’re failing to break through and reason with these people.

Categories Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
December 11, 2006

A Human Rights Lawyer Who Can’t Read a Two-Page U.N. Resolution?

President Roh Moo-hyun on Saturday told South Korean expatriates in New Zealand that preventing North Korea’s possible collapse is a “very important strategy” for our government because the North “will never wage war unless attacked or collapsing.” Seoul is therefore “concerned” about the suspension of humanitarian aid to the North under UN Security Council Resolution 1718, he added.  [link] Leave aside the sheer density of illogic in that brief statement, most of which speaks for itself.  Either Roh, a former...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/WMD
December 9, 2006

S. Korean Businessman Praised for Helping to Print Distorted Textbooks

Books printed by the recipient of the donated printing press have been known to deny the legitimacy of the Republic of Korea, support policies that  have killed millions of Koreans,  and falsely accuse  American soldiers of an organized campaign of rape on the streets of Seoul.  Unlike past controversies over foreign textbooks, however, police predict absolutely  no outrage on the streets this time.  Foreign analysts who were asked to explain the uncharacteristic calm simply shook their heads in befuddlement and...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Unintended Humor/WTF?
December 9, 2006

New Report on North Korean Refugees

The report, from the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, mainly deals with the problem of absorbing refugees into South Korean society.  There are five authors; Andrei Lankov wrote one chapter, and Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard edited the paper itself.  It’s a long read, so in a few days’ time, I may bump this post up, and those of us who’ve read it can discuss further.  Really, from what I’ve read, it sounds like an open letter...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Refugees
December 9, 2006

South Korea’s Influence Machine

The Donga Ilbo has an excellent piece on how South Korea lobbies Congress.  Well worth reading in its entirety. Related:  how it tries to influence the American  press. Also related:   Felony violations  of the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act  are now classified as Specified Unlawful Activity  under 18 U.S.C. sec. 1956, meaning the transactions of unregistered agents are considered money laundering.

Categories Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views