December 1, 2006

Where I’ve Been

I liked Richardson’s map post, despite my envy that he has five percent on me (that should only be taken as a reference to countries visited).  So here’s mine.  create your own visited country map I think we should make this a tagging exercise.  And feel free to post the html of your own map in the comments.  We can even make this competitive.  A few rules:  any overland border crossing, however slight, counts.  Airport stops don’t count unless you...

Categories Miscellaneous
December 1, 2006

N. Korean Refugees Continue Flooding Into Thailand

Thailand is annoyed, and has just sentenced dozens more to short jail terms for illegal border crossing.  This from Reuters and the Bangkok Post, dated November 30, 2006. The Foreign Ministry complained yesterday that local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) were hampering Thailand ‘s efforts to prevent illegal entry by North Korean defectors. The ministry’s complaint came after police rounded up 59 North Koreans in Pathum Thani province on Tuesday, the third mass arrest in four months. The UNHCR, which...

Categories Refugees/Southeast Asia
December 1, 2006

Full Court Press

Roh Moo Hyun is recruiting for a new cadre of proxy censors in his war against a critical press: Continuing his battles with the media, President Roh Moo-hyun sent an e-mail yesterday to about 500,000 government officials, encouraging them take action against any media they believe acted wrongly, including taking them to court. In principle, I’m not opposed to the government having some appropriate way to address its  grievances against inaccurate press coverage.  And this, friends, is not an appropriate...

Categories Censorship/Korean Politics/Miscellaneous
November 30, 2006

Cindy Sheehan, Kim Jong Il, and Me

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. — Martin Luther King, Jr. I will restrain the expression of  views on  Cindy Sheehan herself.  I’m one who makes allowances for the fact that she’s traumatized by her son’s death, an event that quite obviously and understandably blew a few of her circuits.  And while I’m sure that Casey  Sheehan  wouldn’t appreciate his mother’s hard work to render his sacrifice meaningless, I’m just as sure...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column
November 29, 2006

Welcome Home

Life Funds for North Korean Refugees reports that Choi Young-Hun, who has been in a Chinese prison for the last four years for helping North Korea refugees, has been released: Choi was met at Incheon Airport this evening by close family members.  And although he appears extremely weak following his imprisonment, he took the time to express his thanks to all those around the world who have supported him with their prayers, letters and other contributions.

Categories Activism/China & Korea/Human Rights/Refugees
November 29, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 15

The United States has leaked a new set of sanctions on “luxury items” that can no longer be exported to North Korea, in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718: [T]he list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis. Electronic goods like I-pods and plasma TV’s are also banned.  Defectors helped...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/Washington Views
November 29, 2006

O Roh Is Me

It’s time for another installment of President Roh Moo Hyun’s whiney, self-pitying Hamlet act. “I hope I won’t be the first president to fail to complete his full term in office. Speculation about his intentions ran wild. The opposition Democratic Labor Party said the president was “threatening the public. Insiders do not rule out an extreme step, saying Roh is in a brittle psychological state. If you’re surprised by any of this, you must be a new reader.  Recall that...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
November 29, 2006

Man Who Led Violent 9/11 MacArthur Protests Arrested as N. Korean Spy

Has anyone forgotten this?  Today, we have a bit more certainty about what many of us had probably guessed, and we have yet more mounting  evidence of a hidden North Korean hand behind South Korea’s violent anti-American radicalism: Kang Soon-jeong, the former vice chairman of the South Korean chapter of the Pan-Korean Alliance for Reunification, an outlawed pro-Pyongyang group, was arrested on Tuesday for providing “national secrets” to Pyongyang, police said. Kang was also co-chairman of a civic group that...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea
November 28, 2006

We Support Our Dupes

John Kerry tried to deny it until his own Web site tried to defend it.  Now, Charlie Rangel, even confronted with statistical evidence to the contrary, comes right out and states one of the minor premises  of the “back door draft” argument:  only an idiot with nowhere else to go would join the United States military.  It’s all right here, on video.  We all remember the dishonest suggestion, mostly just before the  2004 election,  that a Bush reelection would mean...

Categories America/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Military/Washington Views
November 28, 2006

More G-2 on Robert Gates

If you’re looking for reasons not to be glum about Robert Gates, Michael Barone offers a few.  Barone pictures Gates as someone with a great deal of sensitivity, and perhaps hostility, toward congressional meddling in foreign policy since its failure to confirm him as CIA Director years ago.  I was especially interested in this take on Nicaragua: “By the end of 1984, I concluded that we were kidding ourselves if we thought the contras might win. I wrote [CIA Director...

Categories U.S. Military/Washington Views
November 27, 2006

Name of Blue House Secretary Found in N. Korean Spy’s Documents

Just when I thought that the Il Shim Hue story had been successfully buried by a quick switcheroo of NIS chiefs, we have this intriguing report from the Donga Ilbo: It was confirmed on November 26 that among the documents found at Jang Min-ho’s residence, the name of a Cheong Wa Dae secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Security, was brought up several times. Jang, the key member of the “Ilsimhoe” spy case, was arrested by the...

Categories Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
November 27, 2006

CNN Reports from the Yalu River

The Daily NK provides this link to the video of the broadcast (which worked fine for me).  They show scenes from across the river and interview a refugee woman on the Chinese side. It’s nothing new, really, although it bears constant repetition that North Koreans aren’t brainwashed automatons.  Increasingly, they’re willing to say just what they think of the Dear Leader’s bounty … even to foreign journalists. On a related note, don’t miss the Daily NK’s follow-up to the protest...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/Refugees/Resistance
November 26, 2006

Dreaming of Kwangju

Writing in the International Herald Tribune last March, Choe Sang Hun observed that both  the number of protests in South Korea and the violence of those protests is rising: “from 6,857 in 1995 to an average 11,000 a year in the past five years. The number of police officers hurt by demonstrators increased from 331 in 2,000 to 893 last year.” You would not expect this explosion of grievance under a government that pursues redistribution and appeasement all the way  to...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
November 23, 2006

Betraying Sergeant Chang

What else can be said about something like this?  It’s easy enough to blame the girl on the phone, but in light of past events like this,  the more salient questions are (1) whether she was  just following orders. More on how ROK POW’s lived in North Korean captivity here and here.  And  Staff Sergeant  Chang’s pain didn’t end when he escaped, either: Chang Moo-hwan, 79, a third POW who returned to South Korea after the defection of Cho, said...

Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Korean War
November 23, 2006

Score One for the ‘Barrel of a Gun’ Theory

Look what the Partei is telling the proles: At a people’s meeting in Hoiryeong, citizens were educated on the justice of North Korea’s nuke experiment and the economic aftereffects of the nuke experiment. An organizer of the people’s meeting in Hoiryeong said “The nuclear experiment has broken all of U.S. North Korea pressure policies and we have successfully shown the whole world that our socialism is good. Now, beginning from the nations of the six-party talks, countries around the world...

Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology