September 28, 2006

Greeks Intercept Counterfeit N.K. Cigarettes

Officials in Greece nabbed a North Korean freight vessel that was carrying 1.5 million cartons of contraband cigarettes and arrested the seven seamen aboard, it was announced Monday. [link] Let’s hope there’s a trial, and that this one won’t be  a goose egg  like the Pong Su case was.  Whether the Aegean could use another artificial reef, I leave to the Greeks, but  Greece is  always happy to do the exact opposite of what America asks. The Greek Merchant Marine...

Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering
September 28, 2006

Maybe He Needed Instructions.

President Roh Moo-hyun said Thursday that South Korea had sounded Pyongyang out on the joint comprehensive approach to the stalled six-party talks prior to his recent summit with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington. Really, I don’t quibble with him floating his trial balloon to the North Koreans.  It’s the sequence of it that speaks volumes.  While we’re dumping on the South Korean government, don’t miss another fairly shocking example that Jeffery turned up: In the early stage of...

Categories Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea
September 28, 2006

What, Me Wimpy?

“Sometimes I may look like a weak, soft leadership,” Ban said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press. “You may look at me as a soft person, but I have inner strength. This is what normally people from the outside world would have some difficulty in seeing — people from Asia particularly, when we regard humility, a humbleness, as a very important virtue.” Ban spoke to reporters after being reached at a  Manhattan salon, where he was receiving a...

Categories "United" Nations/An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea
September 27, 2006

My Testimony at the House International Relations Committee

[Update: For some strange reason, the document was coming up as a previous, incomplete draft. Sorry for any who saw that one; you should be able to see the final version now.] [Update 1/2007: , including my verbal testimony, written statement, and photographic exhibits, at pages 59-94 (pdf). Other witnesses that day were Amb. Chris Hill, Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless, and Korea experts Balbina Hwang and Gordon Flake.] Well, I can’t thank Rep. Henry Hyde’s staff enough for believing...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
September 26, 2006

DOA 52 Update

Ordinarily, allies shouldn’t have to issue ultimata to each other, but in this case, it got results when nothing else did.  In a few days, you can expect to see the Roh Administration use this to play the han card for political gain and depict themselves as helpless victims of Yankee bullying.   We’ve gained a range, and Roh will gain a moment’s sympathy, but the alliance’s long-term political support will suffer.

Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
September 26, 2006

Head of S. Korea’s Human Right Commission Resigns

Shortly after the HRC refused to speak up on behalf of a North Korean facing public execution, its head  has resigned. Yesterday, at a meeting with commission members, one of them asked Mr. Cho why he walked out of a workshop suddenly on Friday.  He said only, “I think it is now time for me to resign. I have nothing more to say.”  He then left the meeting.  A commission official who asked not to be named said, “I heard...

Categories Human Rights/Korean Politics
September 26, 2006

Norbert Vollertsen Reports Being Assaulted in Seoul

Norbert Vollertsen writes to report that he was attacked by a gang of thugs in downtown Seoul and intentionally run over by a taxi.  He is reporting a less-then-stellar police response; they blamed him for being drunk (which he vehemently  denies) and suggests that some of his attackers may have been corroborating witnesses to that side of the story.  Well, I wasn’t there, but two questions come to mind.  First, Norbert claims that he hobbled out of the hospital on...

Categories Activism/Korean Law
September 23, 2006

Waiting for the Ceausescu Moment

History has a strange habit of pivoting on the tempers and moods of ordinary people whom it swallows and forgets, and one of those people is the first angry man in a crowd of thousands in Bucharest, on December 20, 1989.  For some reason, he acted on his urge to shout  blasphemous words at  Europe’s most dreaded tryant.  There were others in that crowd whose anger overcame their fear, and those others also shouted out their discontent.  The tyrant failed...

Categories Democracy/NK Economics/Resistance
September 22, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 2

South Korea has pretty much trashed its relations with the United States and Japan, and  its netizens are waging two boundary disputes  with the Chinese.  It’s a good thing reunification is just around the corner: South Koreans are more and more disenchanted with  North Korea, with a growing number losing enthusiasm for unification and believing their Stalinist neighbor could start a war, a survey released on Friday said. The poll by the daily JoongAng Ilbo was taken nearly two months...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
September 22, 2006

The Case for Blocking Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations is facing new denunciations for being feckless, ineffective, and corrupt. The sun also rose, obituaries were published, children went off to school, and leaves in the northern latitudes began to change color. There was something different about the latest criticism, however: despite its general similarity of content, it came from The Guardian, the flagship of the British left, and The Hudson Institute, virtually the Jesuit order of Washington neoconservatism. That’s a stunning convergence from two groups with...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
September 22, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 11: Eyes on Seoul

Green eyeshades are turning toward Seoul, Kaesong, and Kumgang.  If you think things were bad before, this is where U.S.-Korea relations will be severely tested.  The U.S. Treasury Department isn’t going to put up with Seoul acting as Kim Jong Il’s financier for long, and  with the  likely exceptions of some shady  Russian banks  and whatever China is secretly providing at the state-to-state level, South Korea is Kim Jong Il’s last cash cow. Kumgang That poll yesterday — the one...

Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea