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Nine Percent

That’s the ruling Uri Party’s new approval rating, which is just below what the same respondents gave Apollo Ohno, Emperor Hirohito, Donald Rumsfeld, Chun Doo-Hwan, and the Swiss Football Team. Government subsidies for Kumgang aren’t doing especially well, either: 15% approve.

Appeasement/Korean Politics

Great Moments in Diplomacy

I shore do wish I had wunna them master’s degrees in International Relations to an’ lurn fancy dip-lo-mat talk. “The intelligence director told me that (Armitage) said, ‘Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the Stone Age,”‘ Musharraf said. I wonder what Madeleine Albright might have done differently, although this seems unnecessarily blunt.

Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)

Shinze Abe Elected as Leader of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party

And it’s more bad news for Kim Jong Il: Mr. Abe, a conservative, is also well known for his tough stance toward Pyongyang. He became interested in the issue of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in 1988 and began investigating the kidnappings when he was first elected to the Diet in 1993. After a decade of effort by Tokyo, Pyongyang admitted to the kidnappings in 2002, and Mr. Abe rocketed into political prominence. Newspaper reports have suggested that Abe,...

Japan & Korea/Korean History/NK Economics

The ‘C’ Word, Part 2: Yu Gi Joon Is a Vicarious Thug

[Update: Great minds think alike Oh, and did I forget to mention that Yu is spokesman for his party? Shoulda mentioned that.] I’ve previously stated — and will now restate — that it’s time for the United States government to condemn, in some appropriate but unambigous manner, any suggestion of a coup in South Korea. I yield to no one in my distaste for Roh Moo Hyun, who I believe will eventually share culpability for the needless deaths of many...

Korean Law/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea

John Feffer’s Dubious History of the Great North Korean Famine

John Feffer provides a deeply informed and lucid account of all these matters, full of insight, pointing the way to constructive solutions that are within our grasp.” — Noam Chomsky It’s no simple thing to be a North Korea apologist these days, and that’s never been truer now that any intelligent observer can see that the food situation in the North is getting worse fast. There are several converging reasons for this: expulsion of (most of) the World Food Program,...

Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights

September 20, 2006

Another Public Execution Video

The guerrilla cameras of the North Korean resistance have brought out another video of a public execution. Like the most recent video releases, showing border guards hauling away South Korean food aid and the display of a dissident banner, it’s from South Hamgyeong Province. The Daily NK has stills and audio, although the images, for understandable reasons, are not clear. The headline says the video depicts a woman being executed for stealing corn from another woman’s home. Later on, however,...

Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/Resistance

North Korea’s Growth Industry: Train Wrecks

Question: What self-respecting tyrannical mass-murderer would admit that he rules a country that’s completely broken? Answer: one that really, really needs the insurance money, even if it’s from a spate of horrific and previously undisclosed disasters: One of the incidents was the sinking of a passenger ship traveling between Wonsan and Heungnam, both east-coast ports. Half of the ship’s 200 passengers lost their lives, Minjok reportedly told its reinsurers. Industry officials here estimated that the insurance payment would be in...

Inside NK/NK Economics

Kim Jong Il’s Man in Washington

The Washington Times has published another excerpt from Bill Gertz’s book, “Enemies: How America’s Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets — And How We Let It Happen.” Today’s installment is about John Joungwoong Yai, who was arrested for spying for North Korea in 2003 and charged with violating the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act. Yai’s sole occupation seems to have been some rather amateurish efforts to plant a spy with a security clearance inside the U.S. government. Yai appears to have targeted...

North Korea/Washington Views

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 10: The First Shoe Drops

Japan and Australia have imposed sanctions on a series of the companies Kim Jong Il uses to collect foreign currency and dual-use items. In Japan’s case, this includes shutting off a substantial income source for the North: cash remittances from ethnic Koreans in Japan: The sanctions will effectively freeze North Korea’s assets in Japan by banning withdrawals and overseas remittances from the targets’ accounts in Japanese banks. This is about as robust an option as I had predicted here, although...

Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD

Self-Fulfilling Demagoguery

The background research for Roh Moo Hyun’s national security policy was a “progessive” TV documentary. The claim: The USFK could strike North Korea and lead the South Korean army into a war without even consulting Roh first: A ruling-party official quoted Roh as saying at the time, “Could the U.S. carry out a bombing raid on North Korea as it wishes without our knowledge? It is possible. South Korea can’t even claim the status of a sovereign state. The truth:...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea

Two More Refugees Take Shelter in the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang

As with a similar incident at the same facility this year, these refugees first entered the South Korean Consulate next door and then jumped the wall separating the two facilities. The additional defections mean that nine North Koreans have defected today alone, with a striking number of refugees expressing a preference to go to the United States rather than South Korea. It may be time for those who predicted that the North Korean Human Rights Act would have no effect...

China/China & Korea/Refugees

Yoduk Story Update

Tickets are now on sale at this link. Here are two background reports from the BBC and the L.A. Times. There have been numerous reports on “Yoduk Story” on this blog, including on alleged attempts by South Korea to censor it. Previously, Horace Jeffery Hodges had commented that the English translation for the YS production in Seoul was, well, Konglishy. After making some inquiries with people who are involved in bringing YS to America, I’m pleased to pass on that...

Activism/Human Rights/Korean Society

Worst of the Worst

Freedom House’s human rights “worst of the worst” list is out. It’s no surprise that North Korea is listed, but it might surprise you — or not — that three of them are members of the new and “reformed” U.N. Human Rights Council. United by what, again?

"United" Nations/Human Rights

Islamic Terror in South Korea?

That’s been my worry ever since I was there, and apparently, the South Korean authorities are worried, too. Generally, the “camp follower” subculture that grows up around a U.S. military installation is right outside the gate. In Seoul, that subculture is in Itaewon, several blocks away. Itaewon ended up being the most “foreigner-friendly” zone in Seoul, which attracted third-country nationals and eventually, a large mosque. Today, that mosque sits right on top of “hooker hill,” the, um, intercourse of the...

Islam/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Military

Uri Goes Wobbly

… on troop control. Twenty members of the Uri Party issued a statement Monday calling for flexibility in the handover of wartime operational control of Korean troops to Seoul. “There has to be a structure allowing for flexibility in the timetable, with respect to South-North relations, the North Korean nuclear issue, and the state of affairs in Northeast Asia including security on the peninsula,” they said. It was the first time ruling party voices have publicly called for linking the...

An Alliance?/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military