May 15, 2006

UniFictions

This one is straight out of the Peter Ban book of Foreign Policy: A new sign reading “Passengers Heading to Pyongyang Board Here” was set up on the Dorasan Station platform, one of the test-operation sections of the Gyeongeui and Donghae Lines over which South and North Korea reached an agreement on May 13. What an amazing coincidence! Why, that’s just six days before the next election! Still, if we really, really wish for it, it will be. I wonder...

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
May 15, 2006

Kofi Annan Calls on N. Korea to Account for Abductees

Well, it’s a start. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday said North Korea must be held to account for the suffering and rage of people it kidnapped and the anxiety of families who never discovered what happened to their loved ones. He called on the North to return every one of those it abducted in its bizarre campaign in the 1970s and 80s. He also called on human rights and counterfeiting to be dealt with separately from, and (impliedly) after...

Categories "United" Nations/Abductions/Counterfeiting/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks
May 15, 2006

Growing U.S.-Japanese Fracas Over Yasukuni Visits

Yesterday, I added the following “Link of Interest:” Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde, a veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II and no fan of Japan’s revisionist view of history, suggests that Koizumi won’t be invited to address the House during his upcoming state visit if he intends to visit the Yasukuni Shrine this summer. . . . I swear there must be a clock...

Categories Diplomacy/History/Japan/Japan & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 14, 2006

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...

Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Censorship/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Diplomacy/History/Human Rights/Korean History/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 14, 2006

Yankee Come Home

Corporal Henry D. Connell was just a boy of 17 when he died for the freedom and prosperity of a place he probably knew nothing about before his country sent him there. The world has forgotten the hill where he died in a Chinese attack on the night of November 2, 1950, along with the imprisoned country in which the hill can still be found. What was left of Henry Connell’s body remained there until 1994, when his bones, and...

Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 13, 2006

Japanese Coast Guard Searches N. Korean Drug Ship

They also arrested two people believed to have been part of the smuggling operation. The men are accused of helping smuggle several hundred kilograms of amphetamines from North Korea to Japan, Jiji Press and public broadcaster NHK said. Tokyo police arrested Woo Si-Yun, an unemployed 59-year-old South Korean living in Japan, and alleged Japanese gangster Katsuhiko Miyata, 58, the news organizations said. Woo is believed to be the owner of a mobile phone recovered from a North Korean spy ship...

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. Law
May 12, 2006

The Rising of the Goons

[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 12, 2006

Ooh! Over Here!

“The regime change crew is in charge now and they are looking for any new ideas that can affect regime change.” — John Wolfstahl, CSIS The tone of regime change opponents and Bush foes is also interesting to observe these day. Two of them have published pieces nearly simultaneously, concluding that Bush has made the decision to get rid of Kim Jong Il. I agree. They they wonder if he’ll have time to do it. I agree with that, too....

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
May 12, 2006

Balance This!

[T]he Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on international security, Moon Chung-in, in a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo elaborated on remarks a day earlier that Roh “is losing patience with U.S. President George W. Bush. Today, my friends, I write to you from a city living in fear. As our President, George W. Bush, sits in the White House nibbling compulsively at the bleeding tendrils where there were fingernails just a day ago, a cunning tiger holds court from his...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WTF?
May 12, 2006

MUST READ: WSJ Interview with Newly Arrived North Korean Refugees

“Before we begin this interview, I want to thank God for bringing us to this land of dreams. We sincerely thank President George Bush and the American government for letting us enter as refugees.” She bows slightly, closes her notebook, and prepares to relive her ordeal. Just go read it. Now. A big hat tip to a reader for fowarding this one.

Categories China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 11, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 39: The Korean Malaise, Anti-Americanism & Anti-Anti-Americanism

The bee-man has officially entered his sixteenth minute, and Korea’s fiery gaze has shifted to the violent excesses of the extreme anti-American left — chiefly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Hanchongryeon. There is new statistical evidence that the violence of the red guards has triggered a backlash and alienated the silent majority. This occurs just 20 days before a round of local elections that will choose the next mayor of Seoul and the governor of Kyonggi Province, among...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 11, 2006

Highway Rohbery

I thought the idea was to teach capitalism to North Korea, not to teach South Korea’s government how to expropriate and confiscate. The government has asked the Federation of the Korean Industries (FKI) to help urge large companies to set up in the Gaesong Industrial Complex. Most large companies do not want to do so, and they view the request of the government as “pressure. The leader of the Gaesong Industrial Complex Support Team of the Ministry of Unification and...

Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
May 10, 2006

Should Hanchongryon Be Designated a Terrorist Organization?

“Let us eliminate anti-unification pro-war forces which intend to cast fire clouds of a nuclear war on the heads of Koreans. — Hanchongryon Statement before visiting Pyongyang If I’d had any idea that things were this bad on South Korean university campuses, I’d have been paying much closer attention: Seven Korea University students face disciplinary punishment after illegally detaining nine professors for 16 hours. The Yonsei University president is working elsewhere after being driven out of his office some 40...

Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 10, 2006

Review: ‘Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea,’ by Guy DeLisle

Please — not another travelogue of tyranny tourism in North Korea. In the last several years, dozens of con-men, apologists, and petty tyrants have described North Korea as a great place to golf, bowl, get rich quick, or profit by displaying the misery of others. Three U.N. aid workers published a fine dining guide, just as the last mass graves of the Great Famine were filled. A UNICEF worker recently lamented that North Korea was unfairly stereotyped. A Korean-American unificationista...

Categories Books & Films/Inside NK/North Korea
May 9, 2006

Sen. Brownback to Hold Press Conference on NK Refugees Tomorrow

The people of North Korea don’t have a better friend than Senator Sam Brownback. Unfortunately, you will need a press pass to get past the imperious bitch person at the front desk. Let’s just hope that that the organizations that hold this monopoly will give us reasonably complete reports (reporters and editors). Might this be a time to suggest giving more press passes to bloggers, who are much more likely to publish fairly complete reports of the politicians’ statements, the...

Categories Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 9, 2006

In a Word, ‘Predictable’

Who haven’t we heard from yet? The Korean Teachers’ Union, which infamously celebrated 9/11 in [a] video for Busan schoolkids before the last APEC summit. I can hardly wait. — The Korea Liberator, April 10, 2006 “Hollywood movies like “˜Spider-Man’ and “˜Batman’ will dominate our movie industry and we will be brainwashed by American ideology.” — Actor Choi Man-Shik, brainwashing public high school kids at a KTU-sponsored harangue. The reception, overall, was mixed.

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/NK Economics/Uncategorized/Unintended Humor/WTF?