One of al-Qaida’s top five leaders, said to be responsible for planning overseas strikes, was killed by Pakistani security forces in a rocket attack near the Afghan border with U.S. help, American and Pakistani officials said Saturday. Hamza Rabia, a key associate of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, died Thursday in an explosion in the North Waziristan tribal area, and his remains were identified in DNA tests, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said. Two U.S. counterterrorism officials . . ....

The Korea Times reports: A North Korean woman trying to defect to South Korea was taken into custody by Chinese police in Beijing Friday after repeatedly failing to gain refuge at a South Korean school there, a government official said. The South Koreans claim to have sent an official to the South Korean International School, presumably to try to help this woman. Thanks to the effectiveness of Ban Ki-Moon’s quiet diplomacy, the Chinese police had already hauled her away when...

Here, in the Washington Times. Bill Gertz has really been all over this story. Plenty of new information in this very lengthy article, including these interesting facts: 1. The trail of evidence leading back to the Chinese government is growing. After we finally convince China to stop manipulating the value of its own currency, we may have to have a serious talk about manipulating ours. 2. North Korea isn’t actually the largest source of counterfeit money. Colombia is. The Colombian...

Andrew Natsios, the author of The Great North Korean Famine and the only senior U.S. official who likely understands the true nature and urgency of the food situation in the North, is leaving his post as Director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). He does so at an ominous moment, just as the famine threatens to return. WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – Andrew Natsios, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, will leave his post for...

In final the days leading up to Freedom House’s Seoul conference, the movement to put human rights back into the center of South Korea’s policy toward the North appears to be gaining momentum. It is still a fragile moment. The momentum could still be lost to petty factional and interpersonal disputes. If the movement’s leading lights unite, however, it could also shift South Korea’s national debate, across the political spectrum, as Korea’s political parties prepare and adjust their platforms in...

Today’s Washington Times supplies some circumstantial (if subsequent) evidence to back up the claims reported in the Yangban’s excellent post above. Support your jaw on a stable, padded object and read on. Hard evidence of North Korea’s subversion of the South is emerging into the light of day: South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, or NIS, recently reported to the National Assembly that North Korea sent as many as 670 secret dispatches to the South over the last four years. Analysts...

And to think that in Roh Moo-Hyun’s administration, Ban Ki-Moon is actually the sensible one. Via the Chosun Ilbo: Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told a press conference on Wednesday the government would take some time to decide its position on the conference scheduled for Dec. 8-11 since it was a privately organized event. He also hinted that the government is wary of meeting with Jay Lefkowitz, the special U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights, who will come to Seoul...

Chutzpah Alert: Disbelieve the rumors. The U.S. will not negotiate with North Korea on counterfeiting.

The bad news is that most Koreans want to keep their sons out of the military. The good news is that most of their sons, if issued weapons, would prefer to point them at us. Maybe we should be encouraging these parents.

Are we witnessing the rise of a true opposition in Syria?

Admittedly, it’s unconventional, but I think the man is onto something: After seeing Team America it is virtually impossible, for any of the five of us anyway, to see a picture of Kim Jong Il or even hear his name without the goofy South Park puppet leaping to mind. Parker’s and Stone’s special gift is to see the pompous, the absurd, and the self-important through the eyes of the young and to caricature these with Chaplinesque comic sensibility. The Middle...

Joe Lieberman is back from Iraq: Progress is visible and practical. In the Kurdish North, there is continuing security and growing prosperity. The primarily Shiite South remains largely free of terrorism, receives much more electric power and other public services than it did under Saddam, and is experiencing greater economic activity. The Sunni triangle, geographically defined by Baghdad to the east, Tikrit to the north and Ramadi to the west, is where most of the terrorist enemy attacks occur. And...

The Protest Babes of LiNK: Yesterday Beirut, today Seoul, tomorrow Pyongyang. It takes a person of courage and vision to stand up for a just but unpopular cause, but beauty and talent certainly help to popularize that cause. This week, I’m officially convinced–for the first time–that our side is winning the information war in South Korea. More than any other single group, LiNK is responsible for this. In case you didn’t take note, by the way, it’s freezing cold in...

(By guest blogger, Andy Jackson) This is the first in a four-part series on lectures concerning human rights in North Korea delivered at Sogang University in Seoul on November 26, 2005. The text in block quotes were taken from my notes of the translation of Kang’s lecture. Any inaccuracies in the text are strictly my own. ************************************************ Kang Chol-hwan is not one to pull his punches. He has seen and experienced too much to care for diplomatic language. His youthful,...

Too many interesting things in the news today to discuss in too little time– North Korea More Alarming News on the Food Situation, via the World Food Program: The North Korean government has been unable to meet its own food distribution target of 500 grams of cereals per person per day, the World Food Program said in a report issued on Friday.The United Nations agency’s weekly “Emergency Report” said that its workers in North Korea visited public food distribution centers...

This certainly sounds like a marriage made in hell: Iran reportedly offered North Korea natural gas and oil as compensation for help with Tehran’s nuclear missile program. Citing unidentified Western sources, the German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported that a senior Iranian official in mid-October made the proposal during a visit to Pyongyang. The magazine said it was unclear how the North responded. It added North Korea was an important source of missile technology for Iran and its Shahab-3 missiles...

James J. Na, who somehow finds the time to run two excellent blogs–“Guns and Butter Blog,” gunsandbutter.blogspot.com, and “The Asianist,” www.asianist.blogspot.com–has a new guest column on the trafficking of North Korean women and the State Department’s foot-dragging on carrying out the directives of the North Korean Human Rights Act. Timothy Peters of Helping Hands Korea, a Christian relief project, complained that, despite the intent of the law to help North Korean defectors, the State Department has been “seriously out of...