Park Jin is running for mayor of Seoul. Although I tend not to be comforted by national leaders who write fad diet books–and I like my dolphin mixed with my tuna, thanks!–compared to his peers, Park has been a stalwart on North Korean human rights and speaking honestly about the threat the North represents. Here is Park’s Web site (ht: The Yangban, who has shown some interest in Park’s future). Some grafs, and they’re a mix, but more good than...

Chosun Ilbo on Hyde Letter. In case you’re interested in reading half as much information a week later. . . . And no, I don’t think that’s a garbled reference to this site. If you want to read the full text, just click. Update 11/15: Suddenly, I realize how much we are going to miss House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde when he retires, and how essential it is that the next chairman be of similar caliber (in other...

Hostile Policy Update: Just in case this didn’t get your attention, Pyongyang is reenforcing the message: Nine North Korean fishing boats and one patrol boat crossed early Sunday morning into South Korean waters in the Yellow Sea, but returned to the North after the South Korean Navy’s warning, the military said. After the fishing boats sailed over the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the de facto maritime border between the two Koreas on the Yellow Sea, between 2:30 a.m. and 5...

This must be the first time American television has dealt with the subject of human rights in North Korea seriously, and if the people of this country ever awaken to how ghastly things have really become in the North today, this documentary will be a landmark in that process. Indeed, it even surpasses the BBC’s “Access to Evil” in its focus on the everyday hazards and humiliation of life for ordinary people. Unlike claims about gas chambers that may wait...

[Update: I changed the time stamp on this post because it was written to segue from the post on the CNN docu.] Meanwhile, the flower of South Korean youth continue to do nearly nothing to help their brothers in the North. Unification makes a great chant at a soccer game, but let’s not rush it, k? For now, they’re filling the streets over a visit by President Bush, who is as firmly linked to that amorphous bogeyman called “globalization” as...

Ethan Epstein’s Blog: Another blogger signs up for Kim Jong Il’s shit list! Please welcome Ethan Epstein. You can read some of his writing on North Korea here, here, here, here, and here.

Maybe my prayers have finally been answered. Maybe we’ve finally realized giving the screaming baby lollipops only begets more screaming. For whatever reason, the talks have broken up almost as soon as they began, and not even the South Koreans can put a positive spin on this one: [A]n official close to the South Korean delegation said, “Everything considered, it looks like a resumption this year will be difficult. The fresh round only lasted three days and was largely taken...

LiNK Newsletter: If you want your own free copy by e-mail, e-mail info@linkglobal.org. The information in there is not just interesting, it’s well-written and fun to read. I’d actually link it if I had the url; can anyone help? Kumar?

Or at least, that’s what you’d have to conclude on reading this latest dispatch from The Washington Times’s Inside the Beltway column. As I’d hoped, Rep. Curt Weldon, North Korea’s favorite Congressman and (follow that last link if you doubt me here) an accomplished bomb-thrower, was duly humiliated by the fact that his “diplomatic” guest engaged in the kind of behavior that would have gotten any ordinary voter restrained from going within ten blocks of the Capitol. Now, Weldon–who I...

Update: Added larger images. Scroll down. Better?

This had already become the most interesting crime story all year, and then I saw this: A federal grand jury indicted two men Wednesday for allegedly conspiring to smuggle surface-to-air missiles into the United States for use abroad. Such missiles are designed to bring down aircraft. The U.S. attorney’s office said the charges marked the first time a 2004 anti-terrorism law has been used. The law calls for a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years and the possibility of life...

Freedom House invites you to attend our second international conference on North Korean Human Rights entitled, The Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea, to be held on December 8-10, 2005 at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul, Korea. [Link] The Seoul Summit is shaping up to be the most exciting and important meeting to press for the improvement of North Korean human rights. We expect to bring together an outstanding group of individuals, NGOs, religious leaders, government and civic...

Since I’ve been experiencing some of the busiest weeks in my professional life lately, I haven’t been able to sneak out of the office to attend hearings, but there are two interesting highlights to report. The first is the latest House hearing, which took place October 27th, covering the U.S. government’s implementation of the N.K. Human Rights Act. Here is a link to all of the testimony, which I freely admit I haven’t the time to review in full. Still,...

Setting Korea Free: U. of Hawaii Professor Rudy Rummel and I discuss how to do it on his blog, a deeply cerebral journal of the war between freedom and slavery. Rudy’s benevolent militancy is very much to my own taste. He is the only academic I know who lusts for the opportunity to refuse power and devolve it unto individuals.

In what has to be the most disappointing story about Korean politics I’ve seen all year, a new group that calls itself The New Right National Alliance has formed in Seoul. As you may have noted from previous posts, I had been looking forward to a realignment of political forces in Korea that might offer the voters something better than the choices the voters have now: Old Right, with its authoritarian history, authoritarian instincts that continue to this very day,...

From the Joongang Ilbo: MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea “• A South Korean fisherman abducted to North Korea was reunited with his mother after nearly two decades of life in the communist country. The tearful meeting was a part of the two Koreas’ separated family reunions at the mountain resort here. Kim Jong-sim, 74, told her first son of his father’s death five years ago as she burst into tears. Jeong Il-nam, 50, unsuccessfully tried to hold back his tears. His...

Get It Over With, Already. Six-nation talks have started again.

The Chosun Ilbo attended a press conference with GW Bush today (their reporter was originally planning to interview your correspondent–seriously) but under the circumstances I was understanding. Especially now that I hear this: On the eve of a fresh round of multilateral talks about North Korea’s nuclear program, U.S. President George W. Bush expressed strong concerns about the way the Stalinist country treats its people. “I have expressed my concerns about treatment of men, women and children in North Korea....