Search Results for: KTU

August 12, 2009

The Palaces of Pyongyang on Google Earth

Congratulations to our friend Curtis Melvin, whose Google Earth imagery of a Kim Jong Il palace in north Pyongyang is currently the Chosun Ilbo’s top story. This palace, I should point out, is one of no less than six very large palaces I know of in the Pyongyang area alone, though I can’t confirm who lives in all of them: This is the one I posted pictures of previously. A Daily NK piece previously confirmed that it’s one of Kim...

Categories Google Earth/Kim Jong Il
July 24, 2009

Take a Drink!

Curtis reminds me: Recalling that the Korean war of aggression ignited by the U.S. imperialists 59 years ago was the most brutal and brigandish war in the history of world wars, the statement continued [….] Should the U.S. imperialists ignite another war, oblivious of the lesson drawn from their past defeat, the heroic Korean People’s Army will fully display its invincible might of the powerful revolutionary army of Mt. Paektu which has grown under the care of the great Songun...

Categories Propaganda/Unintended Humor
April 9, 2009

Understatement of the Year: “Mr. Kim Ran Unopposed”

Citizens of North Korea, change has not come! The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, had himself re-elected to another five-year term by Parliament on Thursday as questions persisted over his failing health and his regime’s confrontation with the outside world after its recent rocket launch. The Supreme People’s Assembly “upheld” Mr. Kim as chairman of the country’s most powerful agency, the National Defense Commission, said the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Mr. Kim ran unopposed. [N.Y. Times, Choe Sang Hun]...

Categories Kim Jong Il
August 27, 2008

Unusual Suspects (1)

Update:  I see Robert had pretty much the same reaction. Maybe all that hand-wringing  about a Lee Myung Bak dictatorship isn’t so exaggerated after all:  Oh Se-cheol, a professor emeritus of Yonsei University and prominent leftwing academic, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of breaching the National Security Law. Oh’s arrest is seen as a start of a government crackdown on leftwing organizations which grew and expanded their realm of activities under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Seoul...

Categories Censorship/The Fifth Column
March 16, 2008

Chinese Academic: Accept North Korea as a Nuclear Power

China has a habit of using academics and scholars to float foreign policy trial balloons. Dingli Shen, a Professor and Executive Dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University, recently visited North Korea, something he would not have done unless he spoke for at least a part of the Chinese government. Shen, a physicist and a former Professor of “American Studies,” has also acted as a quasi-governmental mouthpiece on North Korea here and here. Here’s what now: The...

Categories China/China & Korea/Six-Party Talks
February 25, 2008

The Long National Nightmare Is (Officially) Over

[Update: Now that I’ve read LMB’s inaugural, I’ve posted more detailed comments / ridicule below the fold and the video.] The 17th presidency of Korea started as Lee Myung-bak formally took over presidential authority from former president Roh Moo-hyun at midnight on Monday, with the Bosingak Bell in downtown Seoul tolling the momentous hour. Lee now embarks on a government of pragmatic conservatism after putting an end to the decade-long leftwing rule. [Chosun Ilbo] Judging by Lee’s inaugural address and...

Categories Korean Politics
November 13, 2007

Korean Election Update: Lessers Versus Evils

Just over a month before South Korean presidential election, Lee Hoi Chang has announced that he’s  running as an independent candidate.  I have now seen it all.   So can he win?  Hell if I know.  To an observer of long American political campaigns, it’s hard to see how anyone could  enter  a race so late and have a chance of winning it, but this most definitely is not American politics.  Korean politics is famously mercurial; it’s about as exact, empirical,...

Categories Korean Politics
June 19, 2007

The End of Chongryon?

I’d previously mentioned that  Chongryon, North Korea’s fifth column organization in Japan,  was forced to “sell” its de facto embassy in Tokyo.  As it turns out, the sale was  a  fraudulent scheme assisted by Japanese sympathizers, without consideration, to evade seizure by the authorities.  Japanese authorities have since voided the transaction, and, according to Yonhap, approved the seizure of the building. We also know more about why Chongryon is dying.  I was aware that some adverse tax judgments by the...

Categories Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/The Fifth Column
April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...

Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD
April 17, 2007

Virginia Tech Shooter Was Cho Seung-Hui, a U.S. Permanenent Resident From Korea

Police identified the classroom shooter as  Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a senior from South Korea who was in the English department and lived in another dorm on campus. They said Cho committed suicide after the attacks, and there was no indication Tuesday of a possible motive.  [AP] Police also report, however, that Cho left behind a “disturbing” note that may give us some idea what kind of ideas took root inside this young man’s fevered mind.  I’ll post more when I...

Categories Miscellaneous
April 10, 2007

North Korea by Google Earth: Kim Jong Il’s Largest Palace

[Updated; The Mystery of the Tangun Tomb] Remember my March 28th post, a stream of consciousness that washed against the subject of EU sanctions against North Korea? Among the items sanctioned were pure-bred horses, which are the kind not even North Koreans would dare eat — because of who owns them. That led me to the one location in North Korea where I suspected that such horses might be kept. I had recently found that location on Google Earth while...

Categories Google Earth/History/Kim Jong Il
April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2: Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive. Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions. Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over 15 years, which is a long time. (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.) Korea also gets to protect its rice market. There’s really only one bright spot I can see:...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics
March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

*   No.Please.Stop.   North Korea is threatening to pull  out of the  dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over  the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.”  [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

Categories An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
February 4, 2007

“Koryo Is Our Land!”

The original photo:  “Mount Paektu Is Our Land!” Photoshop Number One:  “Koryo Is  Chinese Land!” I don’t endorse the claim for an instant, but I can’t deny  some enjoyment at watching the  panicky retreat from Korean nationalists’ latest classless stunt.   Unlike the case with Tokdo, the Koreans have a great deal of their nationhood invested in Mount Paektu.  It would be unbecoming of them to  be as  cowardly in  any real dispute about  Paekdu as they’ve been furious over...

Categories China & Korea/Korean Society
January 19, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 64: Thank You, Secretary Obvious!

The first Democratic-controlled hearing of the International Relations Foreign Affairs Committee has met.  No bold intiatives, brilliant proposals, or clear theme  emerged.  Instead, it was  a dizzying variety of views and  partisan mutual cancellation  that rendered the entire excercise inconclusive and confusing.  One could expect little else:  both parties are advocating more talks  backed by threats that North Korea does not fear.  Both sides fail to grasp,  or at  least to admit,  that North Korea will not disarm  for  any...

Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
January 18, 2007

Teachers Arrested for Posting N. Korean Propaganda On-Line

Two middle school teachers who allegedly posted pro-North Korean propaganda on Web sites have been arrested, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said yesterday, for violating the National Security Law. The teachers, whom police did not identify, allegedly posted North Korean photos and captions reading, for example, “Long Live the Great Victory of the Military-First Politics.   They are both members of the left-leaning Korean Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union [link to other OFK posts]. Both teachers have also served as...

Categories Korean Education/The Fifth Column
August 7, 2006

Fifth Column Watch

Conspiracy theories always labor against a presumption of neurotic inspiration, but even paranoid people have real enemies, and some conspirators make the error of supporting such theories with their own words. (In the conspiracy business, Rule Number One is, “Be discreet.”) Recently, I finally got around to compiling some of the public statements by leaders of South Korean labor unions and political groups that would support a reasonable inference that those groups were either willing servants of the North Korean...

Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column