Search Results for: "Daily NK"

When it comes to North Korea, food aid is not our weapon. It’s already North Korea’s weapon. Our goal should be to feed as many innocent people as we possibly can, with or without the North Korean government’s cooperation. The distribution of food is the most important human rights issue of all. I’ve been tracking the reports of a return of famine conditions closely this year, but it wasn’t until several days about that I became convinced that North Korea...

Other News of the Sordid: Everything you ever wanted to know about Kim Jong-Il’s harem (yes, except for video . . . perv!) is in the Daily NK. Authentication of these stories certainly presents some problems, but the accounts here are consistent with those in Jasper Becker’s Rogue Regime.

Daily NK has : Kang : Now that the special envoy is appointed, I think concrete actions for North Korean human rights improvement must start. I believe much must focus on the rescue of the defectors, assistance to Free North Korea Broadcasting, sending radio into North Korea so we can bring substantial changes inside North Korea. Lef[k]owitz: I will try to use the budget as effectively as possible once the Congress sets the budget. Although it may be different for...

Daily NK has published a Korean-language translation of my interview with Nicholas Eberstadt (who spells his name with a “b”). While you’re there, check out this refugee interview covering the current supply of food, education, housing, electricity, and other necessities of life.

Daily NK has now released the inteview of the North Korean soldier I first blogged about here. You can see the video here and an English transcript here. In some ways, the tape is a bit of a disappointment. The soldier’s voice is inaudible for the understandable reasons of his health and apparent efforts to disguise his voice. But why, then, didn’t they pixelize his face, which is identifiable in two portions of the tape? I also wished for some...

The Japanese NGO RENK, which has scored some incredibly brave video “gets” from inside North Korea, has done it again. They smuggled a videocamera onto a North Korean train and surreptitiously interviewed a North Korean soldier who was being send home to “recover” from malnutrition. Daily NK has the report, with pictures and a partial interview transcript. Rank of the soldier Kim Man Chul interviewed is the lowest one. The North Korean trains have separate cart for civilian passengers and...

Probably the most exciting new source of information about North Korea today is DailyNK, for which I’m honored to be a Correspondent in Washington (I take no credit for making up that title, and of course, it’s unpaid, like all of my activities on North Korea). Information from defectors, of course, comes with special cautions about biases as well as special insight. For all of its occasionally clumsy English (including my own), Daily NK is breaking new ground–by putting North...

Daily NK had one last fascinating report today, about North Korea’s worsening inflation and the burgeoning black market in dollars that has resulted. The dealers are increasingly sophisticated and brazen, plying their trade in front of major hotels and getting exchange rate updates by cell phone: High inflation is continuing in North Korea. Price of dollar in the blackmarkets in Pyongyang was â–² 950 Won/1$ in Nov. 2003 â–² 1,245 Won in May 2004, â–² 2,200Won in Feb 2005 and...

Daily NK reports two items of interest today. The first is purportedly the text of the judgments against those executed and imprisoned by the North Korean authorities there. Although it accuses most of the condemned of trafficking in North Korean women, treat that characterization with extreme caution; putting a sexual taint on a dissenter is an old trick that China has used pretty shamelessly against Korean underground railroad activists. It could be true, too. But then, why add this language?...

Daily NK reports two items of interest today. The first is purportedly the text of the judgments against those executed and imprisoned by the North Korean authorities there. Although it accuses most of the condemned of trafficking in North Korean women, treat that characterization with extreme caution; putting a sexual taint on a dissenter is an old trick that China has used pretty shamelessly against Korean underground railroad activists. It could be true, too. But then, why add this language?...

Daily NK has images, captured from a video to be played on Japanese TV, that it claims show political prisoners being brought before a firing squad in Hoeryong, which is emerging as a focal point of resistance. The pictures are very blurry and the usual cautions about authenticity apply, but Daily NK quotes defectors as confirming the location and suggesting that the tape is authentic. The video allegedly shows the “trials,” judgement, and of course, execution. The entire town was...

Daily NK has images, captured from a video to be played on Japanese TV, that it claims show political prisoners being brought before a firing squad in Hoeryong, which is emerging as a focal point of resistance. The pictures are very blurry and the usual cautions about authenticity apply, but Daily NK quotes defectors as confirming the location and suggesting that the tape is authentic. The video allegedly shows the “trials,” judgement, and of course, execution. The entire town was...