The Chosun Ilbo has printed a summary of a Financial Times story that may change your model of the North Korean economy, but not much. The story suggests that changes in economic policy in 2002 have in fact launched a limited number of small private businesses, and that those businesses are substantially enriching the people who run them. The World Food Program’s North Korea director Richard Ragan told the paper the wealthy are concentrated in five cities, including Pyongyang. They...

“The Blue House is preparing for an all-out war against false press coverage.” They’re looking for ways to use taxpayer funds to support to cost of suing newspapers for coverage they dispute.

How do you transform a raving moonbat into a respected dissident? Have the cops invoke the National Security Law on him, that’s how! It’s the prerogative of the university and the students who select their courses to decide whether the propogation of idiocy is the purpose of academia, but if they guy isn’t plotting violence, why not just let him blather on in the intellectual ignominy he has earned? Speaking of paying way too much attention to one silly person,...

Alexander Vershbow has been named as the new U.S. Ambassador to Korea. This story, which I linked when Vershbow’s name first made the papers, gives more background on him.

The number of charities is positively dizzying; too dizzying for me. Pick your size: small, medium, large, XXL. I’ll bump this post up by manipulating the time stamp. Please do what you can.

The Boston Globe reports: A South Korean man was sentenced to nearly three years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a scheme to buy military engines for Black Hawk helicopters and then divert them to China. Kwonhwan Park and his Malaysian company, SGS, claimed that the two engines were either for the Malaysian Army or the South Korean Army in an application to the State Department but the shipment actually was sent to China from Malaysia. U.S. District...

After days of firm denials that she would suffer the idea of a coalition with President Roh, opposition Grand National Party leader Park Geun-Hye has agreed to meet with Roh. Let’s hope she jams a rubber wedge into his mouth and feeds him his Paxil: President Roh Moo-hyun said Tuesday he thought about “ending the Roh era and starting a new era,” even if he had to retreat from the front line or end his term early. . . ....

Who says Roh Moo-Hyun has no love for America? His war on prostitution has it positively cascading into the United States, in this case, the Los Angeles area: A federal grand jury handed down indictments today charging 24 persons for their role in a sophisticated human smuggling scheme that allegedly brought hundreds of South Korean women into the United States to work as prostitutes. Named in the two multi-count indictments issued today are 23 individuals originally charged in the investigation...

Cool. The South Korean government will help Iraq set up an Internet infrastructure.

Chen Yonglin, the Chinese diplomat who recently defected in Australia, has a new interview out with the Washington Diplomat. If he’s right, the little grey men in the Forbidden City might want to reread the parts of The Communist Manifesto that talked about alienation and class warfare: In a series of interviews in the U.S. and Australian press, Chen repeatedly characterized the Chinese government as “evil” and described a vast network of secret Chinese spies who had infiltrated the United...

The New York Times has two articles of interest. The first is a detailed report on how U.S. force structure in Korea will change. It relies heavily on an interview with Gen. Leon LaPorte, the USFK Commanding General. The other discusses the North Korean decision not to return to the talks next week. Interestingly, North Korea uses the more transparent excuse of the annual US-ROK military exercises rather than focusing on Jay Lefkowitz’s appointment as Special Envoy for Human Rights....

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.

Koreans Demonstrate for Democracy in Egypt: This must be the most interesting and unlikely connection to emerge from the Carnival of the Revolutions. Thanks to Freedom for Egyptians for the link.

Wow! I’m a moderate! Who knew?

China and North Korea have a new treaty on the processing of refugees . . . as something other than refugees. Thanks to Chinese concepts of open government, opaque writing from the Chosun Ilbo, and a generous ladle-full of South Korean government doublespeak, I have almost no idea what the agreement would actually do, which probably means, “nothing good.” _____________________ A new poll finds that 67% of people are either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with President Roh Moo Hyun, who...

Errrrrrrrrm . . . . I can already taste the lemon grass. Succulent.

Welcome to the Carnival of the Revolutions edition for August 29th. Hosting next week’s edition (Sept. 5) will be Thinking-East; next up (Sept. 12) is Quid Nimis. Updates added, typos fixed. East Asia and the Pacific Rim Burma: Did the government’s army use chemical weapons against Karen rebels earlier this year? The Jubilee Campaign, a Christian human rights NGO, prints an editorial by Lord David Alton, a member of the British House of Lords. Publius reports on new rumors of...

My August 8th e-mail to South Korea’s Human Rights Commission was a two-parter–a complaint, and at the bottom of the letter, a question. Let’s take them in inverse order, because a week ago, the HRC did in fact respond to my request for clarification of one point, about its allegedly delayed report on Human Rights in North Korea (scroll down): Our committee didn’t intented not to open this results [to the public]. The media misunderstood that as not [making the...