Take all reports from defectors with the same obvious cautions. This is the first report I’ve seen of starvation deaths in North Korea since famine began to reemerge this Spring. It’s also an interesting description of life inside a North Korean work camp.

The North’s insistence on keeping its “peaceful” uses of nuclear energy is leading to more anti-progress at the six-nation talks: There is reportedly still a wide gap over how to phrase the main goal of the talks, North Korea’s scrapping of its nuclear programs. Japanese government spokesman Hiroyuki Hosoda said effective dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program and its verification were fundamental, as was the matter of North Korea’s kidnapping of Japanese, but nothing was clear at this stage. He...

Never believe anything you desperately wish to believe. I desperately wish to believe that South Koreans will eventually give the benefit of their compassion and outrage to the people of North Korea, even if their policy prescriptions might not necessarily match my own. Thus, I am suspicious of two tantalizing reports in today’s DailyNK, concerning the mobiblization of South Korean churches in this cause. First is this report from the Myeongdong Cathedral, traditionally the sanctuary of dissent and protest in...

The Washington Post reports on rising class warfare between the urban poor and the alliance of the state and its chosen investors: After they saw what happened to Liu, Chizhou’s self-described “common people” rose up against what they perceived as their local government’s willingness to side with rich outside investors against Chizhou’s own. By the end of the evening, 10,000 Chizhou residents had filled the streets, some of whom torched police cars, pelted overwhelmed anti-riot troops with stones and looted...

Oddest Headline of the Week: “Rockers drop trousers, raise public ire“

Introducing The Jim River Report.

Unrest is rising in the Chinese countryside. The New York Times reports on the latest sign that Beijing is worried: BEIJING, July 31 – The Chinese government has warned citizens that they must obey the law and that any threats to social stability will not be tolerated, a sign that top leaders are growing increasingly worried about unrest in the countryside. The warning came in a front-page commentary published last Thursday in People’s Daily, the chief mouthpiece of the Communist...

South Korean President Roh Moo0-Hyun is offering his “conservative” archenemies key roles in his proposed coalition. This, you must see: In a letter to his political supporters, President Roh Moo-hyun wrote yesterday that if the opposition Grand National Party would agree to form a coalition government with the Uri Party, he would allow his opponents to make key appointments, including that of prime minister. “If the Grand National Party takes the initiative to form a coalition government where the Uri...

No good idea ever contains the word “education camps.” This bit of social engineering doesn’t seem likely to break that well-grounded historical trend.

Absolutely nothing new to report, as far as progress toward agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, according to the BBC. In fact, things are starting to get downright acrimonious: Negotiators are reported to have had heated exchanges on the sixth day of six-party talks in Beijing on North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. One delegate said fierce clashes occurred as the negotiating teams tried to hammer out an agreement on a statement of basic principles. The parties failed to agree...

This looks like good news. In the wake of the deal to keep our air bases in Kirghizstan, I’d suspect that the U.S. felt itself in a better position to unburden itself of a repugnant ally, or to demand that Uzbekistan reform itself meaningfully. I’m only speculating on what the terms of this conversation were, but the fact that it ended in disagreement on the U.S. role in supporting that regime is a very good sign that this administration is...

Korean nationalism appears to have taken its toll in Japan, too. According to the blog rankings, Japanese bloggers are in no mood for reconciliation. And despite the popularity of all things Korean in Japan, the so-called Kan-ryuu, or Korean Wave, many bloggers are taking aim at Korea. Choose (what you believe) Carefully! Information on Korea is the sixth most popular blog in Japan right now, according to Ninki Blog Ranking, and bills itself as an antidote for the Japanese “mass...

Let’s begin with the title of its editorial today, “Six-Party Talks Must Stay Focused on Essentials.” We are soon to learn that the non-essential matter to which the editorial refers is not the U.S. “hostile policy,” or the public statement in a congressional hearing or the Rodong Sinmun, or the new canard of U.S. nukes in South Korea, but human rights in North Korea, and more specifically, the U.S. position that it must be made a part of the talks....

Most of this coverage probably relates to Day Three, nonetheless, it doesn’t suggest much progress, as the AP’s Lim Bo-Mi reports: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill held a one-on-one meeting Friday morning with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, their fourth such encounter this week. Hill said the nations were still divided over the issue of when the North will receive aid in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program. “Still we have a lot...

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 Korean site DKB news has a on the dugout shelters used by North Korean refugees in China. Text is Korean only. The comments are interesting as well, even from my somewhat limited Korean. What else occurs to me from seeing these pictures? That the North Korean regime has taught most of its people to handle and use firearms, and that less intentionally, it has taught them how to build and live in crude earthen shelters; to live on wild...

Scroll down for updates. I suppose Day One is a bit hasty to declare a deadlock, but this isn’t very promising: North Korea took a tough stand Wednesday during talks with the United States, reportedly insisting Washington normalize relations and remove all atomic threats before it would give up nuclear weapons. For its part, the United States stood by an aid-for-disarmament offer the North rejects as unfair. . . . . North Korea said the United States must abandon plans...

Our focus group has submitted its first entry. Unedited, as promised. 먼저 북한, 한국, 중국에 있는 북한사람들의 복지에 관심을 가져주셔서 감사합니다. 제가 선생님의 웹페이지를 알고 있어서 몇번 방문했는데, 조금 밖에 이해를 못했지만, 여러번 반복해서보았습니다. 지난 화요일 밤에 저와 친구는 “FREEDOM HOUSE”의 “RFA”방송을 들었습니다. 참석자 1000명 중에 인권활동가와 정부입안관계자들이 참석한 것은 매우 인상적이었습니다. 그런분들이 참석한 것은 ê·¸ 회의에 명예로운 것이었습니다. 그러나 한편으로 미 콘돌리자 라이스 국무장관이 참석하지 않은것은 실망스러운 일이었습니다. 물론 바쁜 일정 때문이었겠지요. 힘이 되는 것은 재미교포로 구성된 비정부단체들이 회의에...