January 6, 2015

N. Korea perestroika watch

Following North Korea’s expansive crackdown on illegal mobile phone calls being placed to other countries – namely South Korea and China – some 30 residents of North Hamkyung Province’s Musan County have been arrested. “One or two minutes after you switch on your phone and start talking, security agents with detectors show up. So you’re putting your life at risk when you make calls to other countries,” a source based in North Hamkyung Province told the Daily NK on Wednesday....

Categories Border Control/Capitalism
January 6, 2015

Ros-Lehtinen bill to call for N. Korea’s listing as a terrorism sponsor

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) — A U.S. congresswoman said Monday she will introduce a bill calling for re-listing North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism in response to the communist nation’s alleged cyber-attack on Sony Pictures. “North Korea should have never been taken off the state sponsor of terrorism list and should be reinstated immediately,” Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said in comments emailed to Yonhap News Agency. “I will soon be reintroducing legislation to redesignate North Korea as a...

Categories Anju Links/Cyberwar/Terrorism (NK)
January 5, 2015

The AP should release its MOU or register as a N. Korean propagandist

Those who expect to shatter the illusions of 23 million North Koreans by airdropping copies of The Interview over the no-smile line probably overestimate the translatability of its humor into North Korea’s socially conservative culture. But for all its flaws, The Interview approached brilliance on one level – not as a parody of Kim Jong Un (Randall Park wasn’t nearly fat enough) but as a parody of the Americans who choose to nuzzle up to him. When James Franco was...

Categories AP Watch
January 3, 2015

North Korea and terrorism, a response to Micah Zenko

Zenko, who is a made member of the Council on Foreign Relations, has written an article for Foreign Policy with the headline, “Sorry, But North Korea Isn’t a State Sponsor of Terrorism.” I tried to post a comment, but because FP‘s user-unfriendly website prevents that, I’ll just post that comment here. I wish Mr. Zenko knew enough about his subject matter to question the State Department’s assertion that North Korea hasn’t sponsored any acts of terrorism since 1987. In fact, it has...

Categories Terrorism (NK)
January 3, 2015

Really? Just 15% of S. Koreans support humanitarian aid to N. Korea?

Yonhap reports that, according to a poll commissioned by the Database Center for North Korean Human rights, 73.1% of South Korean adults surveyed support approval of a human rights law. That would be even better news if the respondents actually knew what the law would do; I can’t say I do. (While you’re at NKDB’s site, be sure to have a look at their Google Earth Visual Atlas.) It’s also good news that less than 20% opposed “meddling” in the “internal” issue of...

Categories Korean Society/North-South/Reconstruction
January 2, 2015

President blocks all assets of the N. Korean gov’t, ruling party … maybe.

A new executive order signed by President Obama and published at around 2:00 today is either a game-changer in his North Korea policy or a wet paper tiger. On its face, the Executive Order is tough, sweeping, and potentially lethal: Section 1. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred,...

Categories Anju Links
January 1, 2015

Last year’s analysis proves that this year’s analysis of N. Korea’s New Year speech will also be crap

The worst news of the day is that KCNA is working again. That means that as you read this, somewhere in northwest D.C., America’s best-credentialed astrologers are sifting through a desert of despotism for grains of glasnost. In line with the requirements of the prevailing situation, the officers and men of the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces should sharpen the sword for defending the leader, system and people, and members of the Worker-Peasant Red Guards and the Young Red Guards...

Categories Media Criticism/Washington Views
December 31, 2014

Suspected regime thugs try to kill N. Korean refugee in Denmark

For those in the State Department, including its addlebrained spokeswoman, who say that putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism would be merely “symbolic,” here’s some food for thought: Suspected North Korean government agents have assaulted a North Korean living in a refugee center in Denmark and warned him that they will cut his head off if he does not return home, according to a rights group. “We are currently trembling in extreme fear and...

Categories Terrorism (NK)