This week’s must-read is the Chosun‘s story about how cell phones are breaking the information blockade around North Korea. The regime’s crackdown on cell phones hasn’t overcome the strong family ties inherent in Korea’s culture, and it hasn’t stopped North and South Koreans from wanting to talk to their relatives across the DMZ: As Lee talked to his brother for the first time in 50 years over a crackling line, he couldn’t stem the flood of tears. Inter-Korean projects to...

Budaechigae has the absolute best analysis of Korean security issues in the blogosphere, but I respectfully disagree with his suggestion that many South Koreans would ever boycott products labeled “Made in DPRK. Me? Eat from the plates of hungry kids? Hey, whatever it takes to achieve unification . . . which we do by delaying it indefinitely.

How far apart are American and South Korean attitudes on the North? The Flying Yangban reports his observations of the LiNK Symposium at Yonsei Peoples’ Reeducation Collective University, you decide.

The wolf shall also dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and OhMyNews shall be linked by chosunjournal.com . . . .

Much news today on defectors. The Marmot’s (least-) favorite newspaper, the Sankei Shimbun, reports that North Korea is rounding up potential defectors in the future liberated zones border regions near China. Those who managed to get into foreign embassies and consulates last month are still filtering out of China through fourth countries. It turns out the U.N. has a special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, and if he existed before today, it was because I never heard one...

This week’s must-read is the Chosun‘s story about how cell phones are breaking the information blockade around North Korea. The regime’s crackdown on cell phones hasn’t overcome the strong family ties inherent in Korea’s culture, and it hasn’t stopped North and South Koreans from wanting to talk to their relatives across the DMZ: As Lee talked to his brother for the first time in 50 years over a crackling line, he couldn’t stem the flood of tears. Inter-Korean projects to...

Much news today on defectors. The Marmot’s (least-) favorite newspaper, the Sankei Shimbun, reports that North Korea is rounding up potential defectors in the future liberated zones border regions near China. Those who managed to get into foreign embassies and consulates last month are still filtering out of China through fourth countries. It turns out the U.N. has a special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, and if he existed before today, it was because I never heard one...

David Schofield thinks that in North Korea, economic reform is becoming just another scheme for enriching the elite at the expense of everyone else: While the United Nations urgently appeals for food aid for severely malnourished North Koreans, that nation has reaped a bumper harvest and there’s food aplenty – provided you can pay for it, and most people cannot. In fact, South Korea is planning to import chicken and duck meat from the North – initially just 100 tons,...

It’s curious that the Korean press has paid almost no attention to the government-in-exile story. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the full Radio Free Asia report, and probably won’t until the weekend, so I don’t know much more than that this group is allegedly dominated by old former Workers’ Party officials. I’m initially inclined to agree that the people who ran the old North Korea into the ground should not be in charge of the new North...

Nothing greases the skids for a nice, fat government contract like a few sexual favors. Not that Americans are immune from this kind of thing. Heck, one of our Army colonels in Korea gave the lawyers a reason to talk about a whole new meaning a sofa as a piece of furniture again. Some of you may recall that they built an addition to the Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan Garrison a few years ago. At the time, I was...

It turns out that Jane Goodall does care about chemical testing and infanticide . . . of monkeys. Her concern does not extend to the North Korean people, whose killers she’s helping to portray in a more “compassionate and humanistic“ light. I can already hear you saying it–Jane’s an environmental / animal rights activist. She doesn’t do foreign policy. Oh yeah? If you see no evil in Pyongyang and see it everywhere in Washington, you’re either ignorant of the facts...

North Korea has reportedly opted to nationalize a few million dollars’ worth of KEDO construction equipment. Don’t say I didn’t warn you: [The emotional power of the promise of unification] is certainly sufficient to vacuum up millions more in South Korean cash to keep the Dear Leader in Henessey and razor wire, and the children of his secret police and officer corps eating at least adequately. But for the record, I’ll predict right here that the South Koreans will be...

. . . and for once, doesn’t avert its eyes. Could big changes be on the way? Only if you can get all of the quibbling bureaucrats to agree on what those changes should be, but self-examination is the first step. An internal commission has noticed that the world body lacks clear standards on many of its essential competencies, such as the use of force, self-defense, accountability, and human rights: The panel was very critical of the Human Rights Commission,...

David Schofield thinks that in North Korea, economic reform is becoming just another scheme for enriching the elite at the expense of everyone else: While the United Nations urgently appeals for food aid for severely malnourished North Koreans, that nation has reaped a bumper harvest and there’s food aplenty – provided you can pay for it, and most people cannot. In fact, South Korea is planning to import chicken and duck meat from the North – initially just 100 tons,...

David Schofield thinks that in North Korea, economic reform is becoming just another scheme for enriching the elite at the expense of everyone else: While the United Nations urgently appeals for food aid for severely malnourished North Koreans, that nation has reaped a bumper harvest and there’s food aplenty – provided you can pay for it, and most people cannot. In fact, South Korea is planning to import chicken and duck meat from the North – initially just 100 tons,...

It’s curious that the Korean press has paid almost no attention to the government-in-exile story. I haven’t had a chance to listen to the full Radio Free Asia report, and probably won’t until the weekend, so I don’t know much more than that this group is allegedly dominated by old former Workers’ Party officials. I’m initially inclined to agree that the people who ran the old North Korea into the ground should not be in charge of the new North...

Nothing greases the skids for a nice, fat government contract like a few sexual favors. Not that Americans are immune from this kind of thing. Heck, one of our Army colonels in Korea gave the lawyers a reason to talk about a whole new meaning a sofa as a piece of furniture again. Some of you may recall that they built an addition to the Dragon Hill Lodge on Yongsan Garrison a few years ago. At the time, I was...

It turns out that Jane Goodall does care about chemical testing and infanticide . . . of monkeys. Her concern does not extend to the North Korean people, whose killers she’s helping to portray in a more “compassionate and humanistic“ light. I can already hear you saying it–Jane’s an environmental / animal rights activist. She doesn’t do foreign policy. Oh yeah? If you see no evil in Pyongyang and see it everywhere in Washington, you’re either ignorant of the facts...