“N. Korean opium floods northeast China,” according to a new article …

in The Chosun Ilbo. The article shows a photograph of opium being grown in North Korea and infers that the drug production is regime-directed, but it’s also possible that, consistent with recent trends, the regime simply tolerates the production and taxes it heavily. That has the advantage of giving North Korea both the income and plausible deniability, when China and other states complain about state-sponsored drug trafficking. ~ ~ ~ Update: More on North Korea’s meth smuggling here,...

Drugs & N Korea

August 21, 2014

Those who’ve been assigned to Yongsan, or who sometimes went to Itaewon, …

will appreciate this well-researched history of the neighborhood’s sleazy past and present gentrification, although sleaze has been a difficult thing to extinguish from the places where it has put down its roots. During my last visit to Seoul, the brothel district near the former Yongsan Station, now a massive E-Mart, was still plying its trade, just a bit more sedately, and just around the corner from a police precinct. Judging from the link, Hooker Hill still features hookers, despite the new development two...

Korean Society/U.S. Military

August 20, 2014

John Kerry was right about North Korea (and so was John Bolton)

More than six months after a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found Kim Jong Un responsible for crimes against humanity, our State Department has offered no credible or coherent policy response to that report. At least it hadn’t until last week, when our Secretary of State, John Kerry — no doubt, after much agonizing deliberation — finally authorized the deployment of precision-guided tactical ballistic words: “But make no mistake, we are also speaking out about the horrific human rights situation,” Kerry...

Diplomacy/Human Rights/Media Criticism

August 20, 2014

In Pyongyang, men are locking themselves in the bathroom to download …

I hear that’s not all they’re downloading (ahem). ” the deeds were done from the Ryugyong-dong district – also the place where all my hits from North Korea come from – a “neighbourhood in the northeast of Pyongyang … which contains … the Pyongyang International Communications Centre” and Koryolink’s main office. So that’s why. On reflection, I suppose Martyn Williams is probably correct in identifying foreigners as the most likely culprits. You know what this means, of course: Pyongyang may...

Foreigners in N. Korea/Subversion

August 20, 2014

South Korea’s missile problem, and ours

For the last year, the South Korean government has been saying that it considers a North Korean attack a very real risk, and it has also said that if attacked, its retaliation will be swift and severe. Its President, Park Geun-Hye, recently expressed concern about a North Korean “misjudgment,” and touted the U.S.-ROK military alliance as the best deterrent against that. As recently as this week, she has been warning her army of the dangers of “complacency.” I don’t have...

Missiles/NK Military/ROK Military

August 20, 2014

Another outbreak of the Madonna Syndrome, this time …

at the Wall Street Journal. Despite all the references to “risk,” “tension,” and “testing the … limits,” the slide show shows us the same stations in the same old state-sanctioned tour that hundreds of people have been hyping for a decade and a half. It is all so very dull now. You could find more arresting images of almost any other city on Earth without attracting the interest of a single newspaper, yet no image of Pyongyang is too trite to be at least...

Foreigners in N. Korea

August 19, 2014

Peter Hahn speaks out about China freezing his accounts and investigating him …

for his humanitarian activities. Hahn says, “We feed 22,000 children every day,” including the most pitiful children of all, the kkotjaebi. While I’m generally skeptical of claims that food aid can reach the intended recipients inside North Korea, Hahn tells a sympathetic and compelling story. Read and decide for yourself. I’m not sure if Hahn is doing as much good as he thinks he is, but I am sure that China and Kim Jong Un are the villains of this story....

China & Korea/Famine & Food Aid

August 19, 2014

Australian government finds “abandoned” N. Korean funds.

”While most of these were accounts held by people in China, Hong Kong, Japan, Britain and the United States, some can be traced to addresses as far afield as North Korea, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some will doubtless never be claimed.” I’ll bet there’s a fascinating story there.

Money Laundering

August 19, 2014

Something I did not know about about the “comfort women” …

until I read this was that their fellow Koreans had once ostracized them. Today, Koreans venerate them. Does this mean that one day, South Koreans might have more compassion for North Koreans, or is this a case of “hate isn’t the opposite of love; indifference is”?

History/Japan & Korea

August 19, 2014

What the hell? Seoul bar bans black customers over Ebola panic.

Story and photo here. I had to read that twice to believe it, but I can’t say that it completely astonishes me. I wonder how many of those banned from the bar, which is a short walk from a large U.S. Army garrison, will be American soldiers who’ve never set foot in Africa.

Korean Society

August 19, 2014

Two weeks ago, North Korea’s largest denomination bill was worth 63 cents.

That bill is the 5,000 won note. When North Korea announced last last month that the bills would be replaced, even at a 1:1 exchange, its value fell to 52 cents, and many merchants refused to take the bills for any price. As of last November, at the official exchange rate, a 5,000-won note was worth $52.

NK Economics

August 19, 2014

One of the few examples of potentially effectively engagement by foreign governments …

in North Korea is being shut down by the regime after being outed. The Diplomat reports that the unsecured wireless networks of foreign embassies had allowed North Koreans living nearby to access the internet without restriction, and that the hunger of North Koreans for that information was so great that it caused something of a housing boom in those neighborhoods. Now that the security forces know about this, they’re cracking down, and forcing embassies to secure and password-protect their signals....

Foreigners in N. Korea/Subversion

August 19, 2014

How terrorism works: N. Korea uses Japanese hostages to censor “The Interview”

Last week, I wrote that the North Koreans who had unwittingly lavished free publicity on “The Interview” by threatening its makers still had a thing or two to learn from the mobs of angry Muslim extremists who extorted President Obama into asking YouTube to “consider” removing “The Innocence of Muslims.” My judgment may have been premature. Film industry trade journals are now reporting that Sony Pictures Japan has demanded changes to the script of “The Interview” to minimize the offense...

Abductions/Censorship/Japan/Terrorism (NK)

August 18, 2014

Faced with a grassroots protest movement, China manufactures mass obedience.

“Local media swirled with reports of marchers getting paid or bused in to attend the pro-government march. One video (Cantonese) purportedly showed cash being handed out to marchers.” [link]

China

August 18, 2014

Also, Rimjin-gang did it better seven months ago, so there’s that.

Eric Talmadge, the AP’s Pyongyang Bureau Chief, denied the opportunity to do reporting of the apartment collapse story by his North Korean hosts and partners last May, offers an honest assessment of the unknowns as the next best thing, three months after the fact. Despite Talmadge’s obviously earnest effort, he doesn’t quite succeed, but least he’s willing to raise some hard questions about North Korea’s construction boom: In a country that sorely needs to improve its basic infrastructure, there is no public debate over whether North...

AP Watch/Media Criticism

August 17, 2014

Between surrender and stupid: Regressing toward the mean in a post-Iraq world

As the world’s attention is focused on the disaster in Iraq, let’s take a moment to mourn the last remnants of Syria’s non-extremist, secular rebels, who are facing their final extermination in Aleppo. To Syrians who risked everything for a future worth living in, it’s academic now that Hillary Clinton privately agreed with what I said back in 2011 (last item), when I called for us to arm moderate rebels there. Clinton now says she warned that if we didn’t,...

Geopolitics

August 17, 2014

I’m sure the “so-called pope” meant no offense, but if KCNA hadn’t norksplained it for me …

I would not have seen it from this perspective: “We would like to ask the pope why he set about his south Korean trip the day when we are making latest tactical rocket test-fire according to our regular plan though there are a lot of days in the year.” Of course, given His Porcine Majesty’s crowded launch schedule and the absence of forewarning, it’s not exactly easy for His Holiness to squeeze in a visit to Korea in between. Sounds like the rockets were...

Anju Links/NK Military/WTF?

August 16, 2014

Japan sanctions Ocean Maritime Management, following the U.N.’s designation …

of OMM, and amid its own ransom negotiations with North Korea. One of the terms of that ransom was the lifting of Japan’s national shipping sanctions, which obviously predated the U.N. designation. [link]

Anju Links/Japan/Sanctions