~  1  ~ CHOE PURGED, TOO? Several readers have pointed me to this Korea Herald story, which cites Free North Korea Radio, reporting that Choe Ryong-Hoe has now been purged (see also). We’ll probably have a better idea in a few days (weeks at most) whether that’s true, but North Korea Leadership Watch reports that Choe has made fewer public appearances recently, so the report seems plausible enough. If it is true, Choe was supposed to be Kim Jong Un’s...

~  1  ~ “N. KOREA LISTED AS ‘HIGH-RISK’ COUNTRY IN MONEY LAUNDERING” shouts this Yonhap headline. So does that mean that Treasury has finally designated North Korea as a primary money laundering concern, something that would severely restrict its access to the global financial system? No. This is actually a non-binding advisory by an international body called the Global Financial Action Task Force, and in fact, the new FATF statement is virtually identical to other advisories that are as many...

~  1  ~ THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT has finally gotten around to dismissing the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report with some classic KCNA prose that (sadly) fails to deploy either “madcap” or “brigandish” for this special occasion: The Commission was set up highhandedly at the meeting of the Council last year by the U.S. and its satellite forces out of inveterate repugnance towards the DPRK. The DPRK, therefore, has never recognized its existence as it is no more than a...

~  1  ~ SOUTH KOREA’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY STILL HASN’T MOVED on a North Korean human rights law, although I expect that next’s week’s release of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report will likely put pressure to the Democratic Party to stop trying to turn it into the Kim Jong Un Recreational Facility Stimulus Act. The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights is adding some pressure of its own, by demonstrating at the National Assembly building in Yeoido. ~  2 ...

~  1  ~ HERE COMES THE PARK DOCTRINE: The government plans to announce a set of guidelines on the Park Geun-hye administration’s national security policies next month to better publicize her handling of national security issues, an official said Tuesday. [….] He said the guidelines may also delve into Park’s global push for the unification of South and North Koreas and lay out in details each policy step of Park’s so-called Korea Peninsula Trust Process, aimed at denuclearizing North Korea....