~  1  ~ L.A. TIMES CONFIRMS HIGH-LEVEL DEFECTION: Several days ago, I posted about reports in the South Korean press that a senior North Korean official with extensive knowledge of North Korea’s offshore finances had defected, and was in the care of South Korean officials in an undisclosed location in China. South Korea later denied the reports, but today, The L.A. Times is reporting that, denial notwithstanding, the reports were true. The individual is a military officer, was a “confidant” of Jang...

~  1  ~ LINK HAS RESCUED 204 NORTH KOREANS since 2010. Please support them if you can afford to. If you can’t — or even if you can — please go to this page and vote for LiNK’s “Project for Awesome” page. It helps to keep their fund-raising project where it gets more views. ~  2  ~ SHIN DONG HYOK TELLS DENNIS RODMAN how he can help the North Korean people, in case Rodman actually cares about that. But in a way,...

~ 1 ~ DON’T CRY FOR JANG. With all the talk about Jang Song Thaek being a “reformer,” I thought I should remind you that Jang was in charge of the Kuk-Ga Anjeon Bowi-Bu (roughly, National Security Protection Bureau), the secret police organization that runs the North’s prison camps and arrests people for political crimes. If Jang and others associated with this organization wind up before a firing squad, personally, I’d only regret that they didn’t face a more legitimate...

~ 1 ~ THIS COULD BE BIG, even if the conclusion seems exaggerated: Yonhap reports that North Korea is dumping gold in China, and calls it a sign of “imminent economic collapse.” Yonhap says the last time that happened was when Kim Jong Il died, but to me, it’s reminiscent of North Korea’s behavior after the Banco Delta Asia action froze their money. I wonder if this is because the purge of Jang disrupted their financial network. If so, it...

~ 1 ~ NOT THAT “AXIS OF EVIL” NONSENSE AGAIN: New reports claim that “the U.S. intelligence community has determined that Iran and North Korea continue to develop” an ICBM together. Plaintive cries about starving babies in Iran notwithstanding, the mullahs are “financing much of the North Korean missile program in exchange for the transfer of technology, expertise and components.” More here, and much more here, in Bruce Bechtol’s new book. I’ll leave the commentary on the Iran deal to...