Search Results for: burma

August 4, 2008

Anju Links for 4 August 2008

WHAT BETTER SYMBOL could there be of the complete intellectual and moral collapse of Bush’s North Korea policy  than this? (Hat tip to a friend.) THE KOREAN CHURCH COALITION, which I think has to be the single most dynamic activist organization promoting human rights in North Korea today, has amassed a very impressive list of supportive letters from politicians of both parties.  I’ve posted some quotes below the fold.  The obvious  question is whether those are more than mere words. ...

Categories Anju Links
May 28, 2008

U.S. Food Aid to North Korea: Two Steps Back, One Step Forward

For those of you who do not know him, Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics is  a leading expert and author  on the North Korean economy and  food crisis.  Noland writes in to  report that he has learned some details of the U.S. government’s negotiations with the North Koreans on food aid.  The  negotiations have resulted in an agreement (for now) on food aid to the North, something I personally support for overriding humanitarian reasons notwithstanding my...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
May 24, 2008

Noland and Haggard on North Korea’s New Famine

Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard have just published three new op-eds in an attempt to sound the alarm about North Korea’s growing new famine. The first of these you should read is an extensive discussion of the evidence supporting their dire predictions in the Korea Herald (normally unlinkable, but uploaded in pdf here). The second is this op-ed at Newsweek, which draws an apt comparison to the situation in Burma. Although Noland and Haggard place most of the blame for...

Categories Famine & Food Aid
April 8, 2008

Anju Links for 8 April 2008

MORE TRAIN WRECKS in North Korea have injured hundreds, according to the Daily NK. Recall that an explosion that may have killed hundreds in the town of Ryongchon in 2006 was triggered by a train accident. SPEAKING OF THINGS THAT SOUND DANGEROUS, I wonder where these North Korean soldiers were getting the scrap iron they were selling to China. Even in the United States, there are idiots who deliberately drive into live-fire zones of U.S. military bases to collect scrap...

Categories Anju Links
April 3, 2008

North Korea Violates UNSCR 1718 Again

The resolution, passed after North Korea’s diplomatically successful and technologically marginal nuclear test, prohibits the North from trading in major weapons systems. Reuters reports that for the last year, since North Korea restored diplomatic relations with Burma, North Korea has been selling its fellow tyrannical ChiCom satellite rocket launchers of “the same type as those deployed near the demilitarised zone.” It’s now fodder for popular satire that Kim Jong Il doesn’t really care what the U.N. prohibits, but still, for...

Categories "United" Nations/NK Military/Southeast Asia
March 17, 2008

Bread, Peace, and Kalashnikovs for Tibet (Not Necessarily in that Order)

Those Tibet protests continue to spread, although more outside Tibet proper than inside. Lhasa looks like an armed camp: CNN reports on the spread of the protests to other regions: The Chinese are making the best traction they can by reporting on the excesses of Tibetan protestors, while effectively keeping their own excesses off the TV screens. One thing the Chicoms do with great efficiency is censorship. They’re blacking out CNN, too: And of course, the usual suspects — U.N.,...

Categories "United" Nations/China
March 15, 2008

Will China Get Away With Murder Again?

China may be the O.J. Simpson of thuggish regimes. Gutter thugs like the rulers of Sudan and Burma have justly earned their international pariah status after calculating that the consequences of slaughter would be manageable and acceptable. China’s regime has learned from Saudi Arabia’s example, lining its avenues of commerce with expensive lobbyists and P.R. firms, thus escaping most of the consequences of its behavior and even buying its way to quasi-legitimacy. But even the Chinese know that this strategy...

Categories China
March 6, 2008

Just Seven Months to Go: Kim Jong Il Stalls, We Let Him

All signs point to North Korea viewing last week’s New York Phil concert as a substituting for denuclearization, rather than complimenting it. We are no closer to a North Korea presenting its declaration. To the extent North Korea believes that the Clapton Gambit has shifted our public conversation to superficial gestures, or that stalling will earn more concessions, we’re further from it. Evans Revere’s “16-inch broadside of soft power” impressed Kim Jong Il approximately as much as three inches of...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Russian Far East
February 24, 2008

The Olympics, China, and N. Korean Refugees

Update: Another call to boycott the Beijing Olympics: Pro-democracy activists in Myanmar called Monday for the world to boycott this year’s Beijing Olympics over what they said was China’s continuing support of Myanmar’s military dictatorship. The 88 Generation Students group, which was instrumental in last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, urged “citizens around the world … to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics in response to China’s bankrolling of the military junta that rules our country of Burma with guns and...

Categories Activism/Refugees
February 22, 2008

Anju Links for 22 Feb 08

MY, WHAT BIG BRASS COCONUTS YOU HAVE: North Korea fires missiles toward and over Japan, Japan builds a missile shield, and then North Korea has the chutzpah to say — Their extreme hostile policy toward the DPRK is heightening the hatred of the army and the people of the DPRK toward Japan. Should the Japanese reactionaries persist in their moves for reinvasion, accelerating the building of missile shields targeted against the DPRK, this will entail catastrophic consequences. The Japanese reactionaries...

Categories Anju Links
February 19, 2008

It’s an Honor Just to Be Nominated

Parade Magazine has named Kim Jong Il the world’s worst dictator for 2008, edging out the butchers in charge of Sudan and Burma. Which is quite a distinction. Kim Jong-il runs the most isolated, repressive regime in the world. His citizens have no access to information other than government propaganda. His harsh system includes collective punishment (three generations of a family can be punished for one member’s alleged crime); detainment of roughly 200,000 citizens in labor camps; and the capture,...

Categories Human Rights
January 29, 2008

Anju Links for 29 Jan 08

BRING OUT YOUR  NOT-QUITE-DEAD:  “UN agency to conduct its first census since famine killed millions.”  If things don’t quite add up, try looking here. NOT LOOKING GOOD  FOR KEVIN G. HALL:  A reader e-mails a detailed article — co-written by Bradley K. Martin,  no less –that  drives a few 3-inch  sheetrock screws into the coffin of Hall’s piece of work.  If you’re not yet saying “enough already” to all of this, the updated post is  here. DAVID ALBRIGHT, CALL YOUR...

Categories Anju Links
January 28, 2008

SOTU Speech Fails to Mention North Korea

I heard “Korea,” and I think I  probably heard  “North” somewhere, but I did not hear “North Korea.”   It’s  nice that President Bush stands against genocide in  Sudan.  Seriously.  It would be better than “nice” if  Bush would do something meaningful to stop it.  It’s too bad, of course, that he chose to end his term as  an abettor of  a genocidal regime  in North Korea.  North Korea was even left out of his catch-all  list of repressive  nations  abroad. ...

Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics
December 12, 2007

Senate resolution would set conditions for de-listing North Korea as a terror sponsor

I knew this was coming but was asked not to write about it. But now, I see that Richardson has a link to a Yonhap story about it. Now that it’s out, I’ll speak out of school for a moment and say that I suggested a couple of the provisions that made it into the resolution, although I’d rather not say which ones. The sponsor is Sam Brownback, who having dropped his presidential bid, is back to doing what earned...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Politics
December 4, 2007

Liberation Through Litigation, Part 2

Way back in the very early days of this blog, I proposed that North Korean workers should be able to sue their government for coercive and abusive labor practices under the Alien Tort Statute of 1789.  In fact, the statute was recently used with success against Unocal Corporation for its use of forced labor in a pipeline project in Burma.  Just watch Kaesong empty out if that ever comes to pass. I had mentioned the idea once or twice since...

Categories Human Rights/U.S. Law
November 20, 2007

Global Protest Against China’s Brutality Toward N. Korean Refugees — Nov. 30 – Dec. 1

The list of locations scheduled to hold demonstrations is impressive; organizers will target Chinese embassies and consulates in Washington, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Brussels, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Oslo, London, Amsterdam, Seoul, and Madrid. That represents significant growth since past demonstrations, something that’s very welcome at a discouraging moment when the Bush Administration has pretty much sold out the entire cause. If you don’t know what we’re upset about, here’s a good introduction to the issue....

Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Refugees
October 29, 2007

There Is Such a Thing as ‘Good’ Engagement

If you’re reading this, you’re bearing with me despite the light blogging of late.  Thank you.  I make a habit of not talking about my work here, but suffice to say that it carries significant responsibilities that sometimes leave no time and energy for other things.  At times like these, when there is very little time left over, I owe that time to my family.  Thank you again for your understanding,  for continuing to stop by, and for your e-mails. ...

Categories Deprogramming/Six-Party Talks
October 23, 2007

Links for 23 Oct 07

* John Bolton is now actively lobbying against Agreed Framework 2.0, drawing dozens of GOP congressmen  to speeches he’s giving to influential policy groups (ht: Evan).  His efforts appear to have gained new traction with the Syria revelations, and the Administration’s inordinate secrecy from Congress about those revelations probably isn’t doing any good for congressional relations (but may be fueling suspicions).  Yes, Bolton probably suspects that his enemies in the State Department torpedoed his confirmation, and he probably holds a...

Categories Anju Links