VIDEO:  A wooden boat with fading Korean characters painted on it washes up on Japan’s West Coast.  Aboard are the decomposing bodies of five men. ————————————————– WHERE HAS THE U.S.S. PUEBLO GONE? ————————————————– I, FOR ONE, FULLY SUPPORT THEIR DECISION:  North Korea to confiscate property from companies at Kaesong that fail to pay punitive taxes.  Good luck attracting more investment with that strategy! ————————————————– NORTH KOREAN PERESTROIKA WATCH:  According to an unverifiable report attributed to “sources,” North Korea has replaced...

CAMP 22 UPDATE:  Radio Free Asia is doubling down on its report of the liquidation and re-purposing of the camp, but after reviewing the satellite imagery and seeing Joe Bermudez’s interpretations reenforce my own conclusions, I find this very difficult to believe.  The truth we can more-or-less prove is horrible enough. ——————————————— HITCHENS HASN’T BEEN DEAD A YEAR and I miss him already: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, as Christopher Hitchens once described the occluded realm ruled by the Kim family in Pyongyang, a...

SCOOPING THE AP YET AGAIN, The Onion names Kim Jong Un 2012’s Sexiest Man Alive. —————————————- CHRIS GREEN OF THE DAILY NK writes that the North Korean regime seems concerned about the loyalty of its soldiers. —————————————- WHY SOUTH KOREA’S SWITCH TO DIGITAL TV is bad news for North Koreans. —————————————- I FAULT MYSELF for having been too alarmist in predicting a North Korean famine in 2006, but when Andrew Natsios sounds the alarm, we should take his warning seriously....

Interesting, but I’m still not convinced.  I don’t claim to know the truth; I can only interpret the evidence I have. Update:  Joe Bermudez, whom I would actually characterize as an expert in the field (unlike myself) publishes detailed analysis of the new imagery, and notices pretty much the same things I’d observed here. Hat tip:  Curtis.

SO HOW DID WEN JIABAO’S FAMILY amass a family fortune of $2.7 billion? The difficulty of answering that question causes China to block the New York Times. The corruption of China’s politicians seems endemic and universal, but the prosecution of their corruption seems to have more to do with factionalism than morality.  I loved the close: “When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash … none of us are exempt. China today is a train...

I THINK THIS SAYS IT ALL: “This story may or may not be true.” ——————————————————- CAMP 22 UPDATE: The Daily NK reports on who it believes now occupies the camp, but I still have questions. ——————————————————- USFK TRIES TO REJOIN U.S. ARMY by expressing interest in joining off-peninsula exercises. And in other USFK news, I’m glad to see that Leon Panetta and Kim Kwang-Jin are putting some thought into how to respond to limited North Korean provocations, more than two...

NORTH KOREA THREATENS to fire on people, many of them North Korean refugees, for floating leaflet balloons into their former homeland.  Here’s the original, from KCNA: The Western Front Command of the KPA issues following notice upon authorization: 1. Rimjin Pavilion in Phaju City, location from where the puppet forces made public they would send leaflets and its surrounding area will become targets of direct firing of the KPA from now. The location is the origin of provocation which can...

CHINA ELECTRIFIES its border fence with North Korea, reportedly with a below-lethal 220 volts (for now). ————————————————– NORTH KOREA WARNS ITS CITIZENS against contact with foreigners: According to the source, “The lecturers put it like this: ‘foreigners are envious of our ideology and will try to undermine it,’ and emphasize that ‘we should not communicate with them because they could be enemy forces in disguise trying to attack our socialist ways and spread bad ideas.’” The source continued, “The lecture...