March 13, 2012

AP Editor compares N. Korea’s surveillance of journalists to U.S., Germany

In my lonely critique of the AP’s sketchy relationship with the North Korean government, throughout its recent absorption into North Korea’s official propaganda apparatus, I’ve often observed that its new Pyongyang correspondent, Jean H. Lee, isn’t very good at asking obvious questions. As it turns out, her editors aren’t very good at answering them, either. In a new article in Foreign Policy, Isaac Stone Fish becomes the first actual journalist to question, however gently, this new relationship and its potential...

Categories AP Watch
March 10, 2012

Wanted: Photos & Video of AP’s Kim Il Sung Glorification Exhibit in New York (Updated with Location, Hours, Photos)

Yonhap is reporting that the Kim Il Sung commemorative photo exhibit to be co-sponsored by the Associated Press and the official North Korean “news” service, will open next Thursday: A group of North Korean journalists left for the United States Saturday to attend a photo exhibition set to open next week, marking the centenary of the birth of the North’s late founding leader, Kim Il-sung, the country’s media said. The North’s delegation, led by Kim Chang-gwang, vice director of the...

Categories AP Watch/Media Criticism
March 9, 2012

Did Iran test a nuke in North Korea?

It would be a very serious matter if Iran had tested a nuclear weapon in North Korea in 2010, as this German language report in Die Welt claims. The claim has received much less attention in the U.S. press than it would seem to merit, and most bloggers who have picked up the story have merely wondered aloud whether it could be true (the notable exception being Stephan Haggard). I’ll add my summation of the evidence to Stephan’s, but I’ll...

Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Proliferation
March 7, 2012

Anju: Congressgnome Kucinich goes down

Last night, Dennis Kucinich (D-Middle Earth) was defeated by fellow Democrat Marcy Kaptur after redistricting pitted them against one another. The defeat of Kucinich is not entirely good, because for Kucinich to advocate a cause is to easily identify it as a fringe position. On the other hand, his long-standing ties to Christine Ahn (Kucinich wrote a foreward to a book she wrote years ago) gave a congressional voice to some extreme policy positions on North Korea. Also, the man...

Categories Anju Links/Useful Idiocy
March 6, 2012

WTF? AP and KCNA co-sponsor “Day of the Sun” Kim Il Sung propaganda exhibit in New York?

Ever since the Associated Press signed an MOU with North Korea’s official “news” agency establishing a bureau in Pyongyang, I’ve tracked a disturbing trend in the AP’s coverage, starting with its global distribution of a doctored photograph designed to finagle food aid out of potential donors. The other day, the latest in a series of reports echoing KCNA’s propaganda caused me to say that it had turned its AP propaganda amplifier up to eleven. In retrospect, I should have saved...

Categories AP Watch/Media Criticism
March 5, 2012

Col. David Maxwell, on why the North Korean people don’t rebel

It’s funny how life moves in oddly circular ways sometimes. I first met Col. David Maxwell more than a decade ago on Okinawa, when I was an Army defense counsel and he was commanding a Special Forces battalion. This unequal juxtaposition of his cred versus mine makes me begin this post feeling sheepish about disagreeing with one of his conclusions here, that the North Korean people are so thoroughly indoctrinated that they would not consider rising against the system. I...

Categories Resistance
March 4, 2012

AP’s coverage of North Korea strikingly similar to The Onion’s

So once again, KCNA has turned its AP propaganda amplifier up to eleven, informing us of that, according to “rare interviews … with Pyongyang residents,” North Koreans don’t trust the Americans to keep the post-Groundhog Day Agreement. The correspondent quotes a grand total of five North Koreans, including one soldier, one lieutenant colonel, a Foreign Ministry official, and two women whose occupations are not listed. Typically for the AP’s recent reports from Pyongyang, it invites more questions than it answers,...

Categories AP Watch
March 2, 2012

For some of us it’s already March; at Foggy Bottom, it’s forever Groundhog Day

Let’s drill down into the Post-Groundhog Day Agreement, starting with the text of the nearest thing we have to a written agreement, a State Department press release, which I produce here in its entirety: A U.S. delegation has just returned from Beijing following a third exploratory round of U.S.-DPRK bilateral talks. To improve the atmosphere for dialogue and demonstrate its commitment to denuclearization, the DPRK has agreed to implement a moratorium on long-range missile launches, nuclear tests and nuclear activities...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
February 29, 2012

It’s still Day One. Have they reneged yet?

The Obama Administration, pretty much as I’d guessed, has struck a deal that’s transparently aimed at keeping the North Koreans quiet until mid-November. Wish them luck with that if you wish. Below the jump, you can read a press “availability” event (thanks to a friend) at which the Administration’s mouthpieces, no doubt mindful that we’re in an election year, try very hard to depress expectations that this is leading up to Agreed Framework III. From what little we know about...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
February 24, 2012

China abets the murder of nine North Korean refugees

South Korean legislators on Friday condemned China’s repatriation of fugitives from North Korea after Beijing reportedly sent nine back despite pleas from Seoul. A resolution passed by the committee on foreign affairs and unification urges China to follow international rules in handling North Koreans who flee their impoverished homeland, and seeks outside help to halt the returns. [AFP] Seoul says it might (gasp) raise this with the U.N. Human Rights Council — without mentioning China by name. But despite all...

Categories AP Watch/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 21, 2012

Entertainers Join Effort to “Save My Friend,” South Korean Lawmaker Launches Hunger Strike

Across the street from the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today was a busy place.  At 2 p.m. South Korean National Assemblywoman Park Sun Young of the Liberty Forward Party launched a hunger strike (I took the photo above around 5:40 p.m.). In a statement on Tuesday, Park said she plans to launch an “indefinite” hunger strike in front of the Chinese embassy in Seoul to protest the forced repatriation of North Korean defectors by China. “At this very moment, China...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 19, 2012

North Korean Refugees in China in Grave Danger of Repatriation

Update 2 (2/20): In addition to the letter to the Chinese government in the original post below that you can email, fax, or mail, there’s an online petition to the UNHCR and the UN Special Rapporteur that you can sign that’s rapidly collected almost 25,000 signatures. I also just read a related email sent on behalf of several groups saying that a) they’re on Twitter @savemyfriend (in Korean and English) and Facebook and b) are gathering across from the Chinese...

Categories Activism/China/Human Rights/Refugees
February 19, 2012

Anju, February 19, 2012

I just can’t understand why South Koreans who ostensibly support the idea a free society so fundamentally misunderstand that idea. Rather than make free-speech martyrs out of imbeciles, wouldn’t it make more sense to engage in the war of ideas on both sides of the DMZ? Are they really so afraid that a majority of South Koreans are going to prostrate themselves toward Pyongyang? Is such a majority even capable of self-government anyway? Are they really so afraid to speak...

Categories Anju Links
February 18, 2012

How do you suppose Kim Jong Nam would like Vegas? (Update: Or not?)

I figured something bad was going to happen to Kim Jong Nam after that book came out. Well-known playboy and occasional critic of his father’s regime, Kim Jong-nam has been kicked out of luxury hotel in the Chinese gambling hub of Macau, according to a Russian newspaper. The Arguments and Facts weekly claimed Jong-nam ran up a bill of £9,500 but was unable to pay because his credit card had been cancelled. Jong-nam’s decadent lifestyle saw him ditched as the...

Categories Anju Links/Kremlinology
February 18, 2012

Agreed Framework III Watch

Whenever I mention Glyn Davies, I like to remind readers of the time he tried to pressure a State Department colleague into airbrushing a report on North Korea’s human rights atrocities for “the cause” of Agreed Framework II. Davies is about to fly to Beijing for talks with North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan next week, and Kim wouldn’t have booked his ticket if he didn’t see a payday at the end of the journey. There isn’t a doubt in...

Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
February 16, 2012

Anju, February 16, 2012

AP Watch: Today would have been Kim Jong Il’s birthday, and Jean H. Lee marks that occasion with another report from Pyongyang that is significant only for its complete lack of skepticism about the regime’s propaganda. Why is it that “engagement” with North Korea never changes North Korea, and always corrupts the institution that engages North Korea? Or perhaps the engagement is just an indication that those institutions were already corrupt. ________________________________ Say, mister, that’s one creepy picture you’ve got...

Categories Anju Links/Terrorism (NK)
February 15, 2012

Calling Bob King

I haven’t seen any news coverage about Korean-Americans protesting against Xi Jinping over China’s policy of sending North Korean refugees to gulags and firing squads.  China has never been known for its great sensitivity to public opinion, of course, so I also have to wonder if Vice President Biden’s “frank discussions” with Xi, during the latter’s visit, included any mention of a large group of North Korean refugees — various reports number them at 21, 29, or 33 souls —...

Categories China/Diplomacy/Human Rights