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January 26, 2011

North Korea Suffers Record Cold Amid Coal Shortage

In a worrisome new sign of catastrophic climate change, a record cold winter in North Korea suggests that the mere presence of two Current TV reporters may be enough to invoke The Gore Effect: Citing data from the North’s meteorological research unit, the KCNA reported that between Dec. 24 and Jan. 19, the average daytime high temperature had been minus 4.9 degrees Celsius while the morning low averaged minus 15.6 degrees. Both figures, it said, were 3.2 degrees lower than...

Inside NK

January 26, 2011

Open Sources

Among reporters who aren’t terribly experienced as North Korea watchers, there’s been much recent excitement about the prospect of North Korea and South Korea talking again. I see little harm and some good in working-level talks between generals, but I think the exuberance of these cub reporters is misplaced. Look more closely, and all of the obstacles to Agreed Framework III are still in place. South Korea is still demanding that North Korea apologize for sinking the Cheonan and shelling...

Anju Links

January 25, 2011

Kim Jong Il Can’t Feed His Army this Winter

The last 12 months have been unusual, even for North Korea, on several levels. There has been the rise in aggression against the South, the accelerating loss of economic control by the regime, an unusually cold winter, unusually severe electricity shortages, and now, an apparent erosion of control over the military. I’ve read a lot of stories about this being a hard year for North Korean soldiers, and for the most part, this is something new. In the past, the...

NK Military

January 24, 2011

Open Sources

Open News has published a whole series of articles about the conditions at Camp 12, Chongo-Ri, based in part on interviews with a newly escaped female prisoner: – Female prisoners at the camp make wigs and false eyelashes for export. – Visitation rights afforded to prisoners. – How prisoners are stripped of their dignity. – How prisoners are prepared for release. I believe these are images of Camp 12, although the lack of a perimeter fence surprises me, and it’s...

Anju Links

January 24, 2011

Blood and Libel

Some 500 people in North Korea attended a public execution of a man and a woman caught reading South Korean propaganda, an activist claimed Sunday citing sources in the North. Choi Sung-yong, the head of Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea said security services rounded up some 500 people including 50 family members of South Korean prisoners of war and abduction victims and made them watch the execution. The victims were a 45-year-old woman accused of reading a South Korean...

Human Rights

January 24, 2011

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The point man for the Obama administration’s financial wars on Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda, Stuart Levey, has decided to leave his senior U.S. Treasury Department post at what is turning out to be a particularly critical time. Someone wake me up now, dammit! Senior Obama administration officials disclosed Mr. Levey’s departure, after nearly a decade in government service, but stressed that it doesn’t signal a shift in U.S. policy or a slackening of Washington’s financial campaigns against Tehran,...

Money Laundering

January 21, 2011

Taaaaaaaaaae-Han-Min-Guk!

Now, if someone can only hunt down the elusive Fatbeard, the seas will be safe for commerce again.

ROK Military

January 21, 2011

Open Sources

“In the order, the party stressed that soldiers standing guard over the border are surviving on canned cornmeal porridge and threatened to assess the amount of donations by individual entity,” the RFA said, adding the North failed to attain its goal of securing 1.6 million tons in provisions for the military last year.” [Yonhap] Whoever can smuggle food into North Korea now can trade it for information, the use of a truck, weapons, or ammunition. Just use your imagination. __________________________________...

Anju Links

January 20, 2011

Celebrating Seven Years of Obscure Futility

On this day, way back in 2004, I published the first OFK post. Had you asked me then what I’d be blogging about now, I’d have have said that I wouldn’t be. Then, I might have suggested reconstruction efforts, or possibly a low-intensity conflict between Chinese “advisors” and North Korean insurgents. Seven billion dollars in South Korean aid, Chinese money, and unsteady American policies have prolonged the inevitable, but it still looks inevitable, if different. Then, I imagined that a...

Blogs & Blogging

January 20, 2011

South Korea’s Credibility Problem

China’s plans for the economic colonization of Rason in North Korea have set off a great deal of fretting in South Korea about China grabbing up North Korean resources. In my experience, those who fret about this are usually setting up an argument for South Korean investment in the North. But we know how that’s always ended. Instead of pouring more money into this bottomless pit, South Korea ought to let it be known that after reunification, Korea will invoke...

North-South/Sunshine

January 19, 2011

Open Sources

Did North Korea cheat, you ask? North Korea has been developing a uranium enrichment programme — a potential second way to make nuclear bombs — since the late 1990s, a senior defector was Wednesday quoted as saying. The defector, quoted by South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper, said centrifuges for the programme are being made at the city of Heechon, 57 kilometres (35 miles) northeast of its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon. [AFP] More here. Selig Harrison was unavailable for comment....

Anju Links

January 19, 2011

Open Sources

The Obama Administration’s China policy has come full circle from its deferential beginnings.____________________________________ President Lee wants to bring North Korea to the Security Council over its uranium enrichment program.____________________________________ Well, this story is rich in revelations. Apparently, Iran has sent payments to North Korea from the previously sanctioned Hong Kong Electronics to the Seoul branch of Iran’s Bank Mellat. Less shocking are more reports of China’s assistance to North Korea’s ballistic missile program. If you’re keeping count, that would violate...

Anju Links

January 18, 2011

The Great Wall of Rason: Kim Jong Il’s Grand Sell-Out

Over the weekend, as I was poring over relatively recent new imagery on Google Earth, I spotted the chilling sight of a fence line — the kind of fence line that until now, I’ve only seen around North Korea’s political prison camps. This was a mystery to me, since I believed that I’d located and delineated the last of the large prison camps years ago. I followed the fence line, wondering what I’d found, until I’d traced it for the...

China & Korea/NK Economics

January 17, 2011

U.S. Increases Diplomatic Pressure on China, North Korea

Last week’s rumors that the Obama Administration was pressuring South Korea to talk to the North left many of us confused, wondering to what extent the rumors were true, and wondering if this augured a weakening of the administration’s policy (third item). The following days, however, saw leading members of the administration threatening a direct use of force against North Korea, suggesting that U.S.-Chinese relations are at a critical stage because of its failure to restrain North Korea, and reaffirming...

Korean War II

January 16, 2011

Kim Jong Il’s Biggest Enabler Is Coming To Town

Passing on an email from Henry at the NK Freedom Coalition (note newly redesigned website) about what they’ll be up to in D.C. the night Kim Jong il’s biggest enabler will be dining at the White House. For those not in or near D.C., we can participate, too: On the occasion of the White House State dinner that President Barack Obama will host for President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China on January 19, 2011, the North Korea...

Activism/America/China/Human Rights

January 15, 2011

Open Sources

You’re kidding me. Even the New York Times has written a perfectly sensible editorial about North Korea? When President Obama and President Hu Jintao of China meet next week in Washington, this must be one of the top items on their agenda. Mr. Obama will have to forcefully argue the case that an erratic neighbor armed with nuclear weapons is anything but a recipe for the stability Beijing so prizes, or for an American military drawdown in the region. The...

Anju Links/Terrorism (NK)

January 14, 2011

Open Sources

I’ve been looking forward to Marcus Noland and Stephan Haggard’s new book on North Korea, refugees, and public opinion for a long time now. I don’t have a copy of my own yet (ahum! – not that I’d find the time to read it these days). But thankfully, Evan Ramstad interviews Noland at the WSJ’s indispensable Korea Real Time. __________________________________ It’s a diplomatic breakthrough: The Onion reports. Love those jackets. __________________________________ A Different Kind of Different Kind of War: Uriminzokkiri,...

Anju Links

January 13, 2011

Or, Maybe It’s Just the Same Old “Reign of Terror”

The other day, Adam found fault with a Chosun Ilbo report that claimed that North Korea’s cross-border slaughter of five refugees represented an escalation of its shoot-to-kill policy. I found the criticism rather pedantic and pointless, although the evidence on the whole suggests that crossing borders and shooting escapees are part of a long-standing pattern of North Korean atrocities. It’s too bad Adam didn’t wait a few days, because the Chosun Ilbo has presented him with a much softer target...

Human Rights/Refugees