17 February 2010
Not that they’d likely accomplish much anyway, but Kim Jong Il continues to balk at returning to six-party talks. The absence of any excuse to pay Kim Jong Il off is always a good thing, I suppose. Not that China needs one.
North Korea launches another crackdown on cell phones. I don’t understand how Orascom hopes to establish itself in this sort of environment. A serious question for anyone who knows: why does North Korea think it can control Orascom phones?
Talks to restart Kumgang tours break down as North Korea refuses to cooperate with an inquiry into its killing of a South Korean wife and mother:
North Korea rejected an offer by South Korea to conduct a joint investigation of the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist by North Korean soldiers in July 2008. North Korea in talks about the resumption of package tours to the resort said soldiers had acted within the rules by firing on “an unidentified infiltrator.”
Park Wang-ja, the victim, was a woman in her 50s and was apparently killed when she strayed into a military area near a hotel where she stayed.
A South Korean source said North Korea blamed Park for straying into the zone during prohibited hours (midnight until 6 a.m.), while visibility was poor at around 4:50 a.m., before sunrise. But South Korean officials said the gunshot was heard by witnesses around 5:15 a.m., which was after sunrise, and the North Korean military failed to put a sentry on guard in the area to warn tourists against trespassing. [Chosun Ilbo]
In what the Joongang Ilbo calls a “highly unusual” move, North Korea is replacing its top diplomats in Beijing. Is this another sign that a purge is underway? Mike Madden has more on this.
Meanwhile in Russia, a North Korean official has defected.
While President Barack Obama fights do-or-die political battles at home, his ambitious designs to overhaul U.S. foreign policy – from the Middle East to Iran to Russia to North Korea – simmer on the back burner. [AP]
Something tells me that this distraction is probably a good thing, on balance. Obama’s North Korea policy is far from perfect, but it’s certainly far less bad than there was reason for us to fear.
The news media love to focus on the potential of “engagement” projects like this one, which features British professors teaching English in unheated classrooms in Pyongyang. I suppose, the regime’s efforts at inoculation and monitoring aside, this may have some subversive potential, but that potential is dwarfed by the subversive power of smugglers and markets to distribute DVD’s and ChocoPies. Those more significant developments get a lot less media attention, in part because they’re hard to cover, but also because state-to-state engagement tends to fit the preferred narrative of some journalists better than the idea of subversive and revolutionary capitalism. Hat tip to a reader.
A new documentary about North Korea, “Sona, the Other Myself” is winning good reviews for its portrayal of a Korean family divided between North Korea and Japan:
Yang’s “Dear Pyongyang” won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance in 2006 and was a sleeper in Japan, even allaying some long-held suspicions among Japanese about “Zainichi” (ethnic Koreans). This sequel is no less personal or touching. Festival and TV audiences who enjoyed the former will crave second helpings. [Reuters]
Beijing’s threats notwithstanding, the Dalai Lama will visit the White House.