Open Sources, October 4, 2012
YAWN: North Korea goes to the U.N., an organization it ought to have been expelled from a decade ago, and threatens nuclear war.
IN IRAN, JOURNALISM IMITATES PARODY, but we’ve known the same about North Korea for a while now, haven’t we?
DEATH STAR INDEED: The Daily Mail piles on the empty shell that is the Ryugyong Hotel. If the reports about Camp 22’s liquidation are correct, the regime was choosing to starve the prisoners at the same time it was also choosing to buy glass to cover the Ryugyong Hotel.
MORE ON NORTH KOREA’S GOLD SELL-OFF: The Chosun Ilbo reports, and Strategy Page also takes note of this and other indications that the North Korean regime now finds itself in a period of extreme financial duress. Historically, North Korea has sold gold in such times, but what we don’t know is the rate at which it’s being sold or when, given existing resources, the stockpile will be depleted. And remember, some of that gold comes from labor camps. More on foreign investment in North Korea mines here.
KAESONG UPDATE: I’ve made no secret of my belief that South Korean government subsidies for businesses that pay “wages” to
Still, I have to concede that Kaesong has been remarkably persistent, and has even grown in scale, in spite of years of my predictions that it would soon fail, and even a North Korean announcement that it would be closed. Sadly, however, South Korea could never find the political will to de-subsidize (and thus wind down) the Kaesong experiment — not even after the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents. That’s why it’s heartening to see North Korean tax collectors stepping into the void and threatening the businesses there with arbitrary back tax calculations and confiscatory penalties.