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Category: Appeasement

June 1, 2006

Korea Diary, 1 June 06

The latest word on the first six North Korean refugees to come to the United States is inspiring: During the dinner, the six were tearful. “I never thought time was so precious,” said a 32-year-old former North Korean soldier, who is now calling himself Sin Joseph. “But, now, I don’t want to waste any second, any minute.” He said he has two goals “• to learn English and to earn a license as an auto mechanic. Sin Joseph escaped to...
Categories Appeasement/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/NK Economics/Refugees/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
May 19, 2006

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Bush’s Old “New” Approach

[Update 2, 5/18: On the other hand, the “Kim Jong Hill” plan looks great next to the Richard Lugar plan, which is nothing more than a shiny new formula for buying lies with bribes. Lugar is a very nice person to meet and has his heart in the right place, but diplomatically, this is not the thing to be proposing when our financial crackdown and our political offensive are both showing some promising signs of success. When dealing with gangsters,...
Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 16, 2006

Korea Diary, 17 May 06

If you need an even better illustration of the idiocy of the Tokdo distraction, read this moving story about the families of two hostages, one Japanese and one South Korean, who married during their captivity in North Korea. Yokota expressed gratitude that his son-in-law was a South Korean. “I am so lucky to have a South Korean son-in-law, not a North Korean. I am so happy that I can hope that our families may meet one another again. He said...
Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Islam/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
May 15, 2006

UniFictions

This one is straight out of the Peter Ban book of Foreign Policy: A new sign reading “Passengers Heading to Pyongyang Board Here” was set up on the Dorasan Station platform, one of the test-operation sections of the Gyeongeui and Donghae Lines over which South and North Korea reached an agreement on May 13. What an amazing coincidence! Why, that’s just six days before the next election! Still, if we really, really wish for it, it will be. I wonder...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
May 12, 2006

Balance This!

[T]he Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on international security, Moon Chung-in, in a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo elaborated on remarks a day earlier that Roh “is losing patience with U.S. President George W. Bush. Today, my friends, I write to you from a city living in fear. As our President, George W. Bush, sits in the White House nibbling compulsively at the bleeding tendrils where there were fingernails just a day ago, a cunning tiger holds court from his...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WTF?
May 11, 2006

Highway Rohbery

I thought the idea was to teach capitalism to North Korea, not to teach South Korea’s government how to expropriate and confiscate. The government has asked the Federation of the Korean Industries (FKI) to help urge large companies to set up in the Gaesong Industrial Complex. Most large companies do not want to do so, and they view the request of the government as “pressure. The leader of the Gaesong Industrial Complex Support Team of the Ministry of Unification and...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
May 8, 2006

Kaesong Absurdities

[W]e have signs to believe that there are certain incentives for North Korean laborers working at the Kaesong complex, such as there are no complaints from workers who are asked to work overtime. — Unification Ministry Official As long as the UniFiction Ministry speaks, this blog will never lack for exquisite fisking material. With the White House standing firmly behind Human Rights Envoy Jay Lefkowitz’s concern that Kaesong fails to comply with international labor standards, (I would also raise U.S....
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Human Rights/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 7, 2006

Links of Note

The Political Pendulum: The Chosun Ilbo thinks that the Korean blogosphere is turning right. Although the report depends on readers’ ideological self-identification, I do see modest signs that in South Korea, the pendulum is swinging away from the far left. The problem for the Korea right continues to be that it has articulated no vision that has appeal for younger voters. In a word, it’s reactionary. ====================== Engaging the People: American cartoonist Ranan Lurie wants to bring “uniting artwork” to...
Categories Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links
May 4, 2006

NGO Warns of New Famine in N. Korea

In the wake of North Korea’s decisions to kick out the World Food Program and reassert state control over food distribution, Human Rights Watch is warning that North Korea can’t feed its people, and that attempts to reconstitute its broken and discriminatory Public Distribution System could trigger a new famine. “Only a decade ago, similar policies led to the famine that killed anywhere from 580,000 to more than 3 million,” the group said in a statement released to reporters in...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Famine & Food Aid/U.S. & Korea
May 4, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 38: Chairman Lee’s Little Red Book of Quotations

[Update and Clarification: Non-geek readers with lives may not realize that Lee Jong-Seok is actually South Korea’s Minister of Unification. One reader reasonably assumed that he was a North Korean, which is certainly an understandable assumption, based on some of the things Lee has been saying this week.] “[Kim Jong Il is] one of the figures in the North we can get [an] agreement from and who can make proper decisions. . . . The two [Kim and South Korean...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 4, 2006

Refugees Update

[Update: Richardson picks up several other reports to the same effect. Things seem to be moving, and you have to wonder what could happen next now that the word has started to spread.] The Chosun Ilbo reports fresh signs of progress that the State Department is finally aboard the love train on North Korean refugees. A group of North Korean defectors in Southeast Asia is reportedly seeking asylum in the United States. In an interview with Korea’s Yonhap News, a...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Diplomacy/Human Rights/North Korea/Refugees/Southeast Asia/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 2, 2006

Jay Lefkowitz Is Right About Kaesong

The debate about South Korea’s role in (not) improving human rights in the North seems to intensify by the hour. Freedom House is the latest to testify for the prosecution. If you believe the latest report from the Chosun Ilbo, the State Department is reeling from the vitriolic South Korean reaction to U.S. Human Rights Envoy Jay Lefkowitz over labor conditions in North Korea’s Kaesong Industrial Park: Another U.S. government insider also said the controversial piece by Lefkowitz had not...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Law/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 2, 2006

The Forked Tongue of Lee Jong-Seok, Part 2

“At least since 2000 when we began providing assistance to the North, no one there has been starving to death,” Lee said. — UniFiction Minister Lee Jong-Seok (ht to Richardson) In sum, although the period of high famine has passed, North Korea continues to experience chronic food shortages that are hitting hard at an underemployed and unemployed urban working class in particular. . . . Moreover, given the political stratification of North Korea and the inability of the WFP to...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/Censorship/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/North Korea/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views