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Category: Kremlinology

February 12, 2007

Acting Out

Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, appeared in Beijing on Sunday. Immigration officials at Shoudu Airport in Beijing said that Kim Jong-nam was included on a list of VIPs who arrived in the Chinese capital that day. Kim, wearing a cap, sunglasses, and blue jeans, was first spotted in the afternoon by Japanese television crews at the airport. He stopped briefly in front of a hotel in Beijing to answer reporters’ questions. “I have nothing...
Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
February 3, 2007

Diverted N. Korean Food Aid Traced to Single Recipient

Update 2/5/07:  The Joongang Ilbo thinks Kim Jong Nam is on the clock for his father after all: While staying abroad, Jong-nam has been reporting back to his father on the situation here and in the United States,” the source said. “What is important is that he has been allowed by his father to make contact with people from South Korea and the United States at will. This, from an unnamed source.  It’s a terrific argument for keeping that $25...
Categories China & Korea/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
January 29, 2007

Vaporize the Messenger

“People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word.”   — George Orwell, 1984 Today, the Dong-A Ilbo reports a surprising defection, and an unsurprising, yet on some level, rather  remarkable result: Recently, rumors have been spreading in North Korea that Jeong Ha Cheol (74-year-old), the propaganda...
Categories Defectors/Kremlinology
January 26, 2007

Coup Rumors Swirl in North Korea

Update:   More coup rumors.  Thanks to a friend for alerting me to this one, although it doesn’t seem to have worked out the way I hoped: The South Korean government on Friday denied a Japanese report that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could be ill or faced a military coup. Japan’s Jiji Press reported that Kim may be under house arrest at his villa in Wonsan along the east coast. “The Japanese report on Kim Jong-il seems groundless because...
Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
January 18, 2007

Things Not to Say in North Korea

 Ju Tong-il, minister of power and coal industries, was fired late last year by the leaders of the impoverished Communist state, the evening edition of the Mainichi Shimbun daily said in a story from Beijing.  “Our country’s energy situation is extremely severe,” Ju told a meeting of energy-related officials last spring, according to the daily, quoting unnamed sources close to the North Korean government.  “Or better yet, why don’t we get back electricity fed to the guesthouses of our general?”...
Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology
January 10, 2007

N. Korean Foreign Minister Conveys Dear Leader’s Greetings to Saddam Hussein, Presents Credentials to Satan

In an obituary dated Jan. 4, the Minju Chosun said, “Regrettably, Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun passed away at 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 2 at the age of 77 because of terminal disease (lung cancer),” the newspaper was quoted as saying by Yonhap News Agency.  [link] After  a simple funeral service in Paek’s provincial  home town, his porcine corpse was disinterred, rendered into soondae and taeji-kalbi,  and eaten by starving neighbors. Pic:  REUTERS/Viktor Korotayev
Categories Diplomacy/Kremlinology
December 8, 2006

Kim Jong Il Glimpses His ‘Pleasure Squad’ in the Afterlife

The Korea Economic Institute was kind enough to send me what turned out to be one of the most interesting and readable papers  I’ve ever read on North Korea — a psychological study of Kim Jong Il.  The bad news is that KEI has not released the full text yet, but the good news is that if you follow the previous link, the author will participate in a public discussion of his paper at the National War College on December...
Categories Diplomacy/Humor/Satire/Kim Jong Il/Unintended Humor
December 5, 2006

Kremlinology, Luxury Goods, and Stolen Rice

I don’t expect Resolution 1718’s luxury goods ban to have much of a  short-term impact on North Korea, beyond focusing attention  on all of the frivolous things Kim Jong Il would rather buy than rice.   For the longer term, however, Korea watcher Ken Gause, in what is probably the definitive work of North Korean Kremlinology (ht) did a pretty good job before-the-fact of explaining the gradual trends we seem to be hoping we can advance (Gause actually  spends almost none...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Korean Politics/Kremlinology
November 29, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 15

The United States has leaked a new set of sanctions on “luxury items” that can no longer be exported to North Korea, in accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718: [T]he list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim’s swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis. Electronic goods like I-pods and plasma TV’s are also banned.  Defectors helped...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology/Washington Views
November 23, 2006

Score One for the ‘Barrel of a Gun’ Theory

Look what the Partei is telling the proles: At a people’s meeting in Hoiryeong, citizens were educated on the justice of North Korea’s nuke experiment and the economic aftereffects of the nuke experiment. An organizer of the people’s meeting in Hoiryeong said “The nuclear experiment has broken all of U.S. North Korea pressure policies and we have successfully shown the whole world that our socialism is good. Now, beginning from the nations of the six-party talks, countries around the world...
Categories Inside NK/Kremlinology
November 21, 2006

The Case for Starving the People

I noticed this interesting graf in a story about the effect of the luxury  items sanctions in UNSCR 1718.  For reasons that escape me entirely, some people believe that it’s counterproductive to bar Kim Jong Il from buying sashimi, S-Class sedans, and Omega watches while his people are starving – to – death,  some seem so quick to forget. Over past years, U.S. leaders have described the North Korean regime as an axis of evil, an outpost of tyranny, an...
Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il/Korean Education/Washington Views
October 11, 2006

TV Ad Satirizes Albright and Kim Jong Il

I’d seen it on TV this morning and tried to post something about  it, but it took Richardson to actually find the ad  (link to video), which the Republicans decided not to use for fear of giving offense.    Not exactly Bush=Hitler stuff, really, but very funny.  I hope it gets good circulation on the net, and let’s especially hope that Albright issues some terse and snippy statement, which will really give this thing  legs.  
Categories Diplomacy/Humor/Satire/Kim Jong Il
September 15, 2006

Daily NK: Kim Jong Il’s Niece Commits Suicide in Paris

After life in Paris, I suppose even a gilded life in Pyongyang would seem less worth living. A niece of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il killed herself in Paris, probably because she did not want to return to her home in the reclusive state, Yonhap news agency reported on Friday. Jang Keum-song, 29, died in Paris – where she was studying – because of what appeared to be an overdose of sleeping pills taken after drinking alcohol, Yonhap cited a...
Categories Kim Jong Il/Korean Society
September 7, 2006

‘Barrel of a Gun’ Redux

North Korean Army propaganda adds fuel to my pet theory: According to the article, North Korea developed nuclear weapon for the purpose of self-defense because “˜the vicious American gang leader Bush labeled us one of the axis of evil and rogue states, and declared not to have conversation with us unless his sinister conditions were met.’ The document says the United States bewildered after the North’s declaration of possession of nuclear weapon and then started to yield to Pyongyang. Therefore...
Categories Kremlinology/WMD