Category: Anju Links

AMPONTAN (AKA BILL SAKOVICH) HAS DIED. Often, when he hear of the loss of someone, our reaction is, “But I just saw him!” Ampontan’s wonderful Japan blog is actually still posting  timed entries posthumously, but Bill gave me one of the final links of his life, and for that, I’m honored, grateful, and saddened for his family, who lost him during a season when they should have been enjoying his company in happier circumstances. RIP, Bill. ————————————————————— SELIG HARRISON, CALL...

IN SOUTH KOREA, THEY’RE COUNTING THE BALLOTS in a neck-and-neck contest between “bad” and “dreadful.” This ill foreboding I feel comes from South Koreans’ tendency to react to North Korean threats with votes for appeasers, and because both candidates are selling one form of appeasement or another, so there’s no way I’ll be embarrassed by this prediction. (A likely plurality of voters in democratic societies have been singing various stanzas of “Make the World Go Away” for most of the...

No single member of Congress of either party, in either chamber, is a more persistent advocate of the human rights of the North Korean people than Representative Ed Royce.  Royce represents California’s 40 District in Orange County, which contains a large Korean-American constituency.  Just as the situation in Cuba seemed to inspire outgoing Chair Ileana Ros-Lehtinen the most, the situation in North Korea has always seemed to inspire Royce the most. Yesterday, I learned that Royce has been selected to...

VIDEO:  A wooden boat with fading Korean characters painted on it washes up on Japan’s West Coast.  Aboard are the decomposing bodies of five men. ————————————————– WHERE HAS THE U.S.S. PUEBLO GONE? ————————————————– I, FOR ONE, FULLY SUPPORT THEIR DECISION:  North Korea to confiscate property from companies at Kaesong that fail to pay punitive taxes.  Good luck attracting more investment with that strategy! ————————————————– NORTH KOREAN PERESTROIKA WATCH:  According to an unverifiable report attributed to “sources,” North Korea has replaced...

CAMP 22 UPDATE:  Radio Free Asia is doubling down on its report of the liquidation and re-purposing of the camp, but after reviewing the satellite imagery and seeing Joe Bermudez’s interpretations reenforce my own conclusions, I find this very difficult to believe.  The truth we can more-or-less prove is horrible enough. ——————————————— HITCHENS HASN’T BEEN DEAD A YEAR and I miss him already: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is, as Christopher Hitchens once described the occluded realm ruled by the Kim family in Pyongyang, a...

SCOOPING THE AP YET AGAIN, The Onion names Kim Jong Un 2012’s Sexiest Man Alive. —————————————- CHRIS GREEN OF THE DAILY NK writes that the North Korean regime seems concerned about the loyalty of its soldiers. —————————————- WHY SOUTH KOREA’S SWITCH TO DIGITAL TV is bad news for North Koreans. —————————————- I FAULT MYSELF for having been too alarmist in predicting a North Korean famine in 2006, but when Andrew Natsios sounds the alarm, we should take his warning seriously. —————————————- I DON’T DISAGREE...

Interesting, but I’m still not convinced.  I don’t claim to know the truth; I can only interpret the evidence I have. Update:  Joe Bermudez, whom I would actually characterize as an expert in the field (unlike myself) publishes detailed analysis of the new imagery, and notices pretty much the same things I’d observed here. Hat tip:  Curtis.

SO HOW DID WEN JIABAO’S FAMILY amass a family fortune of $2.7 billion? The difficulty of answering that question causes China to block the New York Times. The corruption of China’s politicians seems endemic and universal, but the prosecution of their corruption seems to have more to do with factionalism than morality.  I loved the close: “When a country is so corrupt that one lightning strike can cause a train crash … none of us are exempt. China today is a train...

I THINK THIS SAYS IT ALL: “This story may or may not be true.” ——————————————————- CAMP 22 UPDATE: The Daily NK reports on who it believes now occupies the camp, but I still have questions. ——————————————————- USFK TRIES TO REJOIN U.S. ARMY by expressing interest in joining off-peninsula exercises. And in other USFK news, I’m glad to see that Leon Panetta and Kim Kwang-Jin are putting some thought into how to respond to limited North Korean provocations, more than two...

NORTH KOREA THREATENS to fire on people, many of them North Korean refugees, for floating leaflet balloons into their former homeland.  Here’s the original, from KCNA: The Western Front Command of the KPA issues following notice upon authorization: 1. Rimjin Pavilion in Phaju City, location from where the puppet forces made public they would send leaflets and its surrounding area will become targets of direct firing of the KPA from now. The location is the origin of provocation which can...

CHINA ELECTRIFIES its border fence with North Korea, reportedly with a below-lethal 220 volts (for now). ————————————————– NORTH KOREA WARNS ITS CITIZENS against contact with foreigners: According to the source, “The lecturers put it like this: ‘foreigners are envious of our ideology and will try to undermine it,’ and emphasize that ‘we should not communicate with them because they could be enemy forces in disguise trying to attack our socialist ways and spread bad ideas.’” The source continued, “The lecture...

THE ONION: Seed Of World War III Planted In Beijing Middle-School Gym Class. ————————————————– AGREED FRAMEWORK III WATCH:  North Korea still isn’t interested in nuclear disarmament, and our diplomats are still secretly chasing a deal, knowing full well that North Korea won’t disarm.  But for what conceivable purpose?  I repeat my suspicion that these contacts wouldn’t be happening if the Obama Administration wasn’t laying the groundwork for more “flexible” post-election diplomacy.  Those involved (Bosworth, Wit, etc.) are connected with the...

WHAT? STATE’S EAST ASIA BUREAU COLLABORATING WITH CHINESE OFFICIALS who unjustly imprison and torture a U.S. citizen? Say it aint so. ————————————- DON’T TELL ME SANCTIONS CAN’T WORK; they’re certainly exceeding my expectations in Iran. Iran, unlike North Korea, has a functioning market economy. That means that its economy has more international exposure, but also that it’s more difficult to isolate. And yet we seem to have had enough success to threaten the stability of its regime. ————————————- AS YE...

WHILE 30,000 STARVED IN CAMP 22: Saenuri Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun, a member of the National Assembly`s foreign affairs, trade and unification committee, released Wednesday an analysis of closed trade data between North Korea and China, saying the North`s imports of luxury goods via Chinese customs reached 446.17 million U.S. dollars in 2010 and 584.82 million dollars last year. The figure was 272.14 million dollars in 2008 and 322.53 million dollars in 2009. Kim Jong Un debuted in the Stalinist...

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...

BURIED WITHIN THIS DAILY NK REPORT about the rumored merger of multiple regime-owned businesses was this dire statement: “At the time of writing, the price of rice has reached an outlandish 6700 won/kg even in Pyongyang itself, while also arriving at 7000 won in Onsung County and 6500 won in Hyesan, putting those people without foreign currency in a very difficult situation.” It’s remarkable how similar the Pyongyang price is to the prices in Onsung and Hyesan, two of North...