Category: Anju Links

~   1   ~ SPEAKER SERIES IN SEOUL: The North Korea Strategy Center writes in, asking me to post links to two of its upcoming events, which I’m happy to do. On April 30th at 7 p.m., Joanna Hosaniak will present a talk entitled, “NKHR and the International Community,” and on May 7th at 7 p.m, Sokeel Park will present, “Accelerating Bottom-up Change in North Korea.” ~   2   ~ FOR EVERY ONE WHO MADE IT, A THOUSAND...

~  1  ~ THOSE NORTH KOREAN UAVs look exactly like a model manufactured in China. Not that it’s needed, but it’s yet more evidence that China isn’t enforcing U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. I hope the U.N. Panel of Experts is paying attention. Speaking of which, the POE’s new head will be French missile expert Erik Marzolf. I wish him luck in his important work. ~  2  ~ PUTIN IS BECOMING A PROBLEM ON NORTH KOREA: It looks...

I’m sorry I’ve been too busy to post quite as much this week, although I have a number of posts half-finished and in the queue. Today, however, my thoughts are with the families of the many young lives lost in the terrible tragedy off the coast of South Korea. Like everyone, I’m eager to know how this could have happened in calm seas, when the ship was reportedly near its intended course, and why the crew told the passengers to...

~   1   ~ YONGBYON JUST KEEPS GETTING SCARIER: OFK readers will remember the day the North Koreans blew up the cooling tower of their 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon to feign compliance with George W. Bush’s Agreed Framework 2.0. This was the modest pinnacle of Chris Hill’s diplomatic career, and came even as North Korea was submitting false declarations about its nuclear programs, denying the existence of a (since revealed) uranium enrichment program, and submitting samples of aluminum tubing...

~   1   ~ A THIRD NORTH KOREAN UAV has been found in the mountains near South Korea’s east coast. It’s another low aspect ratio wing design, similar to the one found in Paju last week. ~   2   ~ NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES A NEW CRACKDOWN on Christians: “A Pyongyang source explained the details. ‘Having sent 30 people off to prison camps, I am told that a total of around 100 more residents have been taken in for...

slavery n 1. (Law) the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his life, liberty, and fortune; 2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp in being forced into work; 3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit; 4. (Industrial Relations & HR Terms) work done in harsh conditions for low pay A good test of whether any particular “engagement” program with North Korea has lived up...

~  1  ~ CONSEQUENCES: The State Department sends a strong hint that it’s mulling more sanctions on North Korea in response to the North’s recent missile tests, including two medium-range missiles fired toward Japan, but offered no details on the type of sanction or whether they would be unilateral or at the U.N. This separate report, however, says that our U.N. ambassador is talking with other members of the Security Council. If State does press for U.N. sanctions, that would...

“At the end of the Second World War so many people said ‘if only we had known… if only we had known the wrongs that were done in the countries of the hostile forces’,” he said. “Well, now the international community does know… There will be no excusing of failure of action because we didn’t know,” he said, at a news conference at UN headquarters in Geneva. “Too many times in this building there are reports and no action. Well...

~  1  ~ SO U.S. NAVY SEALS HAVE BOARDED that North Korean-flagged tanker in Libya, and we may soon find out if the ship was connected to North Korea after all, Pyongyang’s denials notwithstanding. If North Korea was up to something fishy, disavowing it wasn’t a smart move. That gave us grounds to call the vessel stateless and board it. Update: Marcus Noland has a possible explanation, but my intuition says this isn’t the whole story. ~  2  ~ IF...

~  1  ~ I’LL HAVE MUCH MORE TO SAY ABOUT THE U.N. PANEL OF EXPERTS REPORT later this week as I read through it during my spare time, but I can’t resist telling you that there is such a thing as “The Gorgeous Bank of North Korea.” ~  2  ~ MICHAEL KIRBY ANSWERS HIS CRITICS on the left, thus illustrating the widening difference between “liberal” and “progressive.” I miss liberals. I didn’t always agree with them, but I almost always...

~  1  ~ HE SAYS HE’S NOT DEAD! Choe Ryong-Hae resurfaces. Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un’s half-sister, Kim Yeo-Jong, has been appointed to North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament. ~  2  ~ NORTH KOREA THREATENS THE U.S. AGAIN, in response to U.S. criticisms of North Korea’s ballistic missile launches, in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. For those who track North Korean rhetorical levels, KCNA seems to be going relatively easy on Seoul, but has been cranking out some exceptionally violent anti-American...

 ~  1  ~ CHOE PURGED, TOO? Several readers have pointed me to this Korea Herald story, which cites Free North Korea Radio, reporting that Choe Ryong-Hoe has now been purged (see also). We’ll probably have a better idea in a few days (weeks at most) whether that’s true, but North Korea Leadership Watch reports that Choe has made fewer public appearances recently, so the report seems plausible enough. If it is true, Choe was supposed to be Kim Jong Un’s...

~  1  ~ “N. KOREA LISTED AS ‘HIGH-RISK’ COUNTRY IN MONEY LAUNDERING” shouts this Yonhap headline. So does that mean that Treasury has finally designated North Korea as a primary money laundering concern, something that would severely restrict its access to the global financial system? No. This is actually a non-binding advisory by an international body called the Global Financial Action Task Force, and in fact, the new FATF statement is virtually identical to other advisories that are as many...

~  1  ~ THE NORTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT has finally gotten around to dismissing the U.N. Commission of Inquiry Report with some classic KCNA prose that (sadly) fails to deploy either “madcap” or “brigandish” for this special occasion: The Commission was set up highhandedly at the meeting of the Council last year by the U.S. and its satellite forces out of inveterate repugnance towards the DPRK. The DPRK, therefore, has never recognized its existence as it is no more than a...

~  1  ~ SOUTH KOREA’S NATIONAL ASSEMBLY STILL HASN’T MOVED on a North Korean human rights law, although I expect that next’s week’s release of the U.N. Commission of Inquiry report will likely put pressure to the Democratic Party to stop trying to turn it into the Kim Jong Un Recreational Facility Stimulus Act. The Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights is adding some pressure of its own, by demonstrating at the National Assembly building in Yeoido. ~  2 ...

~  1  ~ HERE COMES THE PARK DOCTRINE: The government plans to announce a set of guidelines on the Park Geun-hye administration’s national security policies next month to better publicize her handling of national security issues, an official said Tuesday. [….] He said the guidelines may also delve into Park’s global push for the unification of South and North Koreas and lay out in details each policy step of Park’s so-called Korea Peninsula Trust Process, aimed at denuclearizing North Korea....

~  1  ~ ROK, U.S. MILITARIES PREPARE “TAILORED” DETERRENCE: In 2010, North Korea attacked South Korea twice without eliciting any military response at all. If you ask me, that isn’t entirely a bad thing. Bombing a few shriveled conscripts wouldn’t perturb Kim Jong Un a whit. He might even spin that as a great military victory. We have other, non-military options (banking sanctions and subversive information operations) that would deter him much more. Unfortunately, but for understandable reasons, military planners...

~  1  ~ BRIAN MYERS’S TAKEDOWN OF “ENGAGEMENT” proponents at NK News is a must-read, a more erudite version of the argument I’ve made about North Korea changing the Associated Press rather than the opposite. What worries me is the subversion of our media. This usually comes about through interviews with self-styled engagers: charity workers, tour operators, exchange organizers, industrialists, film-makers. On the one hand they make claims of a decidedly political nature, to the effect that their work is...