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Category: Proliferation

April 25, 2007

Anju Links for 25 April 2007: The Children of Arirang, Questions About Treasury’s WMD Sanctions, and More Blackmail Boasts from Pyongyang

* Arirang, Child Exploitation Tourism: Haven’t you ever wondered about how such young children are taught such precise choreography, and why those robotic smiles are frozen on their little faces? The reality of Arirang is different however, according to vivid testimony of the parents whose children participate in the performance. Their children’s eyes are tense after robust mechanical drilling by their director. The training period for the Arirang is over 6 months. Particularly delicate dancing or movement may require training...
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/WMD
April 25, 2007

North Korea’s Sponsorship of Terrorist Acts, 1996-2007

As I noted here, at the end of  Update  4/24 to my North Korea Freedom Week post, the State Department is now  rumored to be seriously considering removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.  This conflicts with signals  State had sent earlier, and as I noted here,  would probably trigger a rebellion by  conservatives  in Congress. With Japan’s Prime Minister set to visit Washington next week, unverified gossip holds that the Bush Administration will put pressure...
Categories Abductions/Appeasement/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/WMD
April 23, 2007

Anju Links for 23 April 2007

*   The Ides of April.   I’ve previously blogged about the replacement of Premier  Pak Pong Ju with Kim Yong Il.  Now, we learn that Kim Kyok-Sik is taking over as the new “military first,” to borrow a tired  expression,  which technically makes him second only to Korigula himself (ht: Richardson).  Two other old party hacks have gone off to that Eternal Party Congress chaired by Mephistopheles himself, or soon will:  Foreign Minister  Paek Nam-Sun  and Marshall Cho Myong-Rok.  All...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Korean Society/Kremlinology/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/Southeast Asia/Uncategorized/WMD
April 19, 2007

Anju Links for 19 April 2007

*   Cho Myong Rok, who is probably the second or third-most important North Korean official, is reported to be dying.  Cho is the one Kim Jong Il designated to visit Washington and meet with President Clinton years ago.  Doctors expect the 79-year-old vice marshal to live another month or two, as he already had one of his kidneys removed 10 years ago, and has gone through treatment for cancer in his intestines, the organization said.  Here’s a brief Global...
Categories "United" Nations/Korean Society/Kremlinology/WMD
April 18, 2007

Is North Korea Shutting Down Yongbyon After All?

Update:   Or maybe just wishful South Korean thinking? Contrary to published reports, the United States has seen no signs that North Korea has begun to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility as called for in a February 13 six-country agreement, a senior U.S, official said on Tuesday. News reports in South Korean media are “just not accurate … We have seen no actions on the North Koreans’ part that at this point leads us to believe they are fulfilling...
Categories Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 16, 2007

Anju Links for 16 April 2007

*  My latest K-blog discovery is “Six Happy Feet,” a superb photoblog with a great  name.  You’ll want to put this one on your blogrolls.  It’s hard to read  it without concluding that this is just a genuinely nice family. *   A Nation’s Conscience.   Some South Koreans are demanding freedom for those North Korean refugees in Laos — the ones the South Korean government refused to help.  *   Heal Thyself, Part 1.   I can understand why...
Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 14, 2007

Agreed Framework 2.0: A Day 60 Scorecard

[Update:   I decided to  append various newsworthy or interesting reactions to the  passage of this deadline at the end of this post;  please scroll to the bottom to read.  For new readers, the man on the right is Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who  expended years of connivance on getting us to make this deal, and who personally negotiated its amorphous terms.  Hill has staked his reputation on the idea that North Korea is capable of abiding by...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/WMD
April 13, 2007

‘Kim Jong Bill’ Richardson and Camp 22

[Update:   The dissenting comments have been erased again.  Gov. Richardson’s fans want to create a cult of adulation in which all  dissent is stifled and concentration camps are never mentioned.   All of this is somehow  familiar to a North Korea-watcher.] [Update 2:   Help us keep “Kim Jong Bill” on Wikipedia until he asks Kim Jong Il to close down Camp 22.  I’ve put the text and code at the bottom of the post, below the line.  Everyone is...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/WMD
April 12, 2007

Anju Links for 12 April 2007

*   Shocking.   North Korea wants another 30 days to shut down Yongbyon, now that the deadline is half a week away.  Most media accounts are focusing on North Korea’s agreement to take back U.N. inspectors, though it’s not clear if they’ll have access to more than this one site, and we’ve certainly learned that the acceptance of U.N. inspectors is a highly reversible development.  The more time passes, the more this looks like something less than the first...
Categories Diplomacy/WMD
April 9, 2007

Peace in Our Time: Bracing for a Missed Deadline, and the ‘Good’ Unilateralism

If you wonder just how fundamental our policy shift on North Korea has been — fundamentally bad, that is — just look at the fact that Bill Richardson’s amateur diplomacy toward Kim Jong Il is no longer being ignored by the White House  [AP, Foster Klug].  Six months ago, a Bill Richardson visit to his friends in Pyongyang would have followed some White House statements that Richardson was acting  on his own as a private citizen.  Today, as President Clinton...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/WMD
April 8, 2007

Some Questions for David Albright (Which He Won’t Answer)

[Some Background for new readers:   When the U.S. and North Korea  signed a denuclearization agreement on February 13th, one of the major unresolved issues was the question of North Korea’s suspected uranium enrichment program.   When U.S. diplomats confronted the North Koreans in 2002 with  evidence  suggesting the existence of  that program, North Korea admitted, in effect, that it had a program and “so what of it?”  The United States then declared North Korea in violation of the Agreed Framework of...
Categories Media Criticism/WMD
April 8, 2007

N. Korea gets a U.S. green light to sell arms, and six months after its unanimous passage, UNSCR 1718 is a dead letter

That resolution may have been the only potentially effective U.N. action in my living memory, and the hand that held the dagger belonged to none other than our own State Department.  The United States ignored an apparent violation of the international sanctions against North Korea by turning a blind eye to an arms shipment that Pyongyang sent to Ethiopia earlier this year, according to a story in Sunday’s edition of The New York Times. North Korea has been subject to...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/Washington Views/WMD
March 28, 2007

A novel definition for ‘denuclearization;’ and where to keep a horse (from being eaten) in N. Korea

According to this Chosun Ilbo report, North Korea recently floated a novel interpretation of “denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” under which it could, you know, keep its nuclear weapons.  I wonder what they expected: The assistant secretary of state made it clear that Washington’s goal is complete denuclearization saying, “The U.S. will not form any kind of ties with a nuclear-armed North Korea. He stipulated that “the case of India (which signed a nuclear pact despite possessing nuclear programs) will...
Categories Human Rights/Kim Jong Il/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 27, 2007

As N. Korea Reverts to Form, Hill Warns Kim Jong Il

Via Richardson: The U.S. envoy to the North Korea nuclear talks said Monday that Pyongyang needs to meet international standards, especially in human rights, in order to have relations with Washington. “It’s a price of admission to the international community,” Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill said.  [Yonhap] Does this encourage me?  I’m not sure.  It’s not a bad thing that Chris Hill is tipping his hat  comb-over in this direction, although “international standards, especially in human rights” are a...
Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/WMD
March 24, 2007

Anju Links for 3/24: Another Stolen Life, More Measles in N. Korea, Cowardly Capital, and the Diplomacy of Blame

*   Doina Bumbea, artist, 1950-1997.    From this photo, it’s  almost as if she could foresee the tragedy of her own  life. The circumstantial proof seems strong, though  not conclusive, that the  North Koreans lured  Doina from  Bucharest  to Japan and kidnapped her for the use of U.S. Army deserter James Dresnok,  who by all accounts is an utterly comtemptible person.  But  Doina’s family, which didn’t know what happened to her for all these years, seems convinced.  And there’s...
Categories Abductions/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 23, 2007

How Many North Koreans Was the World Program Really Feeding?

Update:   Paul Eckert of Reuters did a very fine interview with Marcus Noland.  “It could well be that a nuclear deal that resulted in greater amounts of aid would actually allow the North Korean government to intensify activities that are essentially reestablishing economic and political control over the population,” he said. …. “When things look better … the North Korean government tries to pull back on this process of marketization and reform,” Noland said. “One of the saddest things...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/WMD
March 22, 2007

So Much for ‘Peace in Our Time’

[Sorry for the earlier comments glitch; please e-mail me if you have problems.]   OK, now the diplos have flown home.  Talks on halting North Korea’s nuclear program broke down abruptly on Thursday with the country’s chief nuclear envoy flying home after a dispute over money frozen in a Macau bank could not be resolved. Kim Kye Gwan flew out of Beijing after refusing to take part in six-party talks to push forward a February agreement calling for North Korea...
Categories "United" Nations/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/Russia & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WMD
March 21, 2007

‘Peace in Our Time!’ Updates

[Updated below]   As I write,  diplomats from five nations have decided to stick around at a resort somewhere near Beijing for a couple more days, probably  for many exciting hours of  CNN International, while North Korea decides whether it’s interested in talking about uranium.  Contrary to reports I’d read yesterday, no one is flying home just yet, but no one expects anything to get done this week, either. The holdup — which U.S. negotiator Chris Hill and the New...
Categories Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/WMD