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April 7, 2008

China Steps Up Efforts to Undermine U.S. and U.N. Sanctions Against N. Korea

The single most important provision of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, for which China cast a disingenuous “yes” vote, is the provision that requires member states to “ensure” that funds flowing into North Korea are not used for its WMD programs. Similarly, Resolution 1695 requires states to “exercise vigilance” against efforts to fund U.N. sanctions. Now, in the wake of U.S. Treasury sanctions that have put the North Korean regime under unprecedented pressure to meet its disarmament obligations, China is...
Categories China/China & Korea/Money Laundering/NK Crime/NK Economics/Proliferation/WMD
April 2, 2008

Treasury: North Korea Still Counterfeiting, Still a Financial Pariah

The State Department and Bill Richardson  may harbor illusions to the contrary, but Stuart Levey, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence may be only man in Washington with real influence  over Pyongyang.  Yesterday, Levey  appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to testify.  A reader (thank you) forwarded me a copy of his testimony, and I excerpt the North Korea portion for you here.  The key points  here are that (a) North Korea continues to be an international financial...
Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/NK Crime
January 25, 2008

Kevin G. Hall’s Counterfeit Journalism (Updated)

[Update 28 Jan 08:   I’m going to keep flogging this story until I’ve corrected the record.  A reader (thank you)  directs me to this Bloomberg story by none other than Bradley K. Martin and Hideko Takayama.  This one is second only to Steven Mihm’s  for  the quality of its  investigative reporting.  If you’ve read Martin’s book, you’ll  already know  that he’s no neocon collapsist, to say the least.    Takayama and Martin interviewed Yoshihide Matsumura, “whose Matsumura Technology Co....
Categories Counterfeiting/Media Criticism/Money Laundering
January 22, 2008

Plan B: How to Disarm Kim Jong Il Without Bombing Him

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.    — Albert Einstein Plan A, gentle diplomacy,  has  again  failed to disarm Kim Jong Il.  Whenever this happens (every time it’s tried) advocates of doing the same thing over and over again fall back on The False Choice, whether expressly or by implication:  it’s  their way or war.  They know better, of course, which technically makes this a lie.   And usually, this lie  stands uncorrected: “People...
Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks
December 30, 2007

Ralph Cossa is wrong; Pressure on North Korea worked, when applied

Generally, I agree with  Robert Koehler  that Lee Myung Bak’s landslide victory was anything but a mandate for a better, more moral North Korea policy.  It will put  less irrational people in charge, but the policy will not be the improvement that Nicholas Eberstadt hopes for unless Kim Jong Il gets seriously on the wrong side of  Lee Myung-Bak’s temper. Why?   First, the election was all about money.  Second, Lee Myung Bak is all about money.  Third, South Korean voters  …...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics/Money Laundering
September 11, 2007

Noland and Haggard: Kim Jong Il’s Palace Economy Is Broken

North Korea is a land made in the vision of John Edwards:  to a greater extent than almost anywhere, there are two North Koreas.  That division is even preserved by a semi-official, hereditary caste system.  That’s why it wouldn’t be completely accurate to say  that North Korea’s economy is near collapse; one of the North Korean economies — the peoples’ economy — collapsed  a dozen  years ago.  What was left of it was severely disrupted by the Great Famine, when...
Categories Money Laundering/NK Economics
July 13, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised, Part 2

Law enforcement will not be compromised. ““ Chris Hill, Feb. 27, 2007   [Update:   Welcome Wall Street Journal readers.]   The latest refutation of this whopper of diplomatic mendacity is an extensive new investigative report on North Korea’s criminal enterprises from Time  (thanks to a reader for forwarding).  The report suggests that our State Department’s incomprehensible  decision to return $25 million  of Kim Jong Il’s criminally derived funds,  now under GAO investigation as a possible violation of our own...
Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks
June 20, 2007

North Korean Money and the Fed

Kevin Hassett, Director of Economic Policy Studies at the  American Enterprise Institute, asks, “Why did the Fed help North Korea launder money?”  I’m no economist, so I’m interested in how the transaction  could affect the Federal Reserve system.  Hassett thinks  this transaction simultaneously  inseminated the Fed with dirty money and politics, and he doesn’t think we’re going to like what we see at the end of the gestation.  You ought to read the whole piece, but here’s a graf: It...
Categories Money Laundering/NK Economics/U.S. Politics
June 12, 2007

Republicans Rebel on N. Korea Policy, Demand GAO Money Laundering Inquiry

You may recall that in this post and in this piece for Front Page Magazine, I suggested that our own State Deparment’s attempts to return $25 million to the North Korean regime — much or most of it proceeds of crime — could violate U.S. money laundering laws, as well as two U.N. resolutions the United States successfully lobbied for less than a year ago.  As it turns out, great minds think alike. Now, with Russia about to step up...
Categories Counterfeiting/Money Laundering/U.S. Politics
May 29, 2007

Wachovia Backs Off of North Korea Funds Transfer

State must  really regret having let the Banco Delta issue  enter the mainstream of our nuclear diplomacy with the North Koreans.  What a terrifically mangled excuse it has become for North Korea’s nonperformance. The United States believes a banking dispute blocking a nuclear disarmament accord will drag on and has pressed North Korea to start shutting its reactor in return for a firm US promise of a solution, a report said Monday.  [AFP] This is just odd.  You’d think that...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Money Laundering
May 14, 2007

One Man’s Diplomacy Is Another Man’s Conspiracy (or Chris Hill, Call Your Lawyer)

Whoever [in the  United States or in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States] knowingly engages or attempts to engage in a monetary transaction in criminally derived property of a value greater than $10,000 and is derived from specified unlawful activity, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b).  —   So  here’s something I though I’d never see:  U.S. government officials more-or-less openly engaging in a conspiracy that would land anyone else in a federal prison...
Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/Six-Party Talks
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 12, 2007

Law Enforcement Will Be Compromised

Correction:   I subsequently found the transcript for the February 27, 2007 hearing, and Chris Hill did not say, quote, “Law enforcement will not be compromised.”  On reading the full quote, you’ll probably agree that Hill found another way of saying the same thing; however, I regret the error, which was no doubt due to me scribbling notes of the hearing by hand, and transposing Rep. Royce’s question with Hill’s answer.  Here’s the correct quote from Hill: Ambassador HILL. Mr....
Categories Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Money Laundering
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

Colin McAskill Threatens to Sue Over Release of Funds to DPRK Gov’t

McAskill, the man who sells Kim Jong Il’s gold and  who recently bought  the  bank through which most of North Korea’s European investment is channeled, has heretofore been  a strident and articulate advocate of releasing the  $25 million  frozen in BDA.  Overnight, he has become the main obstacle: In two letters sent to the Monetary Authority of Macao, [Daedong Credit Bank] has said that it will take legal action if any of its frozen funds are moved in accordance with...
Categories Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
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 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