Category: Uncategorized

Mongolia has reportedly promised North Korea that it will not host refugee camps on its soil. I was afraid nothing good could come of a Mongolian official’s visit to Pyongyang. Never a good thing to arrive empty-handed, you know.

The WaPo reports (via KCNA) that a KGS employee has defected to North Korea! No word yet on whether the Unification Ministry will suspend talks due to this latest expression of Pyongyang’s subversive, hostile policy. And of course, North Korea is conducting stringent background checks to make sure that the man wasn’t aided by any of those human traffickers.

South Korea’s Anti-Unification Ministry has recently flailed to portray its new anti-defector policy as a politically neutral effort against human smuggling and asylum fraud, and some of the media seem willing to buy that line. The Minister must now wish he had chosen his words more carefully in this recent OhMyNews interview and not issued that now-withdrawn set of proposed regulations, which clearly show that his intent is to keep out virtually all defectors, and keep in all NGO reps...

Call Karl Rove. Somebody needs help with their message control. Monday‘s headline: Pyongyang Makes Positive Assessment of Inter-Korean Relations South and North Korea have joined in a struggle to unify the two countries, a senior North Korean official said Monday. Jong Tok-gi, a secretariat section chief of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, said anti-unification activities become more vicious this year but the inter-Korean intention to forge unification has become stronger. Tuesday‘s headline: N. Korea Blames S....

Could free medical care for ordinary North Koreans be one of the few good things to come from the Kaesong Industrial Park? It would if the North Korean authorities actually allowed it, but they won’t. Their engagement strategy is to insulate ordinary North Koreans from the kindness of the outside world. Meanwhile, a second plant, this one slated to make auto and semiconductor parts, is slated to crank out its first wares at Kaesong next week. The plant will eventually...

South Korea’s Anti-Unification Ministry has recently flailed to portray its new anti-defector policy as a politically neutral effort against human smuggling and asylum fraud, and some of the media seem willing to buy that line. The Minister must now wish he had chosen his words more carefully in this recent OhMyNews interview and not issued that now-withdrawn set of proposed regulations, which clearly show that his intent is to keep out virtually all defectors, and keep in all NGO reps...

North Korea is cracking down on illegal border crossings again. We are hearing about such border crackdowns with increased frequency, and yet there always seems to be an urgent need for another one a few weeks later. It never helps when the guys who are supposed to be watching everyone else are on the take: Pyeongyang has launched a large-scale crackdown on “anti-state activities” along its border with China, targeting not only border crossings by North Koreans, but the smuggling...

Now, they’re talking about actually providing competent translation services for criminal defendants. What’s next, rules of evidence? Actually letting defendants sit next to their lawyers? Zealous representation? Overall, though, it’s another very good sign.

The people of Ukraine, a nation of fifty million people of enormous strategic significance in Europe, wanted democracy after all. This sort of thing always seems to surprise some people. On reflection, I tend to find such things so unsurprising that I probably missed the story’s importance.

If you’re addicted to South Korean politics, don’t miss today’s Flying Yangban post on Goh Kun, a name you’ve probably already forgotten but from whom (at least according to the guys who predicted the rise of whatsisname from the World Cup) you may yet hear again. Andy also has an interesting sidebar about ancient Rome, reminding us why we read him.

Call Karl Rove. Somebody needs help with their message control. Monday‘s headline: Pyongyang Makes Positive Assessment of Inter-Korean Relations South and North Korea have joined in a struggle to unify the two countries, a senior North Korean official said Monday. Jong Tok-gi, a secretariat section chief of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, said anti-unification activities become more vicious this year but the inter-Korean intention to forge unification has become stronger. Tuesday‘s headline: N. Korea Blames S....

Could free medical care for ordinary North Koreans be one of the few good things to come from the Kaesong Industrial Park? It would if the North Korean authorities actually allowed it, but they won’t. Their engagement strategy is to insulate ordinary North Koreans from the kindness of the outside world. Meanwhile, a second plant, this one slated to make auto and semiconductor parts, is slated to crank out its first wares at Kaesong next week. The plant will eventually...

North Korea is cracking down on illegal border crossings again. We are hearing about such border crackdowns with increased frequency, and yet there always seems to be an urgent need for another one a few weeks later. It never helps when the guys who are supposed to be watching everyone else are on the take: Pyeongyang has launched a large-scale crackdown on “anti-state activities” along its border with China, targeting not only border crossings by North Koreans, but the smuggling...

Now, they’re talking about actually providing competent translation services for criminal defendants. What’s next, rules of evidence? Actually letting defendants sit next to their lawyers? Zealous representation? Overall, though, it’s another very good sign.

The people of Ukraine, a nation of fifty million people of enormous strategic significance in Europe, wanted democracy after all. This sort of thing always seems to surprise some people. On reflection, I tend to find such things so unsurprising that I probably missed the story’s importance.

If you’re addicted to South Korean politics, don’t miss today’s Flying Yangban post on Goh Kun, a name you’ve probably already forgotten but from whom (at least according to the guys who predicted the rise of whatsisname from the World Cup) you may yet hear again. Andy also has an interesting sidebar about ancient Rome, reminding us why we read him.

“Pots for Peace”: not another cannabinoid conflict resolution initiative from Marin County, but another Kim Tae Kyung OhMyNews pipe dream, to be sure. TK, who loves everything from North Korea except defectors, has gone all erotic and stickied himself up over the North Korean-made cookware the ajummas are buying up at the high-end department stores in Seoul (there are reportedly still some export control complications with Kaesong’s plans for a penicillin factory, a pesticide plant, and a large aluminum tube...

“Pots for Peace”: not another cannabinoid conflict resolution initiative from Marin County, but another Kim Tae Kyung OhMyNews pipe dream, to be sure. TK, who loves everything from North Korea except defectors, has gone all erotic and stickied himself up over the North Korean-made cookware the ajummas are buying up at the high-end department stores in Seoul (there are reportedly still some export control complications with Kaesong’s plans for a penicillin factory, a pesticide plant, and a large aluminum tube...