May 5, 2010

I regret to inform you that other commitments prevent me from joining your DMZ hike.

Memo to the Kyonggi provincial government: Is this really the ideal time to organize DMZ hiking excursions by people wearing bright red fishing vests and sun visors? This weekend, the government of Gyeonggi Province, which borders the DMZ, is unveiling a total of 182.3 km of courses in the area. It plans to post a map on its Web site and has started marking trails as part of a strategy to boost eco-tourism. “If you come and visit this area,...
Categories North-South/WTF?
May 5, 2010

Anti-Castro Group Working to Put Cheap Cell Phones into the Hands of Cubans

Another interesting cell phone idea: An anti-Castro blogger is asking readers to donate old cell phones: Cell Phones for Cuba takes old cellphone donations and using a recycling entity here in the States, uses the moneys generated from the usable parts of the old phones to purchase new, unlocked phones that work in Cuba. And then through various entities and other means, get said new cell phones into Cuba and into the hands of the Cuban people. I’ve heard that...
Categories Subversion/Technology
May 4, 2010

4 May 2010

The Wall Street Journal rips into W.H.O. Director-General and useful idiot Margaret Chan. The fact of Ms. Chan’s origins in Hong Kong raise the obvious suspicion that she’d never have gotten her current job without the backing of the China’s oligarchy in Beijing. And given the vast gulf between China’s views on health and human rights and ours, this is a good illustration of why the United Nations will never be united by a common purpose or outlook. Instead, some...
Categories Anju Links
May 4, 2010

Oh, for F**k’s Sake: Not Another Do-Gooder Congressman Out to Rid the USFK of Juicy Girls

Normally, I actually like Chris Smith, but it’s just plain dumb to go after U.S. service members who, while thousands of miles from home, pursue (a) human nature, and (b) a form of commerce that’s more-or-less openly available to 23 million South Korean men around them: A bill to create a director of global anti-human trafficking policies in the Department of Defense was introduced Thursday in an effort to better monitor the way the military deals with South Korean “juicy...
Categories Korean Society/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA
May 4, 2010

Prediction: U.N. Resolutions, Cheonan Sinking Won’t Change China’s Support for Kim Jong Il

What will the Chinese ask Kim Jong Il during his visit? South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, was in China as well last week, meeting with Hu on Friday to solicit support if his country sought stronger U.N. sanctions in retaliation for the Cheonan attack. “China wants to hear North Korea’s explanation so it can determine its position,” said Yang Moo-jin, professor at the University of North Korean Studies. China has been taking a more active role recently in mediating North...
Categories China & Korea
May 4, 2010

Götterdämmerung Watch

Today, I catch up with KCJ and the rest of you who’ve commented on Kurt Achin’s intriguing new VOA report on the prospects for regime collapse: For the first time in years, international experts say North Korea’s isolated government is increasingly frail, and potentially unstable. Part of the reason, they say, is Pyongyang’s attempt at currency reform last year. [….] “I think there’s some increasing views in Seoul that after 20 years of wrongly predicting the demise of North Korea,...
Categories Regime Change
May 3, 2010

Blogged With Love

I’ve been working on posting audio of Vitit Muntarbhorn’s address last Friday at PSCORE but have gotten bogged down in researching and learning some of the technology involved (long story – eg, Korea’s “real ID” online requirements are a hassle in addition to being just plain wrong). In the meantime, I want to pass along a link to a friend’s blog, which I’ve enjoyed reading since she started it last month. Lauren is a friend and fellow JFNK campaigner (she...
Categories Activism/Blogs & Blogging/Human Rights
May 3, 2010

Nork Submarines Invade Gulf of Mexico!

The best thing I can say for this is that it’s roughly 25% less dumb a typical 9/11 conspiracy theory: A grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet is reporting that the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the giant Deepwater Horizon oil platform owned by the World’s largest offshore drilling contractor Transocean that was built and financed by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., that has...
Categories WTF?
May 3, 2010

Kim Jong Il in China, Says Yonhap

The dead of the Cheonan haven’t been in the ground for a week, but the man who probably ordered their deaths is still a welcome and honored guest in Beijing: “We have confirmed the arrival of a special train at (the Chinese border city) Dandong, and we believe it is highly likely that Chairman Kim is on board,” a South Korean government official told Yonhap. [L.A. Times] The last such report turned out to be a false alarm. Recall that...
Categories China & Korea/Kim Jong Il
May 2, 2010

Freedom Rising, Cont.

The balloon people (officially, Fighters for a Free North Korea) have become much more sophisticated in the content of their payloads: Activists on Saturday let loose 10 giant balloons filled with radios, DVDs money and leaflets into North Korea in defiance of threats from Pyongyang. Around 200 hundred people, mostly defectors, gathered at a public park in Imjingak near the North-South border to release the balloons, which carried slogans such as “Abolish gulags” and “Down with Kim Jong-Il’s Dictatorship.” The...
Categories Propaganda/Subversion
May 2, 2010

So Christine Ahn Was Right After All: Kaesong Really Has Brought the Koreas Together!

Here is our latest edition of the Kaesong Death Watch: Last week, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met with two former presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Kim Young-sam, who reportedly suggested shutting down Kaesong in response to North Korea’s suspected role in the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean warship. [….] In a statement released in early April through the official Korean Central News Agency, the North said it would “entirely re-evaluate” its involvement in the Kaesong Industrial...
Categories Appeasement/Cheonan Incident/Useful Idiocy
May 1, 2010

1 May 2010

Must Read No. 1: Nicholas Eberstadt on the importance of striving for unification. North Korea’s present leadership will surely wish to ratchet up its threat to America and the Western alliance in the years ahead. It is entirely reasonable to anticipate Pyongyang’s eventual sale of nukes to hostile powers or international terror networks. The regime has already marketed abroad practically everything in its nuclear warehouse short of user-ready bombs. Even worse, there are troubling signs–repeated nuclear tests, continuing missile tests,...
Categories Anju Links
May 1, 2010

The Head of the World Health Organization Bears May Day Greetings from Pyongyang! (Update: No Signs of Obesity There!)

It could have been worse, I suppose, had I awakened this morning to the clatter of panzerkampfwagens rolling through the D.C. suburbs blaring the Horst Wessel Lied from loudspeakers. But if the prospect of the U.N. as Government of Earth horrifies you any less, get a load of what Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization, holds up as the very model of a peachy health care system: UN health agency chief Margaret Chan said on Friday after...
Categories "United" Nations/Fiskings/Useful Idiocy
May 1, 2010

North Korea Releases White Paper on South Korean Human Rights, Hilarity Ensues

With such an abundance of great blogging material these days, KCNA has written what I can only describe as a screed for the ages. Even by KCNA standards, this simply re-sets the bar: The National Reunification Institute released a white paper Thursday indicting the fascist clique for having reduced south Korea to the land with the worst human rights record through sycophancy and treachery, fascist dictatorship and confrontation with fellow countrymen. Further down the litany of horribles: The puppet group...
Categories Propaganda/WTF?
May 1, 2010

Of Fools and Their Money, Cont.

Will the North Korean money pit sink the Hyundai Group? The financial health of the Hyundai Group began to deteriorate when it started pouring huge amounts of money into its North Korean business in 1998. Hyundai Merchant Marine, the core part of the Hyundai Group accounting for over 80 percent of the group’s total assets, had been supporting Hyundai Asan but was hit badly by the global recession. Last year, it saw sales fall by more than 20 percent from...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
April 30, 2010

Hankyoreh “Experts:” North Korea Sank the Cheonan, But It’s Still South Korea’s Fault

I expect the Hanky and its fellow travelers to be committed 24/7 tools of North Korea, but for God’s sake, people, your country is in mourning. Is this really the time? People’s Solitary for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) General Secretary Kim Min-young offered his diagnosis of the situation, saying, “If the government had faithfully executed the existing agreement between North Korea and South Korea for the peaceful use of the waters near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, things...
Categories Cheonan Incident/Fiskings/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column