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28 January 2010

A South Korean lawyer sits down to dinner with a group of North Korean defectors and has an epiphany: “Listening to such painful stories, I naively wondered why the rest of the world is not doing more to help these desperate people. They are not some criminals or fugitives. Their only crime was to be born into a nation which is ruled by a dictatorship that cares more about the survival of its regime than the wellbeing of its people.”...

Anju Links

Equality Begins Where Dependence Ends

South Korea, which spent the better part of the last two decades bitching that it wanted to be treated like America’s equal, has been bitching ever since the Pentagon decided that Korea was just about ready to take over wartime operational control of its own military, you know … for its own defense. Needless to say, and largely as a result of having served in the USFK myself for four years, I’m neither as sympathetic nor as diplomatic as our...

An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

The Great Confiscation Backfires, Badly

How can we tell that North Korea is in a state of self-inflicted economic chaos? When the regime can’t even conceal it from the barbarians. AFP, quoting an unidentified Western diplomat via Yonhap, reports that “[a]t the Koryo Hotel where many foreigners stay, the [North Korean won exchange] rate swung from 51 won to 120 in the space of a few hours on January 22.” Another report says that currently, prices in North Korea are “anyone’s guess” and that in...

Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics/Subversion

On North Korea, Obama Touts Sanctions, Not Talks

Change! Now, these diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons. That’s why North Korea now faces increased isolation, and stronger sanctions ““- sanctions that are being vigorously enforced. That’s why the international community is more united, and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more isolated. And as Iran’s leaders continue to ignore their obligations, there should be no doubt: They, too, will face growing...

Sanctions/U.S. Politics/Washington Views

Not Again: Another American Crosses Into North Korea

There’s no word on who he/she is. There’s no word on why he/she crossed. A South Korean activist who has been the source of most information about the missionary said Thursday that he has no knowledge of the second American detainee. Jo Sung-rae of the Seoul-based group Pax Koreana said he and fellow activists sent about 150,000 leaflets by balloon across the border into North Korea on Wednesday as part of efforts to let North Koreans know about Park. Jo...

Robert Park

27 January 2010

Some people never learn: After everything that’s happened in the last 20 years, we’re still trying to get Agreed Framework III. _____________________ Which moment of truth is this? I lost count in 2007. _____________________ A Kaesong Travel Advisory: Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air. _____________________ Bangkok Update: Here’s the most detailed inventory I’ve yet seen of that North Korean weapons shipment intercepted last year: Thai police discovered 40 tons of North Korean arms including multiple rocket launchers,...

Anju Links

Bang Bang, Splash Splash

When I first heard that North Korea had declared a no-sail zone off its West Coast, I really wanted to believe that it was because they read this, but I suspected that they’d actually launch some anti-ship missiles from Cho-Do. Instead, we have this: North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire near their disputed sea border on Wednesday, highlighting instability along a heavily armed frontier for the second time in three months. North Korea warned the South that more rounds...

NK Military/North-South/ROK Military

Must-Read Book Reviews: Hassig and Myers on North Korea

The New York Times has some great book reviews today. One of the titles is Barbara Demick’s “Nothing to Envy,” and two others are of books I’ve been looking forward to reading: “The Hidden People of North Korea” by Kangdan Oh and Ralph Hassig (excerpt here) and “The Cleanest Race” by Brian Myers (excerpt here). I was astonished to read that “Katy” Hassig, a person who is deeply connected and intertwined with Korea policy-making circles in Washington, would nonetheless arrive...

Books & Films

North Korean Defects from Embassy in Ethiopia

Yonhap and AFP are both reporting that a 40 year-old North Korean “medic” at the embassy in Addis Ababa defected to South Korea last October. The man is now safely in Seoul. Yonhap said the communist state’s embassy protested strongly, making a threatening call to the South Korean mission. President Bush removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008. Discuss among yourselves. North Korean officials used cars to stage protests outside the building...

Africa/Defectors/Sanctions

Kim Jong-il Ordered Shooting of Defectors

In May of 2008, this site was the first to publish reports, attributed to the NGO Helping Hands Korea, that North Korea had issued orders to its border guards to shoot fleeing refugees, notwithstanding its failure to provide them with the basic necessities of life and its draconian treatment of those who try to provide for themselves. The Times of London later picked up those reports. Other reports suggest that the shoot-to-kill policy was hardly new. According to one previous...

Human Rights/Refugees

Who Is Still Free Not to Be Muslim?

Let’s begin by dispensing with the moot question of whether I agree with all that Geert Wilders has said. I don’t, and I specifically disagree with statements by Wilders, such as his call for the Koran to be banned, that are themselves incompatible with the freedom of speech Wilders now defends so articulately. But almost by definition, people who become the state’s first targets for censorship have inevitably expressed views that are controversial, even indefensible. Wilders is now facing prosecution...

Censorship/Islam

Looking for a Contact for Robert Park’s Family

You already know that I don’t agree with Park’s methods, but I’d still like to try to help the man, and do so in accordance with Park’s own desire not to be ransomed out. If you have an e-mail address or a phone number, please forward it to onefreekorea[at]yahoo[dot]com. Thanks.

Activism

Glenn Beck: “Revolutionary Holocaust”

There’s plenty to criticize in Glenn Beck’s documentary “Revolutionary Holocaust,” starting with Beck himself, whose Obama=Stalin schtick is only the polar opposite of Michael Moore’s reductio ad Hitlerum against Bush. Notwithstanding some of the disturbing associations in Obama’s not-so-distant past, Beck’s comparisons are overwrought and mostly groundless — I’d go as far as entirely groundless but for the fact that Anita Dunn wasn’t canned immediately (or ever) after making this contemptible statement (just imagine the reaction if Karl Rove had...

History

Um, What the Hell Was That?

OK, I get that you’re trying to make a statement of some kind, if only because you spelled it out on the screen in English. But seriously — what the hell kind of statement is this? Either the Danish sense of humor is at least as foreign to me as it is to a North Korean, or this really just wasn’t funny, much less “subversive.” In fact, this was such an awful spectacle that I actually pitied the North Korean...

Humor/Satire/WTF?