January 11, 2010

We Can’t Trust North Korea, or the People Who Do

What is the objective of negotiating with North Korea at all? How you answer that question may depend on whether you believe North Korea cheated on the first Agreed Framework with Bill Clinton. Even before Clinton left office, the evidence that North Korea cheated by trying to build a uranium bomb was too compelling for any responsible president to ignore, yet during the last decade, true believers in diplomacy with Kim Jong Il invested themselves in denying that evidence and...
Categories Anju Links
January 11, 2010

11 January 2010: Will Obama Open U.S. Embassies to N. Koreans at Last?

OBAMA TO OPEN EMBASSIES TO N. KOREAN REFUGEES? That would be huge, and I’ll have much more to say about that later. Also, Robert King says human rights will be on the six-party agenda. NORTH KOREA’S H1NI OUTBREAK has reached Camp 16. Meanwhile, the South Korean government continues to provide aid to the North despite its doubts about the data the North is reporting. TODAY’S “WE ARE ONE” MOMENT is brought to you by the Joongang Ilbo, and features North...
Categories Anju Links
January 10, 2010

Whoa. I Think We Just Found Robert King.

A U.S. envoy says that the human rights situation in North Korea must improve before the country can normalize relations with the United States. President Barack Obama’s special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King is visiting South Korea this week to discuss the issue with government officials. King said of North Korea, ”It’s one of the worst places in terms of lack of human rights. The situation is appalling.” He also said that the situation is preventing the...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 10, 2010

10 January 2010: Value of North Korean Won Continues to Plummet

MORE REPORTS OF DRASTIC FOOD PRICE INFLATION in the North: Prices probably also vary dramatically between regions. The series of diktats I’ve called The Great Confiscation has the potential to become the grimmest and most unnecessary humanitarian tragedy since the Arduous March, but unlike the 1990’s, North Koreans know more about life on Earth, and there are no more obedient subjects left outside Pyongyang who’d just die passively. The question isn’t whether North Koreans will resist; it’s is whether the...
Categories Anju Links
January 10, 2010

News Aggregator Updates

Over the last two weeks, I’ve made extensive improvements and upgrades to my news aggregator. If you’re looking for a place to keep up on just about everything that’s being reported about North Korea anywhere on earth, I’ve finally figured out how to customize RSS feeds to display headlines from 26 28 of the newspapers and wire services that are the most interesting to me. The sources I’ve picked include the usual array of U.S. and South Korean papers, plus...
Categories News Links
January 9, 2010

2 Million Dead Later, Kim Jong Il Admits N. Korea One Vast Shithole

I can’t imagine Kim Jong Il (or more likely, his minions) would make this sort of subtle concession if the Bowibu was reporting that the peasants were singing his praises contentedly while dancing merrily to the accompaniment of their accordions: “The president has said that people should be allowed to eat white rice and meat soup, wear silk clothes and live under tiled roofs,” Kim Jong-Il was quoted as saying by Rodong. “But we’ve so far failed to carry out...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Propaganda
January 9, 2010

Good Friends: North Korea Will Close Large Markets in Chongjin, Hamhung

Just minutes after reading of the sprawling Sunam Market in Chongjin, which she called North Korea’s largest market, my ADD got the best of me, I set aside the book, and clicked on Good Friends’s site, where I saw this: Soonam Market in Chungjin to be Closed in March North Korean authorities are to close down Soonam market in Chungjin, North Hamgyong Province in March following the shutdown of Pyongsung market in South Pyongan Province last June. The cabinet decided...
Categories NK Economics/Resistance
January 9, 2010

9 January 2010: The Value of Propaganda

LESS BREAD, MORE CIRCUSES: In addition, Kim went on, “To become a strong and prosperous socialist state we must see a period of renaissance in military-first Chosun,” and stressed, “Movie studios should be established in each province in order to publicize the good conduct of local citizens, and local citizens themselves should also bring about an era where basically anyone can create movies or become a movie star. If I had to make a list of things the North Korean...
Categories Anju Links
January 9, 2010

ROK Foreign Minister: North Korea Began Uranium Enrichment Program in Mid-1990’s

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said North Korea likely began its controversial uranium enrichment program for nuclear weapons development in 1996, soon after it had agreed to halt its nuclear program in a deal with the United States. In an interview with Yonhap, Yu said much remains unknown about the North’s uranium program and how advanced it is. But he said it is clear that the program was launched “quite early. “It seems to me that the North began...
Categories Proliferation/WMD
January 8, 2010

For the Love of Christ, People, Please Stop Walking Into North Korea!

Yes, it has happened again. Link in Korean only so far. The man is said to be a South Korean national in his 30’s or 40’s. Ten North Korean guards were there to welcome him, and one gobsmacked Chinese taxi driver was there to see him off. I should note that it’s not confirmed yet why this guy crossed or what his plan was, so I’m speculating. Well, I’ll admit it: if enough people do this, it certainly will get...
Categories Activism/Human Rights
January 8, 2010

The Indictments Are Coming! The Indictments Are Coming!

Why do I blog? Because of stories like this: U.S. authorities plan to indict a New Zealand company allegedly involved in selling North Korean arms to Iran, sources linked to the investigation say. They are trying to track down shadowy figures using a labyrinth of thousands of Auckland companies registered to an office on Queen Street, Auckland’s main street. [Sydney Morning Herald] The significance of indicting the company is that the feds will probably tack on some criminal forfeiture counts,...
Categories Axis of Evil/Iran/Missiles/Money Laundering/Proliferation/Sanctions/U.S. Law
January 8, 2010

Where Is Robert King?

The short answer is that King, President Obama’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, is headed for South Korea and Japan. Here’s the entire State Department news release: Ambassador Robert King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, will visit South Korea from January 11-14 and Japan on January 15. This will be Ambassador King’s first visit to the region since being confirmed by the Senate in November 2009. Ambassador King will meet with South Korean and...
Categories Uncategorized
January 7, 2010

Tanks for Your Money, Suckers

The North Korean Army is holding winter exercises, and the Joongang Ilbo has the tank porn. This cream puff is a Soviet PT-76, or ChiCom clone of one. The PT-76 is no match for a main battle tank — it sacrifices armor protection in exchange for an amphibious capability, and its gun can’t penetrate the armor of any main battle tank. Frankly, I can’t really see why the North Korean army is so fond of these lightly-armored amphibious tanks in...
Categories NK Military/North-South/Sunshine
January 7, 2010

North Korea Descending Into Economic Chaos

I’ve long believed that functionally, there were two North Korean economies — a mostly capitalist (and to the U.N., illicit) “palace” economy that funds Kim Jong Il’s regime, and an increasingly capitalist (and to Kim Jong Il, illicit) “peoples’ economy” that rose from the ashes of the failed Public Distribution System. Some say that international food aid ended the Great Famine, a famine that may have killed millions of North Koreans. There is some truth in this, but international food...
Categories NK Economics/Uncategorized
January 7, 2010

7 January 2009: Thou Shall Put No Other Gods Before Me

FOR THE EIGHTH CONSECUTIVE YEAR, the Christian NGO Open Doors has ranked North Korea the world’s worst place to be a Christian. You can’t understand North Korea until you grasp that it’s a theocracy — a cult with nuclear weapons and a seat in the General Assembly. Open Doors, by the way, has actively supported human rights in North Korea for years. They’ve long been one of the most dedicated groups working on this issue, often making their impact felt...
Categories Anju Links