March 25, 2009

U.S. journalists under ‘intense interrogation’ in Pyongyang

This is the price a journalist pays for trying to report the truth about North Korea, away from the regime’s guided tours. The information about the whereabouts of Euna Lee and Laura Ling comes from South Korean “human intelligence” sources in the North, so don’t take this at face value: After being questioned at the security command, Lee and Ling were reportedly taken to Pyongyang last Wednesday. Each was put in a separate vehicle so that there would be no...
Categories Media Criticism/Refugees
March 25, 2009

Stuart Levey Renominated

Yes, it’s a perfectly excellent nomination by the Obama Administration for Treasury. No, I’m serious. Stuart Levey, the Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, played the key role in snipping North Korea’s financial lifelines in 2005 and 2006, starting with Macau’s Banco Delta Asia. Treasury’s effort ended when North Korea blinked and made a bunch of false promises to Chris Hill just to stop the pain, and Chris Hill duly made it stop. But no single U.S. government official...
Categories Money Laundering/NK Economics
March 24, 2009

24 March 2009

THE DAILY NK ALREADY HAS some details about the whereabouts of the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee: The information source also released that, “The emergency, that they had arrested American citizens, was immediately reported to the DSC, which supervises the border guard units. It was also reported to the headquarters of the 9th corps, which has jurisdiction over North Hamkyung Province. The two were sent to Pyongyang in the morning of the 18th after investigation by the special...
Categories Anju Links
March 24, 2009

Chris Hill’s Record of Success? Examples, please.

CHRIS HILL’S CONFIRMATION HEARING starts tomorrow, and the Weekly Standard has (second only to this blog) owned the story. Stephen Hayes relates the story of Hill’s insubordination to his bosses in talking directly to the North Koreans, which is a prohibition I find it hard to believe the last Administration was really serious about enforcing. Frankly, a writer of Hayes’s caliber could have done far better, and I hope he will yet. Still, Hayes manages to do much better than...
Categories Uncategorized
March 24, 2009

Great Ideas That Won’t Work: A Korea-Japan Alliance

For reasons I laid out here in January, pragmatism is making gradual gains on emotion in Seoul and forcing Japan and South Korea to understand that their interests have aligned: A senior South Korean government official recently remarked that if the U.S. and North Korea speed up too much in bilateral talks, Japan could play a role in “slamming on the brakes.” He appeared to be suggesting that any bilateral negotiations bringing Washington and Pyongyang together after the North has...
Categories Asia/China/Geopolitics
March 23, 2009

Collapse of N. Korea’s Planned Economy, Rise of Markets Improve Food Supply

North Korea’s government, for reasons that are not clear, has begun allowing cash transactions for food imports, and the result is a significant increase in food flowing into North Korea’s ports: As a result, Shinuiju harbor is witnessing a mass importation of rice and flour from China for the first time. The amount of food imports, which started to increase in early February, has reached its peak in late February and early March, importing 800 to 1,000 tons of rice...
Categories Deprogramming/Famine & Food Aid
March 23, 2009

Kim Jong Il Now Parade Magazine’s World’s Third-Worst Dictator

In a statement released by KCNA, Kim’s publicist thanked academy members for their votes and said that it was an honor just to be nominated. And in related news — sit down for this one — here’s the latest report that North Korea has been diverting international humanitarian aid. Yet another survey shows that need North Koreans never saw a spoonful of it, except for sale in the markets at prices they couldn’t pay. The charge appears not to have...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Kim Jong Il
March 21, 2009

Iran Still Not Feeling the Whole ‘Hope and Change’ Thing

The idea of an outreach to the Iranian people would have made sense — up to a point — had Obama spoken through the despised mullahs rather than to them. Yet the great irony of Obama’s attempt to connect with Iranians is that it probably convinced them that he’s completely out of touch with their aspirations and reinforced popular notions of America as decadent, weak, and self-absorbed: Khamenei set the bar impossibly high — demanding an overhaul of U.S. foreign...
Categories Iran
March 20, 2009

Chris Hill Update: Man Tells Lie, Lie Catches Up With Man, Dog Bites Man

The Washington Times, reporting that Senator Brownback is increasingly open in his threat to hold Chris Hill’s nomination as Ambassador to Iraq, relates just the latest story of Hill misleading a member of Congress: In [a] hearing on July 31, in response to a request to bring Jay Lefkowitz, who was a special envoy for North Korea human rights, to future talks, Mr. Hill said, “I would be happy to invite him to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea.”...
Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
March 20, 2009

20 March 2009

WHEREVER THEY ARE NOW, LAURA LING AND EUNA LEE are having a rough day, and that’s about all we know for certain. Although it’s not much more than speculation, the L.A. Times’s Barbara Demick suggests that Ling and Lee might have strayed into North Korean territory. Underground railroad hero Chun Ki Won doesn’t think the North Koreans would have crossed into China: “They must have gone in too close, where it was dangerous. I don’t think the North Koreans would...
Categories Anju Links
March 19, 2009

19 March 2009

THE WEEKLY STANDARD BLOG is reporting that Senator Brownback is publicly threatening to hold Chris Hill’s nomination, which would doom it. TWS points out that Brownback isn’t running again and has little to lose by raising the ire of Sen. Richard Lugar. Lugar, who represents the State Department in the Senate, is also Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. IT WAS LUGAR, you will recall, who quietly torpedoed the nomination of John Bolton as U.N. Ambassador, despite the fact that...
Categories Anju Links
March 19, 2009

North Korea Detains Two (?) U.S. Journalists

As you see, the reports conflict as to how many incidents there were, how many journalists were detained, and on which side of the border: Embedded video from CNN Video The preponderance of reports thus far suggest that two American journalists with the network Current TV were arrested — and if this is confirmed, it would be fair to say “abducted” — from the Chinese side of the Yalu River while filming North Korea. Two American journalists on a reporting...
Categories Abductions/Media Criticism/Refugees
March 18, 2009

Missiles, Sanctions, and Surprise Attacks

As North Korea continues to prepare for an April missile test, Great Britain warns North Korea of new sanctions, Japan warns of a “harsh response,” and both Japan and South Korea are drawing up target lists for new sanctions. It would be interesting to see how South Korea joining in sanctions instead of undermining them with change things. It would be just as interesting to see whether the new sanctions will be as tough as the old ones that no...
Categories "United" Nations/NK Military/Proliferation/WMD
March 18, 2009

No thanks, we’d rather let them starve to death

North Korea has refused a new consignment of American food aid, and has ordered five American aid groups to leave by the end of this month. Why do this, you may ask? Evidently, just to be assholes: Joy Portella, a spokeswoman for one of the groups affected by the decision to stop accepting food aid, Mercy Corps, said they were ordered to leave with any reason being given. “North Korea has informed the United States that it does not wish...
Categories Famine & Food Aid
March 18, 2009

Five senators write Obama, ask him to withdraw Christopher Hill’s nomination

Read the full text of the letter here. The senators signing include Brownback (R-KS), Ensign (R-NV), Inhofe (R-OK), Bond (R-MO), and Kyl (R-AZ), the Senate Republican whip. McCain and Graham are still opposed to Hill’s nomination but did not sign. No one on the Foreign Relations Committee signed or came out in opposition. The big question now: will any Senator hold the nomination? Not yet. A hold would shift the focus to the Senator instead of Hill. Those opposed to...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. Politics
March 17, 2009

GNP Lawmaker: Roh may have tried to force N. Korean bomber to retract her accusation of Kim Jong Il

I figured we’d find out a lot of disturbing things about Roh Moo Hyun’s strange affinity for the North Korean regime after he left office. This alleged effort to hijack history suggests that that affinity exceeded his affinity for the lives of South Korean airline passengers: The ruling Grand National Party will hold a National Assembly hearing about allegations by the surviving bomber of Korean Air flight 858 that the previous government bullied her into backing a conspiracy theory surrounding...
Categories History/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column
March 17, 2009

17 March 2009

INTOLERABLE SUFFERING, STARVATION, torture, almost universal suffering, yada yada: Thai jurist Vitit Muntarbhorn told the world body’s Human Rights Council that the situation in the communist-ruled country was “dire and desperate” with the population living in fear and pressed to inform on each other. “The country is under one-party rule. At the pinnacle there is an oppressive regime, bent on personal survival, under which the ordinary people of the land undergo intolerable and interminable sufferings,” he said. Diplomats said his...
Categories Anju Links