August 27, 2008

Unusual Suspects (1)

Update:  I see Robert had pretty much the same reaction. Maybe all that hand-wringing  about a Lee Myung Bak dictatorship isn’t so exaggerated after all:  Oh Se-cheol, a professor emeritus of Yonsei University and prominent leftwing academic, was arrested on Tuesday on charges of breaching the National Security Law. Oh’s arrest is seen as a start of a government crackdown on leftwing organizations which grew and expanded their realm of activities under the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. Seoul...
Categories Censorship/The Fifth Column
August 27, 2008

Unusual Suspects (2) (Updated)

In South Korea, where North  Korean agents still infiltrate into the South  to kidnap and occasionally even kill people,  commie conspiracy theories aren’t  always just for John Birchers.  The prosecution has just announced the arrest of a 35 year-old female North Korean “defector,” Won Jeong-Hwa,  for spying for the North Korean regime.  Before coming to the South in 2001, Won served jail time for theft and feared possible execution for committing another crime — stealing tons of zink, which is...
Categories Censorship/Defectors/Refugees/The Fifth Column
August 26, 2008

Anju Links for 26 August 2008

MEETING WITH HU JINTAO IN BEIJING, “[South Korean President] Lee [Myung Bak] requested Hu’s cooperation to ensure ‘North Korean defectors won’t be forcefully sent back to the North against their will,’ Lee’s spokesman Lee Dong-kwan told reporters.” [IHT] WORTHY OF ITS NAME: South Korea’s National Human Rights Commission is calling on the Unification Ministry to come up with some answers about those 22 North Korean boat people who arrived in South Korea earlier this year, only to be returned to...
Categories Anju Links
August 26, 2008

Chris Hill Resignation Watch: N. Korea Halts Disablement, Balks at Verification, Accounting for Abductees

You had to know that verification was where this thing was destined to fall apart.  And that certainly looks like what’s happening today. North Korea said Tuesday it has suspended work to disable its nuclear reactor in anger over Washington’s failure to remove it from the U.S. list of terror sponsors. The North said it will soon consider a step to restore the plutonium-producing facility.  The announcement poses the biggest hurdle yet to the communist nation’s denuclearization process under a...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized
August 25, 2008

We apologize again for the fault in this broadcast. Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.

The shepherds of the mad sheep refuse to die quietly. MBC, which retracted its misleading report linking U.S. beef to mad cow disease under court order and apologized to its viewers, is now appealing that order.  So if it’s now beyond  serious dispute that the original report misled viewers with sloppy translations, bad science,  and images of people and cows infected with other diseases, why is MBC now trying to retract its retraction? The MBC labor union has fiercely criticized...
Categories Censorship/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column
August 24, 2008

Anju Links for 23 August 2008

NEXT SURRENDER, VERIFICATION?  Sung Kim has been in talks with the North Koreans in New York to break the latest impasse, which could only mean one thing.  I hope he brought enough lubricant. HERE’S AUDIO OF ADRIAN HONG on the Hugh Hewitt Show. THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM HAS ASKED South Korea to provide $60 million in emergency food aid.  No word on when the U.N. will tender a similar request to the Ryugyong Hotel Building Fund. IN 1997, NORTH KOREAN...
Categories Anju Links
August 24, 2008

Joe Biden and North Korea Policy (Updated)

“The biggest threat to the US is, right now, North Korea.”  — Joe Biden, South Carolina Primary Democratic Debate, 2007 “I’m not the guy.”  — Joe Biden, Aug. 19, 2008 The Bigger Picture   It is notable that today I find rare probative value in what Kos says.  His first reaction was  far from  enthusiastic,  and that’s  still way more favorable than, “It’s clear his career has dragged on one election cycle too many.”  One Talk Left blogger says, “The...
Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Military
August 24, 2008

Let Them Eat Grass: North Korea’s ‘Miracle’ Foods

Displaying its characteristic talent for attracting universal apathy punctuated by brief moments of global  disgust, the  North Korean regime claims to have invented noodles that make you feel full  … even when you aren’t.    North Korean scientists have developed a new kind of noodle that delays feelings of hunger, a Japan-based pro-Pyongyang newspaper has reported.  The noodles were made from corn and soybeans, the Choson Shinbo said.  They left people feeling fuller longer and represented a technological breakthrough, the...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/WTF?
August 22, 2008

Die, Swedish Imperialists!

The blog is writing itself again: The Communist North Korean government has declared Sweden their enemy and a US war puppet.  […]   According to information from the Swedish Armed Forces, this brusque message was first conveyed in a North Korean radio broadcast, then printed as an official document and distributed to the United Nations. The North Koreans’ attack is not directed against the Swedish government as such, but against Sweden’s and other neutral countries’ military observation missions on the...
Categories Europe/Unintended Humor/WTF?
August 22, 2008

Leon Sigal: Never mind that reactor in Syria

If you read enough obscure publications about North Korea and our policies toward it, you’ll eventually run across something by Leon V. Sigal, who is the Director of something called the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project  (note the word “hegemony” in its url.)   A reader forwards me this piece by Sigal published on  Napsnet, a publication  of the Nautilus Institute, which was also published in the Japan Focus. Sigal’s piece is entitled,  “How A Mock Trial Could Turn Victory...
Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
August 21, 2008

N. Korea: We Have No Human Rights Issues, You Slave-Trading Imperialists!

If you haven’t read the full KCNA editorial denouncing the United States for not de-listing the North as a state sponsor of terrorism, the quotes the media I showed you here really don’t do it justice: Explicitly speaking, there is no “human rights issue” much touted by the U.S. in the DPRK. The Korean people fully enjoy genuine freedom and rights under the socialist system where all people form a big family. It is the consistent popular policy of the...
Categories Anju Links/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
August 21, 2008

Dear Ban Ki Moon: A Letter from the Commitee for Human Rights in North Korea

CHRNK,  taking heart from Ban’s words in a July 4th speech in Seoul, hopes that they will mark the beginning of something more sustained, and perhaps even remotely effective. You are reported to have called upon the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to “take the necessary steps to improve their human rights situation”¦,” and said, “There are still many areas where human rights are not properly protected and even abused. This is an unacceptable situation.We agree, and trust your singling...
Categories "United" Nations/Activism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Six-Party Talks
August 20, 2008

It’s What’s for Dinner!

Even in Seoul: Resumed supplies of controversial U.S. beef are already second most popular in the Korean imported beef market.  According to quarantine data by the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service on Monday, a total of 4,439 tons of U.S. beef passed Korea’s quarantine inspection from July 1 onwards. During that period, Korea imported beef from four nations. Australian beef accounted for 60.2 percent or 12,753 tons from a total of 21,184. The U.S. came second with 20.9 percent...
Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea
August 20, 2008

U.N. Will Ask 2MB for Food Aid for N. Korea

The World Food Program will ask  South Korea to contribute aid for North Korea within the next 10 days.  Presumably, the aid would go through the WFP, which would represent a significant shift away from the Roh / DJ policy of giving unilateral and effectively  unmonitored aid, will full knowledge that most of it will end up in the wrong stomachs.  Lee  appears to understand  that unmonitored aid only prolongs the hunger and misery.  Left to set its own priorities,...
Categories Famine & Food Aid
August 19, 2008

Richard Halloran Prognosticates on N. Korea Regime Collapse

Halloran knows how many predictions of North Korea’s collapse that have passed unrealized, and  he’s  wise enough to abstain from outright predictions.  Instead, he  walks us through  the factors that make it worthy of urgent-yet-careful planning: North Korean soldiers in a regime that gives priority to the military forces have been reduced to two skimpy meals a day. Factory workers nap on the floor for lack of food and energy. That has led to conjecture that North Koreans, despite the...
Categories An Alliance?/Regime Change
August 19, 2008

Anju Links for 19 August 2008

OLD FAITHFUL ERUPTS, RIGHT ON SCHEDULE:   Remember that tantrum I predicted? ”The DPRK submitted an accurate and complete nuclear declaration,” the [KCNA] commentary said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.    ”The U.S., however, has not honored its commitment to write the DPRK off the list of ‘state sponsors of terrorism,’ a key political compensation in concluding the implementation of the agreement,” it said.    ”This is obviously a violation of the...
Categories Anju Links
August 18, 2008

Anju Links for 18 August 2008

THAT’S  STILL LEAVES 40% DARWIN CAN’T EXPLAIN:  The number of tourists to North Korea plunged more than 60 percent last month following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist at Mt. Kumgang resort.  [Chosun Ilbo] So if you want to attract tourists, it’s probably a good idea not to shoot them.  Got it.  The same report, sourced to Arirang News, says that inter-Korean trade fell by 1.5% since last year, and that non-commercial transactions, which includes aid, fell by...
Categories Anju Links