Seoul Complained to the State Department about Ambassador Vershbow’s (accurate) characterization of North Korea as a “criminal regime.” This was the response they got: The Yonhap News Agency on Wednesday quoted a State Department official as saying Vershbow’s remarks reflected U.S. policy toward North Korea. The official declined to comment on a call from Uri Part lawmaker Kim Won-ung to recall the U.S. ambassador. There may be hope for the State Department yet.

U.S. President George W. Bush had his first meeting with Jay Lefkowitz since the special envoy for human rights in North Korea was appointed in August, the White House said Wednesday. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said ahead of the meeting it would provide an opportunity for the president to talk about human rights in the North, one of Bush’s “priority policies. [Link.] Meanwhile, the White House named undocumented Ethiopian cab driver Teklemikal Haile Georgistu as the head of the...

There is no respite for the profligate tyrant of a criminal regime today, notwithstanding the fury of his abetters. His access to ready cash may soon dry up. The Chosun Ilbo reports: The U.S. government on Wednesday turned up the heat on North Korea by warning U.S. financial institutions that North Korea may be looking for new money laundering channels after Washington blocked transactions with the Macau-based Banco Delta Asia, allegedly Pyongyang’s main funnel for gains from criminal activities. An...

Iraq Update: I don’t want to crowd the Yangban off the page with items that are being covered adequately elsewhere, but I’ve always believed that the road to Pyongyang leads through Baghdad, even if very different vehicles will take us there. Today is a day when optimism is easier to feel than contain. Not even the NY Times is immune: The day was strikingly peaceful, even in areas normally beset by violence. With more than 375,000 American and Iraqi troops...

(by guest blogger Andy Jackson) This a part of a series of posts on the Seoul Summit: Promoting Human Rights in North Korea and related events. The portions in the blockquote were taken from my notes. I apologize for any inaccuracies. Kim Moon-soo is one of the leading political figures in Korea who are trying to put human rights in North Korea on the front burner. The third-term Grand National Party (GNP) legislator serves Bucheon, a suburb of Seoul. He...

Original Post: Chung Milhous Young? Have a look at this comment over on Oranckay’s blog. Can anyone add anything to verify or disprove this? If true, it was a shitty little stunt. Of course, the plausible deniability is that it was all just a coincidence. I doubt we’ll ever know for certain. Update: OK, I see that Gerry Bevers, who has a great blog for those of us who’d like to improve our Korean language skills, dropped a comment below....

As delivered by Suzanne Scholte, President of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, member of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and my friend. Here. Note that there were multiple keynote speeches, and I’d only presume that Kang Chol Hwan’s was also one of them. Update: Suzanne writes to correct me. The other keynote speaker was Kim Seung-Min of Free North Korea Radio, the same one who had the run-in with a North Korean “diplomat” on Capitol Hill...

I’m a huge fan of Iraq milblogger Michael Yon, so my vote for his photograph of Major Mike Beiger cradling a dying little girl named Farah was only one way that I could make up for him being denied a richly deserved Pulitzer. Farah was mortally wounded in a terrorist attack that intentionally targeted kids. Lest we forget: The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the...

A Chinese newspaper reports that the PLA found itself on the short end of a gun battle on the N. Korean-Chinese border. Five armed North Koreans in October crossed into China where they engaged Chinese troops in a gunbattle that left one soldier dead, the country’s Changsha Wanbao daily reported Tuesday. The paper is published in the conscript’s home province of Hunan. The daily said the armed men crossed the border with China at around 1 a.m. on Oct. 16...

Oranckay has responded to this post in which I reveled in Chung Dong-Young’s diplomatic incompetence and arrogance. Chung, as you recall, refused to meet Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, instead sending his parking valet to meet Lefkowitz at a tea shop at 7 p.m. This, contrary to Chung’s likely expectations, only had the effect of hardening the attitudes of U.S. officials and driving them further into the open for a lack of suitable...

How low a point have U.S.-South Korean relations reached? First, we have compelling evidence that North Korea is counterfeiting U.S. currency, a warlike and patently criminal act, at a time when there is supposedly a cease-fire in effect. Then, the ruling party of our supposed ally chooses to disregard the evidence of the criminal act. When our ambassador, the person charged to protect U.S. interests, points out that couterfeiting is, you know, criminal, we get this sort of infantile braying...

With 10,000 reported to be in attendance at this Saturday vigil (curiously, the estimate is of 10,000 candles, not people–I’m going out on a very short limb, then) Seoul’s North Korean human rights conference closed with a sufficiently respectable turnout to claim real momentum. This despite frigid cold and the best efforts of the South Korean government to keep turnout down. “Restrictions from the government were so tight that we chose the form of vigil, which does not require governmental...

Korean Lawyers on Human Rights in N. Korea: The Korean Bar Association on Friday called on the government to help improve human rights conditions in North Korea. In a statement marking the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, the association said, “While the international community is trying to improve the human rights conditions in the North, the South Korean government has shirked its responsibilities in the issue” by abstaining on resolutions on the matter in...

This isn’t exactly news, but it’s newsworthy. Natsios, a courageous and forthright man who recently announced his resignation as head of USAID, discussed this in his book, The Great North Korean Famine. He also suggested that he had videotape. After I read the passage, I made inquiries with some of Natsios’s aides to try to get and publish a copy, but to no avail. Well, Natsios is now talking about it to the Korea Times: “Famine relief means, if you...

Kim Jong Il needs to chill and take a homocil.

Alexander Vershbow on Economic Aid to North Korea U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow is not backing down: Ignoring North Korean growls over the weekend that earlier remarks had jeopardized nuclear weapons negotiations, Alexander Vershbow, the U.S. ambassador to Korea, said yesterday that if those nuclear talks failed, Pyongyang would be to blame. He also asked that Seoul’s economic projects in the North should be “coordinated” with those negotiations. “The signals from North Korea in recent days have not...

This would be a good time to hawk your unfinished copy of The Pentagon’s New Map on e-Bay. Have a look at the new blocs shaping Asia’s new Cold War: ASEAN, Korea, Japan and China on Monday reiterated their commitment in principle to forming an East Asian Community on Monday, the first day of the ASEAN + 3 Summit. Heads of government from the 10-member Southeast Asian bloc met with the three affiliates in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. . . ....

I’d allow myself to feel some sense that China is making a serious inquiry into these events if it weren’t for the preposterous claim that only three people were killed. The commander of paramilitary forces who opened fire on villagers protesting land seizures has been detained by the authorities in connection with the shootings, an extraordinary response that suggested high-level concern over whether the crackdown was justified. Yes, that’s the minimum requirement when a government’s forces kill citizens. But an...