The L.A. Times’s Barbara Demick continues the parade of unflattering portraits of Arirang, this time turning her sharp eye on South Korea’s fawning admirers of the Northern system, beginning with some contrasts that ought to have been obvious to those less eager to believe: South Koreans in Pyongyang stood out in their colorful Gor-Tex jackets like exotic birds against the monochromatic North Korean landscape. Almost all carried digital cameras, a rarity in the North. While North Koreans trudged through the...

More on Food Aid: The LA Times picks up a wire report on the dissolution of the WFP food aid program in North Korea. Are the media incapable of covering a famine while there’s still time to prevent most of the deaths that we can expect? The media are capable of proactive coverage; just at how bird flu coverage has caused the government to set plans in motion in the event the virus mutates. This month, only 3.6 million of...

On one hand, we have timing that’s too awful to be true. On the other, we have a senior Uri leader, likely a shot-caller, as the leaker: On Friday, Oh Young-sick, deputy floor leader of the Uri Party, revealed the ministry planned to seek the National Assembly’s approval to extend the deployment of troops in Iraq while reducing their numbers. The announcement surprised many, including the White House; President Bush, seemingly oblivious of the plan, expressed his appreciation of Korea’s...

Are you one of the 140,000 South Korean illegals living in the United States? Having trouble finding a job? You may be in luck: The Korean Consulate in Los Angeles has agreed with city officials to issue consular identification cards for illegal aliens who have otherwise no way of proving their identity. The cards will list their nationality, birth date and address in a move expected to make life easier for visa overstayers. Implementation is slated for the middle of...

An Appeal What follows is a status report on the most urgent, compelling human rights issue of all–what increasingly looks like the making of the next Great Famine. The last one, which took place in the 1990’s, killed approximately two million people. If you are in a position to take any kind of action–including something as modest as writing your member of Congress or posting a link on your own blog–this is my urgent appeal to raise public outrage to...

On God’s Law, and Godwin’s: Do idiotic statements like this unify us as a society? More importantly, do they have any factual basis? In the course of my work on behalf of human rights in North Korea, some my closest collaborators are members of the “religious right,” not one of them claims a monopoly on piety, and every one of them sincerely welcomes me, even knowing that I’m a non-observant Jew. For the most part, these devoted Christians have made...

For a while, it seemed that South Korea’s hosting of the APEC Summit would be recorded as an unqualified success. The photo opportunities, for all their awkwardness, seemed to go according to well-laid plans. The preponderance of bad press went to Japan, where a popular backlash has also been building. Anti-American protests were relatively muted; those that attracted the most attention in the U.S. media were against competition from foreign imports, along with one against North Korea. Gateway Pundit (thanks...

The timing of the announcement made it difficult for U.S. and Korean media to ignore the extent to which Bush and Roh differed in their self-perceived interests and articulable policy goals. Media on both sides of the Pacific could see stress cracks in the alliance through the diplomatic plaster. The Chosun Ilbo reported it this way: President Roh Moo-hyun . . . told a press conference, “A lot is said about the South Korea-U.S. alliance. Though perceptions may differ depending...

As if Roh’s self-inflicted Iraq faux pas wasn’t enough, this was the week that Seoul abstained yet again from a U.N. resolution that condemned North Korea’s human rights record–this time, before the entire General Assembly (from the Joongang Ilbo’s story): The UN General Assembly’s Human Rights Committee adopted Thursday in New York the measure to show concern over reported torture, public executions and other infringements of basic human rights. The resolution, sponsored by 37 UN nations led by the European...

New Comment Policy: I think the urban planners call this growth management. Please read the new comment policy at the sidebar, right below my bias disclaimers.

[Updated] Thanks for your patience while I spent a day at work catching up on everything I missed yesterday. As noted, I was invited by the North Korean Freedom Coalition to take part in a 30-minute meeting that U.N. Ambassador John Bolton granted us at his office in New York. Present were six members of the coalition, including (left to right) myself, Mariam Bell of the Wilberforce Forum, Rabbi Cooper, Ambassador Bolton, Coalition President Suzanne Scholte, stalwart member Sin U...

Too tired to tell you about it now, but stop by tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about my meeting with U.N. Ambassador John Bolton a few hours ago.

Here is the latest published interview with Chung Dong-Young, North Korea’s Minister for Southern Affairs. SEOUL, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea are likely to have formed at least an economic union by 2020, the South’s unification minister told Reuters on Wednesday. “The vision of the Republic of Korea — my personal vision as a politician — is that by 2020 we will be a welfare state, and also at the same time, the South...

In the interests of rounding out the rather incomplete and skewed record you might see in the Korean press, I publish stories like these when I get my hands on them, which happens occasionally, thanks to a very good friend in Korea. From the Eighth U.S. Army’s Seoul MP blotter: AT 1917 HRS, 13 NOV 05, [U.S. Army Private L] NOTIFIED THIS STATION IN PERSON OF AN ASSAULT CONSUMMATED BY BATTERY. INVESTIGATION BY PATROL 3-3 [ ] REVEALED AT THE...

In spite of the government’s best efforts to eradicate it and its followers, Christianity is spreading. Famine may indeed be harder to face without the belief in an afterlife. Once again, Barbara Demick outstrips her peers. Thanks to Slim for the hat tip. This is a must-read; I wish I had the time to graf it for you.

It’s Official: Seoul will abstain. Not just from one resolution, but from the path that leads to unification, redemption, and taking its rightful place in the world.

John Bolton is dropping public hints about seeking alternatives to the United Nations.

Today, in what seems to be a coordinated response, the Australians (via Andy Jackson at The Marmot’s Hole) and President Bush’s National Security Advisor have both gone on the record as saying that North Korea will not receive “economic aid” before it disarms. Some translation is necessary here. Recall that the Bush Administration’s position is that it does not use food as a weapon, [corrected: I typoed “does use” before–sorry!] and the United States has long been the top donor...