Hu Jintao is in North Korea, along with his Foreign Minister.

This interview was conducted entirely by e-mail because Norbert moves around so much. I believe he’s been in Pakistan helping earthquake victims there, or had at least been planning to do so with the Korean Medical Assocation, as he did after the Tsunami in January. Unfortunately, my e-mail truncated my last few questions, including the ones where I asked what was about to go down during the Arirang Festival up in the Emerald City. I’ve asked that question, and a...

It Was a Busy Day Today. But you’ll get your money’s worth yet. Check back tomorrow and I’ll have an interview with Norbert Vollertsen up. What he calls his “Germanenglish” needs some edits.

The proper rejoinder to the plaintive whine, “Why do they hate us?” is “Are they nuts?” The Chosun Ilbo is the latest publication to beg the question after attending the international propaganda fiasco known as “Arirang.” In this case, the answer probably has a lot to do with the participants’ sheer terror of making the slightest mistake. The show aims to convince the audience that ruler Kim Jong Il and his late father, Kim Il Sung, have brought peace and...

Shame on Roh Moo Hyun for yet another act of historic moral cowardice. Can I say this really surprises me? I mean, are you surprised? The bright side to this, if there is one, is that there’s a rapidly growing audience watching it all. Someone in South Korea must make a national issue of the human cost of appeasement. Someone must do what is right today, rather than rue this day before the next “Truth Commission” fifty years hence. Meanwhile,...

N. Korean Man in Mexico to Seek Asylum in the United States The Hankuk Ilbo report said the 46-year-old man, who escaped from North Korea into China and then to Mexico, said he planned either to apply for refugee status at an American consulate there or cross the border illegally. If the man decides to apply for asylum, his would be the first such application since the passage of U.S. legislation intended to ease the way for North Koreans seeking...

When I say reliable, you’re just going to have to trust me on this, because this person, M, has received the full Judith Miller no-rat guarantee. This person is telling the truth, and has a sufficient basis of knowledge to know what the truth is. M is a member of a Christian charity who recently returned from North Korea. The charity has multiple facilities that produce and/or distribute food. Recently, the charity was informed by the NK authorities that most...

They’ll get three when this translates to action, but a new draft U.N. resolution, to be introduced to the General Assembly by the EU at the end of this month, is an outstanding new beginning after years of failure: The draft resolution, exclusively obtained by the Chosun Ilbo, expressed serious concern about North Korea’s rejection of UN humanitarian deliveries from the end of the year and urges the North to give humanitarian groups full access to the country so they...

Latest Bi-Election Results–Another Uri Beating: Uri has lost all 4 seats that were up for grabs, 2 of which changed hands from Uri to GNP. In a likely upset, the far-left Democratic Labor Party appears to have lost a seat in a working-class area of Ulsan to the GNP. The results almost certainly marked the second successive lockout for President Roh Moo-hyun’s Uri Party in by-elections. In April, six vacant seats were contested; the Grand National Party won five, stripping...

Hwang Jang Yop Calls for One Free Korea: Mr. Hwang noted that it took the South decades to surpass the North economically but the North needed only five years to “occupy the ideological encampment” of the South. Warning that Seoul needed to recognize the North’s true strategy, he said it was time to raise the issue of North Korean human rights while working toward unification.

Does anyone still remember the Millenium Democratic Party?

Korea-bashing is officially a bi-partisan sport: A newly hawkish U.S. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday chastised South Korea for what she claimed was a fog of “historical amnesia” clouding its relationship with Washington. She said the alliance was at a “critical juncture. Clinton’s comments came during the confirmation hearing for Gen. Burwell Bell, President Bush’s nominee to command USFK. Clinton said the U.S. role in bringing about South Korea’s remarkable economic success since the Korean War was significant, but...

The New York Times, quoting high-level administration sources, is making the connection between U.S. law enforcement measures, the PSI, and diplomacy you’ve only seen here up to now: MOSCOW, Oct. 23 – The Bush administration is expanding what it calls “defensive measures” against North Korea, urging nations from China to the former Soviet states to deny overflight rights to aircraft that the United States says are carrying weapons technology, according to two senior administration officials. At the same time, the...

The New York Times, quoting high-level administration sources, is making the connection between U.S. law enforcement measures, the PSI, and diplomacy you’ve only seen here up to now: MOSCOW, Oct. 23 – The Bush administration is expanding what it calls “defensive measures” against North Korea, urging nations from China to the former Soviet states to deny overflight rights to aircraft that the United States says are carrying weapons technology, according to two senior administration officials. At the same time, the...

This weekend, I was reading one of the old National Geographics that litter my house, and started reading “Albanians: A People Undone,” in the February 2000 issue. At the time, NATO had just moved into Kosovo, and Albania proper was emerging from the legacy of 40 nightmarishly oppressive years under dictator Enver Hoxha. In the late 1980’s, Hoxha and Kim Il Sung were two of the last leaders on earth commonly termed “Stalinist,” although regimes’ secular state religions drew heavily...

I am ready to pronounce a partial reversal of my view on North Korea’s Arirang Festival. For the little trifle that the North Korean regime hoped to earn from curious westerners or sympathetic South Koreans, they certainly did not expect to turn a profit. The real motives were domestic consumption and foreign propaganda–to show the world that North Korea is unified, stable, happy, and dangerous to any foe. If that was the motive, the resulting coverage fell dramatically short of...

This weekend, I was reading one of the old National Geographics that litter my house, and started reading “Albanians: A People Undone,” in the February 2000 issue. At the time, NATO had just moved into Kosovo, and Albania proper was emerging from the legacy of 40 nightmarishly oppressive years under dictator Enver Hoxha. In the late 1980’s, Hoxha and Kim Il Sung were two of the last leaders on earth commonly termed “Stalinist,” although regimes’ secular state religions drew heavily...

I am ready to pronounce a partial reversal of my view on North Korea’s Arirang Festival. For the little trifle that the North Korean regime hoped to earn from curious westerners or sympathetic South Koreans, they certainly did not expect to turn a profit. The real motives were domestic consumption and foreign propaganda–to show the world that North Korea is unified, stable, happy, and dangerous to any foe. If that was the motive, the resulting coverage fell dramatically short of...