February 18, 2012

Agreed Framework III Watch

Whenever I mention Glyn Davies, I like to remind readers of the time he tried to pressure a State Department colleague into airbrushing a report on North Korea’s human rights atrocities for “the cause” of Agreed Framework II. Davies is about to fly to Beijing for talks with North Korean negotiator Kim Kye Gwan next week, and Kim wouldn’t have booked his ticket if he didn’t see a payday at the end of the journey. There isn’t a doubt in...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy
February 16, 2012

Anju, February 16, 2012

AP Watch: Today would have been Kim Jong Il’s birthday, and Jean H. Lee marks that occasion with another report from Pyongyang that is significant only for its complete lack of skepticism about the regime’s propaganda. Why is it that “engagement” with North Korea never changes North Korea, and always corrupts the institution that engages North Korea? Or perhaps the engagement is just an indication that those institutions were already corrupt. ________________________________ Say, mister, that’s one creepy picture you’ve got...
Categories Anju Links/Terrorism (NK)
February 15, 2012

Calling Bob King

I haven’t seen any news coverage about Korean-Americans protesting against Xi Jinping over China’s policy of sending North Korean refugees to gulags and firing squads.  China has never been known for its great sensitivity to public opinion, of course, so I also have to wonder if Vice President Biden’s “frank discussions” with Xi, during the latter’s visit, included any mention of a large group of North Korean refugees — various reports number them at 21, 29, or 33 souls —...
Categories China/Diplomacy/Human Rights
February 15, 2012

Hey, where’s my comment?

Recently, you’ve probably noticed how many spam comments my plugins aren’t catching. I don’t like seeing it get though. It gives the site a weedy look, and never more so than when it’s hawking some questionable product or service. If I didn’t have other life priorities, I suppose I should just find better plugins, but that’s a near impossibility with my decrepit version of WordPress, and an upgrade is a bigger project than I’m willing to take on right now....
Categories Blogs & Blogging
February 3, 2012

Why we should support the Syrian opposition, in spite of everything we know

Things sure aren’t looking too good in Egypt these days. I can’t say I’m terribly surprised by this. For decades, the true character of its society lay latent behind the veil of a dictator friendly to our interests, who mouthed words we like to hear about moving toward a more open, secular society. This never really happens under unrepresentative governments, of course. What happens instead is that the people seethe and their grievances build, and they’re drawn to well-organized, well-financed...
Categories Regime Change
January 30, 2012

North Korea shipped chemical reagents to Syria, possibly via China

This is a little old now, but I haven’t seen anyone else talking about it, so I will. The U.N. has launched an investigation into an attempted shipment of chemical weapons reagents and protective suits to Syria, a close ally of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah, and whose government gave safe passage to recruits on their way to Iraq to join Al Qaeda forces there. In November 2009, Greek authorities seized a container from a Liberia-registered freighter as it headed toward...
Categories Axis of Evil/China/Proliferation/Taiwan/WMD
January 27, 2012

Jabba the Kim among the Ewoks, or worst photo op ever

Maybe the Associated Press’s new vocation as a propaganda outlet for North Korea has a brighter side than I’d originally realized. Today, the AP brings us what must be the worst photo op ever, a barracks inspection by Kim Jong Eun. Where to begin? The unwittingly (I think) subversive decision to surround the morbidly obese kid — has he ever looked so fat? — with these lean, hungry leprechauns and their leathery, wizened officers? Posing him next to the their...
Categories Kim Jong Un/Propaganda/Unfortunate photo ops
January 26, 2012

Grafs from the new Kim Jong Nam book

Rather than spoon-feed you the parts that interest me, I’ll just link to this, this, and this and let you read and judge for yourself. You may also find this related article by Scott Snyder interesting. My reaction on reading these excerpts? Disappointment, mostly. Few of Jong Nam’s broader conclusions about North Korea are surprising or even divergent from the consensus of outside speculators. Most are either obvious, unsupported by any credible new revelations of fact, or both. An exception...
Categories Kim Jong Il/Kim Jong Un/Kremlinology
January 25, 2012

North Koreans killing secret police?

So says the Daily NK of recent events in the northeastern city of Chongjin, a frequent venue for reports of anti-government sentiment: A source in North Hamgyung Province told Daily NK on January 19, “During the mourning period, one official from the provincial NSA, one from the prosecutor’s office and two from the People’s Safety Agency were murdered in Cheongjin. The source added, “There was a note found lying next to the body of the executed NSA official which said...
Categories Resistance
January 21, 2012

Anju: January 21, 2012

The Daily NK writes about “The High Price of Idolatry:” We should perhaps remember with great concern the time when Kim Jong Il used $900 million to both permanently preserve Kim Il Sung’s body and then create Keumsusan Memorial Palace to keep it in. It is no simple task to erect a statue of anybody, let alone someone who presumably requires a large statue such as Kim Jong Il. In the South Korean city of Gumi, a mere 5m statue...
Categories Anju Links
January 20, 2012

Global news agency being held hostage in North Korea.

The dalliance between the Associated Press and the Korean Central News Agency, the world’s most mendacious news agency, has already fathered the global distribution of doctored photographs and some awfully dubious journalism by its correspondent, Jean H. Lee — and transmitted all of it to hundreds of millions of news consumers around the world. Recall that last summer, just after the AP first signed a joint distribution agreement with KCNA, the AP distributed this photograph of a flood in North...
Categories AP Watch/Media Criticism
January 19, 2012

Agreed Framework III Watch

There isn’t much to say about this that I haven’t already said so many times that I’m tired of saying it: North Korea on Wednesday signaled a willingness to freeze its uranium enrichment program in exchange for “confidence-building” incentives from the United States such as a suspension of sanctions and a resumption of food aid. The statement, carried by North Korea’s state-run news agency and attributed to a foreign ministry spokesman, was the first sign that North Korean heir Kim...
Categories Diplomacy/Famine & Food Aid/Six-Party Talks
January 13, 2012

Why they weep

This video ostensibly depicts North Koreans hysterically mourning a monster who terrorized, starved, and murdered millions of his subjects. This particular clip has accumulated more than seven million YouTube views. Videos like it have produced reels of bemused speculation in America. The near-universal reaction found this in roughly equal parts disturbing and amusing. I’m certain that I have, at times, found amusement in some aspects of North Korea that were, on closer examination, much more horrid than they were funny....
Categories Inside NK
January 11, 2012

North Korea’s Economy Contracts, Despite Chinese Sanctions-Busting

The Donga Ilbo publishes a very interesting study finding that North Korea’s economy has contracted recent years, mostly due to the loss of South Korean aid and the effect of sanctions: South Korean assistance to the North surged to raise the indicator to a high of 236.9 in 2007, a huge leap from the baseline score of 100 in 1995. The communist country`s trade volume also jumped 43.4 percent due to the expansion of trade with China. The North`s economy...
Categories NK Economics
January 9, 2012

North Korea Perestroika Watch

Here’s something else the consumers of Selig Harrison’s next op-ed should try not to remember: North Korea on Wednesday upped its rhetoric against South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, branding him as a “pro-U.S. fascist maniac” and “chieftain of evils without an equal in the world” in view of measures his government took last month in the wake of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. The virulent name-calling came in a report released by the secretariat of...
Categories Anju Links
January 6, 2012

January 6, 2012

So those North Korean coup rumors probably aren’t true, but when it comes to North Korea, it can be weeks before we know what small grain of truth led to the rumors.  Chico Harlan of the Washington Post must feel at least a little sheepish having to pass along those rumors, and to admit that he has no idea if they’re true, so soon after writing that Kim Jong Eun’s succession was going smoothly.  The conclusion was based entirely on...
Categories Anju Links