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Monthly Archive: January, 2008

January 31, 2008

N. Korea: We Won’t Budge

As State Department official Sung Kim heads for Pyongyang  to try to  save  Chris Hill’s  failing deal, North Korea is trying to be unambiguous about just how much it’s willing to give. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il told a Chinese Communist Party official Wednesday that there is no change in Pyongyang’s stance of implementing a six-party agreement on the North’s denuclearization, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported.  Kim made the remarks when he met with Wang Jiarui, head of...

Categories China & Korea/Six-Party Talks
January 29, 2008

Anju Links for 29 Jan 08

BRING OUT YOUR  NOT-QUITE-DEAD:  “UN agency to conduct its first census since famine killed millions.”  If things don’t quite add up, try looking here. NOT LOOKING GOOD  FOR KEVIN G. HALL:  A reader e-mails a detailed article — co-written by Bradley K. Martin,  no less –that  drives a few 3-inch  sheetrock screws into the coffin of Hall’s piece of work.  If you’re not yet saying “enough already” to all of this, the updated post is  here. DAVID ALBRIGHT, CALL YOUR...

Categories Anju Links
January 28, 2008

SOTU Speech Fails to Mention North Korea

I heard “Korea,” and I think I  probably heard  “North” somewhere, but I did not hear “North Korea.”   It’s  nice that President Bush stands against genocide in  Sudan.  Seriously.  It would be better than “nice” if  Bush would do something meaningful to stop it.  It’s too bad, of course, that he chose to end his term as  an abettor of  a genocidal regime  in North Korea.  North Korea was even left out of his catch-all  list of repressive  nations  abroad. ...

Categories Appeasement/U.S. Politics
January 28, 2008

Anju Links for 28 Jan 08

OUR  FIFTEEN SECONDS:  I’m extremely pleased to see reader and friend CPT Jon Stafford getting great circulation for his must-read article, “Finding America’s Role in  a Collapsed North Korean State.”  Richardson had previously linked to a  video  discussion between the online editors of The Weekly Standard and Foreign Policy that scratched the surface of the problem, just.  Today, Bradley Martin, author of “Under the Loving  Care of the Fatherly Leader” has an article discussing it in somewhat greater depth at...

Categories Anju Links
January 26, 2008

Anju Links for 26 Jan 08

THE STREETS ARE NOT PAVED WITH GOLD: North Korean refugees talk about working two jobs, missing their families, immigration paperwork, English, and surviving. It’s not perfect, but it sure beats the alternatives: “During the March of Starvation 10 years ago, I lay in my bedroom after having had nothing to eat for three days and thought, ‘So this is how people die.’ For me to be here is like a dream. I do not have anything in North Korea and...

Categories Anju Links
January 26, 2008

Fox: White House May Accept Incomplete N. Korean Declaration

“Foreign diplomatic sources” have told Fox News that Chris Hill has floated the idea of accepting a declaration that omits information about North Korea’s proliferation — to Syria, for  instance —  or its suspected uranium enrichment programs. With North Korea almost a month overdue on its obligation to provide a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear programs and materiel, the Bush administration — under increasing pressure from American conservatives to take a harder line with Pyongyang, or abandon the...

Categories Appeasement/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks
January 26, 2008

Jane’s: N. Korean Regime Near Collapse

[Update: Digg it here] [Update 2: A reader points out that Reuben F. Johnson is the source of both the Weekly Standard and Jane’s stories. I admit that I’m not familiar with Johnson’s work, but when a story comes with specifics, it’s more persuasive than when it comes without.] Kim Jong-Il’s regime could collapse within six months, bringing chaos to North Korea, observers and intelligence sources in Asia have told Jane’s. [. . . .] I know, I know: saying...

Categories Uncategorized
January 25, 2008

Anju Links for 25 Jan 08

HEY, MEND THIS FENCE:   President-Elect Lee  Myung Bak has sent Chung Mong-Joon  to the United States to “mend fences” which implies the obvious — relations between the United States and South Korea have deteriorated.  The Hanky runs down how it went.  While I’m sure Dick Lugar and Chuck Hagel won’t be a tough audience, if Lee wants to  repair some of South  Korea’s well-deserved reputation for anti-Americanism,  he can start with his own damn side of the fence.  HOSTILE POLICY: ...

Categories Anju Links
January 25, 2008

Kevin G. Hall’s Counterfeit Journalism (Updated)

[Update 28 Jan 08:   I’m going to keep flogging this story until I’ve corrected the record.  A reader (thank you)  directs me to this Bloomberg story by none other than Bradley K. Martin and Hideko Takayama.  This one is second only to Steven Mihm’s  for  the quality of its  investigative reporting.  If you’ve read Martin’s book, you’ll  already know  that he’s no neocon collapsist, to say the least.    Takayama and Martin interviewed Yoshihide Matsumura, “whose Matsumura Technology Co....

Categories Counterfeiting/Media Criticism/Money Laundering
January 24, 2008

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Senate Subcommittee Finds Massive Irregularities in UN’s North Korea Development Aid

[Scroll down for updates.] The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has just released its report on the UN Development Program’s North Korea scandal.  Previous postings here concern the U.S. Ambassador’s original complaint,  Ban Ki Moon’s unrealized promises  of a full investigation, and the suspicious  termination of a whistleblower.  First, the main findings: 1. UNDP operated in North Korea with inappropriate staffing, questionable use of foreign currency instead of local currency, and insufficient administrative and fiscal controls.   2. By preventing...

Categories "United" Nations/Famine & Food Aid/U.S. Politics
January 23, 2008

Just What We Needed: Our Very Own Ministry of Unification.

From a White House press briefing today:  Q       Is the administration about to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism?      MS. PERINO:  No.  Right now where we are is waiting on the North Koreans to provide a complete and accurate declaration of their nuclear activities.  So we’re continuing to wait for that.  We still have people on the ground helping with the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facility.  So at this...

Categories Diplomacy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Politics/Washington Views
January 23, 2008

Classless Condi

[Update:   Miss that warm, moist pungence rising around your ankles?  Here’s your fix for that: “I’m going to have a great deal more to say about elevating the issue of human rights in North Korea, which is clearly a priority for the president and Congress,” he said.  [N.Y. Times, Helene Cooper] Exactly how stupid do these people  think we are?  Condi Rice has scarcely uttered a word about this in four years, has prevented anyone else but the marginalized...

Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Washington Views
January 23, 2008

Anju Links for 23 Jan 08

WHAT HE SAID:  Richardson has a must-read commentary on State’s persistent clinging to the assinine  idea of removing non-complaint, non-performing, unreformed North Korea from the terror-sponsor list.  He does a terrific job on tracking how State airbrushes its justification for listing North Korea year-by-year.  I could only add that  the idea of rewarding people who do absolutely everything we want them not to do  has to be the dumbest idea since  Windows  Vista.  I have to wonder if Congress would...

Categories Anju Links
January 22, 2008

Plan B: How to Disarm Kim Jong Il Without Bombing Him

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. — Albert Einstein Plan A, gentle diplomacy, has again failed to disarm Kim Jong Il. Whenever this happens (every time it’s tried) advocates of doing the same thing over and over again fall back on The False Choice, whether expressly or by implication: it’s their way or war. They know better, of course, which technically makes this a lie. And usually, this lie stands uncorrected: “People lambaste...

Categories Diplomacy/Money Laundering/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks
January 19, 2008

Gridlock and infighting stalk collapse of Agreed Framework 2.0

You could  write the epitaph for the President Bush’s North Korea policies in six words:  There are worse things than gridlock.  Now that Agreed Framework 2.0 has reached its failure point  and not even  sympathetic media  can still deny it, the New York Times reports that the same  old factions have formed up  to battle about the fruitlessness of dealing with Kim Jong Il.  With North Korea sending signals that it may be trying to wait out Mr. Bush’s time...

Categories Google Earth
January 19, 2008

The Candidates on North Korea (Fred Thompson)

Whew.  I had expected these  primary things to make this project a little less ambitions.  I expected wrong.  Next: SIMON: Well, here’s our final question, though. As you probably know, I’m sure you know, Ambassador Bolton has become very critical of the Bush administration since his resignation from the United Nations. He wrote a book about it and he’s made a lot of public statements. Do you think — and implying that the Bush administration is essentially walking backwards on...

Categories U.S. Politics
January 19, 2008

Good Riddance, Ministry of Silly Talks

After weeks of conflicting reports, Lee Myung Bak’s transition team had made it official:  the UniFiction  Ministry goes to the ash-heap, along with  the Ministries  of Truth Information and Communication, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Science and Technology, and the Anti-Sex League Gender Equality and Family.  The  Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade will become a much larger  and more powerful  Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Unification.  As a whole, the government will shrink by more than 5%, about 7,000 employees....

Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics