No matter what the North Koreans do with Kaesong next week or next year, their actions last week have already assured that it will fail to attract the international investment it needs to succeed. The North having demonstrated its willingness to hold potential investors’ capital hostage to their political whims, those investors will now stay away in droves.
It’s worth reviewing just how grandiose the dream of Kaesong had become so recently. If you recognize the url stamped onto this video, that’s probably because you’ve seen it here. These people truly, seriously suggest that landlocked, DMZ-bounded Kaesong, seated firmly on the pressure plate of what could become World War III in an instant, would have become an economic hub for the entire region, employing 200,000 laborers and eventually expanding into one of Korea’s largest metropolitan areas.
How is it possible for people so divorced from reality to gain control over that much capital? Oh, right.
There’s also something oddly familiar about this whole three-phase concept:
Phase I: Build factories on territory of bankrupt, anti-capitalist tyranny, just across the world’s most militarized border.
Phase Two: ?
Phase III: Profit.
Why do I have this odd sense of deja vu?
Aside from the snicker-inducing not-quite-right English and the references to the North’s “superior” labor, the video claims that the workers’ monthly wage of $57.50 is the lowest on earth. Plenty of reputable newspapers (in my estimation, most of them) continue to falsely report similar “wage” figures for the North Korean workers, although we know that the regime’s inflated exchange rates and “voluntary” deductions leave the workers little if any money to keep for themselves. This is one instance where journalistic malpractice does not just flourish, it prevails.
The South Korean left is writhing mightily to find some way to blame its own government for North Korea’s strangling of Kaesong. One Hankyoreh columnist blames Lee Myung Bak for reacting calmly instead of desperately throwing money and concessions at the North Koreans. This makes for pretty amusing reading, though not as amusing as the columnist’s name. Funny, I always thought Koreans kept their maiden names ….
And of course, senile ex-President Kim Dae Jung can’t stand to spend his autumn years in quiet reflection, wondering whether that shiny Nobel Prize really was worth the massive illegal diversion of public funds he used to purchase it. (Depending on your answer to that, DJ was either Korea’s greatest statesan or just another crooked politician willing to swindle the public to aggrandize himself. Hmmm.) DJ, never one to let logic or the fear of rhetorical excess get in the way of any given instant’s objective, would have us all believe that Lee Myung Bak is leading a column of tanks back to Kwangju from the cupola of an M-113, with Chun Doo Hwan jerking levers under the driver’s hatch:
Speaking about what he says is a regression of the democratic reforms achieved up to this point because of the government’s mishandling of the candlelight demonstrations, Kim sent an indirect warning to the Lee administration, saying, “Those who are practicing strong-arm politics think they cannot fail, and are under the misconception that they are different from the past.”
Kim asked the people to have confidence, saying that democracy “may be facing a temporary set back, but there will be no retreat. Can a dictatorship arise before people who achieved democracy?” In particular, Kim strongly urged the Democratic Party and the Democratic Labor Party to join forces to defend democracy.
Kim said, “I’m very concerned because a crisis of democracy is coming, but I’m not in despair.” Democracy, he said again, “may be facing a temporary set back, but there will be no retreat.” [The Hankyoreh]
Today’s topic: Is the Nobel Peace Prize merely conclusive proof of the recipient’s stupidity or the Mark of the Beast? Discuss amongst yourselves. Yes, do tell us all, DJ, how the forces of freedom can stop Lee Myung Bak’s iron heel from censoring its opposition in the South or stamping out the sassy, vibrant democracy that thrives in North Korea today? For starters, DJ thinks President Lee is letting entirely too much free speech running amok:
Regarding the propaganda leaflets bearing messages critical of the North Korean regime and sent to the North in balloons, Kim said, “The South and the North agreed not to slander each other (under the June 15 Declaration and others). However, we are not living up to that promise” because the leaflets are still being sent northward. “Are these agreements that the private sector doesn’t have to follow but the government does? Who are they trying to fool?”
I could ask the same question of a has-been politician who is about to mount the soap box of free-speech martyrdom. I believe DJ is telling us that South Korea must destroy free expression to save democracy. I’m certainly no big fan of Lee Myung Bak, but there’s no one quite like Kim Dae Jung to remind us all that Lee is still the lesser of two idiocies.
Posted by Joshua on November 29, 2008 at 9:59 am · Filed under Google Earth
One of the great ironies of North Korea is that while it is, without much question, the world’s most closed society, one can literally read it from the distance of geosynchronous orbit. I’ve created a new page on North Korea’s propaganda signs. A big hat tip here to Curtis Melvin of NK Econ Watch, who found most of these and put them into their own subdirectory on this in his incredible “North Korea uncovered.”
There appears to be no end to Korea’s passion for insignificant, isolated scraps of land.
Some 85.5 percent of the 451 islets in the Apnok (or Yalu) and Duman (or Tumen) rivers on the border between North Korea and China properly belong to the North, an academic claims. Prof. Suh Kil-soo of Seokyeong University makes the claim in a study of the border along Mt. Baekdu and the two rivers, which will be released in a seminar of the Koguryo and Balhae History Association at the History Museum of Paichai School Foundation in Seoul on Dec. 8. [Chosun Ilbo]
After a dispassionate “econometric analysis,” Professor Suh concluded that the vast majority of the islets were (still holding your breath?) Korean land. U-ri ttang! U-ri ttang!
Please submit your “why all of the islets in the Amnok-Gang are Korean land” essay contest entries in the comments below.
A wave of free publicity, courtesy of the governments of North and South Korea, has made the leaflet balloon campaign has been a great success. Why quit now?
Activists for human rights in North Korea on Tuesday vowed to keep sending propaganda leaflets to the North even though the government has asked them to desist. The announcement was made by Park Sang-hak, head of Fighters for Free North Korea and Choi Sung-yong, president of Family Assembly Abducted to North Korea.
Park and Choi said at a news conference held in Central Government Complex that they had decided to suspend their activities of sending leaflets for three months but reversed the decision after the North announced Monday that it will suspend tours to the North Korean border city of Kaesong and halt a cross-border rail service. [Chosun Ilbo]
Instead, the activists should to stick to simple, strong, personal, and principled message: give us back the people we love. A simple, principled demand is almost always more effective than a complex defense of amateur diplomacy.
If the North does go through with its threats to shut down Kaesong, it will have imposed a steep financial penalty on itself. As of today, the North has not gone so far as to close the complex, but seems to be taking an incremental approach, dragging out its threats for maximum effect. If Lee Myung Bak is anguished about any of this, it’s not obvious:
South Korea said Wednesday it would withdraw the last remaining staffers from its economic cooperation office at the border industrial complex in North Korea this week after Pyongyang demanded the office shut down amid deteriorating ties.
North Korea announced a set of sweeping measures Monday to scale back reconciliation projects with Seoul, including the suspension of a popular tour program to its ancient border city of Kaesong and a drastic cutback of South Korean workers in a nearby industrial zone. [….]
Seoul also provided Pyongyang with a list of managers from South Korean companies who will leave Kaesong this week, Kim said. He declined to say how many are in the proposed pullout list because the number could change depending on negotiations with the North. [IHT]
Lee cuts a good contrast to his predecessors, who at times seemed to act as if they were dependent on North Korea’s cash. Lee seems content to call the North Koreans’ bluff:
Lee has questioned implementing key accords his predecessors struck with the North’s Kim Jong Il that call for providing aid to the North without condition. That and other moves by Seoul, including its recent sponsorship of a U.N. resolution denouncing Pyongyang’s human rights record, have enraged the North.
You can contribute here to help fund more balloon launches.
Posted by Joshua on November 26, 2008 at 9:55 am · Filed under Appeasement
We still don’t have a very clear picture of what Obama’s North Korea policy is going to be, but the North Koreans apparently have high expectations, as does one of its most prominent U.S. sympathizers, Professor Han S. Park. Park, writing in the Korea Times, says Team Obama met with the North Koreans recently and promised a “dramatic stride toward diplomatic normalization.” Oh, and the Americans will also demand that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons.
Some day.
This would mean that North Korea would have achieved all of its demands for no significant performance whatsoever and leave the next Secretary of State nothing to negotiate with. Hillary Clinton may be many things, for better or for worse, but she strikes me as a better negotiator than this.
Is this kind of preemptive capitulation possible in an atmosphere where North Korea’s version of disarmament means it keeps its nuclear weapons, its fissile material, its bigger reactors, its uranium program, its concentration camps, its supernote factories, and its proliferation rackets … and denies that we can conduct verification in any real sense? The early signals from Obama’s nominations don’t suggest that our foreign policies will be built around complete prostration to our enemies, and I can state on good authority — a source who prefers to remain off-record — that Park is at least half full of shit here.
If Park also happens to be half right about this, it will be interesting to see whether Republicans who sat on their hands throughout Team Bush’s total sellout suddenly become strident supporters of the national interest who denounce the new administration’s “appeasement.” And as disingenuous as that would be, it sure beats the alternative of them continuing to slumber as our diplomatic incompetence transforms a starving, tin-pot tyranny into a major nuclear power and proliferator.
As of today, however, one can plausibly hope that Obama’s North Korea policy will be vastly less awful and more competent than Bush’s.
Posted by Joshua on November 26, 2008 at 6:55 am · Filed under U.S. & Korea
I wonder if this article by the Chosun Ilbo’s Washington Correspondent, Lee Ha Won, pissed you off as much as it did me:
[U.S. Ambassador Kathleen] Stephens should inform her government of the very real problems facing Korea’s automotive market, since the issue has the potential to fray ties between the Lee and Obama administrations.
Korea has no regulations discriminating against U.S. automobiles. What is not widely known in the United States is that last year alone, 50,000 Japanese and European cars were imported to Korea. According to the democratic principles so beloved of American people, the Korean government cannot force its people to buy American cars of inferior quality. If the intention is to save troubled American carmakers by sacrificing Korea, then Stephens must convey the message that doing so could damage the bilateral alliance.
When two Korean girls were killed in an accident involving a U.S. military vehicle back in 2002, the then U.S. ambassador to Korea failed to grasp the gravity of the situation. Since then, anti-American sentiment among Koreans has increased, scarring Korean-U.S. relations.
If bilateral relations worsen before the Obama administration is launched, and Korean left-wing forces rally behind the anti-American banner, we may end up seeing a situation that rivals the anti-U.S.-beef protests. Stephens should consider engaging in “preventive diplomacy” and rapidly inform her government of Korean concerns about the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. That way, she could benefit the Korean people who have warmly welcomed her as well as U.S. national interests. [Lee Ha Won, Chosun Ilbo]
Translation: give us our demands or we’ll riot against you. This does not sound like a relationship worth having, much less sacrificing U.S. interests for. It doesn’t matter to Lee that the 2002 protests were irrational or that the beef protests were based on fiction, because the conservative South Korean business interests for whom Mr. Lee speaks have joined the left in an unspoken (we hope) conspiracy to extort us. That’s only slightly more subtle than the way North Korea deals with us. What other “ally” so brazenly manipulates us?
I think the headline of this New York Times story by Choe Sang Hun ought to give you the idea:
“Latest Threats May Mean North Korea Wants to Talk”
Right. North Korea is serially flicking all of switches on the Sunshine machine to the “off” position, snipping the hotlines, storming out of talks, typing up eviction notices for the fools and scoundrels who inhabit Kaesong, and shooting the occasional housewife. Yet “experts” are found to conclude that this means that the North Korean just want to talk … to be loved, really:
But longtime North Korea watchers see it much differently, saying that the moves fit a familiar and consistent pattern, and that they may even signal an upturn in relations with the United States.
Over the years, they say, North Korea has divided its negotiations with the outside world into what analysts call “salami pieces,” maximizing its gains at each stage. If the opponent balks, it uses brinkmanship.
“North Korea got what it could from Bush. Now it is signaling to President-elect Barack Obama, ‘O.K., let’s negotiate again over nuclear sampling,’ ” said Lee Sang-hyun, an analyst at Sejong Institute, a research organization. “To Lee Myung-bak, its message is that it means action if he doesn’t reconsider his policy.” [NY Times, Choe Sang Hun]
If he’s saying that North Korea is perpetually breaking the last deal to get more benefits and give fewer concessions, granted. If he’s saying that North Korea is going to try the same crap with Obama that worked so well with Bush, I grant that, too. If he’s saying that we are to join him in interpreting belligerency, terrorism, and cold-blooded murder as invitations to constructive dialogue, I posit that I could find analysis of equal merit in any soju tent. Once you’ve learned the term “tongmi bongnam,” you’ve extracted the full value from this baseless bit of static that happens to have been published in the New York Times.
Victor Cha has a somewhat more rational perspective here.
In any event, Team Bush is leaving Team Obama blessed little to negotiate with. Here’s my other favorite headline of the day, this one from the Washington Times:
“U.S. takes N. Korea’s word on nukes pact”
So we’ve conceded verification, along with the uranium, the plutonium, the 50-MW reactor, the 200-MW reactor, the actual nuclear weapons, proliferation, counterfeiting, dope, and human rights violations on a scale rivaling anything seen since Russian tanks rolled up to Auschwitz. Other than that, Assistant Secretary Hill, you’ve achieved quite a masterstroke of complete, verifiable, irreversibledisarmament frequent flying!
Privately, you can already hear some of Obama’s people saying the same thing I am: Bush, Hill, and Rice are giving away so much on disarmament, sanctions, and verification that their successors will be going into this process with the dimmest of odds to ever fully denuclearize North Korea (despite the fact that we have a whole kit bag of legal and financial tools that could force North Korea to comply).
Once again, Chris Hill throws away our interests in some private, unwritten agreement that the North Koreans can easily repudiate:
Most recently, the administration has taken as sufficient an oral commitment by North Korea to allow sampling and other scientific activities to verify its nuclear history - a pledge the North says it never made.
The only written account of that promise - which the officials say was given privately to chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill by his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye-gwan, in Pyongyang last month - is in a “memorandum of conversation” written by Mr. Hill to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
North Korea, however, insists that it never agreed to sampling and other measures to verify a nuclear declaration it submitted in June to six-nation disarmament talks. In a statement earlier this month, the North said it accepted a document with no specific enforcement measures.
Miss Rice told reporters Sunday that leaders of the United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan agreed during a weekend economic summit in Peru to meet in China Dec. 8 to try to clarify the situation.
The State Department says it has not released Mr. Hill’s memorandum to Miss Rice because it is an internal document.
Mr. Hill told other members of the administration that the North Koreans were blustering, according to a former senior official who still maintains regular contact with his ex-colleagues. He requested anonymity because he was discussing private conversations. [Washington Times]
So once again, we have nothing to go on but the word of the no-longer-anonymous Chris Hill, a man whose character for truthfulness we have ample reason to question. If nothing is written and we can’t trust Hill, are we to take the word of the North Koreans, as Hill did? There is no statesmanship in putting such a selfish pursuit of an agreement — any agreement — before the national interest:
“It’s the worst possible scenario that the U.S. failed to achieve progress on the verification issue despite having removed North Korea from its blacklist of countries supporting terrorism,” a South Korean government official said. “The Bush administration wants to be seen as having managed to lay at least a bridgehead for the third phase of the denuclearization issue by gaining an accord on verification.” Early December may well be the last chance for the Bush administration as his successor Barack Obama is sworn in in January. [Chosun Ilbo]
Lacking any basis in fact to think that the North Koreans are remotely interested in disarming, some of America’s most prominent diplomats and journalists have resorted to blind faith in the imaginary and the contrived. But if faith-based diplomacy didn’t work before, why should it work during the last days of Bush’s term?
Posted by Joshua on November 25, 2008 at 6:46 am · Filed under Human Rights
As North Korean concentration camps go, Camp 18 has a reputation for being less terrible than most. The Daily NK helps to keep that in perspective by publishing an interview with a survivor. He says prisoners there were branded on their stomachs to better identify them.
He also testified that at the political prison, “15~20 are publicly executed around this time of the year.”
Lim also noted, regarding life at the camp, “The teachers try to instill animosity towards parents by saying, ‘You are paying for the crime of your parents.’ As a result, one woman buried her elderly parents alive.”
Lim also explained that prisoners do not have citizen registration cards, so there isn’t even a process for reporting their deaths.
[….]
Ahn, who was originally a guard of the No. 22 Political Prison Camp, which consists of only a “completely controlled zone,” said at the ceremony, “Among 300,000-some detainees in political prison camps, 90% are held in completely controlled zones. The No. 22 Political Prison Camp and No. 25 Soosung Reeducation Camp in Chongjin even have the crisis plan of concealing their existence by constructing dams and then destroying them, burying the prisoners alive.” [Daily NK]
You can see the boundaries of Camp 18 delineated on the maps here. According to the Daily NK’s account, Camp 18 may hold 100,000 prisoners. From Google Earth, it’s evident that the camp is very large and could certainly contain a large population.
According to some fragmentary reports passed along by Human Rights Frontiers, Son Jung Nam — or rather, what’s left of Son Jung Nam after more than a year of torture in a dungeon in Pyongyang — is about to be stood up against a firing squad … if he still lives, that is. (No link on the latest report, which come to me via e-mail). I previously posted on Son’s case here.
In China, a group of 11 refugees between the ages of 19 and 50 is also facing imminent repatriation from China to North Korea. An effort to bribe their way to safety was derailed when it was found that they were in the company of a North Korean government agent who had infiltrated them by pretending to be a refugee. They are coordinating an emergency plea to Congress, so if you’re so inclined, you can write your representatives here. Here’s a sample you can start with, which was drafted as an appeal for Son’s life:
I am gravely concerned at reports that Mr Son Jung Nam (48), a North Korean, is due to be executed this month, and I am writing in order to urge your immediate response and action. Mr Son’s brother Son Jung Hoon reported that he had received a call saying Mr Son has been sentenced to public execution and even family members cannot visit him.
I was deeply disturbed to hear that he is at present imprisoned in the basement of the National Security Agency in Pyongyang and is said to be ‘practically dead from horrible torture.’
Mr Son Jung Nam is accused of betraying the DPRK. I am gravely concerned that the charges and treatment he has received are in severe contravention of international law – the basis for all international relations.
I particularly urge your immediate action as Mr Son Jung Hoon has said that he has reason to believe that the execution would be carried out in April. Given the report of torture being used against Mr Son Jung Nam, I am extremely concerned that all necessary measures should be taken as a matter of urgency to ensure his case is dealt with according to the obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the DPRK is a party.
I would appreciate your rapid response conveying your assurances in this matter.
Blackouts frequently interrupted a four-day stay in Pyongyang for South Koreans attending a rare joint seminar between the Cold War rivals, with the North’s showcase city often plunged into pitch darkness by power outages.
‘What is going on here?’ a North Korean border control officer said when computer terminals lost power and the lights went out at the Soviet-era Sunan Airport terminal, which serves Pyongyang, while he was processing the documents of the visiting South Koreans.
One of his colleagues tried in vain to keep the line of visitors moving by checking passports in the faint light from a distant door.
When the sun goes down in Pyongyang, people hurry along unlit sidewalks before they have to grope their way home in near total darkness. [Reuters, via Singapore Straits Times]
Earlier this year, the North Koreans were boasting to visitors about the abundance of electricity — generated with fuel oil extorted out of Chris Hill and Team Bush — asking, “Have you experience blackouts in Pyongyang lately?”
I guess we know the answer to that.
One of the visiting South Koreans was injured during a blackout at the hotel where they were staying, considered one of the country’s finest. He bumped his head when stranded in a lightless corridor, leaving him with a gash on his forehead and in need of medical treatment.
‘It’s all because it is so damned dark in there,’ a fellow visitor said.
Posted by Joshua on November 24, 2008 at 6:00 am · Filed under Kim Jong Il
So suggest the Japanese broadcasters of this video. While I’m not personally persuaded of its authenticity, you may find that it has some measure of aesthetic appeal.
Kenji Fujimoto, who was Kim Jong Il’s exclusive sushi chef before escaping to write a book about it, claimed that Kim kept girls who danced for his entertainment, but who were not to be touched by anyone (even including Kim himself?).
In his book “Rogue Regime,” Jasper Becker explains that there were actually several “pleasure squads” of both the vertical and the horizontal kind. He even claims to have spotted a group of stunning German and Swedish blondes at one of the mass games events there years ago.
Posted by Joshua on November 23, 2008 at 7:55 pm · Filed under Kim Jong Il
No, I am not making this up. There’s no permlink to the story, but if you read Korean, you can read it here.
The Monthly Chosun, quoting the South Korean intel leak ticker, is claiming that the Korean National Intelligence service, while doing electronic eavesdropping on North Korea last August, intercepted several encrypted electronic files being transmitted from Pyongyang to one Doctor Francois-Xavier Roux in France. It took three days to crack the encryption, at which point the intelligence officers realized that the files showed MRI and tomography scans of a brain showing stroke damage and partial paralysis. The Monthly Chosun’s source believes that the images are of the warped and clotted cerebellum of His Porcine Majesty.
The source did not specify what leads him to believe the scan images are of Kim Jong Il’s brain, or why all of the data files were named “Abby Someone.”
The brain scans suggest that Kim Jong Il has no more than five years left, which ought to make for some ferocious office politics in the National Defense Commission. I won’t give you the entire translation, but I thought you’d like this quote:
[Reporter:] Do you mean Kim Jong Il has five years to live or five years to govern?
[Anonymous Intelligence Officer:] Those two are very closely related.
For several weeks, since reports first emerged that Kim Jong Il had had a stroke, the foreign press has swirled with stories based on speculation, anonymous sources, and quite possibly disinformation. This story is probably the latest of them.
The source also told the Monthly Chosun that the ridiculous reporting in September that Kim Jong Il was now able to brush his own teeth misquoted South Korean doctors, who had hypothesized that Kim would probably be able to brush his own teeth based on their reading of the reports of his condition. Glad to have cleared that up for you.
The Korea Times reports that a joint committee of the U.S. Congress has recommended that the government establish a special task force aimed at persuading the Chinese to stop repatriating North Korean refugees. On the less hopeful side, we still don’t have a clear idea of how much priority the executive branch is going to give this issue, and to phrase this gently, I don’t expect Hillary Clinton’s policies to be unduly influenced by sentimental considerations.
The commission recommends appropriating funds to offset the costs that China would incur from a more humane treatment of the refugees, but who really believes that China’s inhumanity here is about money (as opposed to keeping Korea divided into two states, one a vassal and one a neutral)? And since I’m on the topic of China’s brutality, this video is a fine illustration of that:
Members of the bipartisan commission include such stalwarts as Rep. Ed Royce and Sen. Sam Brownback, so there’s reason to have confidence in its motives.
The KT also reports that a U.N. panel has recommended approval of a resolution calling on North Korea to make its human rights record less abysmal. Positive: South Korea was a proponent of the resolution. Negative: America wasn’t, and the U.N. is irrelevant anyway.
Freedom rises over Korea, into the air over the most oppressed and darkened place on earth. The video clips that follow are from the BBC, Al Jazzeera, the Voice of America, and New Tang Dynasty Television.
The people who are launching these balloons are, in large part, North Koreans who could not live — or stand living — in their homeland, and who can find no other means to connect with those they left behind. Others are South Koreans whose loved ones were stolen from them by North Korean abductors. How emotionally stunted must one be not to consider, for an instant, the sorrow these people must feel? Who could fail to understand their need to somehow connect with those they love, but with whom ordinary means of communication could, if they were possible at all, be a death sentence for them?
The balloons are being launched from South Korean territory, and from South Korean waters — from a country that thousands of Americans soldiers who helped to defend it were told was free. The balloons also contain money that hungry people might use to buy food and seed a nascent underground economy, and that economy might feed even more people Kim Jong Il won’t by drawing smuggled food from across the Chinese border. The leaflets are non-violent expression. They could not possibly do harm to anything worth preserving. They do not so much as resemble anything harmful or dangerous, either to the eye or on a radar scope. For the starving and oppressed, these leaflets could carry the hope to live on, to fight on, and to stand for a future worth living in.
Someone please explain the downside of this. How easy and shallow a thing for those with something to live for to deny a future to those who have nothing.
But we must preserve relations with the North Koreans! (Which really means, with one of them.) And to what end? After billions in aid over more than a decade, engaging Kim Jong Il’s regime had accomplished what, exactly? Where is the measurable transformation of North Korea’s totalitarian system? How many North Koreans have seen their lives improved? Are there fewer North Korean guns pointed at South Korean cities? Is its system of government kinder, gentler, or more transparent? Is North Korea less of a nuclear danger to South Korea and the rest of the world? Have North Korea’s “expendable” people ceased to starve and die? Has the North reformed its economy? Can anyone point to a single tangible benefit the world has gained by prolonging this wretched regime, much less some benefit that outweighs all of the misery millions have experienced as it was prolonged?
Ah, but there are those lucky hand-picked 30,000 at the Kaesong Industrial Park. Though their wages were stolen by their oppressors and exchanged for short rations of food and goods, their exploiters would say that the lives of their rented slaves were at least a little better than those of their neighbors for a while. By this logic, a foreign pedophile who flies to Cambodia should be commended as long as he buys his victim a hot breakfast. In the unlikely event the leaflet balloons have played some part in ending this vile, regime-sustaining exploitation, all the better.
The U.N. is beginning to suspect that those Syrians and North Koreans may have been up to something suspicious after all.
“It cannot be excluded” that the Syrian facility “was intended for non-nuclear use,” the IAEA report says.However, it continues, “The features of the building . . . along with the connectivity of the site to adequate pumping capacity of cooling water, are similar to what may be found in connection with a reactor site.”
Pre-attack photographs show a “containment structure (that) appears to have been similar in dimension and layout to that required for a biological shield for nuclear reactors, and the overall size of the building was sufficient to house the equipment needed for a nuclear reactor of the type alleged” by the United States , the report says.
It also says that dirt samples taken from the site by IAEA inspectors who visited in June contained “a significant number of natural uranium particles.”
An analysis of the particles found that they were “produced as a result of chemical processing,” the report says. [McClatchy]
In 2005, we learned that the North Koreans had sold uranium hexafluoride to Libya. If North Korea supplied uranium to the Syrians, it would mean that in addition to the technology transfer, they had supplied a fellow rogue state with nuclear material yet again. Syrian stonewalling still prevents us from knowing where the uranium came from.
And naturally, the IAEA’s report condemned the Israelis for putting a stop to this through “the unilateral use of force.” Of course, whatever Syria and North Korea were up to, it was by definition bilateral and therefore nothing to be unduly excited about. After all, just look how brilliantly the IAEA is handling Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
