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Monthly Archive: October, 2009

October 31, 2009

Sorrow for a friend I’ve never met

It’s been a terrible thing reading Kevin, a/k/a The Big Hominid, describing the terminal cancer of his mom, someone he obviously loves and respects very much. Kevin is a founding father of the Korea blogosphere, one who never really fit into any of the standard categories — who else could manage to bridge the spiritual, philosophical, and scatological the way Kevin does? I’ve never quite managed to meet Kevin, and yet I’m really at a loss to explain just how...

Categories Blogs & Blogging
October 31, 2009

Hope in Unlikely Places

In North Korea such things are absolutely forbidden, so naturally the people learn to enjoy crude humor instead; not because of the optimistic and humorous nature of the people I must point out, but because of the nature of North Korean politics. In North Korea, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is at least one meeting every 24 hours. Every week contains studies, lectures, self-criticism and evaluation meetings in each work unit, and a further two or...

Categories Inside NK
October 30, 2009

Kim Jong Eun: On Again?

According to the Daily NK, the succession propaganda has resumed. In the long run, however, I agree with the assessment of North Korean defector Kim Kwang Jin, who spoke at the Brookings Institution this week: he doesn’t have the cred to pull it off: WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korean efforts to install one of ailing leader Kim Jong-il’s sons as a hereditary successor are likely to fail, a senior defector from the communist country said on Tuesday. Kim Kwang-jin, a...

Categories Kim Jong Il/Kremlinology
October 30, 2009

Did Bill Clinton Meet Kim Jong Il’s Double?

Even for North Korea, this would be the WTF story of the year: A number of analysts here are convinced that not all the photos being released of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il, are really photos of Kim Jong-il. Instead, they say, a look-alike has been standing in for him on some of the 122 trips he’s reportedly made this year to the countryside, factories, cultural events, military units, and all sorts of other venues. Some observers say the North...

Categories Diplomacy/Kim Jong Il/Ling/Lee Incident/WTF?
October 30, 2009

Another South Korean Professor Caught Spying for the North

A South Korean university lecturer accused of spying for North Korea since the early 1990s has been indicted on espionage charges, prosecutors said Thursday. The suspect, identified by the surname Lee, was charged with giving North Korea confidential information, including the locations of key South Korean military facilities and an army operations manual, prosecutors in Suwon, south of Seoul, said in a statement. [MacLeans] They could have waited a few years and gotten it all from Google Earth. Anyway, if...

Categories An Alliance?/The Fifth Column
October 30, 2009

Daily NK: Rising Divorce Rates in North Korea

Iif there is any element of Korean society that I’d have thought indestructible even to Kim Jong Il, it’s the strength of Korean families. Korean society strongly encourages marriage, children, and family loyalty. Divorce and out-of-wedlock births are strongly discouraged. The single exception is its traditional tolerance for male promiscuity, whether by single or married men (who are nonetheless expected to keep their dalliances casual and remain with their wives and children). With that being said, South Korean society is...

Categories Korean Society/NK Military
October 29, 2009

Survivor Confirms Location of Camp 12

As I have noted before, I recently began working closely with the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) on the identification of North Korea’s concentration and labor camps through satellite imagery. That work has now expanded beyond its beginnings on Google Earth to other sources of imagery, including Digital Globe. This has become a close collaboration and friendship with Chuck Downs, HRNK’s Executive Director, and researcher David Hawk, the author of The Hidden Gulag and a former Executive...

Categories Activism/Human Rights/The Camps
October 28, 2009

Antihuman Crime Investigation Committee Holds Seminar

A group I had not heard of, calling itself in English the Antihuman Crime Investigation Committee (반인도범죄조사위원회), held a seminar yesterday (Oct. 27th) at the Seoul Press Center in Gwanghwamun. I received word of the event last-minute, and was only able to attend part of it, but here are some highlights. After all the necessary introductions and congratulatory remarks (축사), Kim Tae-Jin, president of the Democracy Network against the North Korean Gulag (북한민주화운동본부) and himself originally from North Korea, gave...

Categories Human Rights
October 28, 2009

Treasury Knocks Over Yet Another North Korean Bank

Phillip Goldberg and Stuart Levey have done more to advance U.S. interests in five months than the entire East Asia Bureau of our State Department has done in two decades: Treasury said in a statement that Amroggang Development Bank was being added to a list of proliferators of mass destruction because it was owned or controlled by North Korea’s Tanchon Commercial Bank. Tanchon was previously hit with sanctions by both the United States and the United Nations Security Council for...

Categories Proliferation/Sanctions/WMD
October 28, 2009

“Under the Warm Care of a Relevant Organ?”

A South Korean man who worked at Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor unit and more recently at a pig farm has defected to the North by walking across the heavily mined border, the communist state’s media said on Tuesday. [Reuters] Something tells me he’ll be dreaming of those little piggies soon enough. “He is beside himself with joy for having accomplished this heroic deed,” the North’s KCNA news agency said. It identified the defector as Kang Dong-rim, 30. “He is now under...

Categories Defectors/Useful Idiocy
October 28, 2009

North Korea’s Meth Problem Is Now China’s Meth Problem

Previously, I’ve written about North Korea’s growing drug problem. The Chosun Ilbo’s “On the Border” even showed video of a North Korean in delicto flagrante while smuggling dope across the Yalu River in his mouth. In keeping with the ancient economic rule that supply chases demand, North Korean meth cooks have found that Chinese customers can pay more than most North Koreans: Chinese police is [sic] having a hard time with philopon trade in the border area near Tumen River....

Categories Drugs & N Korea/Inside NK
October 27, 2009

Mixed Reviews for North Korea’s “150-Day Battle”

The word from inside North Korea is that it fell far short of its stated goals, and that the people are still starving in the dark. The sum total appears to be that people did a lot of work that ultimately accomplished only short-term gains in “core” areas of the country: At the end of this September, a high level source stated that according to North Korea it hit a new record of agricultural production from the 150-day battle, which...

Categories Famine & Food Aid/NK Economics
October 27, 2009

Defector: Naver Infiltrated by NorkBots!

Hmmm. I wonder if we’ve seen some of those types around here? Writer Jang Shin-Jung (former employee of the United Front Department), a North Korean refugee, testified that North Korea’s United Front Department has adopted a new propaganda strategy against South Korea by operating a new internet commenting team to reflect South Korea’s change in media culture. [….] Jang conjectured that about 30 team members at contact station 101 were cultural experts of South Korea. He described their proficiency in...

Categories Propaganda/Subversion/The Fifth Column
October 26, 2009

Interview with the Producer of “Kimjongilia”

The Voice of America interviews Nancy Heiken, producer of the documentary Kimjongilia, about North Korea’s concentration camps. You can see a short video clip here. Personally, however, I’d say the film’s own site does a better job of conveying its artistic theme — contrasting the eerily beautiful illusions of the state against the terrible realities beyond the gauzy backdrops. I’m looking forward to having a chance to see this.

Categories Books & Films/The Camps
October 26, 2009

If President Lee is Sincere About Protecting Refugees and POW’s, the South Korean Consul in Shenyang Must Go

[10/27: Here’s an update on that 80 year-old POW.] The latest reports coming from northeastern China emphasize China’s ongoing disregard for the lives of North Korean refugees, and for the pleas of the South Korean government. They also raise questions about President Lee’s sincerity about shifting to a more compassionate policy toward North Korean refugees. Last week, it was reported that two family members of an escaped South Korean prisoner of war found their way to the South Korean consulate...

Categories China & Korea/Diplomacy/Refugees
October 23, 2009

Organizational Profile: Justice for North Korea (JFNK)

Justice for North Korea (JFNK) is a small, activism-oriented group lead by South Korean pastor, Peter Chung. It has Christian and non-Christian members from both Koreas and a handful of other countries. At times they have been active in the Seoul portion of the multi-city demonstrations in front of Chinese embassies around the world that are coordinated by the NK Freedom Coalition. In May 2007, they started a 444-day campaign leading up to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. Every...

Categories Activism/Human Rights
October 20, 2009

Nine Refugees Leave Danish Embassy in Hanoi for Seoul

“The nine North Koreans left the Danish embassy this morning and they are now at Noi Bai International Airport checking in before flying to Singapore and then Seoul,” the Vietnamese diplomatic source told AFP, asking not to be named. [….] The nine entered the Danish compound on September 24 hoping to reach South Korea, Kim Sang-Hun, an activist who said his group helped them reach the embassy, told AFP earlier. [AFP] That must be the same Kim Sang Hun whom...

Categories Human Rights/Refugees/Southeast Asia