Monthly Archive: February, 2011

Melanie Kirkpatrick, writing with Jack David in the Wall Street Journal, quotes senior North Korean defector Kim Duk-hong on Kim Jong Il’s nuclear policy: In the early 1990s, Mr. Kim told us, Kim Il Sung posed a question at a meeting of the military committee of the Workers Party. Kim Il Sung’s question, and Kim Jong Il’s reply, were disclosed in a memorandum that was distributed to every member of the Central Committee, including Kim Duk-hong. Colleagues who were present...

I suppose I get why some South Korean politicians are asking the United States to moves nukes back into South Korea, but is such a decision really worth all of the diplomatic and cosmetic complications it would bring? Don’t we already have the ability to fire nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from ships and submarines off North Korea’s coasts, or from Guam based aircraft anyway? In that light, how much deterrence to we really gain by putting nukes in South Korea? The...

Hmmm: South Korea’s military has been dropping leaflets into North Korea about democracy protests in Egypt and also sent food, medicines and radios for residents as part of a psychological campaign, a legislator said on Friday. The campaign was aimed at encouraging North Koreans to think about change, conservative South Korean parliament member Song Young-sun said. The food and medicines were delivered in light-weight baskets tied to balloons with timers programmed to release the items above the target areas in...

In a must-read piece in the Asia Times, Don Kirk ridicules Wolf Blitzer‘s melodramatic reporting from Pyongyang: This flight of fantasy became even more ludicrous as Blitzer sought to give an impression of a “rare” look at the same stuff everyone gets to see on tourist trips to Pyongyang – the Great Study Hall of the People, once described to me by a North Korean minder as “the world’s biggest library”, classrooms of privileged kids studying English, a look at...

Also, they make ddok from the blood of pure Korean children: “There is a possibility that the discrimination, scorn and frustration felt by migrant workers, multicultural children and North Korean defectors may erupt in acts of terrorism,” Howon University Professor Lee Man-jong, head of the Korean Association for Terrorism Studies, wrote in the paper. Drawing on examples from the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the 2005 suicide attacks in London, Lee said that the “discrimination and scorn of minorities were...

Guess which responsible rising power is enabling Kim Jong Il again? China has told U.N. Security Council members it plans to block publication of a U.N. special report that accuses North Korea of violating sanctions on its nuclear program, Western diplomats said. [….] Diplomats told Reuters that China informed council members it would block the publication and transfer of the report to the full council. They said China’s move was odd since one of the experts who prepared the report,...

I hope he means it: “Any resumption of U.S. food aid to North Korea should be contingent on North Korea allowing access and accountability by monitors in accordance with international standards,” Sen. Richard Lugar (R-In) said in a statement. “It is essential to ensure that the U.S. assistance is actually received by hungry North Korean children and their families rather than reinforcing the North Korean military whose care is already a priority over the rest of the population.” More here....

For some time, I’ve been reading reports that North Korea has been stricken by foot-and-mouth disease, which doesn’t directly affect human beings, but kills cattle. According to Radio Free Asia, the disease has now spread across North Korea, including Pyongyang. Previously, I hadn’t attributed too much significance to the reports; after all, how many North Koreans can afford to eat meat anyway? But then there’s this: North Korea’s medieval agriculture relies on oxen. If the oxen die, farmers can’t plow...

The Donga Ilbo carries this heartbreaking photograph of the homecoming of South Korean POW who escaped after 61 years in captivity: “He escaped from North Korea in March last year and returned home in November. He settled at his sister`s home in Seoul after spending three months at a government-provided safe house.” ____________________________________ In an article co-authored by our friend Chris Green, the Daily NK looks how the regime works to prevent a coup d’etat in North Korea. Unless the...

Damn. It’s still Groundhog Day! “Military talks between the rival Koreas have “collapsed,” a unification ministry official in Seoul said on Wednesday, dealing a setback to efforts to restart international aid-for-disarmament talks.” _________________________________________ Robert King on food aid: “The United States policy is that when we provide assistance, humanitarian assistance, it is based on need and no political consideration should be involved. That’s the first condition,” King said in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency in Seoul. The two...