Update: Probably it would have been better to get these answers *before* announcing plans to delist North Korea and remove other trade barriers, as that is what the agreements actually called for:
North Korea did not answer U.S. suspicions of enriching uranium and proliferating technology when it released an inventory of its nuclear plans […]
From the Dong-a Ilbo: “President of the Families of Abducted and Detained in North Korea, confirmed yesterday at a press conference, ‘A former South Korean soldier surnamed Kim is currently staying in a third country. He crossed the North Korean border at around 10 p.m. on June 14. He joined the South Korean army […]
The Chosun Shinbo (조선신보, also Romanized as Chosun Sinbo), a newspaper in Japan controlled by the North Korean organization Chosun Soren (a.k.a the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, 재일본 조선인 총련합회), has endorsed Barack Obama over John McCain in the upcoming U.S. presidential elections. This is not to be confused with American-style […]
The Tears of My Soul. Kim Hyun-hee. William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993.
This book is well worth reading primarily because it offers a glimpse into the training and operational procedures of North Korea’s intelligence services. I’m not sure if the descriptions of training are credible or not, but have not found information to […]
This is almost too good to be true - according to U.S. intelligence sources, the physical records of plutonium processing North Korea gave the U.S. for determining how much had been processed had trace amounts of highly enriched uranium (HEU) on them, and likely not possible transfer from Pakistani equipment supplied by prolific proliferator […]
A good number of South Koreans seem to confuse democracy with truly mindless mass protesting based on blatantly false information that could easily be debunked but rarely is, at least by South Koreans themselves. The uproar, this time, ostensibly began over bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as Mad Cow Disease, which causes […]
GI Korea has an excellent and lengthy post on the background, events, and aftermath of the 2002 accident where a U.S. armored vehicle killed to schoolgirls. I arrived in Korea a few days after the accident, but things didn’t start to heat up until two months later, as I was returning to the States.
Via Reuters: “…there was strong suspicion a huge shipment of methamphetamines seized at the former U.S. navy base of Subic north of Manila this week came from clandestine drugs laboratories in North Korea.” The Joker took over Batman’s abandoned cave.
Victor Cha, in the Chosun Ilbo, discusses the problem - the current lack of a joint plan should Kim Jong-il die and North Korea spirals into chaos:
In what would be the single most important contingency that could impact the South Korean economy and security for decades, there is no agreed upon plan for […]
From TimesOnline: “THE first case of murder and suicide caused by North Korea’s new food crisis has emerged with the account of a man who killed his hungry wife and children and then took his own life in despair.” This report can’t be confirmed, but it is entirely plausible.
In a previous post on Pyongyang Soju being imported to the U.S., I used pics from a bottle I have, which was purchased in South Korea. Jason Perlow of Off the Broiler sampled some Pyongyang Soju at a Korean restaurant in New Jersey and has photos of the updated labels (looks like it was $5.99 a bottle).
- #OFK has a telling post (w/video) on Joe Biden's North Korea policy. It's hard to do much of a related post on Obama since he hasn't even completed one term in the senate and so has a thin record. See all Election 2008 posts.
- #15 August is the 63rd anniversary of Victory over Japan (V-J) Day, or Liberation Day in North and South Korea. It’s hard to imagine how the North Koreans could explain the significance of the day without mentioning the U.S. doing the heavy lifting, but they still manage to do so.
- #North Korean Economy Watch has released version 11 of his layer/bookmarks for North Korea in Google Earth - easily the most authoritative map of North Korea on the web.
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