Just returned from three weeks in Korea - Inchon (Un-seo-dong), Tae-an, Kong-ju, and Sokcho; but not Seoul - and will have a few posts on that over the next week. If felt like a helluva lot longer than three weeks, but that’s a different story. I didn’t have net access most of that time, […]
Predicting the future is a chancy business at best and rarely rewards either the prognosticator or the consumers of the fortunetelling. Nonetheless, I offer the following thoughts as a conversation-starter.
With the recent speculation of Kim Jong-Il’s ill health, incapacitation and perhaps death, it might be useful to conceptualize the political shape of the Korean […]
Update: As of last evening no English language sources had this story, but the AP and KBS Global have picked it up overnight, both with essentially the same details as the Chosun Ilbo article: Kim Jong-il has not been seen since 14 August, and five Chinese doctors are in country to treat him. […]
Tutor to young Kim Jong-il from 1959, Kim Hyun-sik (76) defected in 1991 and is now a research professor at George Mason University in Virginia. After his defection, Prof. Kim’s entire family was executed via the gulag.
Prof. Kim’s memoir published in South Korea last year, “A 21st Century Ideological Nomad” (Korean), is the […]
Via AFP: “South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime. . . Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in […]
In an article at the Asia Times, Riddles and enigmas from North Korea, Andrei Lankov speculates on how governments get intelligence from inside North Korea, and lists some of the other valuable sources of information from the country.
- #From Mainichi and via the Chosun Bimbo, "In his first reported appearance following news of his hospitalization, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il lost his temper while watching a college soccer match, denouncing several players' long hair as "disgusting," according to a source close to the North Korean government. The outburst was followed by a nationwide ban on long hair for men." We'll all be watching the next soccer match to see if it's so.
- #Outward Bound, an international non-profit outdoor education program, is offering fully funded (including transportation to/from sites) outdoor adventure excursions to all OEF/OIF veterans. It doesn't matter what your current military status is (active, inactive, discharged, retired) - you're eligible to attend as long as you deployed in support of OEF/OIF combat operations while in the military.
- #Via AFP: “South Korea has lifted an overseas travel ban on Hwang Jang-Yop, the highest-ranking North Korean defector ever to come here and a harsh critic of the Pyongyang regime. . . Hwang, former secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and an ex-tutor of Kim Jong-Il, defected during a trip to Beijing in 1997.” His travel restriction was due to 10 years of pro-North ROK leadership, now over.
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