Former President Kim Dae-jung (김대중) died today at age 83 (85 by Korean reckoning) of complications related to pneumonia. Kim was the Republic of Korea present from 1998 to 2003.
Although Kim had a long political career as an opposition leader – not an easy thing in Korea at the time – he [...]

The trouble with North Korea is that nobody wants it — except the current ruling elite of North Korea itself.
In a previous post, I rather immodestly predicted that, should the Kim regime collapse in North Korea, a military junta backed by China would emerge, resulting in a Burma-ization of North Korea. I further speculated that [...]

The Sejong Society will host a talk by Kim Dong-su, a North Korean defector who was the Second Secretary of the Permanent Representative of North Korea to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization when he defected to South Korea in 1998. Before his defection, he served in key posts in North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign [...]

North Korea expelled 11 South Korean officials from the Kaesong Industrial Zone in response to rising criticism of its regime and human rights record from the new South Korean administratin of Lee Myung-Bak:
For a month, the new president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, has been warning North Korea to clean up its act on human [...]

LA Times staff writer Barbara Demick has been covering North Korea for several years. Her latest article is brief but a must read: “Within hours after our plane left, the lights went out. The cellphone kiosk closed down and the broadband was disconnected. Pyongyang looked again like what it really is: the capital of the [...]

Now over three months past the deadline, still no nuclear declaration from North Korea:
Rice urged China to press North Korea to disclose its nuclear programs so that the stalled accord can move forward…
And dark, probably true allegations:
North Korea earlier this week publicly executed 15 of its citizens for trying to flee the country by crossing [...]

If ever there was a time to drop the hammer on North Korea for habitually reneging on nuclear deals, now would be the time:
Speaking to reporters in Beijing Saturday, [Sigfried Hecker] said North Korean officials have told him they will not provide a full declaration of the country’s nuclear programs until other countries provide fuel [...]

The New York Philharmonic will be performing in Pyongyang, North Korea on 26 February. The Philharmonic’s conductor and music director Lorin Maazel wrote a response to critics who charged that playing for Kim Jong-il would only lend credibility to a human rights abusing regime:
“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw bricks, should they?” demanded [...]

A North Korean defector to South Korea had to go to court to get a passport to travel to the U.S. Why?
The [foreign] ministry had said Kim, 69, could be a target of North Korean assassination attempts during planned trips to the U.S., and the trips could cause diplomatic friction. [. . .] Kim [...]

From the AP, 11 Jan 2008:
President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel’s Holocaust memorial Friday and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial’s chairman said.
Assuming that reporting is accurate, what about the concentration camps in North Korea [...]