Category: North Korea

I think it is unfortunate that the death of Otto Warmbier is taking on a political tone:

His parents told The Associated Press the day of his release that they wanted “the world to know how we and our son have been brutalized and terrorized by the pariah regime.”

Fred Warmbier praised his son’s “performance” and President Donald Trump’s administration. He was critical of the approach to his son’s situation taken by former President Barack Obama’s administration.

A second defector has crossed over the DMZ in a week:

A North Korean man defected to South Korea on Sunday after crossing the border, Seoul’s military said.

He was spotted at the northern part of the mouth of the Han River in Gimpo, just west of Seoul, according to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

The JCS said the man, in his early 20s, was spotted around 2:30 a.m. Sunday near the observation post of the Second Marine Division. Questioning is under way to find out what caused him to flee to the South.

The man is said to have swum his way south with plastic foam pieces on both shoulders to stay afloat. The JCS said he was discovered at a particularly narrow stretch in the river.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

There must have been something or someone that tipped off US officials to seize this package because it is pretty serious to take a diplomatic package like this:

North Korea has claimed that the United States recently mugged its delegation carrying a diplomatic package in New York, calling on Washington to provide an explanation on what it calls a provocation.

According to the (North) Korean Central News Agency on Sunday, which quoted its foreign ministry, a group of government officials and police officers from the U.S. took a diplomatic package from its delegation Friday at John F. Kennedy International Airport before it was about to board a flight home.

The delegation was in New York to attend the Conference of States Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, it added.

“As the diplomats vigorously resisted, they grabbed the diplomatic package using physical violence and made off,” the ministry was quoted as saying. It called the incident a “planned and organized provocation.”

The ministry also asked the world to “seriously reconsider” New York as a venue for major international events and demanded Washington provide an explanation for infringing upon its sovereignty.

“If the U.S. fails to give its due response to our demand which is all too reasonable and fair enough, it will be totally responsible for all the consequences to be entailed,” the ministry said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but it was believed that the North Koreans used a diplomatic package to bring the VX nerve agent into Malaysia to assassinate Kim Jong-nam.  I don’t think they would bring something like that to New York, but I would not be surprised if they were taking money out of New York from some criminal enterprise they have going on.

It looks like the Moon administration is still pushing for Sunshine Policy 2.0 and a peace treaty with North Korea:

South Korea may consult with the United States about scaling back joint military exercises and deployment of American strategic weapons if North Korea suspends nuclear and missile activities, an adviser to President Moon Jae-in said Friday.

Moon Chung-in, a foreign affairs scholar and special presidential adviser, made the remark during a Wilson Center seminar in Washington, saying President Moon has proposed the idea.

“He proposed two things. One, if North Korea suspends its nuclear and missile activities, then we may consult with the United States to (on) scaling down ROK-US joint exercises and training. I think what he has in mind is we may scale down deployment of American strategic weapons over the Korean Peninsula,” the adviser said.

“Another one is linking North Korea’s denuclearization to creation of a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.  (……..)

During the seminar, the adviser said that President Moon pursues “incremental, comprehensive and fundamental” denuclearization with North Korea, beginning with a freeze on its nuclear and missile programs and a verifiable dismantlement of its nuclear facilities and materials.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but here is my view on a freeze deal.  Any freeze deal should not include a peace treaty and only include the scaling down of US-ROK military exercises.  A peace treaty should only be offered in return for the complete dismantlement of their nuclear and ICBM programs which we know they will never do.

The freeze deal should then have strong language in it that any non-compliance by North Korea opens them to a kinetic strike to ensure compliance.  Including language that includes the use of force to ensure compliance gives the US world opinion on its side if it needs to strike North Korea.  It additionally puts pressure on China to ensure that Pyongyang is complying with the deal to avoid the use of force being used against North Korea.

Sony SLT Camera Found in Crashed North Korean Spy Drone https://t.co/5IsgWQvcxT pic.twitter.com/tv7h4uQ1Z0

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) June 16, 2017

Chilling to watch this: Video shows a happy Otto Warmbier before arrest, throwing snowballs with North Korean kids https://t.co/6xrzU6cPmq pic.twitter.com/2k5KWTspNL

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) June 15, 2017

Here the latest on the medical status of Otto Warmbier after his release from a North Korean prison:

An American college student who was imprisoned in North Korea and returned to his home state of Ohio in a coma suffered a “severe neurological injury,” a hospital spokeswoman said Thursday.

Otto Warmbier is in stable condition at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center with his mother by his side, hospital spokeswoman Kelly Martin said. Doctors planned an update later Thursday.

His father, Fred Warmbier, said he does not believe North Korea’s explanation that the coma resulted from botulism and a sleeping pill. He said there was no reason for North Korea to keep his 22-year-old son’s condition a secret and deny him top medical care.

Fred Warmbier called his son’s return bittersweet.

“Relief that Otto is now home in the arms of those who love him and anger that he was so brutally treated for so long,” he said at a news conference at Wyoming High School, where Warmbier graduated in 2013 as class salutatorian and played soccer. Blue-and-white ribbons in the school’s colors were tied around the trees and utility poles all the way along the city’s main road in a show of support.

To honor his son, Fred Warmbier wore the same jacket Otto wore when North Korea presented him before the media in March 2016 at an event where he tearfully confessed that he tried to steal a propaganda banner while visiting the country.

Fred Warmbier said that he doesn’t know why North Korea released his son but that the country doesn’t do anything out of “the kindness of their hearts.” He called on the country to release other Americans currently held there.

“There’s no excuse for the way the North Koreans treated our son,” he said.

Warmbier also accused North Korea of luring Americans to the country with a Chinese tour company making the false promise they will never be detained.  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link, but I don’t buy the botulism claim either considering the North Koreans are saying he went into a coma the day after his sentencing.

That leads me to believe one of two things happened; a guard could have possibly struck him in the head which the New York Times is reporting that US intelligence have reports of him being beaten.   Another possibility is maybe he was so depressed from a 15 year jail sentence and beatings that he had a botched suicide attempt?  Either way the Kim regime is responsible for what happened and should be held accountable for it.

There were reports out there that Kim Jong-nam was running short on cash in Macau so a US intelligence agency trying to take advantage of this seems possible.  It also seems very possible that this would give Kim Jong-nam the excuse he needed to take out his brother as well:

KIM Jong Nam’s alleged ties with a US intelligence agency contact may have been the reason behind his spy novel-like assassination, Malaysian authorities said.

According to Japanese daily The Asahi Shimbun, Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was carrying US$120,000 when he was killed in February at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) and is believed to have received the money from the contact.

Malaysian investigators said Jong Nam had met with an American man who is believed to have links with a US intelligence agency during his eight-day trip in the Southeast Asian country. This, they said, may have prompted North Korea to silence Jong Nam.

Quoting unnamed sources, The Asahi Shimbun report said Jong Nam received the money during his time in Malaysia and had not planned to declare the cash when leaving the country. The authorities also said there were no records of Jong Nam making any large cash withdrawals from Malaysia.

A check of Jong Nam’s belongings, however, revealed wads of cash – all in US currency and in four bundles of US$100 bills – in his black carry-on bag,  [Asian Correspondent]

You can read more at the link.

This makes me wonder how many drones have successfully completed their reconnaissance missions over South Korea?:

A North Korean drone found last week by a South Korean civilian had spied on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile site in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, before crashing into a mountain in Inje, Gangwon, on its way back to the North, according to local military officials.

The drone had traveled at least 270 kilometers (168 miles), the distance between the demilitarized zone and Seongju, to reach the Thaad field.

The South Korean military had not known about the flight until an Inje resident retrieved the drone from a mountain last Thursday at 11 a.m. and reported it to authorities the following day.

“Around 10 photos were found in the Japan-made Sony camera attached to the drone,” said a South Korean military official Monday, who embargoed the story until Tuesday. The photos of Thaad, he said, were among “several hundred,” which mostly featured mountains and civilian areas.

Local officials had to restore the camera because it was initialized, or formatted, by the time they got it. Further analysis was underway.

The South Korean military said the drone had started taking photos from the north side of Seongju all the way down to the south, then continued as it flew back towards North Korea.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but these drones are so cheap to make it seems like the Kim regime can just keep sending them over the DMZ until they are successful at capturing the imagery they want.  It looks like the US military needs to consider getting one of these systems to counter North Korea’s drones.

Here is the latest on Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea:

Mr. Rodman declined to say whether he had spoken about the trip with Mr. Trump, who four years ago endorsed Mr. Rodman’s visiting North Korea.

“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s pretty much happy with the fact that I’m over here trying to accomplish something that we both need,” Mr. Rodman said, as reported by The A.P.

Mr. Trump spoke to Fox News in 2013 about Mr. Rodman and North Korea, a year in which Mr. Rodman also appeared on his “Celebrity Apprentice” show. “Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have,” he said.

Suzanne DiMaggio, a director and senior fellow at the New America think tank who had been involved in unofficial talks with North Korea, said on Twitter that there was a “high probability” of communication between the Trump administration and Mr. Rodman.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but the media’s interpretation of President Trump’s comments four years ago about Rodman’s trip to North Korea I think are not interpreted correctly.  Trump was clearly taking a shot at President Obama by claiming that Rodman was a better diplomat than what the State Department had to offer.  To link those comments to Trump than actually using Rodman in a diplomatic role I think is a stretch.

This latest Rodman trip I think was arranged by the Kim regime to take media attention away from their treatment of American detainee Otto Warmbier who they just happened to release the same time as Rodman’s visit.