Category: North Korea

Tweet of the Day: Can A North Korean Missile Hit the United States?

| January 6, 2017

Trump Says North Korea’s ICBM Test “Won’t Happen”

| January 5, 2017

I guess we will see in the coming months what President-elect Trump means when he says the North Korean’s ICMB test “won’t happen”:

President-elect Donald Trump contended Monday night that North Korea would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, despite its claims to the contrary, and berated China for not doing enough to help stop the rogue state’s weapons program.

Trump’s declarations on Twitter came after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in a New Year’s address that the country had reached the “final stages” of testing its first intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the United States.

“It won’t happen!” Trump tweeted.  [Stars & Stripes]

Tweet of the Day: North Korea’s Definition of Terrorism

| January 4, 2017

Is North Korea Setting Conditions to Test an ICBM In 2017?

| January 4, 2017

It looks like Kim Jong-un is setting conditions for a Key Resolve fireworks show:

North Korea is likely to conduct missile provocations in the first half as the country announced that its preparation for test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has entered the final stage, experts said Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in his New Year’s message claimed the country is in the final stage of preparing to launch an ICBM, heralding the country’s intent to jack up tensions in coming months.

Pyongyang is known to be developing a road-mobile ICBM, known as KN-08, which has a range of more than 13,000 kilometers and may be capable of flying as far as the U.S. mainland. But the North has never conducted an actual test of that missile.

Experts said that North Korea will focus on advancing its nuclear and missile capability in the new year, raising the possibility it would be engage in more powerful provocations around its key anniversaries in the first half. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but for those unfamiliar with Key Resolve it is an annual US-ROK military exercise that happens every March that the North Koreans typically commit some kind of provocation in response to.

Tweet of the Day: How Has Kim Jong-un Clung to Power?

| January 3, 2017

Picture of the Day: Cover of North Korea’s 2017 Calendar

| January 1, 2017

N.K. puts flight crew on 2017 calendar

The cover of a North Korean calendar for 2017, obtained by Yonhap News Agency in Shenyang, China, on Dec. 29, 2016, features pilots and flight attendants of its flag carrier Air Koryo in what observers describe as a bold move considering that previous calendars mostly carried bland photos of scenic views and cultural sites. Next year’s calendar has photos of cabin crew at work during flights, such as giving safety instructions and pouring beer. The calendar marks as holidays the birthdays of the country’s former leaders but not that of current leader Kim Jong-un. (Yonhap)

Tweet of the Day: Thae Yong-ho Prediction

| December 31, 2016

North Korean Defector Describes Life of Being A Diplomat

| December 31, 2016

High profile North Korean defector Thae Yong-ho has an interesting interview with Yonhap News where he describes what it is like to be an overseas diplomat for North Korea:

Five years into North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s reign this past summer, Thae Yong-ho, a senior North Korean diplomat, concluded that he had had enough of the iron fist rule of the three Kim generations.

Despite the Kim regime’s notorious restrictions on the inflow of outside news, he, like other North Korean elites, was aware of the wide disparity between how North Korea looked from the inside and out.

The disparity was felt more acutely for Thae who, as a diplomat, was allowed free access to the Internet, a privilege given exceptionally to diplomats who have to fend off any external criticism of the communist regime.

“The first thing North Korean diplomats based overseas do at work is open the homepage of (South Korea’s) Yonhap News Agency whose North Korea section compiles all the local and foreign news involving North Korea. Even what I said today will be read by every North Korean diplomat who is outside of the country,” Thae said at a press meeting on Tuesday.

The Internet also connected him to the vast pool of South Korean media content involving fellow North Koreans who risked their lives to escape the socialist country and have successfully settled down in the South.

The 1950-53 Korean War divided the Koreas into two ideologically different countries and the rivalry has continued to today, with more than 30,000 North Koreans defecting to South Korea between the early 1960s until recently. Only a small number of South Koreans have deserted their country to become North Korean.

“I got to know the superiority of democracy and witnessed the democratization (of other countries) from the Internet, and realized that the North Korean regime has no future,” he said, recalling how he finally made the decision to desert.

“As the Kim Jong-un regime took power, I had a slight hope that he would make a rational, reasonable regime because he must be well aware of how the world runs after he studied overseas for a long time,” Thae said. But Kim turned out even more merciless than his father and late leader Kim Jong-il, he said, citing the shocking public execution of the leader’s once-powerful uncle Jang Song-thaek in 2013 as one of the moments of awakening that eventually solidified his decision to defect.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link to include the fact that an ambassador makes about $900 – $1,100 a month which requires them to conduct outside activities to earn money to survive as well as to send foreign currency back to the Kim regime.  As I read the article I wonder what illegal activities he was part of in the UK?  I would think that whatever schemes the embassy in the UK had going on Thae has already briefed intelligence agencies on to get them shut down.

Tweet of the Day: North Korea Develops Dirty Bomb Drone?

| December 29, 2016

Tweet of the Day: North Korea Suffers from Low Birth Rate and Aging Population

| December 28, 2016