Category: North Korea

This most recent failure officially makes North Korea O for 4 for their road mobile Musudan Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) test launches:

North Korea apparently failed with an attempted missile launch Tuesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for a ballistic weapons programme that aspires to threaten the US mainland.

South Korea’s defence ministry detected the dawn launch effort, which Japan condemned as an unacceptable and “provocative” act.

The ministry declined to speculate on the missile type, but military sources cited by local media said it was a powerful, medium-range “Musudan” that has already undergone three failed launches this year.

UN resolutions ban North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology, although it regularly fires short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast.

Tuesday’s effort came with tensions still running high on the divided Korean peninsula following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch a month later.

“We believe that it was a failure,” said Jeon Ha-Gyu, spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“As to why and how it failed, we are in the process of analysing that,” Jeon told a press briefing.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but the AFP article did not state what happened with the launch.  The South Korean media on the other hand is reporting that the missile once again blew up on the launch pad:

Anchor: North Korea has again sought to fire a ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure. Sources have suggested that the missile exploded at a mobile launch pad immediately after the order for the launch was given. As it marked the fourth failed attempt in a row to launch the ballistic missile, the South Korean military is suspecting an engine defect.
Our Kim Bum-soo reports.

Report: North Korea has test-fired another ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that the North Korean military fired a projectile off its east coast near the Wonsan region at around 5:20 a.m on Tuesday.

JCS officials said that the launch was unsuccessful. Other sources suggested the possibility that the missile exploded on its mobile launcher immediately after a fire button was pressed.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link, but the South Korean military believes their is a structural defect with the Russian BM-25 engine they modified for their Musudans.  Also according to the article it is believed that North Korea has 50 Musdudan missiles in their inventory.  At this rate they are going to blow them all up testing them.

What is even more significant about these failures is that their road mobile KN-08 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) could also be considered to be of low capability since it has never been tested.  The KN-08 is North Korea’s main weapon they use to threaten the United States with nuclear destruction.  If they cannot get their road mobile Musudan IRBM technology to work what are the chances that their road mobile ICBM works to threaten the US with?

After failing spectacularly at three prior Musudan missile launches the North Koreans are apparently going to try and fire a fourth one:

Japan put its military on alert on Monday for a possible North Korean ballistic missile firing, while South Korea also said it had detected evidence of launch preparations, officials from Japan and South Korea said.

Tension in the region has been high since North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test in January and followed that with a satellite launch and test launches of various missiles.

Japan ordered naval destroyers and anti-ballistic missile Patriot batteries to be ready to shoot down any projectile heading for Japan, Japan’s NHK state broadcaster said.

A Japanese official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed the order. A spokesmen for Japan’s defense ministry declined to comment.

A Patriot missile battery on the grounds of Japan’s Ministry of Defense had its missile tubes elevated to a firing position.

The South Korean defense official declined to comment on what type of missile might be launched but South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency said officials believe it would be an intermediate-range Musudan missile.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but what is significant about this is that the Musudan is the missile that the North Koreans have developed to specifically target the US territory of Guam and threaten US forces there with a nuclear strike.  As it is now Kim Jong-un might just be happy if his Musudan gets up in the air much less reaching Guam.

Graduation celebrations in NK? No. Rather, think "general agricultural mobilization" of university students. https://t.co/Ialb5yKbcU

— Richard Horgan (@LiberateLaura) May 27, 2016

I once had the opportunity to talk to a North Korean defector and this is very similar to what the defector told the group I was with in regards to why people believe what they do in North Korea:

How serious is the brainwashing in North Korea?
When Kim Il Sung died in 1994, I was shocked — I never expected him to die. Because we truly believed he was a god, who didn’t smoke, drink alcohol or go to the bathroom, or [have sex] with women.

Some people criticize North Koreans and ask, Are they stupid? How can they believe those ridiculous things? But I say, It doesn’t matter if you’re smart, if you were born in North Korea you would be exactly like us. We don’t know what freedom is. We have never enjoyed it. We don’t know what democracy is or capitalism. We are completely blocked. Not only from the outside world, but also domestically as it’s not easy to travel around inside North Korea unless you have a travel certificate from the regime. You only have one TV channel — it’s a propaganda channel. We believed that’s utopia because we cannot compare.  [TIME]

You can read much more of this interview with Hyeonseo Lee at the link such as how she strongly agrees with the increased sanctions on the Kim regime.

As I've said before, NK is a gerontocracy headed by a juvenile! https://t.co/mhlWNuRHb0

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) May 24, 2016

The aunt of Kim Jong-un who defected nearly two decades ago to the United States has conducted an extensive interview with the Washington Post for the first time.  What I found most interesting was that she operates a dry cleaning business just like so many other Korean immigrants to the US do:

Wandering through Times Square, past the Naked Cowboy and the Elmos and the ticket touts, she could be any immigrant trying to live the American Dream.

A 60-year-old Korean woman with a soft perm and conservative clothes, she’s taking a weekend off from pressing shirts and hemming pants at the dry-cleaning business she runs with her husband.

But she’s not just any immigrant. She’s an aunt to Kim Jong Un, the young North Korean leader who has threatened to wipe out New York with a hydrogen bomb.

And for the past 18 years, since defecting from North Korea into the waiting arms of the CIA, she has been living an anonymous life here in the United States, with her husband and three children.

“My friends here tell me I’m so lucky, that I have everything,” Ko Yong Suk, as she was known when she was part of North Korea’s royal family, told The Washington Post on a recent weekend. “My kids went to great schools and they’re successful, and I have my husband, who can fix anything. There’s nothing we can envy.”

Her husband, previously known as Ri Gang, chimes in, laughing: “I think we have achieved the American Dream.”

This is the story of how one family went from the top of North Korea to middle America.

Breaking their silence in the United States, Ko and Ri spent almost 20 hours talking to two Washington Post reporters in New York City and then at their home several hours’ drive away. They were nervous about emerging from their anonymity; after all, there are Americans who analyze North Korea for a living and do not even know that the couple are here.  [Washington Post]

I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link.  It is an interesting inside look at Kim Jong-un’s early years growing up considering that Ko Yong Suk helped to raise Kim Jong-il’s kids while they were attending school in Switzerland.  She says from an early age that Kim Jong-un had a fascination with finding out how things like boats and airplanes work.  He also had a short temper and if you can believe it he actually one time went on a hunger strike!  These personality traits are still evident today.

Amazingly they are speaking out now to stop rumors spread about them by the South Korean media.  Additionally her husband actually wants to travel to Pyongyang to meet with Kim Jong-un and act as an intermediary between the US and North Korea.  Good luck with that.

https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/735001440666550272

I am all for North Korea regime collapse planning, but does that mean that US forces need to be the ones entering North Korea?:

 Instability within North Korea will lead to its collapse “sooner than many of us think,” a former U.S. Forces Korea commander says.

Retired four-star Gen. Walter Sharp was among five panelists Tuesday who opened a three-day symposium, sponsored by the Association of the U.S. Army’s Institute of Land Warfare, on strengthening land forces across the Pacific.

North Korea garnered most of the panel’s attention, driven by the volatile nation’s uptick in missiles launches and its fourth nuclear test earlier this year.

Sharp, who headed USFK in 2008-11, said he recently guaranteed Gen. Vincent Brooks, the newly minted USFK commander, there would be major changes on the peninsula before his tenure ends.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but I have longed believed that US soldiers should not step foot into North Korea despite recommendations previously made that 150,000 US troops would be needed to secure North Korea.  Considering the advantages in culture and language the ROK military has why can’t they be the ones to occupy North Korea?  North Koreans are programmed to believe that South Koreans are puppets of the Americans and if US forces are seen with ROK forces in North Korea this will just validate this belief.  Does the US military really want to occupy a country with a bitter population awash in weapons and explosives?  Plus the threat of 150,000 US troops entering North Korea is the reason why China keeps the Kim regime in power in the first place.  What would the US government think if 150,000 Chinese soldiers showed up on our border with Mexico?

I just do not see how 150,000 US soldiers showing up in a collapsed North Korean state benefits the ROK, North Korea and most importantly the United States?  Maybe I am missing something, but can anyone else make an argument why there needs to be a US military occupation of North Korea?

The details about why a BBC reporter, Rupert Winfield-Hayes was detained in North Korea have now been revealed.  It seems pretty clear that he was made an example of to warn other international media figures from reporting negatively about the country:

A group of officials in dark Mao suits walked in and sat opposite. The older one spoke first.

“Mr Rupert,” he said, “this meeting can be over quickly and simply, it will depend on your attitude.”

I was told that my reporting had insulted the Korean people, and that I needed to admit my mistakes. They produced copies of three articles that had been published on the BBC website, as I reported on the visit of the Nobel laureates.  (……….)

“Do you think Korean people are ugly?” the older man asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Do you think Korean people have voices like dogs?”

“No,” I answered again.

“Then why do you write these things?!” he shouted.

I was confused. What could they mean? One of the articles was presented to me, the offending passage circled in black marker pen:

“The grim-faced customs officer is wearing one of those slightly ridiculous oversized military caps that they were so fond of in the Soviet Union. It makes the slightly built North Korean in his baggy uniform comically top heavy. “Open,” he grunts, pointing at my mobile phone. I dutifully punch in the passcode. He grabs it back and goes immediately to photos. He scrolls through pictures of my children skiing, Japanese cherry blossom, the Hong Kong skyline. Apparently satisfied he turns to my suitcase. “Books?” he barks. No, no books. “Movies?” No, no movies. I am sent off to another desk where a much less gruff lady is already looking through my laptop.” 

“Are they serious?” I thought. They had taken “grim-faced” to mean “ugly”, and the use of the word “barks” as an indication that I thought they sounded like dogs.

“It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” I protested.

The older man squinted.

“I have studied English literature,” he said. “Do you think I do not understand what these expressions mean?

For two hours they demanded I confess my mistakes. Finally the older man got up to leave.

“It is clear that your attitude is going to make this difficult,” he said. “We have no choice but to carry out a full investigation.”  [BBC]

You can read the rest at the link, but it makes you wonder why journalists even bother going to North Korea when it is pretty clear that what they publish has to be self censored to avoid detainment and future access to North Korea.

North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un (C), wearing a short-sleeved shirt, pours underground ultra-saline water onto a salt field during a visit to a saltern in the North’s South Pyongan Province in this photo released by the North’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper on May 24, 2016. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)