Category: North Korea

This is the second group of overseas North Korean restaurant workers to defect to South Korea in the past two months.  I have to wonder if ROK intelligence is focusing hard on getting North Korean restaurant workers to defect in an effort to close the restaurants and dry up a source of foreign currency for the Kim regime?:

Up to three North Korean restaurant staff have recently escaped their workplace in China for possible defection to South Korea, a source familiar with inter-Korean affairs said Monday.

The North Koreans are currently staying in a third country in Southeast Asia after running away from a North Korea-run restaurant located at the northwestern Chinese city of Xian, according to the source.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It would seem to me that of all the provocations that the North Koreans do, the nuclear tests are probably the ones that most concern the Chinese considering how close they are occurring to their border.  It seems for now they may have been able to convince the Kim regime to delay their fifth nuclear test:

China reportedly speculates that an internal political assessment led to North Korea’s decision not to conduct a nuclear test around the time of its ruling party congress held early this month.

According to a senior South Korean government official stationed in China who spoke to reporters in Beijing on Thursday, China urged North Korea to refrain from carrying out its fifth nuclear test. The source quoted a senior Chinese official but added that it can’t be concluded that Pyongyang stopped short of a test just because of China’s request.

The official said that Beijing believes the North must have politically evaluated that a nuclear test will be a minus to the party congress.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link.

[Video Report] Nominal Farm Mobilization: People Feel Squeezed https://t.co/r0w60RECx8 pic.twitter.com/ju38wgHY5T

— RimjingangNK (@RimjingangNK) May 18, 2016

Some of you ROK Heads out there still have a chance of marrying Kim Jong-un’s sister if you are interested.  It also appears that the ubiquitous “car accident” continues to be a problem for regime figures in North Korea:

Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a central committee member of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), is not married, a high-level North Korean official-turned-defector said.

The Voice of America (VOA) reported Thursday that the 29-year-old sister Kim has yet to tie the knot, citing its interview with the anonymous defector, whom it reported had defected to the South last year with his father, also a senior member of the North Korean government.

A Unification Ministry official said the government wouldn’t confirm the veracity of the report.

The VOA’s report on Kim Yo-jong’s single life came after many reports by South Korean media that she was married to the son of Choe Ryong-hae, who returned to the power circle during the recent seventh congress with his entry into the five-member presidium of the political bureau of the WPK’s central committee.

The defector, who reportedly had worked for the North’s coal export business with China, said Choe’s son had actually died in a car accident in January 2013.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This is something the North Koreans have done before and will continue to do again in the future:

Residents in border areas in Gyeonggi saw an unexpected flood Monday night apparently because North Korea’s unannounced release of water from its border-area dam increased the inflow of water to the South from 97 tons per second at 6 p.m. to 428 tons per second by 9 p.m.

According to the Paju city government and Korea Water Resources Corporation, the inflow of water from across the border at the upper stream of Imjin River, where water levels are controlled by the Gunnam Dam. The inflow of water hit 515 tons per second by 4 a.m. Tuesday, from which point it began to gradually subdue.

Officials view the dramatic increase of water inflow as a direct result of the North’s unexpected release of water from its Hwanggang Dam, located about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) north of the military demarcation line, as there had been no rainfall in recent days in the area.

Facing the sudden increase in water levels, the Gunnam Dam increased the amount of water it released to 427 tons per second at 1 a.m. from 116 tons per second at 7 p.m. The increased level of water was a problem for fishermen who make their living along the Imjin River, as their fishing nets were damaged or lost in the flood.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

[Video Report] Residents of central Pyongyang live on businesses in the market #NorthKorea https://t.co/B2Oh04hIyG pic.twitter.com/ehXwzA5uXP

— RimjingangNK (@RimjingangNK) May 16, 2016

Via a reader tip comes news that Kim Jong-un may have given up smoking.  Considering that this is based off of public pictures this could just be a propaganda campaign by North Korea where pictures of Kim Jong-un smoking are no longer allowed to be published:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is not known for a clean, healthy lifestyle. This is a young man whose ballooning waistline and sudden removal from the public eye almost two years ago was widely (if dubiously) attributed to a powerful addiction to Swiss cheese. Now, however, there is widespread suspicion that the North Korean supreme leader may have finally kicked one of his nastiest habits: smoking.

According to reports in South Korean news outlets like Yonhap and Korea Herald, Kim hasn’t been pictured with a cigarette for at least two months. A quick look at recently released pictures appears to confirm this: The last hint of a cigarette was in mid-May, when Kim was shown sitting next to an ashtray.

There are plenty of reasons to be suspicious about the idea that the North Korean leader may have given up his beloved smokes, however. South Korean media reports on the North are often unreliable. Additionally, Kim’s relationship with cigarettes goes back a long time: He is thought to have begun smoking when he was 15 years old. Over the years, he has frequently been photographed chain-smoking at official functions, much like his father, the late Kim Jong Il, had been before him.  [Washington Post]

You can read more at the link.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un tours a tree nursery in Pyongyang with some officals in this combined image released on May 15, 2016, by the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. It marks Kim’s second public outing since the closing of the party’s congress on Monday. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap).

North Korean residents use machines to transplant rice seedlings for the first time this year at a collective farm, southwest of the country’s capital Pyongyang, in this photo released on May 13, 2016, by the Rodong Simmun, the organ of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

Over at Rimjin-gang they have an interview posted with one of their North Korean contacts in regards to the recent Workers’ Party Convention.  The interview concludes with the North Korean explaining why the Kim regime will never implement Chinese style reforms that would improve the well being of the people:

Q: What is your expectation from Kim Jong-un regime?

A: I hope that they would open the door like China. Frankly speaking, if they do so, there would be no people who flee from their hometown (North Korean defectors). I don’t know why they fear so much about opening, or reform. While drinking, an official, one of my acquaintances, said: “If we open like China, we would be overthrown. So the top never open our door.”

Q: Do you mean that they don’t try to reform since they know their regime to be overthrown even if the opening would bring better off for the people?

A: Absolutely! Those son-of-bitches (Kim Jong-un and his followers) think that they should survive to the last. That is why they don’t. (open the door)  [Rimjin-gang]

You can read more at the link.