North Korean radar and anti-aircraft batteries along the DMZ would probably locate and take out a number of the drones. I think such an idea would actually work better if executed by activist groups in China if they are able to not get cracked down on by the Chinese authorities:
A researcher has called on the United States to consider using drones to send USB sticks with information that can effectively win the hearts of North Koreans and provide them with information about the outside world.
Senior Researcher Kim Yon-ho at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies made the call in his recent contribution to Foreign Policy on Saturday.
Kim said that there are limitations to the conventional methods of smuggling high-tech data into North Korea, claiming that delivering USBs with drones is a high-tech alternative to traditional smuggling tactics.
The researcher said that due to the flourishing black market and technological developments, the means of access to outside media has advanced beyond televisions, radios, and DVDs into more interactive forms such as PCs, tablets and USB drives.
Kim said that USB drives are considered effective means of accessing information about the outside world, as they are smuggled through balloons and easily made available on the black market. [KBS World Radio]
You can read the whole Foreign Policy article at this link. The article pretty much makes the case that I have been making for year to execute a coordinated information warfare strategy within North Korea which should be part of a larger strategy to undermine the legitimacy of the Kim regime.
Is anyone shocked that yet another business venture in South Korea is facing financial difficulties?:
The founder of a unique university in North Korea is under scrutiny after the university suffered a series of financial difficulties, according to a source in the country.
Kim Chin-kyung, a U.S. citizen, founded Pyongyang University of Science and Technology with the cooperation of North and South Korean institutions, South Korean news service CBS No Cut News reported.
But the North Korean government is looking to replace Kim.
The source said dwindling funds from South Korea and the United States have contributed to the financial shortfall at the university.
PUST used to operate on a $100,000 monthly budget but that number was down to $50,000, the source said.
A loan Kim secured to build facilities on campus in late 2000 has yet to be paid, and an agreement to replace a 60,000-volt transformer at the school by Oct. 10, 2015, the anniversary to commemorate the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea, was never fulfilled, according to the source. [UPI]
It appears to me that the Kim regime is using this likely manufactured story as a way to take shots at both the ROK and China as nations that cannot be trusted:
A source in North Korea told Japan press that North Korean soldiers crossed the border with China at Tumen to arrest two suspects planning to assassinate Kim Jong Un. Pictured: A bulldozer and truck cross a bridge into Namyang, North Korea, from Tumen, China. File photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI | License Photo
At least two suspects who attempted to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un were arrested, according to unconfirmed reports in the country.
The suspects had been reportedly arrested at the China border near the Tumen River as they were preparing a hit on Kim in the city of Hoeryong in North Hamgyong Province, Radio Free Asia reported Thursday.
A source in the North who spoke to Japanese news service Asia Press on the condition of anonymity said he had heard the “terrorists” had not yet crossed the Tumen, which separates North Korea from China, when North Korean border guards crossed the border to arrest them.
The source went on to say the suspects were transferred to the State Security Department, and that the border guards were given rewards – including a chance to become members of the Korean Workers’ Party.
One of the suspects is allegedly a North Korean defector from the South, but the other one or more were Chinese nationals.
Japanese journalist Jiro Ishimaru, founder of Asia Press, said it is likely a rumor that was manufactured by the state to bolster support for the party ahead of its Seventh Congress in May. [UPI via reader tip]
This is actually pretty amazing that an entire restaurant staff would defect because the selection process for the job is relatively stringent so it isn’t like the workers are coming from desperately poor families in North Korea. It is also pretty impressive that the entire staff was able to coordinate with each other to do this without fear of one of them informing on them back to regime minders:
Thirteen North Koreans working in a state-run restaurant outside the country have defected to South Korea, a government official in Seoul said Friday.
The South Korean government estimates that Pyongyang rakes in around $10 million every year from some 130 restaurants it operates — with mostly North Korean staff — in 12 countries, including neighbouring China.
Last month, while unveiling a series of unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang over its January nuclear test, Seoul had urged South Korean citizens overseas to boycott any such establishments, saying their profits funded the North’s nuclear weapons programme.
The defectors, one male manager and a dozen women, arrived in the South on Thursday, Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-Hee told reporters.
He declined to identify the country where the restaurant they had been working in was located.
There have been defections by individual restaurant workers in the past, but this is the first time so many staff from one restaurant have defected en masse.
Jeong quoted one of the defectors as saying that everyone had been “on the same page” about escaping to South Korea. [AFP]
A group of North Korean defectors prepares to release balloons containing leaflets critical of the North Korean regime in Paju, near the inter-Korean border, on April 6, 2016. The balloons were released despite a recent Supreme Court ruling that the government can keep activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, citing the safety of residents there. (Yonhap)
The ROK really cannot complain about this considering how private organizations continue to send propaganda leaflets and CDs via balloon into North Korea. The nuisance of dealing with the litter caused by this propaganda war is worth it in my opinion because of the effect the propaganda has within North Korea:
North Korea has sent leaflets and compact discs criticizing President Park Geun-hye and the ruling Saenuri Party to South Korea, police said Wednesday, the latest move in its propaganda campaign.
Police retrieved some 20,000 leaflets and 40 CDs from Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, just northwest of Seoul, at around 5 a.m.
Earlier in the day, dozens of leaflets criticizing South Korea’s military and its joint exercise with the United States were found in central Seoul at around midnight, according to police.
Later on Wednesday, a group of defectors in South Korea sent 300,000 leaflets with messages criticizing the communist regime and 4,000 sheets of local newspapers over the border from Paju, Gyeonggi Province.
The same group had sent another 300,000 leaflets to the North last month. [Yonhap]
Here is the latest intelligence assessment provided by 38 North using commercial satellite data on when they think North Korea will conduct another nuclear test:
Activities detected at North Korea’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon are increasing speculation that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct a fifth nuclear test.
Citing satellite images showing exhaust plumes that were uploaded Monday by 38 North ― a U.S. website on North Korea issues ― analysts here said Tuesday that Pyongyang may be taking preparatory steps for another nuclear test.
The analysts predict that the fifth test could be conducted on the occasion of the seventh Workers’ Party Congress, a rare congressional meeting scheduled to take place in May for the first time since 1980.
“North Korean leader Kim Jong-un apparently wants to run a big event to publicize his leadership at the Workers’ Party Congress,” said An Chan-il, head of the World Institute for North Korea Studies. “And it’s possible North Korea could test a nuclear bomb using one of the three materials ― plutonium, uranium or hydrogen.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link or over at 38 North.
North Korea is continuing with their propaganda campaign and this time they have released a video depicting rockets landing into Seoul and destroying such iconic buildings as the Blue House, the Ministry of Defense and the War Memorial. They also have a scene of rockets landing and destroying a 2nd Infantry Division camp, but it is hard to tell which one it is:
North Korea released a video Monday that depicts an attack on South Korean government buildings, including the presidential Blue House. The 88-second video is called “if the ultimatum goes unanswered” and ends with the words “everything will turn into ashes.” Over the past several weeks, the country has repeatedly issued threats against Seoul and Washington, largely in response to annual joint military exercises that began in early March. The Korean People’s Army has issued an “ultimatum” demanding South Korean President Park Geun-Hye apologize for the larger-than-usual war games, which include an operation built to “decapitate” Pyongyang’s leadership, should a full-scale conflict arise. A little more than a week ago, the website released a video showing a nuclear attack on the United States. [The Daily Beast]
