Category: North Korea

North Korea must have found a more effective way to send orders to their spies in South Korea:

North Korea is pressing ahead with measures to disband its inter-Korean organizations, apparently stopping a radio station previously used to send encrypted messages to its spies in South Korea.

As of Saturday, the North appears to have stopped broadcasting the state-run Pyongyang Radio and cut off access to its website.

The latest move comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ordered “readjusting and reforming” its organizations in charge of inter-Korean affairs during a key Workers’ Party meeting last month amid growing cross-border tensions.

Pyongyang Radio is known for broadcasting a series of mysterious numbers, presumed to be coded messages, giving directions to its agents operating in South Korea.

Yonhap

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The testing of an IRBM is sending a message to the US and Japan that bases in both countries can be targeted with this missile:

North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) into the East Sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, in Pyongyang’s first missile launch this year amid heightened tensions over its continued saber-rattling.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the launch from an area in or around Pyongyang at about 2:55 p.m. and the missile flew around 1,000 kilometers before splashing into the sea.

The JCS strongly condemned the launch, calling it a “clear provocative act,” adding that it shared data on the North Korean missile with U.S. and Japanese authorities, with an analysis on its specifications under way.

Yonhap

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North Korea is denying they are providing weapons to Hamas, but the evidence is increasingly showing this to be untrue. What North Korea is probably doing is selling these weapons to Iran who then smuggles them to Hamas:

 South Korea’s spy agency on Monday confirmed suspicions that North Korean-made weapons are being used by the Hamas militant group in its war with Israel despite Pyongyang’s repeated denial of its arms transactions.

Releasing a new photo of a North Korean rocket part, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) confirmed a Voice of America (VOA) report that Hamas fighters used an F-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher manufactured in North Korea.

A photo included in the VOA report published Friday showed that the fuse of an F-7 grenade launcher, allegedly used by Hamas, had on it a combination of Korean characters and numbers, such as “비저-7류” and “시8-80-53.” 

Asked about the report, the NIS said its “assessment is the same as the VOA report.”

Yonhap

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Just another example of how the Kim regime plans to increase tensions during the U.S. Presidential election year:

The gun ports of the coastal artillery (circled in red) on a North Korean island near the Northern Limit Line, a de facto maritime border, remain open, in this photo taken from South Korea’s front-line island of Yeonpyeong on Jan. 7, 2023. (Yonhap)

North Korea fired some 90 artillery shots into waters off its western coast Sunday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of drills near the tensely guarded western border. 

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said it detected the artillery firings into the maritime buffer zone north of Northern Limit Line, the de-facto maritime border in the Yellow Sea, and South Korea’s border island of Yeonpyeong from about 4 p.m. to 5:10 p.m.

The buffer zone was set under a 2018 inter-Korean military accord designed to reduce tensions along the border.

There was no damage to the South Korean military or civilians from the latest firing, a JCS official said, adding that the South Korean military does not plan to hold drills in response.

Yonhap

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Notice Kim Jong-un said that North Korea would abandon efforts to peacefully reunify with South Korea, this means takign over the South by force is still on the table. In other words really nothing has changed:

North Korea will scrap its efforts to reunify the Korean Peninsula due to South Korea’s “collusion with foreign forces,” the country’s state-run news agency reported Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during the five-day, end-of-year ruling party plenary meeting in Pyongyang last week made a “decisive policy change” toward South Korea, according to a Korean Central News Agency report published Sunday.

Kim said Pyongyang will abandon its efforts to reunify the peninsula because of Seoul’s insistence on the “collapse of the [North Korean] regime” and “absorbing” the North, KCNA reported.

North Korean media frequently claim that efforts to peacefully reunite the peninsula following the 1950-53 Korean War is stymied by U.S.-South Korean military drills and economic sanctions.

“It is not suitable to … [North Korea] to discuss the issue of reunification with the strange clan, who is no more than a colonial stooge of the [United States],” the report said.

Stars & Stripes

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It is a Presidential election year in the U.S. which means it the beginning of silly season with everyone acting up to gain political leverage to include North Korea:

 North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his military should “thoroughly annihilate” the United States and South Korea if provoked, state media reported Monday, after he vowed to boost national defense to cope with what he called an unprecedented U.S.-led confrontation.

North Korea has increased its warlike rhetoric in recent months in response to an expansion of U.S.-South Korean military drills. Experts expect Kim will continue to escalate his rhetoric and weapons tests because he likely believes he can use heightened tensions to wrest U.S. concessions if former President Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November.

In a five-day major ruling party meeting last week, Kim said he will launch three more military spy satellites, produce more nuclear materials and develop attack drones this year in what observers say is an attempt to increase his leverage in future diplomacy with the U.S.

Stars & Stripes

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The Kim regime has big plans in 2024 and none of them involve improving the welfare of its citizens:

North Korea aims to launch three additional spy satellites and produce more nuclear weapons next year, as it is accelerating war readiness against various forms of U.S. military threats, Pyongyang’s state media said Sunday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un set forth the goal as he wrapped up five days of the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea on Saturday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Based on the experience of successfully launching and operating the first spy satellite in 2023 in the space development sector, the task of launching three more spy satellites in 2024 was unveiled and all-out measures to spur the development of the space science technology were discussed,” the KCNA said.

Yonhap

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With North Korea wanting to reopen international tourism I guess we will see who will be the next western fool to get detained in 2024:

If there is anything different this year, it would be a policy emphasis on fostering its tourism industry, according to experts, Monday.

“North Korea had already focused on promoting its tourism industry before the coronavirus pandemic forced it to stop it all,” Kang Chae-yeon, a North Korean refugee-turned-scholar at the National Institute for Unification Education, told The Korea Times. “Next year, efforts to attract foreign visitors will be back on track.”

In a sign of gearing up for such efforts, North Korea adopted a new law in August to “vitalize and expand” its tourism industry, according to its state media.

Under the young leader, North Korea stepped up efforts to develop tourist sites, promoting “world-class” vacation properties across the country, including Samjiyon, a city situated near Mount Paektu, and Wonsan, a port city situated on the East Sea.

Korea Times

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ICBMs and nuclear brinkmanship is what keeps the Kim regime relevant so don’t expect them to stop anytime soon:

This satellite image, released by 38 North on Nov. 24, 2021, shows North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, north of Pyongyang. North Korea appears to be continuing the operation of a 5-megawatt nuclear reactor at the complex, the U.S. monitoring website said the same day, citing the release of steam and water seen in recent satellite imagery. (Yonhap)

The United States has expressed serious concern over North Korea showing signs of starting the operation of a new light-water nuclear reactor in a possible attempt to produce nuclear weapons fuel.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said Thursday that the agency has detected more signs of the North commissioning the light-water reactor (LWR) at the North’s main Yongbyon nuclear complex, such as warm water being discharged from it.

The North’s “commissioning of a new light-water nuclear power plant raises serious concerns, including safety,” the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in Vienna said in a statement. “The DPRK’s unlawful nuclear & ballistic missile programs continue to pose a grave threat to international peace & security.” (…..)

Grossi also said the further development of the North’s nuclear program, including the construction and operation of the LWR, is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and urged Pyongyang to fully comply with its obligations under the resolutions.

Yonhap

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