This should not be surprising that the North Koreans are making bold threats they likely won’t or can’t carry out:
Anchor: The sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un issued another warning just several hours after claiming that a U.S. military reconnaissance plane repeatedly violated the North’s airspace. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, on its part, urged Pyongyang to put a stop to such false claims that heighten military tensions. Our Bae Joo-yon has more.
Report: Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North’s leader, warned on Tuesday that U.S. forces will face a “very critical flight” if they continue with what she termed an “illegal intrusion.”
She issued the warning in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) as she said that she will act “upon authorization” if a U.S. spy plane again violates the North’s exclusive economic zone(EEZ).
The warning came just nine hours after Kim accused a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft of intruding into the zone over waters east of Tongchon of Kangwon Province and waters southeast of Uljin County in North Gyeongsang Province between 5:15 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Monday.
In a separate statement issued under the name of the defense ministry spokesperson, the reclusive state repeated Kim’s claims and warned that it can shoot down U.S. planes.
I wonder what made up airspace boundaries Kim Yo-jong is claiming this aircraft violated?:
Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Monday claimed US reconnaissance aircraft intruded in the country’s airspace.
Kim issued a statement alleging that a US spy aircraft intruded in the North’s eastern airspace twice at around 5 a.m. and 8:50 a.m., respectively, on the same day.
In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, she said the US is “engaging in a serious military provocation by conducting aerial surveillance.”
Kim Yo-jong added that the North will not respond directly to the US reconnaissance activities outside of the country’s exclusive economic zone, but warned that it will take “decisive action” if the US military again crosses its maritime military demarcation line.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s military rejected the North’s claim of its airspace being violated as “not true” and described flights by US aerial surveillance assets around the peninsula as part of regular surveillance activities.
NEW: North Korean computer science students win a U.S.-based hacking competition, raising concerns that their programming capabilities could be utilized for illicit cyber activities amid border closures limiting local training opportunities.https://t.co/cDSHwHO7h0
Park Sang-hak’s group Fighters for a Free North Korea are once again sending leaflets to North Korea:
A North Korean defectors’ group said Monday it has sent anti-Pyongyang leaflets and medicine by balloons to the North, as they marked the 73rd anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War.
Park Sang-hak, head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea (FFNK), told Yonhap News Agency that the organization sent 20 balloons carrying some 200,000 leaflets, 10,000 face masks, Tylenol pills and booklets from Gimpo, west of Seoul, at 10 p.m. on Sunday.
This was a pretty typical statement from the North Koreans on the 73rd anniversary of the Korean War:
North Korea fires a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile from the Sunan area in Pyongyang, in this file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on Nov. 19, 2022, a day after the launch.
North Korea’s foreign ministry on Monday accused Seoul and Washington of pushing tensions to “the brink of a nuclear war” akin to the 1950-53 Korean War, saying it will continue to bolster its self-defensive capabilities.
In a research report released by the foreign ministry’s Institute for American Studies, North Korea likened the current military tensions in the region to the night before the outbreak of the Korean War as it slammed the United States and South Korea for their “delusional anti-communist military confrontation” and “rhetorical threats.”
“Such bellicose moves of the U.S. have pushed the military tensions on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia already plunged into an extremely unstable situation closer to the brink of a nuclear war,” the ministry said in the English-language report released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Current ROK policy toward North Korea evokes "nouveau capitulationism," pressuring NK with ever greater displays of political and military superiority. If it doesn't lead to a new Korean War, the North's people may get treated by SK much like Israel treats West Bank Palestinians.
I wonder if these sanctions will actually do anything or are they just for show because wouldn’t China have to enforce them?:
The U.S. on Thursday imposed sanctions on a North Korean husband and wife living in Beijing accused of helping to procure equipment for ballistic missiles that ended up in the hands of North Korean and Iranian customers.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Choe Chol Min and his wife Choe Un Jong work through North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, a state organization that conducts research for the nation’s ballistics missiles program, to help procure equipment for buyers.
Treasury says Choe Chol Min worked with North Korean weapons trading officials to buy equipment for Iranian customers. His wife is accused of coordinating at least one order for dual-use bearings that are used in North Korean ballistic missile production.
The isolated Asian nation uses a network of representatives in foreign countries, including China and Iran, to illegally import restricted materials used to create ballistic missiles and other weapons in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, Treasury said.
Remember this criticism is occurring in the English language North Korean state media. I have seen no indications that the domestic media is sharing this sentiment in North Korea. I doubt the North Korean public even knows of the failed launch:
North Korea called its failed attempt to launch a purported military reconnaissance satellite the “most serious” shortcoming in the first half of this year and reaffirmed its pledge to put it into orbit soon, Pyongyang’s state media said Monday.
The North made the assessment following a plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, attended by leader Kim Jong-un, that wrapped up the previous day, referring to its botched attempt to launch a rocket carrying a military spy satellite on May 31.
Via a reader tip comes this interesting article from the BBC where they secretly interview three North Koreans about life under the Kim Jong-un regime:
Under the tyrannical rule of Kim Jong Un, North Koreans are forbidden from making contact with the outside world. With the help of the organisation Daily NK, which operates a network of sources inside the country, the BBC has been able to communicate with three ordinary people. They are eager to tell the world about the catastrophic toll the border closure has taken on their lives. They understand if the government discovers they are talking to us, they would likely be killed. To protect them, we can only reveal some of what they have told us, yet their experiences offer an exclusive snapshot of the situation unfolding inside North Korea.
According to one of the North Koreans interviewed the food situation has gotten very bad due to the sealing of the border with China because of COVID:
“Our food situation has never been this bad,” Myong Suk tells us. (….)
Now when her husband and children wake, she prepares them a breakfast of corn. Gone are the days they could eat plain rice. Her hungry neighbours have started knocking at the door asking for food, but she has to turn them away.
“We are living on the front line of life,” she says.
Here is what another North Korean had to say about the food situation:
At first Chan Ho was afraid he might die from Covid, but as time went on, he began to worry about starving to death, especially as he watched those around him die.
The first family in his village to succumb to starvation was a mother and her children. She had become too sick to work. Her children kept her alive for as long as they could by begging for food, but in the end all three died. Next came a mother who was sentenced to hard labour for violating quarantine rules. She and her son starved to death.
More recently, one of his acquaintance’s sons was released from the military because he was malnourished. Chan Ho remembers his face suddenly bloating. Within a week he had died.
You can read much more at the link, but the interviewees say that COVID is being used as an excuse to crackdown on the people and stop cross border trade with China and defections to South Korea. It is apparently working because people are starving and many of those that attempt to escape now are publicly executed. Here is the final comments from the article:
Chan Ho blames the international community. “The US and UN seem half-witted,” he says, questioning why they still offer to negotiate with Kim Jong Un, when it is so clear he will not give up his weapons. Instead, the construction worker wishes the US would attack his country.
“Only with a war, and by getting rid of the entire leadership, can we survive,” he says. “Let’s end this one way or another.”
Myong Suk agrees. “If there was a war, people would turn their backs on our government,” she says. “That’s the reality.”
The problem is no one wants a war with North Korea to save starving people at the cost of destroying Seoul and possibly causing a greater regional war. Thus these poor North Koreans are stuck starving while their leader Kim Jong-un and his family get fatter and fatter.
I people are wondering why Japan is growing their military capabilities this is just another example why:
North Korea sent at least two ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in waters off Ishikawa Prefecture on Thursday, the Defense Ministry in Tokyo said, further ramping up tensions after a failed satellite launch last month.
Both missiles splashed down some 250 kilometers northwest of Ishikawa’s Hegura Island, traveling about 850 km and 900 km, respectively, Parliamentary Vice Minister of Defense Kimi Onoda told reporters, adding that there had not been any reports of damage to aircraft or ships.
Onoda called the launches into Japan’s EEZ, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its coast, “absolutely unacceptable” and “a serious matter concerning the safety of residents of the country.”
The launches were the first to land in Japan’s EEZ since mid-February.
The North Koreans are claiming the launches were in response to joint US and ROK live fire exercises:
The allies ended the fifth and last round of the Combined Joint Live-Fire Exercise, the first of its kind in six years, at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, just 25 kilometers south of the inter-Korean border, on Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the bilateral alliance.
More than 610 military assets were mobilized for the drills, including F-35A fighters and K9 self-propelled howitzers from the South Korean side, and F-16 fighter jets and Gray Eagle drones from the U.S. side.
The North’s defense ministry accused the allies of escalating tensions, saying the drills warrant its “inevitable” response.
“Our army strongly denounces the provocative and irresponsible moves of the puppet military authorities escalating the military tension in the region despite its repeated warnings and warns them solemnly,” the spokesperson said in the statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.
