Category: North Korea

It looks like the Kim regime wants to play balloon games just like the Xi regime in China:

A suspected North Korean weather balloon entered South Korea’s airspace earlier this week, prompting Seoul’s military to strengthen its monitoring activities, according to a Seoul official Monday.

The balloon measuring around 2 meters in length was spotted flying over the South Korean territory on Sunday afternoon and appears to have left the South hours later, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The military did not take specific air defense steps, such as sending fighter jets to the scene, as it deemed the balloon as having no intention for spying activities. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It is good to see that the U.S.S. Pueblo is not being forgotten:

A resolution has been proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives calling for the return of a U.S. Navy ship seized by North Korea 55 years ago, a summary of the resolution showed Monday.

The resolution, introduced last week by Rep. Steube Gregory (R-FL), calls for the return of USS Pueblo while denouncing North Korea’s seizure of the ship and its crew on Jan. 23, 1968.

The House “maintains North Korea’s seizure of the vessel USS Pueblo and its detention of the crew were in violation of international law,” says the resolution.

It also adds the House “declares that USS Pueblo is the property of the United States government and it should be returned to the United States.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the Pueblo has long been used for propaganda purposes by North Korea. You can read more about the U.S.S. Pueblo incident at my prior posting on the seizure of the ship.

Here is the least surprising news of the day:

North Korea continues to provide ammunition to Russia in support of Moscow’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, a White House official said Friday, calling it a clear violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions on Pyongyang.

John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council, said the U.S. has shared its intelligence on the delivery of North Korean ammunition to Russia with the UNSC Panel of Experts on North Korea sanctions.

The NSC official earlier said the North has delivered ammunition to a private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, for use in Ukraine.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but by transferring the ammunition to the Wagner Group it allows North Korea and Russia to claim that ammunition is not being transferred between the two governments when in fact it is.

This has pretty much been the consensus from most people is that the nuclear test is going to happen sometime soon. I believe the Kim regime is trying to goad the Yoon administration into doing something retaliatory to their other provocations to justify the nuclear test. Canceling the Inter-Korean Military Agreement could be one of those triggers to conduct a nuclear test:

A North Korean nuclear test might be inevitable while China, despite its perceived influence in Pyongyang, may be unwilling to help prevent such a test from taking place, former U.S. nuclear negotiator Victor Cha said.

Cha also insisted that Beijing may not have the means to prevent North Korea from conducting a nuclear test even if it wanted to in a recent interview with Yonhap News Agency.

“I think it’s inevitable. I think it’s seventh nuclear test is inevitable and I think another Hwasong-17 (intercontinental ballistic missile) test using a solid fuel propeller, I think that’s inevitable because in the New Year speech, they said that,” said Cha, currently a senior vice president and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The smart people keep saying Kim Jong-un is showing his daughter off to emphasize hereditary power transition:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s disclosure of his daughter in recent public events was likely an attempt to show his people that one of his children would one day inherit his power in what would be the country’s third hereditary power transfer, South Korea’s spy service told lawmakers Thursday.

Kim publicly took his daughter to three events in the past few months: a missile launch site, a photo session with weapons scientists and a touring of a missile facility. State media called her Kim’s “most beloved child,” sparking outside debate over whether she’s being groomed as his heir apparent, though she’s believed to be around 9 or 10 years old.

In a closed-door Parliamentary committee meeting, the National Intelligence Service said it assessed that by taking his daughter to public places, Kim aims to show North Koreans his resolve to hold another round of hereditary power transition, Yoo Sang-bum, one of the lawmakers who attended the private NIS briefing, told reporters.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I think he is showing off his daughter to make him look like a nice family man to rehab his image before any future potential talks.

It looks like North Korea’s former Foreign Minister who led the diplomatic outreach between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump may have been executed:

Former North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho appears to have been executed last year, a Japanese newspaper reported Wednesday.

Ri seems to have been executed around between the summer and fall of last year, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported, citing unnamed multiple sources.

Four or five officials from North Korea’s foreign ministry appear to have been executed successively around the time of Ri’s death, according to the report.

It added that some unspecific issues related to the North Korean Embassy in Britain might have been the reasons behind their executions, saying that all of them, including Ri, worked in the diplomatic mission. (….)

Ri, who was appointed as the North’s top diplomat in 2016, played a key role in negotiations with the U.S. for the 2018 and 2019 summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then U.S. President Donald Trump. The Hanoi summit in early 2019 ended with no deal. Ri is known to have left office in 2020.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.