Category: North Korea

Here is the latest on North Korea’s recent missile launch:

The Japanese government says North Korea appears to have fired one ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan early on Tuesday. Shortly after the launch, a North Korean diplomat rose to speak at the United Nations and called on the US to scrap its hostile policy against the country.

The South Korean military says it believes the North fired a short-range missile from the northern part of the country toward its east coast. It says it’s collecting and analyzing information together with the US military.

Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide said, “The Japanese government is on high alert and monitoring the situation. We are also analyzing how the launch was conducted.”

Japanese government officials say it is unlikely the suspected ballistic missile has fallen inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the launch was timed to happen before Kim Song the North Korean ambassador to the U.N. gave a speech about the self defensive nature of their weapons program.

Here is what Kim Yo-jong had to say about the recent comments for a Korean War peace treaty by ROK president Moon Jae-in:

 The powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Saturday that her country will take steps to repair ties with South Korea, and may even discuss another summit between their leaders, if the South drops what she described as hostility and double standards. 

The comments by Kim Yo Jong followed a similar statement she issued Friday that the North was willing to resume talks with the South if certain conditions were met. 

Analysts say North Korea is using South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s desire for inter-Korean engagement to pressure Seoul to persuade the Biden administration to ease crippling U.S.-led sanctions over the North’s nuclear weapons program or suspend combined U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

Associated Press

You can read more at the link, but North Korea knows time is short to get a deal done with no guarantee of the Korean left maintaining the ROK Presidency next Spring. With the various negative issues surrounding the Biden administration, the Kim regime maybe thinking the U.S. might be eager for a foreign policy “win”, by cutting a deal with North Korea for little to nothing in return. We have seen past U.S. Presidents play this card before.

This sounds like childish jealousy from the North Koreans:

North Korea on Monday questioned whether South Korea’s newly unveiled submarine-launched ballistic missile is a real SLBM, claiming even if it is, the “clumsy product” is just in the elementary development stage and cannot serve as an effective means of attack.

The chief of the North’s Academy of National Defense made the claim in an article carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), days after South Korea unveiled its first homegrown SLBM by announcing the successful test-launch from the 3,000-ton-class Dosan Ahn Chang-ho submarine.

“The disclosed pictures show that the weapon has the structure and shape of a typical ground-to-ground tactical ballistic missile. Though the photos could have deliberately been retouched for secrecy, the missile in the picture looked somewhat like a poor weapon without all its shape and far from an underwater weapon,” agency chief Jang Chang-ha said. “What was shown in the pictures was clearly not SLBM.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what this does mean is that what little resources the DPRK does have they will likely now pour into SLBM development, not because they really need it, but to keep up with the ROK.

I always keep a little bit of skepticism when it comes to these unverifiable stories out of North Korea, but this one I can see having some truth to it:

Almost two years since its release and subsequent rise to global popularity, the K-drama “Crash Landing on You” continues to leave an impact on its fans. In North Korea, where the drama’s storyline is based, several teens caught watching the series are allegedly facing prison time among other harsher sentences. The incident, while unconfirmed, has heightened awareness of the country’s human rights atrocities after being shared in a viral video.

Seoul-based publication The Daily NK, which specializes in North Korean news that relies on a network of sources from inside the hermit kingdom, reported in late August that eight teens were put on public trial for watching and imitating the characters of various South Korean dramas including the popular “Crash Landing on You.” 

Next Shark

You can read more at the link.

Another capability to disguise and quickly launch ballistic missiles has been confirmed by North Korea. This will just make it more challenging for intelligence analysts to track North Korea’s ballistic missiles:

North Korea said Thursday that a railway-borne missile regiment held a firing drill a day earlier, confirming the launches, apparently from a train, of two short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea.

“The railway-borne missile regiment took part in the drill with a mission to strike the target area 800 kilometers away from its location after moving to the central mountainous area at dawn on September 15,” the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The KCNA said the North accurately struck the target in the East Sea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is another useful system the North Koreans have now added to their arsenal:

North Korea has successfully test-fired a new type of long-range cruise missile over the weekend, state media reported Monday, a low-level provocation amid stalled talks with the United States.

The test-firings, which took place Saturday and Sunday without leader Kim Jong-un in attendance, came right after the North held a scaled-down military parade, and appeared to be intent on demonstrating its military power in a low-level provocation without violating U.N. sanctions.

The North is banned from using ballistic technology under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. Cruise missiles, however, are not subject to the sanctions as they are considered less of a threat than ballistic missiles.

The missiles “traveled for 7,580 seconds along an oval and pattern-8 flight orbits in the air above the territorial land and waters” in North Korea and “hit targets 1,500 km away,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a fairly simple malware attack launched by the North Koreans:

A hacker group believed to be linked to North Korea has attempted to steal data from South Korean experts working as members of an advisory panel for the defense ministry, a cybersecurity firm said Sunday.

Emails were sent to some members of the advisory panel earlier this month from hackers who disguised themselves as a North Korea-related department of the defense ministry, notifying them of an upcoming seminar on the occasion of the anniversary of a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, according to ESTsecurity.

A few days later, another email was sent, asking the panel members to open attached papers written for the event. It had some disguised images on the attachments that appeared to be official government documents, according to ESTsecurity.

ESTsecurity said it suspects North Korea-linked hacking organization Thallium to be behind the attempted attacks.

The hackers attached malicious files disguised as government documents to emails that can install malware on users’ computers, allowing them to steal information.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.