Category: North Korea

The UN previously reported in 2019 that the Kim regime has stolen up to $2 billion through cyber attacks and last year they stole $316 million on top of that. Yet supposedly they can’t feed their own people and the Moon administration wants to funnel even more cash to the regime:

New York (CNN)North Korea‘s army of hackers stole hundreds of millions of dollars throughout much of 2020 to fund the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in violation of international law, according to a confidential United Nations report.The document accused the regime of leader Kim Jong Un of conducting “operations against financial institutions and virtual currency exchange houses” to pay for weapons and keep North Korea’s struggling economy afloat. One unnamed country that is a member of the UN claimed the hackers stole virtual assets worth $316.4 million dollars between 2019 and November 2020, according to the document.

CNN via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the

U.S. State Secretary nominee Antony Blinken hinted Tuesday (local time) that the Joe Biden administration may entirely rethink its policies toward North Korea, claiming that under Donald trump the situation with Pyongyang has deteriorated considerably.

Blinken did not specify what policies the United States will adopt in dealing with the totalitarian state during his confirmation hearing, however, as Biden and members of his foreign policy team have been critical of Trump’s handling of the Kim Jong-un regime, his comments are seen as heralding a big shift from their predecessor’s dealings with the North. 

“I think we have to review and we intend to review the entire approach and policy toward North Korea because this is a hard problem that has plagued administration after administration, and it’s a problem that has not gotten better,” Blinken said before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. 

“In fact, it’s gotten worse.”

Kim Yeoul-soo, chief of the Security Strategy Office at the Korea Institute for Military Affairs, said the remarks broadly meant a shift in foreign policy in accordance with the change of administration from Trump to Biden. 

“I think Blinken meant a shift from top-down diplomacy to a bottom-up approach and from bilateral negotiations to multilateral talks,” he said.

Kim also said that the nominee’s remarks at the hearing likely indicated the Biden team may pursue a nuclear deal similar to the one with Iran in 2015 when dealing with the North’s nuclear program as he wrote in an op-ed piece in the New York Times in 2018. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Iran deal would pretty much give the Kim regime what they want, keep their nukes and get sanctioned drops for just playing nice for awhile. They can then reinvest all the money coming in from the dropping of sanctions into their military and strategic programs.

The real item of interest will be if the Biden administration will pursue a peace treaty. If so this will once again play into the Kim regime’s confederation strategy and signal the beginning of the end for USFK.

Yes, hope isn’t a strategy, but that seems like U.S. policy for a number of years, hoping North Korea denuclearizes:

Outgoing US Ambassador to South Korea Harry Harris said Tuesday that hope alone will not resolve the North Korea issue, highlighting the importance of combined exercises between Seoul and Washington amid the North’s threat to continue developing its nuclear capabilities.

Harris made the remark at a webinar in Seoul, one day after President Moon Jae-in said South and North Korea can discuss issues regarding the allies’ combined military exercises, if necessary, in response to the North’s repeated calls to halt the joint maneuvers.

“While we hope for diplomacy with North Korea to be successful, we all can recognize that hope alone is not a course of action,” the ambassador said, citing the North’s “unrelenting pursuit of nuclear weapons” and China’s “malign activities.”

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

Not only does former President Park got to deal with being imprisoned now the North Koreans are demanding her extradition to execute her:

North Korea has vowed to execute South Korea’s former president and her spy director, accusing them of planning to assassinate its supreme leadership.

The official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday that North Korea will impose a “death penalty” on ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye and former spy chief Lee Byoung Ho, and they could receive a “miserable dog’s death any time, at any place and by whatever methods from this moment.”

North Korea also demanded that South Korea hand over Park and Lee. Park was removed from office and arrested in March over a corruption scandal.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.