Category: North Korea

The usual caveats apply when it comes to news from North Korea due to the inability to confirm the rumors that come out of the place. With that said I can definitely imagine this execution happening considering the importance of isolating the population from outside information:

Authorities in North Korea executed the owner of a fishing fleet in front of 100 boat captains and fisheries executives for secretly listening to broadcasts by Radio Free Asia and other forbidden media outlets while at sea, sources in the country told RFA.

The fishing boat captain, who picked up the habit of tuning in to broadcasts from abroad while in the military, confessed to having listened to the U.S. government-funded media outlet for more than 15 years, after he was turned in by a resentful crewman at his base in the northeastern port city of Chongjin.

Radio Free Asia via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but has anyone in the media bothered to ask President Moon what he thinks about executing people for listening to the radio?

It looks like the North Koreans are building up the preparatory rationale for another provocation cycle in the coming months:

North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-Jong on Wednesday slammed South Korea’s foreign minister over her recent remarks on Pyongyang’s antivirus measures, saying that she will “pay dearly” for them and warning the already frozen inter-Korean relations could get worse. 

Last week, South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told a forum in Bahrain that the North has been unresponsive to Seoul’s calls for cross-border antivirus cooperation, adding that Pyongyang’s claim that it has no coronavirus cases is hard to believe.

“It can be seen from the reckless remarks made by her without any consideration of the consequences that she is too eager to further chill the frozen relations between the north and south of Korea,” Kim said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“We will never forget her words and she might have to pay dearly for it,” she said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It looks like North Koreans will be the guinea pigs for China’s coronavirus vaccine:

China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, a U.S. analyst said on Tuesday, citing two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources.

Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Center for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated.

It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added.

“Kim Jong Un and multiple other high-ranking officials within the Kim family and leadership network have been vaccinated for coronavirus within the last two to three weeks thanks to a vaccine candidate supplied by the Chinese government,” Kazianis wrote in an article for online outlet 19FortyFive.

Citing U.S. medical scientist Peter J. Hotez, he said at least three Chinese companies were developing a coronavirus vaccine, including Sinovac Biotech Ltd, CanSinoBio and China National Pharmaceutical Group (Sinopharm), an unlisted Beijing-based company.

Sinopharm says its candidate has been used by nearly one million people in China, although none of the firms have unveiled results of Phase 3 clinical trial of their experimental COVID-19 vaccines, which are under way outside China.

Some experts doubted that Kim would use an experimental vaccine.

Reuters

You can read more at the link.

Kim Jong-un is supposedly feeling the pressure of sanctions and the pandemic which if true only increases the odds of him starting a provocation cycle out once the new U.S. Presidential administration takes power:

Anchor: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is reported to have had at least two people executed in an irrational response to the combined pressure of sanctions, COVID-19 and flood damage. That’s according to lawmakers who attended the National Intelligence Service’s briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee on Friday.
Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: 

[Sound bite: Rep. Ha Tae-keung – People Power Party (Korean-English translation)]
“Kim Jong-un is displaying an excessive anger and taking irrational measures [over the pandemic and its economic impact].” 

South Korea’s intelligence agency says North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is responding “irrationally” to the economic difficulties the regime is facing, such as inflation and a decline in industrial activity.

According to Rep. Ha Tae-keung of the parliamentary intelligence committee, the National Intelligence Service(NIS) reported the situation to lawmakers on Friday, including details of the recent execution of a foreign currency changer in Pyongyang.

[Sound bite: Rep. Ha Tae-keung – People Power Party (Korean-English translation)]
“For example, North Korea executed a high-profile money changer in Pyongyang in late October after holding the person responsible for falling exchange rates… Other irrational measures include North Korea banning fishing and salt production at sea to prevent sea water from being infected with the virus.”

Sources explained the North Korean won-dollar exchange rate has fallen as Pyongyang banned the use of the U.S. dollar at home in a bid to curtail inflation.

North Korean people can no longer spend U.S. dollars to purchase smuggled goods either due to the strict Sino-North Korea border closure amid the coronavirus pandemic.  

Rep. Ha quoted the intelligence agency as saying that another key official was also executed in August for violating a ban on imports amid toughened quarantine control measures caused by the pandemic.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

Like many reports from North Korea who knows how true this report this:

 North Korea appears to be enforcing home classes for elementary school students as a way to avoid classroom gatherings amid nationwide anti-coronavirus efforts, according to state media reports.

Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, said that elementary school teachers in Pyongyang are visiting homes of their students every three days for education as vacation continues.

“With the vacation for kids in place, such a new schedule has been started,” the website said. “As long as there are kids, this holds true for any district, ward and unit.”

The North had extended winter vacation for students until early June amid the global coronavirus pandemic. The report suggests that the North has extended summer vacation again by delaying the start of autumn semesters.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is believed that the Biden administration is going to take the more conventional approach to North Korea policy that gave us the nuclear armed Kim regime we have today:

Analysts say that once Biden takes office in January, he is likely to take a far more conventional approach to relations with North Korea than his predecessor—who famously eschewed formal diplomatic channels and instead put his faith in his personal relationship with Kim.

“I strongly suspect the Biden Administration’s approach on North Korea will rely on pressure and sanctions to raise the cost to North Korea of its nuclear and missile programs,” Revere says.

Having served as Vice President from 2008 to 2016 under Barack Obama, Biden comes into office familiar with the North Korea question. The Obama Administration took a starkly different approach to Pyongyang than the outgoing Trump administration did, refraining from any high-level dialogue as part of a policy dubbed “strategic patience.”

The core of the policy was waiting for international sanctions to cut off North Korea’s sources of outside revenue, eventually forcing Pyongyang to take verifiable steps toward denuclearization as a way of winning sanctions relief and gaining access to the international trade system.

The policy achieved none of its objectives, however, as North Korea expanded its nuclear capability throughout Obama’s term.

TIME magazine

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if the Biden administration lets the Moon administration lead the way on North Korea policy making. That means and end to the Korean War declaration followed by the easing of sanctions on North Korea for cross border projects for little to nothing in return from the Kim regime.

It is pretty clear the Kim regime allowed this writer and photographer access to all 11 hotels in Pyongyang in an effort to draw more tourists. As I have always said people traveling to North Korea should realize all they are doing is helping to fund the Kim regime and all the bad things that come along with it:

For many visitors to North Korea, the sense of travelling back in time is nowhere more acute than when they first step into their hotel. The unique 1970s architecture and design of Pyongyang hotels have now been documented in a new book that presents a rare glimpse of North Korean culture, writes Julie Yoonnyung Lee of BBC Korean.

Tourist trips to North Korea are usually carefully choreographed by officials.

The country’s tourism industry is controlled by the state, and travellers are monitored by government minders. They are only allowed access to “approved” sites, which means they all follow the same itinerary.

But last spring, author James Scullin and photographer Nicole Reed from Australia spent five nights in the capital Pyongyang, visiting 11 international hotels. They have now published a book called Hotels of Pyongyang.

BBC

You can read more at the link.