Category: North Korea

It looks like the gulags will have a few local Wonsan party officials added to it, regardless of if the flooding was really their fault or not:

North Korea has vowed to punish local officials over a typhoon that hit the eastern coast on Wednesday.

A Workers’ Party newspaper blamed authorities in the coastal city of Wonsan for failing to prepare for Typhoon Maysak, and accused them of having an “irresponsible attitude”.

The paper did not say how many were missing, injured or dead, but said there were “dozens of casualties”.

It claimed officials failed to follow orders given by the ruling party.

Local authorities in Wonsan had been instructed to “immediately organise a project to thoroughly identify properties at risk and evacuate all residents”, Saturday’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

“A decision was made to impose severe party, administrative, and legal punishment to those responsible for the casualties.”

BBC

You can read more at the link.

The U.S. State Department appears to be warning companies to not think they can use plausible deniability to do business with North Korea:

The United States issued an advisory Tuesday warning that those who aid North Korea’s procurement of equipment and materials for its nuclear and missile development programs, even inadvertently, could face United Nations and U.S. sanctions.    
   
In a rare move, the State Department, Treasury Department and Commerce Department jointly issued the 19-page “North Korea Ballistic Missile Procurement Advisory,” which identified problematic North Korean entities and warned of possible deceptive techniques employed by the regime to support its ballistic missile programs.  
   
“The United States is committed to disrupting North Korea’s ballistic missile procurement network and promoting accountability for entities and individuals assisting or providing support to North Korea’s ballistic missile program, regardless of the location or nationality of those providing such assistance or support,” the advisory read. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

North Korean spy operations have entered the 21st century:

North Korea on Saturday broadcast a series of mysterious numbers, presumed to be an encrypted message to its spies in the South, for the first time on YouTube. 

A video clip was posted on the state-run Radio Pyongyang’s YouTube account, in which a female announcer read what she described as “an information technology review assignment of the remote education university for No. 719 expedition agents.” 

She repeated phrases such as “No. 23 on Page 564, No. -19 on Page 479” for about one minute in the posting, which had been viewed 2,500 times as of 11 a.m. The numbers were not broadcast on the radio.

North Korea has broadcast such seemingly random numbers via radio since the Cold War era, as recently as March 7 and 13.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the big, boy up North:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has handed over some of his powers to his younger sister Yo-jong, the National Intelligence Service said Thursday. 

Kim Yo-jong now handles any dealings with South Korea and the U.S. affairs but reports back to her brother. She was apparently given authority to blow up the inter-Korean liaison office in June. 

The NIS in a briefing to the National Assembly’s Intelligence Committee said the power-sharing arrangement seems aimed at “alleviating leadership strain and dividing responsibility for failed policies.”

Kim Jong-un has been leading the North for nine years and is trying to avoid taking all the blame for his disastrous policies. 

But the NIS believes there are “no problems” with his health. Earlier this year Kim disappeared from view for three weeks, leading to fevered speculation that he was ill.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This just confirms what I have been saying for years, the Kim regime is never going to give up their nuclear weapons:

North Korea is believed to have up to 60 nuclear bombs and the world’s third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons totaling up to 5,000 tons, the U.S. Army has said.

The U.S. Department of the Army headquarters made the assessment in its report, titled “North Korean tactics,” which was published last month, saying Pyongyang is unlikely to give up these weapons to ensure the regime’s survival.

“Estimates for North Korean nuclear weapons range from 20-60 bombs, with the capability to produce 6 new devices each year,” the U.S. military said, noting that some reports state that the regime could obtain as many as 100 by the end of this year.

“North Korea sought nuclear weapons because its leaders thought the threat of a nuclear attack would prevent other countries from contemplating a regime change,” according to the report, which also pointed out that leader Kim Jong-un witnessed the case of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and “does not want something similar to happen in North Korea.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes news that Fido may be on the dinner menu in Pyongyang:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has ordered pet dogs to be confiscated in the country’s capital, saying the pooches represent Western “decadence’’ — but their owners fear Fido is really headed for someone’s dinner table.

Kim issued the directive in July to round up the pets, claiming they were part of “a ‘tainted’ trend by bourgeois ideology,’’ a source told the English edition of Chosun Ilbo, a South Korean newspaper.

“Ordinary people raise pigs and livestock on their porches, but high-ranking officials and the wealthy own pet dogs, which stoked some resentment’’ among the lower classes, the source said.

Fox News

You can read more at the link, but the usual caveats apply to stories like this from anonymous sources. Who knows if they are true or not; I could just be a journalist looking to make a big headline with unverified information at the expense of North Korea.

This is likely just propaganda for Kim’s domestic audience to show how much he cares for his people as well as a signal to an international audience to send aid regardless of whether they need it or not:

Severe flooding caused by intense monsoon rains have prompted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into an atypical response that may signal a dire situation in the isolated country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 1,500 acres of rice fields have flooded and about 730 singe-story homes and 179 housing blocks have been destroyed as of early August, North Korea has announced. (………..)

According to the the regime’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim ordered grain from his special food reserves to be dispensed to victims of the recent flooding. The regime also claimed that no one from the county Kim visited died in the flooding, though similar flooding has killed dozens in South Korea and China.

Business Insider

You can read more at the link, but I think what will happen is that the Kim regime and the Moon administration in South Korea will use the floods as an excuse to violate sanctions to send aid to North Korea. This move by Kim allows the Moon administration to say that, “Look even Kim Jong-un is giving up his food, how can we not help?” I guess we will see what happens.

If the White House settles for something less than full denuclearization a deal can likely be reached with North Korea:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he will make deals with North Korea “very quickly” if reelected in November.

Trump was referring to his administration’s stalled efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for concessions.

“If and when we win, we will make deals with Iran very quickly. We’ll make deals with North Korea very quickly,” he said during a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“Now whatever happened to the word North Korea? You haven’t seen that, have you?” he continued. “If I didn’t win the election in 2016, our country would now be — maybe it would be over by now — but in war with North Korea.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the best deal North Korea will ever agree to is “pretend denuclearization“.