Category: North Korea

The #MoonJaein administration wants to give rice aid to #NorthKorea. But "People have never seen rice from the South before, so they don’t care whether it comes or not."https://t.co/OVlNAFJkxu

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) May 17, 2019

It's time for the annual worst drought in decades. https://t.co/hX8D3W75qT

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 15, 2019

Someone should ask Mr. Beasley why there is a food shortage in North Korea?:

e head of a U.N. food agency said Monday he is “very concerned” about food shortages in North Korea and called for donations to the impoverished communist nation, affirming that the agency will try to make sure aid will reach those intended.
World Food Programme (WFP) Executive Director David Beasley made the remarks to reporters after he met with South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yeon-chul to discuss North Korea’s worsening food situation.
“We are very concerned about the situation there and we are hopeful that we can come up with some solutions,” Beasley said. “Whatever we do, we will assure the donors that the food or any assistance will meet their objectives. We’ll have monitoring systems in place.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but any malnourishment in North Korea is sponsored by the regime. They have the money and resources to feed their people, but have made a conscious decision not to. Instead they have prioritized funding for nuclear weapons and missile programs.

President Trump continues to be extremely patient with North Korea:

In the wake of a recent series of missile launches in North Korea, U.S. President Donald Trump says he does not consider the military action as “a breach of trust.” Trump hinted, however, that eventually he might lose faith in North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Kim Bum-soo has more.   

Report: U.S. President Donald Trump says he doesn’t consider North Korea’s missile launches “a breach of trust.” 

During an interview with Politico on Friday, Trump downplayed the recent series of military exercises in the North, calling them “very standard stuff.”

While noting that he does not regard the short-range missile firings as a breach of trust at all, Trump added that at some point he might.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but like I have said before if they fire an IRBM or ICBM expect that to get President Trump’s attention.

I don’t expect the Kim regime to fire an Intermediate Range Missile and especially and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile until talks with the U.S. have basically collapsed. Testing those two weapons is clearly directed at the United States since IRBMs are used to target Guam and ICBMs the US mainland, Alaska, and Hawaii. 

If the North Koreans want to increase tensions further look for them to start firing missiles closer to Japan’s territorial waters or even eventually into them.

Hong Young-pyo, Deobureo Minjoo Party floor leader, said #NorthKorea's missile test "is not a serious matter for existing SK-NK or SK-US relns" & "now is the time to positively consider giving food aid to North Korea." What?https://t.co/i3TUPBZKSk

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) May 9, 2019

Something I have been saying for a long time is these sanctions busting ships should be seized and then auctioned off with the money going to the victims of their terrorism attacks over the years. It appears at the least the seizure of North Korean ships may finally be happening:

The United States has seized a North Korean shipping vessel that was violating American law and international sanctions, the Justice Department announced Thursday, a move certain to escalate tensions already on the rise because of recent North Korean weapons tests.
Prosecutors said the carrier ship, the Wise Honest, was being used to export North Korean coal, a critical sector of the North’s economy that the United States and the United Nations have aggressively imposed sanctions on in an effort to force Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons program. The ship was also being used to import heavy machinery.
It was the first time the United States has seized a North Korean cargo vessel for international sanctions violations, the Justice Department said. Officials said the seizure is part of a broad plan to enforce the international sanctions and ultimately pressure North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program.
“This sanctions-busting ship is now out of service,” said John C. Demers, the head of the Justice Department’s national security division. The complaint was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday by the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. (…….)

Though the Justice Department obtained a sealed seizure warrant for the ship in July, officials said the timing of the complaint seeking the vessel’s forfeiture had nothing to do with the tensions between the two countries. On Thursday, the Wise Honest was in United States custody on its way to American Samoa, the Justice Department said.

The ship was used in a North Korean scheme to export tons of coal to foreign countries and to import heavy machinery in violation of international sanctions, prosecutors said.
Indonesian authorities detained the ship in April 2018 after it was photographed at a North Korean port, loading what prosecutors said appeared to be coal. When the ship traveled to Indonesia, it tried to conceal details about its location by disabling its Automatic Identification System. The ship’s signal had been turned off since August 2017.

New York Times

You can read more at the link.

Does anyone think these missile provocations from North Korea are just a coincidence that they occurred after Kim Jong-un’s summit with Vladimir Putin?:

North Korea has conducted long-range strike drills, state media reported Friday, a day after the communist state launched what were presumed to be two short-range missiles into the East Sea.
“At the command post, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un learned about a plan of the strike drill of various long-range strike means and gave an order of start of the drill,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in English.
“The successful drill of deployment and strike designed to inspect the ability of rapid reaction of the defense units… showed the might of the units which were fully prepared to proficiently carry out any operation and combat,” it added.
He also set forth “important tasks for further increasing the strike ability of the defense units,” the KCNA said. It said the drills were conducted at “defence units of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) in the forefront area and on the western front.”
The KCNA did not elaborate on the “long-range strike means.” But South Korea’s military said the North is believed to have launched two short-range missiles from its northwestern region into the East Sea, which flew 420 kilometers and 270 km, respectively.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but clearly the North Koreans are messaging that they are unhappy about not getting a “pretend denuclearization” deal agreed upon.

However, I would not be surprised if Putin is encouraging this as well. The US has put tremendous pressure on the Maduro administration in Venezuela and I would not be surprised if Putin is using North Korean provocations to distract US efforts there.

Back to hermitage?

Yes I know, #HermitKingdom is a cliche; indeed I have engaged in self-criticism for misusing it. But as this shows, hermitude always remains a policy option – & arguably a default gut reaction: batten down the hatches, it's us against the world. https://t.co/76TRq2er4j

— Aidan Foster-Carter (@fcaidan) May 8, 2019

I guessed that the North Koreans would next fire short range missiles and sure enough they did:

North Korea fired two apparent short-range missiles on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, less than a week after the communist state launched a missile into the sea off its east coast.
The move threatened to raise tensions as the main U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Biegun, was visiting Seoul in an effort to get stalled nuclear talks with the North back on track.
South Korea’s presidential office expressed concern about the launches, saying they were “not helpful at all to to efforts to try to improve inter-Korean relations and ease military tension” on the divided peninsula.
“Noth Korea fired two unidentified projectiles estimated to be short-range missiles” in an eastern direction from the northwestern area of Kusong, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but at least the ROK government is now calling these “missiles” instead of “projectiles”:

North Korea fired what were believed to be two short-range missiles on Thursday, South Korea’s military said, just five days after the communist nation launched a barrage of projectiles into the East Sea.
The projectiles were fired from the northwestern area of Kusong in an easterly direction, one of them at 4:29 p.m. and the other at 4:39 p.m., and flew about 420 kilometers and 270 km, respectively, with their altitude reaching around 50 km, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, adding they splashed into the East Sea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link. I don’t expect the Kim regime to move up and fire an Intermediate Range Missile and especially and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile until talks with the U.S. have basically collapsed. Testing those two weapons is clearly directed at the United States since IRBMs are used to target Guam and ICBMs the US mainland, Alaska, and Hawaii.

If the North Koreans want to increase tensions further look for them to start firing missiles closer to Japan’s territorial waters or even eventually into them.

… and — this cannot be stressed enough — prevents people from growing & selling their own food. https://t.co/2vZ0H2vA8I

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 8, 2019