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North Korea Believed to Have Hacked Human Rights Activists Computer

| May 2, 2016

Over the years I have had a number of technical problems keeping the site up, but I don’t think they were caused by the North Koreans though stories like this one make me wonder:

A prominent U.S. human rights activist claimed Friday that North Korea hacked into his computer last week which contained a document on cooperation between North Korea and Syria.

Greg Scarlatoiu, executive director at the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said that when he woke up at a hotel during his recent visit to Latin America, he found that his computer had been “compromised and remotely accessed.”

The Washington-based non-governmental organization has focused on shedding light on North Korea’s human rights violations and improving the North’s rights records.

“Only one document was opened. That document contains some material that I had received from Syrian human rights defenders regarding Syria-North Korea cooperation,” Scarlatoiu told Yonhap News Agency on the sidelines of a forum in Seoul.

“There is only one suspect here,” he said, referring to North Korea.

Scarlatoiu said that cyber security experts whom he has contacted said that “most likely the attack came from North Korea,” though he has no hard evidence for that. His claim has yet to be independently verified.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Koreans Continue to Have Divided Views on Comfort Women Deal with Japan

| May 2, 2016

Very good read over at KoreaBang in regards to the divided opinions Koreans have about the comfort women issue which makes pragmatic decision making involving Japan so difficult:

korea japan image

Was Minister Yoon Byeon-se some sort of a judge in a court? Some comments sound like criticism towards unfair law enforcement, not a negotiation. Was the Korean minister in the position of a judge while the Japanese minister was the accused? Honestly, the meeting wouldn’t even have happened if it weren’t for American pressure. A judge controls how to apply absolute public authority but a negotiator has to give and take. How on earth do you expect Korea to draw an unconditional surrender from Japan? If it was possible at all, why did all those competent presidents and ministers fail to do so?

 

How much leverage do we have against Japan? Economy? Military? The international community’s support? Do we have enough power to deal with Japan’s diplomatic power heads-on? Human rights? Do you know how inconsistent their attention to “human rights” is in the international community who aren’t exactly total angels? Do you think countries like Germany, the U.S. and France would bother confronting Japan because they love human rights so much? Really? For your information, countless political figures such as Merkel, the British crown prince, and Michelle Obama have visited Japan while dust was piling up at the gates of our Blue House. Do you think the world is on our side? For real?

 

I see comments like “It would’ve been better if they hadn’t reached any agreement then.” or “Do your job right.” One of the main complaints about our government was that they seem to be just waiting until all the victims passed away, wasn’t it? Every year about 10 victims pass away now. So what if we keep failing to reach any agreement? Is it better if we don’t negotiate at all then? You ask what right the government has to negotiate on behalf of the victims? Then should the government take a hands-off approach to the comfort women issue? Now will “the Korean Council for the Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan” [Jeong-dae-hyeop] handle everything on their own? Some criticize Japan for just throwing a billion yen at the problem. If Japan didn’t decide to pay at all, they would call it an empty apology or worse than the Asian Women’s Fund. Some say it is merely a billion yen. But if Japan decided to pay more, then they would say Japan is trying to bury the issue with money.  [Korea Bang]

Read the whole thing at the link.

ROK Drop Open Thread – May 01, 2016

| May 1, 2016

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

Open Thread

Tweet of the Day: Korea’s Beer Body Wash

| May 1, 2016

Picture of the Day: General Scaparrotti Receives Medal from President Park

| May 1, 2016

Outgoing USFK commander receives order of merit

South Korean President Park Geun-hye (L) poses with outgoing U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti after awarding him an order of national security merit at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on April 29, 2016. (Yonhap)

Why North Korea is Trying To Develop a Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile

| May 1, 2016

I wonder how much of North Korea’s submarine launched ballistic missile technology is a charade to make the outside world think they have advanced their technology more than they really have?:

North Korea’s new sea-launched, nuclear-capable ballistic missile and the submarine that fires it are both technologically backward, unreliable, and wickedly unsafe for the unfortunate souls tasked with operating them.In short, Pyongyang’s new undersea nuke—which the hermit regime test-launched off the country’s eastern coast on April 23—is a dud by any normal standard.

But that doesn’t matter, because normal standards of atomic safety and effectiveness don’t apply to North Korea’s totalitarian regime. Pyongyang has nuclear weapons plus at least one submarine that, however unreliably, can launch them. That rudimentary atomic capability is probably all the regime needs to deter the rest of the world… while also bending the international system’s rules for its own benefit.  (……)

The submarine in question, apparently built in secrecy some time before 2010, appears to be a modified version of a Yugoslavian sub design from the mid-1970s.Approximately 220 feet long and displacing around 1,500 tons of water, the North Korean vessel is ancient and tiny compared to the latest U.S. and Russian ballistic-missile submarines, which can stretch 500 feet or more from bow to stern and displace 18,000 tons of water.

And the North Korean Pongdae-class sub—named for the boiler plant that serves as the official cover for the shipyard that reportedly built the vessel—is surely no less accident-prone than Pyongyang’s other submarines, one of which went missing and presumably sank while on patrol in early March.“I certainly wouldn’t want to be on a North Korean submarine,” Eric Wertheim, an independent U.S. naval analyst and author of Combat Fleets of the World, told The Daily Beast. “They’re not the safest of underwater platforms.”  [The Daily Beast]

You can read the rest at the link.

 

Foal Eagle 2016 Exercise Concludes In South Korea

| May 1, 2016

I guess we will see whether the conclusion of Foal Eagle will lead to a reduction in provocations from North Korea in the coming weeks:

South Korea and the United States are set to end their two monthlong joint military exercises this week, but tensions are expected to go up further as North Korea is seen as preparing for another nuclear test, officials said Friday.

“The Foal Eagle exercise will officially wrap up its schedule tomorrow although its outdoor training programs are all to end today,” a military official said.

The last day of the exercise on Saturday will be assigned to breaking up camps and withdrawing assembled military assets and troops, the official noted.

The allies had kicked off the annual field exercise on March 7, along with the Key Resolve command post exercise, which ran for two weeks.

This year’s exercises were the biggest of their kinds, having come on the heels of North Korea’s provocative nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch in February.

The two exercises brought together some 300,000 South Korean armed forces and 17,000 U.S. forces, along with the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) and two Wasp-class amphibious assault vessels: the USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) and the USS Boxer (LHD-4).  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea Builds Blue House Replica to Target with Artillery

| April 30, 2016

Here is another example of the strategic messaging the North Koreans are sending towards the ROK that they can target and destroy Seoul:

Satellite imagery of a replica of the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae that North Korea has set up in preparations for a large-scale artillery assault exercise.

North Korea is preparing to launch a large-scale artillery assault drill on a replica of the South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae in a move to fan cross-border tensions in the runup to a rare congress of its ruling party, the military here said Wednesday.

About 30 artillery pieces have been brought to a training range just outside of Pyongyang where a replica of Cheong Wa Dae, about half its actual size, was set up in early April, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said.

The types of artillery cannot be identified because they are covered up, he said, citing satellite surveillance results.

“The North is likely to conduct an actual exercise in the near future,” according to the official.

The move is intended to instill animosity among North Koreans toward Seoul’s leadership and to tighten internal unity ahead of the congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea set to start on May 6, he noted.

In a string of warlike rhetoric, the North has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes on the presidential office and South Korean state agencies.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Tweet of the Day: Descendants of the Sun’s Economic Impact

| April 30, 2016

Picture of the Day: New Smoking Law for Seoul Subway

| April 30, 2016

No smoking within 10 meters from subway entrances

A woman walks past a sign that states that smoking is not allowed within 10 meters from every subway entrance in Seoul from May 1, 2016. Violators will be fined up to 100,000 won (approximately US$88) from Sept. 1 after a four-month guidance period. (Yonhap)