A week+ after NKorea's nuclear test, manure piled onto a frozen field by truck & shovel hailed as a big achievement. pic.twitter.com/LRUeJ5BVhb
— Adam Cathcart (@adamcathcart) January 18, 2016
This file photo shows North Korea’s Gen. Kim Yong-chol, whom some specialists in South Korea believe has been tapped as the country’s new point man for handling cross-border affairs. A report written by the Youido Institute, a think tank of the ruling party, said on Jan. 18, 2016, that Kim is likely to succeed Kim Yang-gon, who died in a car accident in December, as the secretary of the North’s Workers’ Party in charge of inter-Korean issues. The general, who leads the party’s intelligence operations bureau, is known as the man who masterminded major provocations against the South, including the sinking of a naval ship, shelling attack on a border island and the planting of land mines to hurt South Korean soldiers. (Yonhap)
Scott Snyder from the Council on Foreign Relations has an article published that advocates what many in the think tank establishment have been saying that banks and companies doing business with the Kim regime have to be targeted for sanctions to work. Snyder also calls for a nuclear freeze strategy before negotiating for a denuclearization deal:
To show the North Koreans that nuclear development is indeed a dead-end option, the United States must work with its allies to expand sanctions to target businesses and banks that refuse to cease cooperation with North Korea. North Korea must bear a tangible cost for its defiance of repeated warnings from its neighbors to desist from further nuclear and missile tests. Such a course is a necessary self-defensive step short of regime change to contain North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile development efforts and to impose a de facto freeze on its program.
China’s cooperation toward this end is an essential litmus test of Beijing’s willingness to work together on a clear and present common threat to regional and global security. Only if the international community can impose a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile development will there be a prospect that Kim might move back to denuclearization. [Washington Examiner]
You can read more at the link.
Via a reader tip comes the below story of two South Korean teenagers allegedly kept as slaves in New York City. I don’t know who is worse, the woman treating them like slaves or the parents who apparently abandoned them with this woman in the first place:
Authorities say a New York City woman kept two South Korean children as slaves in her home for six years.
District Attorney Richard Brown says Queens resident Sook Yeong Park took the sister and brother into her home in 2010 and cut off contact with their parents. The children are now 14 and 16.
Brown says Park seized the children’s passports, forced them to do household chores into the night and made them work at a grocery store and turn their earnings over to her.
Park was arraigned Saturday on charges of labor trafficking, assault and endangering the welfare of a child. Her attorney did not immediately return a call.
Brown says the abuse came to light when a high school assistant principal noticed bruises on the girl’s legs. [Fox News]
Korean newspaper runs with @NewYorker Kim Jong Un cartoon to show other leaders with toys. https://t.co/tjojZFN2Dl pic.twitter.com/i9PSkVaT2b
— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) January 18, 2016
Tzuyu, shown in the photo, of K-pop girl group TWICE will temporarily suspend appearances in China after she became mired in a controversy for waving the Taiwanese national flag in an online broadcast in South Korea, according to her agency in Seoul on Jan. 14, 2016. She waved the flag while appearing in a popular TV show “My Little Television” in November last year, the portion of which was not aired on the terrestrial channel but was seen belatedly by online viewers in China. Her agency, JYP Entertainment, said it does not promote political agendas and expressed regret over the controversy. Tzuyu is a Taiwanese native in the multinational, nine-member girl group. (Photo provided by JYP Entertainment) (Yonhap)
I have always said that the Chinese have the power to bring the Kim regime into line if they wanted to. The biggest card the Chinese could use against the Kim regime is to indefinitely suspend oil shipments. They won’t do this though because they fear the collapse of the Kim regime more than they fear them developing nuclear weapons:
If China were to pull the plug on its oil supply to North Korea as a countermeasure against Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test, what kind of impact would it have on the country? Most agree that a halt in oil would trigger a ‘mass oil panic’ across the Party, military, and state, crippling all agencies, given that the North currently imports more than 90 percent of its oil from its neighbor. In an event such as this, a still young leadership that lacks stability would not be able to hold up for a week, according to experts.
The oil that goes into the North either after for free or at a cost first goes to a storage facility in Baekma, North Pyongan Province (near Sinuiju) and is stored there until being supplied to state agencies, transport-related factories, and military bases, which have priority. The main route of supply is through the pipeline that runs from China’s Dandong to the North’s Baekma. The first area this stored oil is then sent to is Pyongyang by train and truck after which it is delivered to main Party agencies, transport, and shipping bodies.
Next in line is Nampo as well as ports and military bases near the west coast. The supply in Baekma is also transported to another storage facility in Munchon on the east coast, which provides for state enterprises, agencies, and military bases in that area. In short, oil from China powers nearly all of the North’s state entities, military facilities, and factories, explaining why cutting off that supply would grind the country to a halt.
A North Korean defector who once worked within the oil supply chain speculates the suspension would create conditions that are so bad Kim Jong Un would be desperate to restore the supply. Although the North has a three-month emergency supply, that is reserved for times of war and would therefore be untouchable.
The freeze would disrupt operations within the Central Party, related agencies, administrative bodies, and the military. Cadres of all affiliations would face no heat in their offices, making it hard to work in a normal capacity, and their movements would also be restricted as there would be no gasoline or diesel to run their cars. Workers would also not have a means to get around, likely shuttering state agencies and factories. [Daily NK]
You can read more at the link.
North Korea’s demands for a peace treaty and a stop to military drills would essentially mean the end of the US-ROK alliance in return for no more nuclear tests. Notice the North Koreans are only saying they would end nuclear tests, not stop their nuclear program or dismantle the bombs they already have:
North Korea said it could stop its nuclear tests in exchange for signing a peace treaty with the U.S. and a stop to annual military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea.
The North’s statement carried by the state media late Friday was a repeat of past offers that have been rejected by the U.S., which wants Pyongyang to commit to a complete abandonment of nuclear weapons.
An unnamed spokesman of the North’s Foreign Ministry called the purported hydrogen bomb test on Jan. 6 a justifiable move to ensure its survival against external threats. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link.
https://twitter.com/pearswick/status/687807710365007872
North Koreans who contributed to the alleged success of a hydrogen bomb test board the luxurious cruise ship “Rainbow” in this photo published by the country’s official daily Rodong Sinmun on Jan. 14, 2016. Reports said people who contributed to the success, ranging from scientists to laborers, were allowed to visit Pyongyang on Jan. 8-13 for a tour of landmarks and to enjoy rest aboard the cruise ship and at a waterpark. North Korea carried out the nuclear test on Jan. 6, but experts dispute that it involved a hydrogen bomb as asserted by Pyongyang. (Yonhap)
