Now that my new site is up and running with no problems; I have decided to bring Korea Finder back. Here is an easy image to get started again. Who can name where this is?

 Find out here.

HT: Japan Probe

The remaining hold outs have been ordered by the South Korean Supreme Court that they must vacate the land that is to be used for the Camp Humphreys expansion:

South Korea — Residents who have refused — sometimes amid violence — to move from land earmarked for the Camp Humphreys expansion are there unlawfully and must leave, South Korea’s high court has ruled.

Sunday’s ruling by the Seoul High Court, however, set no deadline for the 74 residents to vacate their homes in Daechu-ri and Dodu-ri villages, which border Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek.

The fact that no timeline has been set could be used to further delay the Camp Humphreys expansion which is what the South Korean government is trying to do.

USFK officials have said the expansion is going to go on as scheduled and the South Korean Defense Ministry seems to agree:

But South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense on Monday said a deadline would be set for sometime in January or February. An MND spokesman noted that is also the period in which workers are slated to have begun the first phase of development of the land.

I hope their right, but I’m not getting my hopes up.

First of all, DPRK studies has a good analysis of the status of the current North Korean nuclear talks.  Basically what is going on is that the North Koreans agreed to the talks in order to get the US to lift the financial sanctions against North Korean Chinese bank accounts.  These bank accounts hold millions of dollars of money gained through the counterfeiting and subsequent money laundering of US currency.  The North Koreans probably think that it is a long shot, but they are trying to get the US to lift the financial sanctions as a sign of goodwill towards working out a final agreement to freezing their nuclear program, though they have no intention of ever freezing their nuclear program.

One Free Korea has an interesting posting on how the North Korean elites are getting around the UN ban on the sale of luxury goods to North Korea, by going shopping across the border in China:

In Dandong, North Koreans, many wearing lapel pins with a picture of North Korea’s founding dictator, Kim Il Sung, stroll through hotels and department stores. Signs are often written in Korean, with storekeepers advertising computers, karaoke machines and the erectile-dysfunction drugs Viagra and Cialis.

A few North Koreans have bought new cars at a Toyota dealership near the Dandong customs checkpoint, according to a salesman. One man paid about $50,000 in cash for a luxury sedan.

Gold is also gaining a following. Wang Xiaoju, a saleswoman at the jewelry counter at Xin Yi Bai Department Store, says North Korean women come in nearly every day, mostly to buy gold chains and other gold jewelry.

Another UN resolution down the toilet.

Finally the Marmot via OFK has a posting about the going rate of getting North Korean defectors out of China:

This being The Wall Street Journal, we went straight to the bottom line. How much, we asked our visitor at a recent editorial board meeting, does it cost to free one North Korean refugee hiding in China?

The Rev. Phillip Buck pauses a moment before replying, apparently making the yuan-to-dollar conversions on the abacus in his mind. “If I do it myself,” he says, “the cost is $800 per person. If I hire a broker to do it, it’s $1,500.”

Imagine if the billions of dollars of aid from South Korea to Kim Jong-il was instead used on buying people out of starvation and despotism. 

Another USFK holiday good news story which you will only hear about in the Stars and Stripes. Any bets if USFK will make it through the holidays without an alcohol related incident getting printed in the Korean media?

We have yet to hear anything from the Pentagon yet on the South Korean government power play to delay the Camp Humphreys expansion to 2013, but a USFK spokesman says things are going to continue as planned:

Workers will proceed as scheduled in getting land ready for the expansion of Camp Humphreys despite reports of a possible five-year delay in the move of U.S. forces there, the U.S. military said Friday.

(…)

Nevertheless, work will start soon on the first section of a 2,328-acre tract outside Humphreys onto which the post will expand its boundaries, said Lawrence M. Monaco, deputy director of the Project Integration Office at U.S. Forces Korea (Advance Element) headquarters on the camp.

The first section, or Parcel 1, occupies about 200 acres. Workers are to cover it with an estimated 3 million cubic yards of landfill and put in roads and a drainage system.

“There’s absolutely no delay in progress on Parcel 1,” Monaco said, noting that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $29.7 million contract to Seohee Construction Co. Ltd. of Seoul in November.

“The contractor has been selected, the contract’s awarded, the notice to proceed was given in November,” Monaco said. “We don’t yet have the contractor’s full work schedule, but we know that by mid-January he will be establishing his office on Parcel 1 and will be mobilizing equipment and personnel to begin work.

“In short…” Monaco said, “it’s working as advertised.”

What USFK says it is going to do doesn’t really matter.  What is going to matter is what the Pentagon says about this and apparently as the Korean government probably expected, the Pentagon appears to be more concerned with transition between the outgoing and incoming Defense Secretaries followed by the Christmas holidays to respond to the South Korean announcement.  It looks like this will probably drag on past the holidays before the Pentagon responds.

The Korea Times has an article about how North Korea will not collapse if current strongman Kim Jong-il dies because the NK military will step in and take over.  This is nothing new, however what was interesting in the article was the claim that China wants Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-nam as the Dear Leader’s successor:

Earlier this year, Rep. Chung Hyung-keun of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) said Kim’s first son, Jong-nam, has been backed by the Chinese government to be the communist North’s next leader.

However, the lawmaker, who served in key posts at the nation’s intelligence agency in the 1980s and early 1990s, said his maverick lifestyle has caused him to lose his father’s favor. Kim Jong-nam was arrested on arrival in Japan in 2001 for using a forged Dominican Republic passport.

Kim Jong-il has never been keen on letting Kim Jong-nam take over, but the Chinese may force his hand to declare Kim Jong-nam as his successor as a condition to keep the aid flowing in from China as well as the Chinese government continuing to keep the United States at arms length over the North’s nuclear program.  This is actually a pretty good policy from the Chinese perspective because Kim Jong-nam would more than likely open up the country compared to Kim Jong-il. 

Kim Jong-nam does not have any human rights violation, crimes against humanity, or any other excess baggage hanging over his head if he decides to open up the country and the reality of the North Korean gulags becomes public.  He can blame it all on the old regime and vow that he is working on fixing the problems the old regime created.  Plus the North Korean people wouldn’t have the bitter hatred for Kim Jong-nam like they would have for Kim Jong-il if the country opened up to the outside world and the reality of their situation as one of the poorest and most despotic countries in the world became common knowledge.  The likelihood of Kim Jong-nam getting "Ceausescu"ed by his own people is unlikely compared to if Kim Jong-il tried to do the same thing.  The Chinese figure this is their best way to ensure a soft landing for North Korea that would not create a massive refugee crisis on their northern border. 

The wild card in all of this is if the North Korean military will allow it to happen.  There are plenty of leaders in the North Korean military that would be concerned about their own welfare if the country opened up plus the military would have to give up all their nuclear weapons before any international aid ever came into North Korea. 

The biggest problem I see with this Chinese policy is that it does nothing for the people who are dyeing now due to the Kim Jong-il regime, plus it does not solve the current security concerns created by their nuclear program.  Let’s say Kim Jong-il lives for another 5 years, how many hundred of thousands of North Koreans would die during that time from starvation and the gulags?  The Chinese could probably care less about the welfare of the North Korean people, but I’m sure they are concerned about facing the very real possibility of a nuclearized Japan responding to the North Korean threat.  If they do back Kim Jong-nam that is a sign to me that the Chinese are figuring that the US will not allow the Japanese to go nuclear. 

Keep in mind all of this could be meaningless if Kim Jong-il lives on for the next decade. 

The Marmot has linked to one of the funniest sites I seen in while. It is basically a site for white supremacists trying to preserve the European races from mixing with foreigners including Koreans. The reading through the comments was painful because it was like a bunch of Silly Sallys arguing against each other; than what do you know Silly Sally comments over there!

Don’t you just love how the Korean media finds anyone with any connection to Korea to glorify their Korean mother or in this case, this astronaut’s Korean grandmother.

I have to wonder if this is in response to the fraudulent denial of US beef imports by the Korean government:

The U.S. has called Seoul’s attention to the increasing number of Korean children deported for attending U.S. public schools on visitors’ visas. A government official said the U.S. Embassy in Seoul in a consular meeting with Korea on Friday made it clear that it will clamp down. “A senior U.S. official expressed his concern about the disadvantages such illegal acts by Korean parents can bring to their children in the future,” he added. Another government official said dozens of such cases are reported in some U.S. cities.

Most U.S. public schools do not check foreign students’ visa when they enroll. But the Department of Homeland Security is serious about tracking down students who enter the country on a visitor’s visa and stay after it expires. The embassy said if children are found out, they will not only be deported but risk being blacklisted.