What is it about N Korea that appeals to both far left & the far right, makes David Duke approvingly republish Bruce Cumings, & makes the alt-right exalt the racism & misogyny that the alt-left overlooks?
— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 15, 2019
Maybe it just attracts inadequate souls who want to burn the world down. https://t.co/LLXSobdaHw
All Korean people? https://t.co/UOeMHeJM9s
— 🇰🇷Edward Oh🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) March 13, 2019
It looks like the North Koreans are confirming what we all already knew, they never had any intention of really denuclearizing:
A senior North Korean official announced Friday that her regime is rethinking whether to continue nuclear talks with the United States and maintain a moratorium on missile tests, according to foreign news reports.
Yonhap
Speaking at an urgent meeting with diplomats and foreign media in Pyongyang, Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui cited the U.S. attitude in the recent Hanoi summit.
“We have no intention to yield to the U.S. demands (at the Hanoi summit) in any form, nor are we willing to engage in negotiations of this kind,” she was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency.
The Associated Press also quoted Choe as saying that her country was deeply disappointed by the failure to strike an agreement in Hanoi late last month.
You can read more at the link, but all President Trump said during the summit was that if the Kim regime closed down all their nuclear facilities he would remove the economic sanctions. The Kim regime clearly is not ready to do that.
This is pretty bold of the CIA if true:
Spanish intelligence officials believe at least two of the 10 attackers who broke into the North Korean embassy in Madrid last month, holding staff hostage and making off with computers, are linked to the CIA, according to a report in El País.
Police and Spain’s national intelligence centre (CNI) are investigating the unusual robbery, which took place on 22 February in the west of the capital.
The online newspaper El Confidencial, which broke news of the raid, reported that the group of men tied up and threatened staff, fleeing only after a woman managed to free herself and raise the alarm. (…..)El País pointed out that the robbery took place five days before Donald Trump’s second summit with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
MSN via a reader tip
It suggested the intruders could have been looking for information relating to Kim’s top negotiator, Kim Hyok Chol, who served as ambassador to Spain before being expelled in September 2017.
You can read more at the link.
Pyongyang has socialized too many pundits to be so empathetic to what terms might be acceptable to it, they've lost sight of what terms should be acceptable to us. That is how an industry secedes from the mainstream, self-marginalizes, & abdicates its influence. https://t.co/cvoObNrlOS
— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 11, 2019
It looks like more people are beginning to catch on to my idea that the North Koreans may attempt a satellite launch:
The expert added that a more likely explanation was that the North is feigning a missile launch to press Washington for a renegotiation and would not go forward with the act since too much is at stake.
Joong Ang Ilbo
Another possibility, according to a South Korean government source who asked not to be named, is that the North is preparing to actually launch a satellite equipped with technology recently brought in from friendly countries like China.
“The last time the North shot up a satellite was in 2016 with the launch of the Kwangmyongsong-4,” the source said.
“Since then, North Korea has been focusing on obtaining satellite technology through unofficial cooperation with other countries or by hacking, and latest intelligence suggests they have completed a new reconnaissance satellite.”
North Korea maintains a distinction between military testing of its ballistic missiles and that of its satellites, though nuclear experts abroad say the fact that the same type of rockets are used for both purposes makes that difference hollow.
UN Security Council Resolution 1718 – approved unanimously by all members in 2006 – forbids any type of rocket launches from the North, be it for satellite or missile purposes.
You can read more at the link, but I thought they may attempt a satellite launch to give them plausible deniability they are testing ICBMs and say they have every right to peaceful space exploration. This also gives the Chinese and Russians some cover to shutdown any more sanctions the US may try to impose after the launch through the United Nations.
This becomes a way the Kim regime can increase tensions and put pressure back on the Trump administration with likely little consequences.
The change in the US-ROK joint military exercises I think was more for international consumption than what the Kim regime thinks. The Trump administration likely knew the Kim regime would protest the military drills since they did not get what they wanted from the Hanoi Summit. The Trump administration beat them to the punch by messaging how the drills were cancelled and replaced with scaled down drills. Now North Korea’s complaints seem hollow:
North Korea on Thursday (March 7) attacked ongoing joint military exercises between Seoul and Washington as an “all out challenge” to moves towards peace on the Korean peninsula.
The US and South Korea agreed on Sunday to replace two major war games that take place every spring – the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle drills – with a shorter “Dong Maeng” or “Alliance” exercise which kicked off this week.
The move was designed to further ease tensions with the North following the dramatic detente since early 2018. (……)But the North’s official KCNA news agency has now warned that the ongoing nine-day drills were an “all out challenge” against efforts for peace and stability.
“The suspicious activities by the US and South Korean military are a reckless violation of the joint statement signed by Washington and Pyongyang and North-South declarations that commit to ending hostilities and easing military tensions,” it said.
New Straits Times
You can read more at the link.
#breaking Commercial satellite imagery analyzed by @ArmsControlWonk & @mhanham indicates North Korea may be preparing for a launch, possibly in the very near future. They say it’s impossible to know if it’s a missile or space rocket. Sohae launch facilty now fully operational. pic.twitter.com/SyS54zXphD
— Will Ripley (@willripleyCNN) March 8, 2019
I think President Trump is signaling to the Kim regime it will not be business as usual if they restart a provocation cycle:
President Donald Trump said he’d be very disappointed in Kim Jong Un if reports are accurate that North Korea has begun rebuilding a missile test site it dismantled last year.
“I would be very disappointed if that were happening,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday. “It is a very early report — we are the ones who put it out — but I would be very, very disappointed in Chairman Kim.” (……)In a separate report, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service spotted “special activities” with transport vehicles at a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) research and production site called Sanumdong located in the Pyongyang area, the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper of South Korea reported, citing an unidentified member of parliament’s intelligence committee.
Bloomberg
U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton warned North Korea that it must be willing to completely give up its nuclear weapons program or it may face even tougher sanctions.
“If they’re not willing to do it, President Trump has been very clear they’re not getting relief from the crushing economic sanctions that have been imposed on them,” Bolton told the Fox Business Network on Tuesday evening. “And we’ll look at ramping those sanctions up, in fact.”
You can read more at the link.
