Tag: North Korea

Analysts Believe October Will See Another North Korea Provocation

| October 2, 2017

It seems like every month now there is at least one North Korean provocation so why would October be any different?:

North Korea could carry out provocative acts in October when the country marks the anniversaries of its party’s foundation and a former ruler’s ascent to power, and China opens a key party meeting, experts said Sunday.

North Korea has used important national occasions as pretexts for military provocations and a show of force.

South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae has recently raised the possibility that North Korea may launch a provocation on Oct. 10, the 72nd founding anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link, but in the article there is speculation that the Kim regime could use October 4th as a date to launch a missile because it is the 10-year anniversary of when former President Roh Moo-hyun met with Kim Jong-il in North Korea.  The current ROK President Moon Jae-in was Roh’s chief of staff at the time.  If Kim Jong-un really wants to make a point to President Moon that reconciliation is not going to happen on the South’s terms then a provocation on that date would be a way of doing that.

Tweet of the Day: Italy Expels North Korean Ambassador

| October 2, 2017

The Joshua Ramos Freeze Deal Strategy

| October 2, 2017

Here is yet another example of a freeze deal being circulated around Washington, D.C.

My first question is what would the US give up to get North Korea to freeze their nuclear weapons for 26 months?  They are not going to freeze their nuclear weapons program out of the goodness of their hearts.  Additionally this does nothing to solve the ICBM issue which is actually more concerning than the nuclear program right now.  Their nuclear weapons cannot be used against the US homeland if they don’t have a reliable delivery system.

Tweet of the Day: Russia Sends Troops to North Korean Border

| October 1, 2017

US Secretary of State Says Direct Talks Being Held With North Korea Over Nuclear Program

| October 1, 2017

This is not surprising to me, the only thing surprising is that the US Secretary of State is admitting to the talks:

The United States is communicating with North Korea as it seeks to encourage the regime to abandon its build up of nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said.

Mr Tillerson made his comments in Beijing after holding talks with Chinese leaders on Saturday amid rising concerns over Pyongyang’s military programme.

Washington is known to have back channels which it uses to help negotiate the release of US citizens who have been held captive in the North.

But Mr Tillerson’s disclosure suggests US officials are also using secret talks to convince Pyongyang to hold official negotiations aimed at easing tensions.  [The Telegraph]

You can read more at the link.

Will North Korea Execute A Chuseok Holiday Provocation?

| September 30, 2017

If the North Koreans do decide to commit a Chuseok holiday provocation the US and ROK military say they are ready:

The military is to remain on high alert against possible provocations from North Korea during the Chuseok holiday.

A military official said Saturday that troops are maintaining a bolstered defense posture as the North can carry out provocations at any time.

South Korean and U.S. forces are known to be closely observing any moves by the North Korean military using cutting-edge surveillance and reconnaissance assets in order to respond immediately in case of a provocation.

Authorities believe Pyongyang could engage in another major provocative act in the near future.

It’s speculated the regime could launch a ballistic missile around October tenth, which marks the founding anniversary of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party.   [KBS World Radio]

Reports today are saying that missiles from the Sanum-dong missile plant are currently on the move.  I guess we will see what happens in the next few days.

Tweet of the Day: North Korea Side Hustles

| September 30, 2017

North Korea Is Refusing to Pay Back Nearly A $1 Billion In South Korean Loan Money

| September 30, 2017

This is an example of how the ROK government during the Sunshine Policy years helped to fund North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and the leftists running the country at the time thought the North Koreans would actually pay them back.  Despite all this the current Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea wants to give them even more money they will likely never pay back:

North Korea seems unwilling to repay loans it received from South Korea when inter-Korean relations were good in the 2000s, an opposition lawmaker claimed Thursday.

Citing data from the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) and the National Assembly Budget Office, Rep. Shim Jae-cheol of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP) said the North’s outstanding liabilities are 161.4 billion won ($142.5 million) as of July, out of accumulated loans of 1.05 trillion won ($932 million).

“North Korea has not paid back a penny since 2012 but the government has yet to come up with any countermeasure,” Shim said.

“The amount of redemption must have been used in nuclear and missile development. The government should do its utmost not to lose the entire 1.05 trillion won, which is the people’s tax money.”

According to the National Assembly data, the Kim Dae-jung government offered loans worth 369 billion won ($327 million) and the Roh Moo-hyun administration provided as much as 683.7 billion won ($650 million) in the form of food, material and equipment.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

How Female Assassin Siti Aisyah was Recruited By North Korean Agents to Murder Kim Jong-nam

| September 28, 2017

Here is an interesting article from GQ magazine of all places that provides an in-depth look at how

Siti Aisyah, left, and Doan Thi Huong, the women recruited for the murder plot.

The female assassins had been identified on the CCTV footage with almost comic ease—the Vietnamese woman’s white jumper, adorned with LOL, proved easy to track through the grainy footage. Catching her was simple, too: Doan Thi Huong, 29, was arrested the day after the killing, when she returned to the airport. She had been born in a rural Vietnamese village, had her dreams of celebrity dashed when she lasted 20 seconds on Vietnam Idol, and ended up working as an escort in Hanoi, where she’d been recruited by an undercover North Korean agent.

At 2 A.M. the morning after the murder, Malaysian police marched through the dank hallways of the Flamingo Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, in which stained springless mattresses leaned against walls to air out during the day. In a third-floor room, the second alleged assassin, a 25-year-old from Indonesia named Siti Aisyah, had just finished servicing a Malaysian man and sent him on his way when the officers burst through the unlocked door.

From the CCTV footage, Doan’s and Siti’s guilt seemed clear until, under interrogation, they both separately explained that they thought they’d merely slathered Jong-nam with a harmless liquid for a hidden-camera TV show.  (………)

While both women’s lives followed a remarkably similar lopsided arc of disappointment from remote hamlets to seedy nightclubs to prison cells where they now face death, it was Siti’s footprints that I tracked across Asia because, having lived for three years in Indonesia, I had met dozens of vulnerable migrant women who could have suffered her fate. I felt like there was bound to be more to the story than the Malaysian police had reported. And sure enough, the truth I ultimately discovered was far more complicated than I ever could have imagined.

Siti was recruited by the North Koreans at 3 A.M. on January 5, 2017, outside a notorious bar in Kuala Lumpur. On paper, she worked as a masseuse in the Flamingo Hotel’s spa, but when I visited in July, a worker immediately asked, “You want to sleep with a Thai or Indonesian girl?” Later, one of Siti’s friends laughed when I said I’d heard she’d given massages there, declaring, “She was totally sex!”  [GQ Magazine]

You can read the rest of the elaborate scheme the North Koreans put together to recruit Aisyah to conduct the supposed comedy pranks.  Here is a very insightful part of the article:

Nam explained, “Pyongyang wanted to horrify the rest of the world by releasing a chemical weapon at an airport.” By unleashing such weaponry in a place symbolically shared by the global community—an international airport—North Korea was warning everyone not to cross it. As Nam concluded, “Jong-un wants to reign a long time and negotiate as a superpower. The only way to do that is to keep the world in fear of his weapons. He has a grand design, and this is part of it.”

In the end, Pyongyang suffered no significant consequences from the assassination. The people on death row for the murder are two Southeast Asian women, whom Nam believes are not guilty.

This is something world government will have to consider, in response to a preemptive strike against North Korea they could retaliate by releasing VX nerve agents in international airports.  If people thought the aftermath of 9-11 was bad for the airline industry could you imagine what would happen if multiple airports are targeted with VX nerve agents?

Otto Warmbier’s Parents Believe Their Son Was Tortured with Pliers

| September 28, 2017

As I have said before I have little sympathy for people who travel to North Korea fully knowing the risks of being used as a pawn by the Kim regime.  With that said he did not deserve what happened to him and I feel very bad for Otto Warmbier’s parents to have to deal with such a traumatic death for their son:

The parents of Otto Warmbier, the U.S. student North Korea detained and who died soon after returning home in June, have described the horrific details of his condition.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier disclosed to Fox News on Tuesday what the communist state did to their son and criticized the country for claiming to be a “victim” of the United States’ push for war.

Fred described North Korea as “terrorists” and said they kidnapped and tortured Otto.

The student’s family saw him when they went aboard an air ambulance on June 13. But Otto’s mother and sister left the plane in shock at the initial sight. They said Otto had a shaved head, a feeding tube in his nose, was blind and deaf and was staring blankly.

The father said Otto also had a large scar on his right foot and a high fever.

“It looked like someone had taken pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth,” Cindy said. “We could not call it a coma and were not prepared (to see Otto in such a horrific condition).”  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but unfortunately we will probably never fully know what happened to Otto Warmbier in North Korea.