Tag: North Korea

North Korea 'sentences' four South Korean journalists to death over 'insulting' book reviews: State media https://t.co/DAdww9e3Sh

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) September 1, 2017

I am sure the irony is lost on few that President Putin is advocating against militarism and provocations and instead for everyone to get together and talk considering how own actions in Ukraine and Georgia in recent years:

“Russia believes that the policy of putting pressure on Pyongyang to stop its nuclear missile program is misguided and futile,” Putin said in an article released Thursday by the Kremlin, ahead of the BRICS summit in Xiamen, China.

“The region’s problems should only be settled through a direct dialogue of all the parties concerned without any preconditions. Provocations, pressure and militarist and insulting rhetoric are a dead-end road,” Putin said.

His comments were published hours after the US and South Korea conducted a mock bombing raid on the Korean Peninsula that was denounced by Pyongyang as a “rash act.”

Russia was a participant in the six-party talks, which took place in the mid-2000s in an attempt to get North Korea to abandon its then burgeoning nuclear program.  [CNN]

That time when sushi chef Kenji Fujimoto (pictured) beat Kim Jong Il in a jetski race in North Korea (but lost in the rematch.) pic.twitter.com/v54EVmi8cQ

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) August 30, 2017

Like I said before the North Koreans are using the ongoing UFG military exercise as cover for their missile test program:

In the wake of North Korea’s latest missile launch, an official said the country was justified to exercise its right to “self defense,” the Reuters news agency reports.

On Tuesday, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Han Tae Song, accused the U.S. of driving the Korean peninsula toward an “extreme level of explosion,” claiming the United States has “openly declared its hostile intentions” toward the country.

Han said in response to the U.S. and South Korea holding “aggressive” joint military exercises in the region, “despite repeated warnings,” his country has “every reason to respond with tough counter-measures.”  [CBS News]

You can read more at the link.

The work to launch a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile is underway at Sunan Airport in Pyongyang on Aug. 29, 2017, in this photo captured from the North’s Korean Central TV on Aug. 30. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was on the scene.(Yonhap)

Kim Jong-un is having a good month, besides a successful ballistic missile launch over Japan his wife has given birth to another baby:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju had their third child earlier this year, according to the National Intelligence Service.

The spy agency submitted a written report to the National Assembly Intelligence Committee Monday that Ri seems to have given birth to their third child in February.

According to the agency, Kim and Ri, who married in 2009, had their first child in 2010 and second one in 2013. There was speculation about Ri’s third pregnancy as she had not appeared at public events for about nine months last year.

The only information known about their children is that the second one is a girl named Ju-ae, which U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman disclosed after visiting Pyongyang in 2013 at the invitation of Kim, an avid basketball fan.

No other information about the other two children, including their sexes, has been revealed.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the Kim regime wants normalize firing missiles over Japan and use the joint US-ROK military exercises as excuses to do so:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signaled more missile launches into the Pacific Ocean after a successful test of a Hwasong-12 intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that flew over Japan, Tuesday, according to Pyongyang’s state media, Wednesday.

The Hwasong-12 flew about 2,700 kilometers over Japan before landing in the Pacific Ocean. This was the first time that North Korea has fired a ballistic missile over Japan.

“The missile firing, which closely resembled actual warfare, is the first step of our military operations in the Pacific and a significant prelude to check the U.S. territory of Guam,” the North’s Korea Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying.

“We need to carry out more ballistic missile tests toward the Pacific, so that we can develop strategic forces more practically.”

His comments showed the North could test-fire missiles toward not only areas around the Korean Peninsula but also those near Japan, Guam and other Pacific regions.

The KCNA said the country chose Aug. 29 for the missile launch to intimidate Japan on the occasion of the 107th anniversary of Japan’s annexation of Korea in 1910.

“We carried out a bold operation, which flabbergasted the brutal Japanese islanders, on bloody Aug. 29, the day when the humiliating treaty of annexation was announced 107 year ago,” the KCNA said.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but it is clear the Kim regime feels there will be no repercussions from firing missiles over Japan and thus why this may become the new normal.  I guess we will see if the Kim regime is right about this assumption.

Japan's foreign minister says what others may be thinking: easier for NK to get away with a missile fired over Japan than towards Guam. pic.twitter.com/iAPP3BPWer

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) August 29, 2017

For North Korea to fully test its intermediate range ballistic missile (IRBM) it was going to have to fire over Japan and the ongoing UFG exercise gave them the cover to do so:

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missile traveled around 2,700 kilometers (1,677 miles) and reached a maximum height of 550 kilometers (341 miles) as it flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. The launch appeared to be the first of a North Korean missile to cross over Japan, though some rockets it said were used to put satellites into space have done so. It also appeared to be the North’s longest-ever missile test, but South Korean officials couldn’t immediately confirm.  [Associated Press]

The North Koreans have now proven that their IRBM works on a nominal trajectory which also proves they have the capability to strike Guam.  However, what I haven’t heard yet in any news articles is whether the reentry vehicle successfully reentered the atmosphere?  We will probably hear more about this in the coming days.

Here is what the Japanese government had to say after the launch:

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters that the government had a grasp of the situation immediately after the launch. He called it “an unprecedented, grave and serious threat” that damages the peace and security of the region, adding that Tokyo had lodged a firm protest with Pyongyang.

However, Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters that the North may have “held back” in its latest launch by not targeting the area around the U.S. territory of Guam. In an earlier threat, the North said it had formulated a plan to send missiles into the waters near the island, home to key U.S. military bases.

Kono also told reporters the government had requested that a United Nations Security Council meeting be convened over the launch. That meeting was expected later Tuesday.  [Japan Times]

Where is Hans Blix when you need him?:

Here was the ROK reaction to the missile launch:

In Seoul, South Korean President Moon Jae-in ordered his country’s military Tuesday to demonstrate its “overwhelming” capabilities, should the North decide to attack, the presidential Blue House was quoted as saying by the South’s Yonhap news agency.

The show of force involved the dropping of eight Mark 84, or MK84, multipurpose bombs by four F-15K fighter jets at a shooting range near the inter-Korean border in Taebaek, Yoon Young-chan, Moon’s chief press secretary, said.

Seoul also made public rare footage of its testing of new ballistic missiles. The state-run Agency for Defense Development’s 86-second video clip showed the test-firing of a 500-km-range ballistic missile with “improved warhead power” and that of another one with a range of 800 km. The footage showed the missile accurately hitting mock targets on the ground and in the water. The tests were conducted last week and were the last ones before the deployment of the missiles, it added.  [Japan Times]

Quite possibly the most remarkable development from this launch is the measured response that President Trump has taken:

U.S. President Donald Trump slammed North Korea Tuesday after the communist regime fired another missile in defiance of international warnings, saying “all options are on the table.”

Earlier Tuesday, North Korea fired a missile that flew over Japanese territory.

“The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: this regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,” Trump said in a statement.

“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table,” he added.  [Yonhap]

Considering how measured President Trump has been in his public comments; it leads me to believe there must be something going on diplomatically behind the scenes.  My guess is that sometime after the UFG exercise we will find out what the diplomatic approach is.

It has long been suspected that the Chinese government kept close ties with Kim Jong-nam as sort of a Plan B if needed in North Korea.  According to the below article Kim Jong-nam made sure a Chinese Plan B could never happen after he got word of a possible coup:

When Kim Jong Nam was killed with a deadly nerve agent in an airport in Malaysia in February, it may have thwarted an attempt backed by the Chinese government to overthrow his half-brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Citing three sources, Nikkei Asian Review reported on Monday that top government officials in China and North Korea in 2012 seriously considered a plot to remove Kim Jong Un.

Nikkei reports that Hu Jintao, China’s president at the time, met with Kim Jong Un’s uncle, who floated the idea of replacing him with his half-brother, a politically unmotivated gambler.

But because of a recent scandal involving the death of the son of one of Hu’s advisers, the Chinese leader did not immediately act.

According to the report, a top adviser to Jiang Zemin, Hu’s predecessor and rival, caught wind of the plot and informed Kim Jong Un, who in 2013 had his uncle executed and purged several officials with ties to China.  [American Military News]

You can read more at the link.