Tag: North Korea

There were reports out there that Kim Jong-nam was running short on cash in Macau so a US intelligence agency trying to take advantage of this seems possible.  It also seems very possible that this would give Kim Jong-nam the excuse he needed to take out his brother as well:

KIM Jong Nam’s alleged ties with a US intelligence agency contact may have been the reason behind his spy novel-like assassination, Malaysian authorities said.

According to Japanese daily The Asahi Shimbun, Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was carrying US$120,000 when he was killed in February at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 (klia2) and is believed to have received the money from the contact.

Malaysian investigators said Jong Nam had met with an American man who is believed to have links with a US intelligence agency during his eight-day trip in the Southeast Asian country. This, they said, may have prompted North Korea to silence Jong Nam.

Quoting unnamed sources, The Asahi Shimbun report said Jong Nam received the money during his time in Malaysia and had not planned to declare the cash when leaving the country. The authorities also said there were no records of Jong Nam making any large cash withdrawals from Malaysia.

A check of Jong Nam’s belongings, however, revealed wads of cash – all in US currency and in four bundles of US$100 bills – in his black carry-on bag,  [Asian Correspondent]

You can read more at the link.

This makes me wonder how many drones have successfully completed their reconnaissance missions over South Korea?:

A North Korean drone found last week by a South Korean civilian had spied on the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) antimissile site in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, before crashing into a mountain in Inje, Gangwon, on its way back to the North, according to local military officials.

The drone had traveled at least 270 kilometers (168 miles), the distance between the demilitarized zone and Seongju, to reach the Thaad field.

The South Korean military had not known about the flight until an Inje resident retrieved the drone from a mountain last Thursday at 11 a.m. and reported it to authorities the following day.

“Around 10 photos were found in the Japan-made Sony camera attached to the drone,” said a South Korean military official Monday, who embargoed the story until Tuesday. The photos of Thaad, he said, were among “several hundred,” which mostly featured mountains and civilian areas.

Local officials had to restore the camera because it was initialized, or formatted, by the time they got it. Further analysis was underway.

The South Korean military said the drone had started taking photos from the north side of Seongju all the way down to the south, then continued as it flew back towards North Korea.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but these drones are so cheap to make it seems like the Kim regime can just keep sending them over the DMZ until they are successful at capturing the imagery they want.  It looks like the US military needs to consider getting one of these systems to counter North Korea’s drones.

Wow. Had dinner w/ fmr NK soldier who defected across DMZ, afterwards he texted me saying another had just crossed: https://t.co/XDrehJy1hm

— Sokeel Park (@Sokeel) June 13, 2017

Here is the latest on Dennis Rodman’s trip to North Korea:

Mr. Rodman declined to say whether he had spoken about the trip with Mr. Trump, who four years ago endorsed Mr. Rodman’s visiting North Korea.

“Well, I’m pretty sure he’s pretty much happy with the fact that I’m over here trying to accomplish something that we both need,” Mr. Rodman said, as reported by The A.P.

Mr. Trump spoke to Fox News in 2013 about Mr. Rodman and North Korea, a year in which Mr. Rodman also appeared on his “Celebrity Apprentice” show. “Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have,” he said.

Suzanne DiMaggio, a director and senior fellow at the New America think tank who had been involved in unofficial talks with North Korea, said on Twitter that there was a “high probability” of communication between the Trump administration and Mr. Rodman.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but the media’s interpretation of President Trump’s comments four years ago about Rodman’s trip to North Korea I think are not interpreted correctly.  Trump was clearly taking a shot at President Obama by claiming that Rodman was a better diplomat than what the State Department had to offer.  To link those comments to Trump than actually using Rodman in a diplomatic role I think is a stretch.

This latest Rodman trip I think was arranged by the Kim regime to take media attention away from their treatment of American detainee Otto Warmbier who they just happened to release the same time as Rodman’s visit.

Here is another one of those only in North Korea stories:

University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier has been medically evacuated from North Korea in a coma after being detained for 17 months, his parents told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

Warmbier, 22, is due to arrive home in Cincinnati on Tuesday evening, having been evacuated through a U.S. military base in Sapporo, Japan.

Warmbier has been in a coma for more than a year, since shortly after his last public appearance during his trial in Pyongyang in March 2016.

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told The Post on Tuesday morning after Otto Warmbier was evacuated. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”  [Washington Post]

You can read much more at the link, but readers my remember Warmer was the guy who visited North Korea and tried to steal a Kim regime propaganda poster off the hotel wall and received a 15 year prison sentence.  The sentencing was obviously completely inappropriate for the crime, but like I have said repeatedly that is the risk that any American going to North Korea takes and why no one should travel there.

With that said I hope Warmbier is able to recover from the botulism he received while in captivity likely from food poisoning.  It is horrible that the Kim regime allowed Warmbier to be in coma for a year before having him released for proper medical treatment.  Additionally the Kim regime is now trying to take media attention away from their treatment of Warmbier by allowing top US diplomat to North Korea Dennis Rodman to visit North Korea at the same time.

Co-hosting the World Cup would be the ultimate propaganda win for North Korea because it legitimizes the Kim regime and can be used to show how the world is groveling in awe of the Kim regime’s nuclear and ICBM programs which should be perfected by then:

South Korea will face roadblocks in its bid to bring the world’s greatest football competition to Northeast Asia.

In his meeting with FIFA chief Gianni Infantino on Monday, President Moon Jae-in suggested forming a regional bloc with communist North Korea and other Northeast Asian countries to jointly host the FIFA World Cup in 2030.

According to the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, Infantino said there will likely be “difficulties,” but also said such a vision itself “can be a very powerful message.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest country to jump on the global warming bandwagon:

North Korea has accused U.S. military and environmental policies of causing climate change and producing pollution around the world.

In a scathing report cited Friday by North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state-run Institute for International Studies of the DPRK (an acronym for the country’s official title: the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea), asserted that the U.S.’s use of nuclear weapons, involvement in foreign conflicts and style of production had most harmed the environment since the Cold War. The study, attributed to researcher Kim Kum Hui and titled “The U.S. Is Chiefly to Blame for Global Environmental Pollution,” advised the U.S. to change course and safeguard the environment.

“All facts clearly show that the U.S. is not only a ringleader which spawned global warming threatening the human existence and future of the earth but the enemy of mankind driving into an irretrievably catastrophic consequences by disturbing even the worldwide efforts to prevent it,” the article read.

“If the U.S. continues swimming against the trend of the times protecting the global environment, it will not escape from the stern judgment of mankind,” the piece added  [Newsweek]

You can read more at the link.

Higher resolution picture of North Korea's anti ship missile: pic.twitter.com/ub4VkFCwJI

— Tal Inbar (@inbarspace) June 9, 2017

It will be interesting to see if President Trump enforces his redline against a North Korean ICBM test because it looks like the Kim regime is testing the waters to see what the Trump administration’s response will be to this:

North Korea’s official newspaper claimed Saturday that a test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile is not far away.

“The series of recent strategic weapons tests show that we are not too far away from test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile,” the Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial.

The claim indicates the regime has continued to advance its missile technology since its leader Kim Jong-un said during his annual address on Jan. 1 that the regime was in the final stage of developing ICBM technology.  (…..)

“The great success of test-firing an intercontinental ballistic missile, which we are sure to achieve, will mark a historic watershed moment in the failure of the U.S. hostile policy against us,” the editorial in the ruling Workers’ Party’s mouthpiece read. “Historically speaking, the U.S. has never dared to go to war with a country that possesses nuclear weapons or ICBMs.”  [Yonhap]

The place is equidistant from Chuncheon (about 40 miles from Seoul) & Sokcho on the coast. Several NK drones crashed nearby in the past. pic.twitter.com/uFCG1pnWEx

— Noon in Korea (@NoonInKorea) June 9, 2017