Tag: North Korea

After reading this article about the slave labor conditions these North Korean workers in Russia are facing; I couldn’t help, but think that this sounded like the conditions many juicy girls used to face not too long ago in South Korea:

A North Korean slave laborer died building a soccer stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia, for the 2018 World Cup, Norwegian football magazine Josimar reported Thursday. He was one of at least 110 North Korean slave laborers that toil at the building site.

Josimar and Western human rights groups are demanding that FIFA, the international football governing body, delve into abuses of the North Korean workers there.

Josimar found out about them when it was covering the construction of the Krestovsky Stadium, which was completed last month in time for the FIFA Confederations Cup in June.

The North Koreans lived in containers set up in a waste ground 200-300 m from the stadium. They worked at the site from 7 a.m. till midnight every day without a day off, Josimar said.

Their passports had been confiscated and they were under surveillance around the clock, banned from contacting workers from other countries. The site was surrounded by iron fence and barbed wire. A Russian supervisor at the site said the workers were “like robots” and looked deeply unhappy.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

This still photo broadcast by the North’s Korean Central TV on March 28, 2017, shows the country’s top leader Kim Jong-un affectionately greeting Hwang Sun-hui, an anti-Japanese revolutionary fighter, during his visit to the remodeled Korean Revolution Museum. Hwang, curator of the museum, was a comrade of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader and the founder of North Korea. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

It seems the drums of a preemptive strike on North Korea are growing louder.  Here is the latest expert to weigh in:

The United States should be prepared to launch preemptive strikes on North Korea, including a nuclear attack if necessary, before the communist nation uses its nuclear bombs that could “kill 90 percent of Americans,” a former CIA chief said Wednesday.

James Woolsey, who served as CIA director from 1993-95, made the case in an op-ed piece in the Hill newspaper, arguing that the U.S. is erroneously underestimating Pyongyang’s capabilities to deliver nuclear weapons by missile, freighter and even satellite.

“Why do the press and public officials ignore or under-report these facts? Perhaps no administration wants to acknowledge that North Korea is an existential threat on their watch,” Woolsey said in the article, titled “How North Korea could kill 90 percent of Americans.”

“Whatever the motives for obfuscating the North Korean nuclear threat, the need to protect the American people is immediate and urgent. The U.S. must be prepared to preempt North Korea by any means necessary, including nuclear weapons,” he said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea is super unhappy about American support for defectors. So unhappy they came up with this exceptional paragraph. pic.twitter.com/zE8A1tcV22

— Anna Fifield (@annafifield) March 28, 2017

Even in death Kim Jong-nam could not escape North Korea:

Malaysia put the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on a plane to Pyongyang on Thursday, in a deal that secured the release of its citizens there and ended a drawnout diplomatic spat.

U.S. and South Korean intelligence sources say North Korea masterminded the deadly attack on Kim Jong Nam last month using VX nerve agent, a chemical so toxic that it is on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction.

The attack outraged Malaysia and sparked a diplomatic row with North Korea, resulting in travel bans on both sides and a collapse in their long-standing friendly ties.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said the nine Malaysians barred from leaving North Korea had been allowed to board a plane out, adding on Twitter that they were expected to reach Kuala Lumpur at 5 a.m. local time on Friday (2100 GMT Thursday).

The Malaysians left Pyongyang in a Royal Malaysian Air Force business jet, which headed immediately west out of North Korean airspace before turning south toward Malaysia, according to flight tracking website planefinder.net.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but it appears the hostage taking of the Malaysian diplomatic personnel in Pyongyang worked.

I wonder if this will still be the direction given to the ROK military after the Korean left likely wins the Presidency in May:

South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo on Wednesday instructed troops not to hesitate to take retaliatory actions in the event of a North Korea attack.

Inspecting a coastline guard post of the Army’s 32nd Infantry Division, Han stressed the need for “perfect” combat posture both on the front lines and in the rear.

“There shouldn’t be any disorder even by an inch in the military,” he said. “Any provocation from the North should not be tolerated.”

The minister urged the military to be fully ready for the completion of operations “on-the-spot” at a “decisive” time, citing the grim security conditions on the peninsula.  [Yonhap]

Long time Korea watchers may remember that the last time the Korean left held the presidency, ROK servicemembers who defended the nation against North Korean aggression were treated like criminals.  Hopefully these same policies are not enacted when the Korean left likely takes over this time.

Don’t tell me to talk to North Korea if you aren’t listening to North Korea. https://t.co/cKnwsRIj9o pic.twitter.com/nxXzoljv0R

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) March 28, 2017

What Christopher Hill is advocating for has been tried before and does not work.  Increasing defenses in South Korea is common sense and has long been going on, working with China has also been tried and it has not stopped the North Korean nuclear or missile threats:

No good military options exist on North Korea and the best way to deal with the provocative regime is to increase cooperation with China, former U.S. nuclear negotiator with North Korea Christopher Hill said Sunday.

Talk of pre-emptive strikes against the North have gained traction after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said earlier this month that diplomacy failed to disarm the North and the United States is considering a new range of options, including military ones.

“We say ‘everything is on the table’ is because basically none of the options are particularly good options,” the former negotiator said on New York’s AM 970 radio, according to the newspaper Hill. “There are no good military options.

“We’ve done a lot on sanctions. It’s the most sanctioned country in the world. That hasn’t worked. We tried to have negotiations with them. That hasn’t worked. But I think what could work is a much better understanding between the U.S. and China,” Hill said.

He expressed concerns about the rapidly worsening threats from the North.

“In the last few years, North Korea’s threat has really grown … now we are seeing them modernize their missile arsenal, such that it’s quite likely in the near future … North Korea will have a deliverable nuclear weapon. And then the question is, what are we all going to do about that?” Hill said.

“I wouldn’t want to be Donald Trump in 2020 and have to say … we couldn’t do anything,” he said.  [Yonhap]

It seems to me that Mr. Hill should not be calling out President Trump when he could not stop the North Korean threat when he was in government.

If the North Koreans conduct this nuclear test it seems they must be pretty confident that no matter what they do before the upcoming ROK presidential election that a Korean left wing candidate is going to win. Typically North Korean provocations cause voters to rally behind a Korean right wing candidate, but this may be an indication of how discredited the Korean right is after the impeachment of former President Park Geun-hye:

Another North Korean nuclear test is imminent, with preparations likely to wrap up this week, intelligence authorities in Seoul said Wednesday.

The test, North Korea’s sixth, could be conducted as early as next week

“We have intelligence that North Korea may conduct its sixth nuclear test in the first week of April and are in the process of confirming this,” said a South Korean military intelligence source who requested anonymity. “We have determined that North Korea is expected to finish all preparations for a nuclear test by March 31.”

There were expectations that the North could conduct a nuclear test ahead of the upcoming meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump expected to be held on April 6 and 7 at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

“We are analyzing that there is a high possibility that North Korea will conduct a nuclear test ahead of U.S. President Trump and Chinese President Xi’s summit in the United States,” another intelligence official said.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Construction progress at Tumen city’s new bridge appears stalled: imagery https://t.co/9ytkxl56Yl pic.twitter.com/3aIEt8C6Nr

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 26, 2017