Tag: North Korea

If anyone is wondering, there have been no sign of nuclear fallout landing in South Korea:

South Korea has yet to find any traces of radioactive materials from North Korea’s latest nuclear test, a nuclear safety commission here said Thursday, confirming the country remains safe from nuclear fallout.

“The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission has not found any traces of radionuclides, such as xenon, in its tests of soil, water and air samples following North Korea’s fifth nuclear test,” the commission said in a released statement.

The commission has been testing samples every 12 hours since Monday, two days after the communist North said it successfully conducted its latest nuclear detonation test.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

China says opposes 'unhelpful' unilateral North Korea sanctions | Reuters https://t.co/sfZrYldnYS

— S. Kleine-Ahlbrandt (@ska_kongshan) September 15, 2016

Joel Witt from the US-Korea Institute and a former Clinton Administration official in charge of implementing the failed Agreed Framework with North Korea in the 1990’s, is calling for suspending military exercises and more talks with North Korea:

A successful strategy will have to include a new diplomatic initiative aimed at persuading the North to first stop expanding its arsenal and then to eventually reduce and dismantle its weapons. To persuade the North Koreans to do this, Washington will have to address their security concerns. In the short term, that may mean temporarily suspending or modifying some American-South Korean military exercises. In the longer term, it may mean replacing the armistice in place since the end of the Korean War with a permanent peace agreement.

These initiatives will be met with skepticism not only in the United States — where many people believe that negotiating with North Korea is a waste of time — but also in Pyongyang. As a North Korean official, who believes a new administration will just tear up previous agreements, said to me earlier this year, “It’s easier for us to build nuclear weapons than to be involved with you for decades only to have agreements turn into useless scraps of paper.”

Nevertheless, there are signs that North Korea is interested in dialogue. On July 6, the government issued a pronouncement ostensibly seeking denuclearization talks with the United States, specifically mentioning Kim Jong-un’s name in support of this initiative.

One reason North Korea may be motivated to consider denuclearization is economic. Since taking office in 2011, Mr. Kim has been committed to improving his country’s economy.  [New York Times]

You can read more at the link, but what reason has North Korea given that the US should end military exercises with the ROK?  They are not going to stop their provocations unless they get a deal where they get a lot of free “aid” for little to nothing in return which they can then tear up and demand a new deal later due to some made up reason.  That is how the prior agreements with North Korea have worked, what is different now?

Plus they are never going to give up their nuclear program.  From a regime security perspective why would they?  Also as far economic development, isn’t it in the Kim regime’s interest to keep their people poor so they are easier to control?  Kim just has to keep the ruling elite happy which the regime has showed the ability to mostly do and for those he can’t keep happy he tends to ruthlessly purge.  In my opinion economic incentives for little to nothing in return will only tighten his grip on power with the ruling elite and do little for the common North Korean.

Maybe I am wrong, what does everyone else think?

Wistful Kim Jong-Un Stumbles Onto Childhood Drawings He Made Of Nuclear Attacks On West https://t.co/Picv4UbesN via @TheOnion

— Sokeel Park 박석길 (@Sokeel) September 13, 2016

I guess the Kim regime doesn’t consider the mass famine of the 1990s as a disaster.  The recent flooding along the Tumen River is nothing compared to that:

Floods in North Korea that have left hundreds dead or missing are the “worst disaster” to hit the country since World War II, state media said on Wednesday.

The official KCNA news agency did not give exact numbers of those killed or unaccounted for, but a UN report said 138 people have died and 400 are missing after torrential rains caused devastation in the country’s far north.

The floods along the Tumen River, which partially marks the border with China and Russia, tore through villages, washing away buildings and leaving thousands in urgent need of food and shelter.

“The flood that resulted from the typhoon that hit North Hamgyong province from August 29 to September 2 was the worst disaster since liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945,” KCNA said.

It also provided figures on the flood damage and those displaced for the first time, saying 68,900 people had been forced to flee their homes, compared with a UN figure of 107,000.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

North Korea has their typical provocation playbook and the US has its typical playbook in response with one of the plays being to fly a bomber from Guam over South Korea:

Two B-1B nuclear-capable strategic bombers of the U.S. Air Force flew over South Korea, Tuesday, in a show of force against North Korea that conducted its fifth nuclear test last week in defiance of global warnings.

The B-1B Lancers conducted a low-altitude flight over Osan Air Base, south of Seoul, around 10:00 a.m. after having flown from the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The aircraft is capable of carrying the largest payload of both guided and unguided weapons of any current American bombers.

One B-1B was escorted by four F-15Ks from South Korean Air Force, while the other was escorted by four F-16s from the U.S. Air Force during the flight. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I knew I had seen that bomb somewhere before! pic.twitter.com/uxmUmXPUON

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) September 12, 2016

This photo, released by North Korea’s state-run Internet propaganda site Meari on Sept. 19, 2016, shows a poster bearing an image of a mother holding a baby with the phrase “For the future, let’s stop smoking flat.” (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

It is pretty obvious that sanctions are not stopping the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs and it is because of China’s refusal to strictly enforce them:

While the U.S. government says sanctions work, a recent analysis by John Park of Harvard University and Jim Walsh of MIT concluded that sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council “have not worked, and that in some ways, the sanctions have had the net effect of actually improving (North Korean) procurement capabilities.”

One effect of sanctions is that North Korean trade with nations other than China has come to a virtual halt. But China allows numerous state-run companies from North Korea to operate on its soil and those have learned to adapt, Park and Walsh wrote in their study, “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences.”

The North Korean managers in charge of these companies have hired better Chinese middlemen, moved to China to improve their effectiveness and expanded their nuclear procurement operations in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and North Korean embassies around the world, the study found.

Some analysts, such as Gordon Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown; North Korea Takes on the World, urge the U.S. to impose sanctions on Chinese companies that aid North Korea’s nuclear program.  [USA Today]

You can read more at the link, but I agree with Gordon Chang that sanctioning Chinese companies may be an incentive to get the Chinese to clamp down on the North Korean nuclear program.

Utter silliness. ANYONE who believes NK would negotiate away its nukes needs his brain checked for radioactivity. https://t.co/UbMbGsDmxT

— the oranckay (@oranckay) September 9, 2016