Tag: North Korea

Tweet of the Day: Basketball Guidance

| July 11, 2016

North Korea Claims Missile Test Was To Prove Capability to Attack US Satellites

| July 11, 2016

This would be an interesting to see how the US would respond to a provocation from North Korea if they did in fact ever shoot down or even attempt to shoot down a US satellite:

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North Korea’s main propaganda outlet claimed Wednesday that the recent midair explosion of a ballistic missile was intentional, calling it a test attack on enemy satellites.

North Korea’s Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile was detected to have burst into pieces midair after flying some 150 km after its launch on June 22.

North Korea fired off another missile hours later, which soared to an altitude exceeding 1,000 km and flew some 400 km before landing in the East Sea.

The first missile launch seemed to have ended in failure.

Still, North Korea’s main propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, claimed Wednesday that the midair explosion of the first missile was carried out by a control device installed in the missile and was not an accident.

The website also claimed that North Korea could render U.S. spy satellites lumps of scrap metal if Pyongyang detonates an electromagnetic pulse bomb at a high attitude after delivering it via one of its missiles.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but if they ever did detonate an EMP in the air it would render far more than US satellites ineffective and likely cause a global movement for regime change in North Korea as an aftermath. That is why I think if they do an EMP capability that it would only be a weapon of last resort.

Tweet of the Day: Turtle Memories

| July 10, 2016

North Korean SLBM Launched Assessed as A Failure, But Progress Made

| July 10, 2016

As we have seen with other North Korean missiles the more they test, the better they get at mastering the technology:

North Korea fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) off its east coast on Saturday, but the missile failed in its initial flight stage, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said.

The missile was fired from waters southeast of the coastal port city of Sinpo, South Hamgyong Province, at around 11:30 a.m., according to the military.

“The SLBM was ejected from the submarine normally, but (we) estimate the initial flight was unsuccessful,” the JCS said in a brief press release.

“Our military strongly denounces such provocative acts by North Korea,” the JCS noted.

North Korea’s ballistic missile launches are direct violations of United Nations Security Council resolutions, including its Musudan missile launches on June 22 and the latest launch, the military said.

Military sources said the latest SLBM appears to have exploded at an altitude of some 10 kilometers after being fired from a submerged 2,000-ton Sinpo-class submarine.

The missile flew only a few kilometers before the presumed explosion, they said.

South Korea’s military said that North Korea has achieved progress in the initial undersea ejection stage of its SLBM technology.

The North is probably in the flight test stage of its SLBM before moving onto the final test phase that will require the missile to hit targets, the sources said.

The North may be ready to deploy its SLBMs for service in about three years, according to the military.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but out of all of North Korea’s missiles this is the most dangerous and a game changer because it can defeat missile defenses.  That is because submarines can fire without notice from any direction which prevents missile defense units from knowing in which direction to point their radars towards.

Tweet of the Day: Kim Jong-un’s Turtle Farm Shows Improvements

| July 9, 2016

South Korea Issues Flood Warning for Imjim River Area After North Korea Opens Dam

| July 7, 2016

It doesn’t appear to be an asymmetric attack like the North Koreans have done before, but instead just a response to the heavy rains that have hit the peninsula:

North Korea discharged water from a dam near the border with South Korea Wednesday, prompting the South to evacuate border-area residents for fears of flooding.

“It seems that North Korea discharged water from Hwanggang Dam at around 6 a.m.,” a South Korean military official said. “North Korea opened the floodgates of the dam bit by bit from early morning.”

The North did not notify the South of the dam water discharge in advance despite their previous agreement to do so, the official said.

Still, Seoul ruled out the possibility that the sudden water release has anything to do with flooding attacks, he added.

The water level at the North Korean dam had been detected to have risen to full capacity with the area having massive rainfalls in recent weeks.

Six South Koreans were killed in September 2009 after North Korea released a massive amount of water from the border dam without prior warning.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Son of Man Kidnapped By North Korea Advocates for His Release

| July 6, 2016

The Joong Ang Ilbo has an extensive profile on the life of Hwang In-cheol who is the son of a 32-year old MBC producer that was kidnapped by North Korea on a hijacked plane.  You can read about this story at my prior DMZ Flashpoints posting.  This hijacking is just one of the many terrorist incidents the Kim regime has never been held accountable for and to this day some how remains off of the US’s state sponsors of terrorism list:

When Hwang In-cheol was 2 years old, his father disappeared.

“Maybe he’ll come back on Christmas Day,” Hwang’s mother said.

Hwang counted down the days, imagining his father coming through the door laden down with presents.

It didn’t happen.

“Maybe next Christmas,” his mother said.

It wasn’t until Hwang was in the third grade that his father’s brother decided he should know the truth.

Hwang Won was a 32-year-old producer for Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) based in Gangwon. On Dec. 11, 1969, he boarded a Korean Air flight from Gangneung, Gangwon, for Gimpo International Airport in Seoul to attend an MBC internal meeting. A senior colleague who was supposed to attend was busy. He ordered Hwang to fill in for him.

Ten minutes after takeoff, a North Korean spy hijacked the YS-11 aircraft and the 50 other people on it, all South Koreans, to Wonsan, some 207 kilometers (128.6 miles) east of Pyongyang, the North’s capital.

The producer left behind his wife, a 3-month-old daughter and 2-year-old Hwang In-cheol.

It was the second – and last – instance of a South Korean aircraft being hijacked by the North. On Feb. 16, 1958, a Korean Air flight from Busan to Seoul was abducted midway with 34 people on board, including a few foreigners.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read much more at the link.

China Pays North Korea $30 Million for Fishing Rights

| July 5, 2016

Kim Jong-un is not only using the Chinese fishing boats as part of a asymmetric warfare strategy, but he is also making money at the expense of food for his own people:

– North Korea‘s latest policies might be behind the increased presence of Chinese boats in or near South Korean waters.

The cash-strapped Pyongyang regime, under heavy international sanctions in 2016, sold $30 million worth of fishing rights to more than a 1,000 Chinese vessels, The Korea Herald reported Friday.

The number of licenses issued has tripled from previous years, said Lee Wan-young, a South Korean lawmaker of the ruling Saenuri party, after a meeting with the National Intelligence Service.

“North Korean people, too, are unhappy because it has shrunk the catch and caused common complaints with their southern counterparts regarding worsening environmental damage such as from fuel oil sludge at sea,” Lee said.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link, but so much for China supposedly aggressively applying financial sanctions on North Korea.

Tweet of the Day: China Secretly Punishing North Korea?

| July 5, 2016

Spy Arrest Leads To Claim Hundreds of Spies Active In South Korea

| July 4, 2016

I would not be surprised at all if hundreds of North Korean spies are active in South Korea, heck some of them operate right out in the open:

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South Korea’s military counterintelligence agency arrested eight civilians suspected of passing military secrets to North Korea.

The suspects were under investigation, according to South Korean lawmaker Lee Wan-young, who attended a closed-door parliamentary briefing on Friday, Newsis reported.

The first four defendants were arrested more than a year ago in May 2015 on charges of espionage and sharing South Korean military intelligence with contacts in the North.

The suspects were found guilty of spying and are “all civilians who made contact with South Korean military personnel for the purposes of extracting army secrets, and to deliver them to North Korea,” Lee said.

Another four suspects arrested in 2016 are under separate investigations on similar charges, local news service News 1 reported.

The most recent round of arrests also involved suspects who attempted to win the trust of military officers to procure classified information, Lee said.

The information that was passed to the North include details on military facilities and “other data,” according to the South Korean lawmaker.

Cases of espionage among South Koreans are rare, but according to a former spy and defector in 2015, North Korean spies are operating in the “hundreds.”

Pyongyang has previously used spies to infiltrate the South and instruct them to commit suicide if caught.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.