South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo had some unsurprising things to say about Kim Jong-un:
Young, rash and impulsive.
A frank assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by South Korean Defense Minister Han Minkoo.
Speaking exclusively to CNN on the sidelines of a defense forum in Singapore, Han says it’s a combination that concerns him greatly.
“Kim Jong Un was just 28 when he came to power with very little time to prepare. Add to that, he is very young, he lacks experience.”
Kim certainly seems to be in a rush to perfect his nuclear and missile capabilities, the intensity of testing this year alone is unusual even for North Korea.
“If you look at his father, Kim Jong Il, during his 18 year reign, there were about 18 missile tests. During Kim Jong Un’s four year reign there (have been) 25 missile tests,” says Han.
Han is not convinced North Korea can miniaturize nuclear weapons or fit a nuclear warhead onto a missile, as claimed by Pyongyang, but acknowledges that practice makes perfect.
“If they continue to progress with the miniaturization technology, we think it may be possible to deliver it in other ways such as an artillery shell or in the form of a nuclear mine.” [CNN]
You can read much more of this interview at the link to include his commentary on why South Korea needs the THAAD missile defense system.
It looks like Kim Jong-un is not setting a very good example for North Korea’s recent anti-smoking campaign:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) holding a cigarette with his right hand in a photo released by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 4, 2016. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution.) (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is known to be a heavy smoker, has held a cigarette for the first time in months in public, a photo released by the North’s mouthpiece newspaper showed Saturday.
A snapshot of him smoking at the remodeled Mangyongdae Children’s Camp in Pyongyang was published in Rodong Sinmun. Kim was there to promote “Pyongyang Speed,” a term referring to the North’s rapid industrialization, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
He was last seen smoking more than 80 days ago at a test evaluating the heat stability of a homegrown North Korean rocket.
Experts speculated that Kim may have refrained from smoking in front of cameras because the North’s media have been campaigning against that behavior. Rodong Sinmun, in fact, published several stories reiterating the harmful effects of cigarettes between April and May. At one point, local women appeared on the Korean Central Television to denounce smokers as “imbeciles who upset their surroundings.” [Yonhap]
Is this a sign that sanctions are working that the Kim regime has had to resort to bank robbery?:
Security researchers have tied the recent spate of digital breaches on Asian banks to North Korea, in what they say appears to be the first known case of a nation using digital attacks for financial gain.
In three recent attacks on banks, researchers working for the digital security firm Symantec said, the thieves deployed a rare piece of code that had been seen in only two previous cases: the hacking attack at Sony Pictures in December 2014 and attacks on banks and media companies in South Korea in 2013. Government officials in the United States and South Korea have blamed those attacks on North Korea, though they have not provided independent verification.
On Thursday, the Symantec researchers said they had uncovered evidence linking an attack at a bank in the Philippines last October with attacks on Tien Phong Bank in Vietnam in December and one in February on the central bank of Bangladesh that resulted in the theft of more than $81 million.
“If you believe North Korea was behind those attacks, then the bank attacks were also the work of North Korea,” said Eric Chien, a security researcher at Symantec, who found that identical code was used across all three attacks.
“We’ve never seen an attack where a nation-state has gone in and stolen money,” Mr. Chien added. “This is a first.” [New York Times]
You can read more at the link, but they actually almost stole $1 billion from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This is just another example of the danger posed by the Kim regime and why all efforts should be made to isolate and strangle the regime economically until it collapses.
The United States has announced more financial sanctions will be implemented on North Korea:
The United States on Wednesday designated North Korea a “primary money laundering concern,” its newest way of freezing it out of the international financial system to curb its nuclear and missile programs.
South Korea quickly lauded the move, predicting it will have a more “far-reaching effect” than previous financial sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury Department prohibited certain U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts with North Korean financial institutions. It also prohibited the use of third-country U.S. correspondent bank accounts to process transactions for North Korean financial institutions working on behalf of the Kim Jong-un government and state-controlled corporations. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but according to ROK Drop favorite One Free Korea these sanctions are “the single most powerful sanction the United States has ever imposed on North Korea.” That is the good news, but it does make me wonder why did it take this long to finally implement them on North Korea? For those looking for the details on how these sanctions will be implemented I highly recommend reading One Free Korea’s posting. Hopefully these financial sanctions are vigorously enforced considering how skilled North Korea is at avoid past sanctions. If so these sanctions really could hit the Kim regime hard.
Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the central committee under North Korea’s ruling Workers Party of Korea, is seen inside a car after arriving at Beijing’s international airport on May 31, 2016, in this photo released by Kyodo News. (Yonhap)
This most recent failure officially makes North Korea O for 4 for their road mobile Musudan Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile (IRBM) test launches:
North Korea apparently failed with an attempted missile launch Tuesday, the latest in a series of setbacks for a ballistic weapons programme that aspires to threaten the US mainland.
South Korea’s defence ministry detected the dawn launch effort, which Japan condemned as an unacceptable and “provocative” act.
The ministry declined to speculate on the missile type, but military sources cited by local media said it was a powerful, medium-range “Musudan” that has already undergone three failed launches this year.
UN resolutions ban North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology, although it regularly fires short-range missiles into the sea off its east coast.
Tuesday’s effort came with tensions still running high on the divided Korean peninsula following the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch a month later.
“We believe that it was a failure,” said Jeon Ha-Gyu, spokesman for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“As to why and how it failed, we are in the process of analysing that,” Jeon told a press briefing. [AFP]
You can read more at the link, but the AFP article did not state what happened with the launch. The South Korean media on the other hand is reporting that the missile once again blew up on the launch pad:
Anchor: North Korea has again sought to fire a ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure. Sources have suggested that the missile exploded at a mobile launch pad immediately after the order for the launch was given. As it marked the fourth failed attempt in a row to launch the ballistic missile, the South Korean military is suspecting an engine defect.
Our Kim Bum-soo reports.
Report: North Korea has test-fired another ballistic missile but the launch ended in failure.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff(JCS) said that the North Korean military fired a projectile off its east coast near the Wonsan region at around 5:20 a.m on Tuesday.
JCS officials said that the launch was unsuccessful. Other sources suggested the possibility that the missile exploded on its mobile launcher immediately after a fire button was pressed. [KBS World Radio]
You can read more at the link, but the South Korean military believes their is a structural defect with the Russian BM-25 engine they modified for their Musudans. Also according to the article it is believed that North Korea has 50 Musdudan missiles in their inventory. At this rate they are going to blow them all up testing them.
What is even more significant about these failures is that their road mobile KN-08 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) could also be considered to be of low capability since it has never been tested. The KN-08 is North Korea’s main weapon they use to threaten the United States with nuclear destruction. If they cannot get their road mobile Musudan IRBM technology to work what are the chances that their road mobile ICBM works to threaten the US with?
