This image released by North Korea’s Rodong Shinmun shows what Pyeongyang claims to be a ballistic missile being launched from a submarine in waters near the northeast coast of Sinpo on May 9, 2015. The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the North’s state media, said the communist state successfully test-fired the submarine missile. (Yonhap)
Adm. Choi Yun-hee, the chairman of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited the Navy’s western command headquarters on Saturday, vowing to defend the Yellow Sea border against possible provocations from North Korea.
Also on Saturday, North Korea test-fired three anti-ship missiles into the sea off its east coast in what was seen as its latest show of force against Seoul.
South Korean military officials identified the North’s anti-ship missiles KN-01 cruise missiles and said the missiles were fired off into the sea off Wonsan, a major port on the North’s east coast, in a span of one hour starting at 4:25 p.m.
The missiles with a range of 100 kilometers are believed to have been modified from Chinese Silkworm missiles, they said. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but all though the North Koreans test fired the missiles into the East Sea in was clearly intended to send a message to the South Korean Navy operating ships along the NLL.
Like any of these reports from anonymous sources, treated them with a healthy dose of skepticism because who knows if they are true:
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has demanded that officials “go to South Korea if they have to” to arrest those who defected on his birthday, according to Radio Free Asia (RFA).
The non-profit news outlet quoted internal sources as saying Kim was furious when told that 16 North Koreans defected on February 16.
“During Kim’s birthday, the nation was under a special warning period for defecting, and when reported by his officials, Kim ordered them to send out an arrest squad to catch the ‘fleed family,'” the source was quoted as saying.
The source also said officials were threatened with punishment if they failed to bring back the defectors from North Hamgyong Province. [Korea Times]
It appears that the North Koreans may be ramping up to justify a provocation in the Yellow Sea:
South and North Korea exchanged barbs on Friday over Pyongyang’s claims of South Korean ships’ violation of the western sea border.
In what it called “an emergency special warning,” the communist country’s Command in Southwestern Sector of Front claimed that South Korean Navy speedboats made a “military provocation” by deeply intruding into the North’s territorial waters in the Yellow Sea two or three times a day between May 1 and 7.
“From this moment, it will make a sighting strike without any prior warning at any warship of the South Korean Navy intruding into the extension of demarcation line in the hotspot (of the sea),” said the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
North Korea also threatened to successively deal stronger blows to the South’s ships if South Korea makes counterattacks on the North, according to the KCNA.
Pyongyang does not acknowledge the border, known as the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which was drawn unilaterally by the U.S.-led United Nations Command when the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire. The North has long demanded that the line be drawn farther south. [Yonhap]
It looks like North Korea has its very own Amazon like online shopping service now with likely few people to use it:
Online shopping has arrived in North Korea, though it is as isolated from the rest of the world as the country itself, and the vast majority of North Koreans lack the technology to use it.
The website Okryu, aimed primarily at smartphone users, offers products from North Korean companies including women’s clothing, bags, shoes, medicine, cosmetics, furniture and food. Payment, in local currency only, is taken from the main North Korean debit card system.
To keep it all hermetically sealed, the site works not on the World Wide Web but on North Korea’s own intranet, a self-contained version of the Internet set up and maintained strictly for domestic use.
North Koreans call it the “domestic web” and it’s been around for years, but not used very much, largely because very few North Koreans have personal-use computers that can go online at all.
Smartphone use, however, is growing, and Okryu’s presence suggests that the government does not consider the technology to be a threat to the country’s rigid social order. (…………..)
Okryu is managed by the General Bureau of Public Service, a government organization that oversees shops, restaurants and producers of consumer goods. Bureau official Jong Sol Hwa recently confirmed the online shopping site, announced with much pride by state media last month, is up and running.
It is impossible to say how popular the new site is or if the average North Korean shopper is even aware of it. The site’s managers have not announced statistics about page views, unique users or sales volume. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
It seems to me that this “Silk Road” initiative is an attempt by the Chinese to put infrastructure in place in neighboring countries so that they become more dependent on Chinese trade and thus can be more easily controlled by Beijing:
China has told North Korea that its ambitious Silk Road project aimed at reviving the ancient trade route between Asia and Europe would bring a “historic” opportunity to advance bilateral cooperation between the two nations.
The Chinese ambassador to North Korea, Li Jinjun, made the remarks at a meeting with the North’s Vice Foreign Minister Ri Gil-song on Monday, the Chinese Embassy in Pyongyang said in a statement.
It was the second time in less than two weeks that the Chinese ambassador publicly briefed North Korea on Beijing’s Silk Road project.
With a US$40 billion fund, China has aggressively pushed for the so-called “One Belt, One Road” initiative aimed at building ports, expressways, railways and other infrastructure with its neighboring countries.
“China is pushing ahead with the ‘Belt and Road’ initiative that will bring new and historic opportunities for bilateral and regional cooperation,” the Chinese ambassador was quoted as telling the North Korean official.
On April 23, the Chinese ambassador met North Korea’s Minister of Foreign Trade, Ri Ryong-nam, and expressed hope for the North to join the Silk Road project. [Yonhap]
Maybe they are spies or are just making a false confession under duress, but the fact that the North Koreans are publicizing this shows that they want to use them as bargaining chips in future negotiations:
Two South Koreans detained in North Korea told CNN on Sunday that they spied for South Korea.
South Korea has flatly rejected the accusations and urged Pyongyang to release them.
The interviews came after North Korea announced on Saturday that it arrested a South Korean student studying in the U.S. on charges of illegal entry into the country, the fourth South Korean citizen detained in the North.
South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook has been held there since October 2013.
Sunday’s interviews as well as the new detention could be an attempt by Pyongyang to pressure South Korea to shift its policy toward the communist nation. The North could also use the detainees as a negotiating chip should inter-Korean talks reopen.
When announcing last month the arrest of the two CNN interviewees — Kim Kuk-gi and Choe Chun-gil — North Korea accused them of working as spies for South Korea’s main intelligence agency National Intelligence Service (NIS), branding them “heinous terrorists.”
In Sunday’s interviews, both Kim, 61, and Choe, 56, admitted to the charges against them and said they would accept any punishment the North Korean government decided. North Korean minders were present during the interviews, CNN said. [Yonhap]
Without high resolution imagery I don’t think this image is a smoking gun in regards to reported mass executions in North Korea. For all we know these could just be wooden targets they put up for training purposes:
A U.S. civic group has released satellite images of North Korea that appear to show a public execution.
Radio Free Asia reported Thursday that the Washington-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea published an analysis of photos taken last October from above a military training area near Pyongyang.
Analysts identified six anti-aircraft machineguns lined up across from some blurry objects, with distinct shadows that appear to be people, also lined up side-by-side on a firing range.
Whatever or whoever was in the images was no longer there in another picture taken nine days later.
The committee says the most plausible explanation is that a public execution took place there. [Chosun Ilbo]
Whether or not he illegally entered North Korea doesn’t matter to me because this is the chance anyone visiting North Korea takes for going there in the first place:
South Korea confirmed on Sunday that North Korea detained a South Korean student of New York University, but said it was still unclear whether the 21-year-old New Jersey resident attempted to enter the North illegally.
An official from South Korea’s Unification Ministry, which handles affairs with North Korea, said his department was still trying to gather information on Won Moon Joo’s travels and the circumstances of his arrest.
“Our judgment is that Joo is being held in North Korea, but we are still trying to confirm the details of how he got arrested,” he said on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that Joo was arrested on April 22 after trying to illegally enter North Korea by crossing the Amnok River from the Chinese border town of Dandong. [Associated Press]
It looks like Kim Jong-un got cold feet and decided not to travel to Russia after all:
South Korea sees no abnormal signs in North Korea which might have caused its leader, Kim Jong-un, to cancel his planned trip to Russia next week, a Defense Ministry official said Friday.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that the North Korean leader will not visit Moscow for a celebration to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, saying that the decision “is related to internal Korean affairs.”
South Korean and Russian officials had expected the leader of the reclusive nation to attend a military parade and hold a bilateral meeting with Putin. It would have been his first foreign trip since taking office in 2011 upon the death of his father, Kim Jong-il.
“We don’t believe that any notable internal affairs are taking place in North Korea (that are) serious enough to cause Kim not to attend the event,” the official said, requesting anonymity. [Korea Times]
You can read the rest at the link, but experts think that Kim Jong-un decided not to go because he is not ready to share the stage with many other national leaders.
