Tag: North Korea

Just in case anyone cares it was recently Kim Il-sung Day in North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un paid homage to his late grandfather as the country celebrated his 103rd birthday. Military and party executives and ordinary citizens vowed loyalty to the country and dozens of cannon salutes were unleashed.

At midnight, flowers were laid before the embalmed bodies of national founder Kim Il-sung and his son Kim Jong-il at the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun to mark the “Day of the Sun,” according to the official Korean Central News Agency.

The participants “consolidated their pledge to actively contribute to building as soon as possible a rich, powerful and thriving paradise of the people, an unparalleled strong country,” the agency said.   [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link, but for how long now has the Kim regime been promising to building a powerful and rich country?

I wonder if the Iranians were using this shipment as a way to test US willingness to strike a deal?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, right, welcomes North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong, for a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014

North Korea supplied several shipments of missile components to Iran during recent nuclear talks and the transfers appear to violate United Nations sanctions on both countries, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

Since September more than two shipments of missile parts have been monitored by U.S. intelligence agencies as they transited from North Korea to Iran, said officials familiar with intelligence reports who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Details of the arms shipments were included in President Obama’s daily intelligence briefings and officials suggested information about the transfers was kept secret from the United Nations, which is in charge of monitoring sanctions violations.

Critics of the U.S.-led nuclear framework agreement reached in Switzerland earlier this month have said one major deficiency of the accord is its failure to address Iran’s missile program, considered a key nuclear delivery system for the Islamist regime.  [The Washington Free Beachon]

You can read the rest at the link, but if the Iranians saw that the US was allowing this ship to travel to Iran unmolested then that may have been a sign to the regime that the US was eager to cut a deal and overlook obvious sanctions violations. Anyone else have any other theories on the timing of this shipment?

A foreign runner is cheered by North Korean spectators during an annual marathon in Pyongyang on April 12, 2015, in this photo released by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. The marathon, which drew about 650 foreigners, was held as one of the events marking the 103rd birth anniversary of North Korea’s founder Kim Il-sung, which falls on April 15. (Yonhap)

So who thinks the North Koreans would actually being doing us all a favor if they detained these people?:

The United States on Monday reiterated a warning against traveling to North Korea as dozens of American and other activists plan to walk across the heavily fortified inter-Korean border in an effort to promote peace on the divided peninsula.

About 30 female activists from around the world, including American activist Gloria Steinem and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire from Ireland, plan to march from North Korea to the South via the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that bisects the two Koreas to mark the May 24 International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament.

They say they hope to help unite Korean families separated by the border, reduce military tensions between the two Koreas, and help ultimately end the Korean War by replacing the 1953 Armistice Agreement with a permanent peace treaty.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the North Koreans won’t detain these people because they are useful idiots for the Kim regime.  As usual these people justify their actions by saying they are trying to promote peace.  It looks to me like they are more concerned about promoting themselves.

Should someone who willing goes into North Korea and does something stupid be considered a hostage?

A U.S. House lawmaker has introduced a bill that appoints a federal officer charged with overseeing efforts to win the release of American citizens held by hostile groups and rogue states like North Korea.

The Hostage Recovery Improvement Act (H.R.1498), introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) late last month with support from 11 co-sponsors, calls for the president to designate “an existing federal officer to coordinate efforts to secure the release of U.S. citizens who are hostages of hostile groups or state sponsors of terrorism.”

The “Interagency Hostage Recovery Coordinator” should be named within 60 days after the bill’s enactment.

While defining the term “state sponsors of terrorism,” the bill singled out North Korea as a country that should be considered a terrorism sponsor nation under the act, even though the communist nation is no longer on the State Department’s list of states sponsoring terrorism.

U.S. citizens have often been detained in North Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

This wasn’t the typical way to premiere a film in a new country, but for North Korea this will have to do:

“The Interview” is headed to North Korea, but don’t expect it in Pyongyang theaters anytime soon.

CNN has reported that North Korean defector Lee Min-bok has been launching balloons filled with DVDs of the Hollywood comedy toward the Demilitarized Zone.

Lee described the movie as vulgar and not particularly funny. However, its cinematic quality isn’t the point, Lee told CNN.

“The regime hates this film because it shows Kim Jong-un as a man, not a god,” Lee said to CNN. “He cries and is afraid like us and then he’s assassinated.”

Lee launched the most recent batch of 80,000 DVDs, dollar bills and political leaflets – his fourth such launch – in the middle of the night Saturday near the Korean border, after checking wind speed and direction.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link, but previously North Korea has made a number of threats against refugee activists to try and stop them from launching these balloons.

It looks like the North Koreans are trying to make these planes a little bit harder to spot:

North Korea has changed the camouflage colors for the AN-2 low-altitude infiltration aircraft. The belly is now sky blue, the same color as a drone that crashed on Baeknyeong Island last year, and the upper body a pattern of dark green, pale green and red, according to analysis of a South Korean military intelligence agency.

The North has about 300 of the planes.

“The North’s unveiling of the new AN-2 last Wednesday is an apparent threat to infiltrate the South with aircraft carrying special troops,” a military officer here said Sunday.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Who knows in regards to the accuracy of this report, but there is probably a grain of truth to the report:

North Korean authorities are apparently recruiting fresh members of the so-called “pleasure squad” of female entertainers for leader Kim Jong-un after disbanding the group that used to entertain his father.

One source said officials fired the women who used to work at Kim Jong-il’s summer villas. They are currently staying at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang undergoing security training.

The women were apparently made to sign a pledge of secrecy in return for money and gifts.

Women who worked as maids got US$2,000 and home appliances and entertainers double that amount.

Kim junior apparently shunned the summer villas before he came to power but developed a taste for them and the pliable maidens that come with them when he was being treated for gout last year.  [Chosun Ilbo]

It looks like the North Koreans are up to no good off the coast of Mexico:

North Korea on Wednesday said Mexico has “forcibly detained” one of its ships months after it ran aground off Mexico’s Gulf coast last year, and Pyongyang blames the United States for making sure the ship is not released.

 North Korea’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N. told reporters that his country will take unspecified “necessary measures to make the ship leave immediately.”

An Myong Hun said the Mu Du Bong is strictly a commercial ship and that more than 50 crew remain on board.

A U.N. panel, however, has reported that the ship is controlled by a company that has tried to evade U.N. sanctions imposed in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

The panel’s recent report says the Pyongyang-based Ocean Maritime Management Co. has simply renamed most of its vessels to avoid detection. Nuclear-armed North Korea has a history of using front companies for that purpose.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link, but the article does not say what the ship was transporting.  The ship was coming from Cuba so it probably had sugar in it maybe hiding illicit cargo like the ship the Panamanians detained in 2013.  I have always believed that these ships that these sanctioned ships should be auctioned off instead of given back to the North Koreans.  That would actually significantly hit the Kim regime in the pocketbook.

You can read more at NK News that believes the intent of this ship was simply to test the UN sanctions put in place after what happened with the prior ship in 2013.

How North Koreans ads in western newspapers backfired.