Tag: North Korea

The headline of this article is how 14 North Korean airman died during the unsuccessful 2009 rocket launch:

North Korea revealed Tuesday it lost 14 airmen while launching a long-range rocket in 2009, in a report on an inspection by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, of a related military unit Monday.

Kim looked around a monument to honor the “stalwart fighters, who displayed the suicidal-attack spirit” at Unit 447 of the Air and Anti-Air Force, reported the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The monument commemorates the “heroic feats performed by the 14 fighter pilots in the operation to ensure the successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong-2,” said the KCNA. It did not specify how they died.

In April 2009, Kim observed the launch of the rocket, which Pyongyang claims was aimed at sending a satellite into orbit, along with his father and then-leader Kim Jong-il. The launch was unsuccessful.

Kim praised Unit 447 as the “high pride” of the country.  [Korea Herald]

I can only guess how this many people died during a rocket launch.  Did the launch go off unexpectedly early and workers were still near the pad?  Who knows.  However what I found of the most interest is how Kim Jong-un is emphasizing tree planting:

He said the unit also needs to play a role in leading in his campaign for forest restoration, according to the KCNA.

He planted ginkgo and other types of trees himself during his so-called field guidance at the unit on Monday, which the KCNA called a significant tree-planting day.

This is actually something I would not mind the international community helping the North Koreans with.  Sending tree huggers international workers to help plant trees in North Korea would have huge environmental payoffs and over time would be one less thing the South Korean government would have to worry about when unification comes.  This seems like better engagement with North Korea than giving free food to their military or free money to the regime to buy luxury items.

North Korea’s war on fish continues in the East Sea:

North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and vowed “merciless” retaliation Monday as the US and South Korea kicked off joint military drills denounced by Pyongyang as recklessly confrontational.

The annual exercises always trigger a surge in military tensions and warlike rhetoric on the divided peninsula, and analysts saw the North’s missile tests as a prelude to a concerted campaign of sabre-rattling.

“If there is a particularly sharp escalation, we could see the North orchestrating some kind of clash on the maritime border,” said Jeung Young-Tae, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but the Yellow Sea has been quiet for a while now so it would not be too shocking if they try something over there next.

This is an example of why I have always believed that when these ships are caught smuggling prohibited goods they should not be returned to North Korea because they are masters at building front companies to do their dirty business with.  If the ships were auctioned off after seizure there would at least be a steep financial cost on the regime for violating sanctions:

A North Korean shipping company that famously tried to hide fighter jets under a cargo of sugar later sought to evade U.N. sanctions by renaming most of its vessels, a new report says.

The effort by Pyongyang-headquartered Ocean Maritime Management Company, Ltd. is detailed in the report by a panel of experts that monitors sanctions on North Korea. The report, obtained by The Associated Press, makes clear the challenge of keeping banned arms and luxury goods from a nuclear-armed country with a history of using front companies to duck detection.

The U.N. Security Council holds consultations Thursday on the report, which also says North Korea’s government persists with its nuclear and missile programs in defiance of council resolutions.

North Korea’s mission to the U.N. did not respond to a request for comment.

The council last year imposed sanctions on OMM after Panama in 2013 seized a ship it operated that carried undeclared military equipment from Cuba. Panamanian authorities found two Cuban fighter jets, missiles and live munitions beneath the Chong Chon Gang’s cargo of sugar.

The council’s sanctions committee said that violated a U.N. arms embargo imposed in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. At the time, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said that imposing a global asset freeze on OMM meant that the company would no longer be able to operate internationally.

But the new report says that in the months after the sanctions were imposed, 13 of the 14 ships controlled by OMM changed their owners and managers, “effectively erasing” the company from a database kept by the International Maritime Organization. Twelve of the ships “reportedly stayed, visited or were sighted near ports in foreign countries,” and none were frozen by member states as the panel of experts recommends.

The new report explores the shipping company’s global reach, using people and entities operating in at least 10 countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Greece, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, Singapore and Thailand. The report recommends updating the sanctions list with 34 OMM entities and says all 14 vessels should be subject to sanctions.

No interdictions of the kind that Panama made in 2013 were reported in the period between Feb. 8 of last year and Feb. 5 of this year. But the new report warns that the panel of experts sees no evidence that North Korea “intends to cease prohibited activities.”  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

It wasn’t so much the trip, but the gifts Rodman gave to Kim Jong-un that violated UN sanctions:

US negotiators are talking tough with North Korea which is better than appeasement, but still there has been nothing that has changed significantly that in my opinion would cause the North Koreans to change course on their nuclear and missile programs:

North Korea is trying to follow Pakistan’s example in the hope of winning recognition as a nuclear state, but such a situation will never happen, U.S. Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said Friday.

Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank, Sherman also said that the communist nation cannot obtain the security, prosperity or respect it wants “without negotiating an end to its provocative nuclear and missile program.”

“They see in Pakistan, a country whose nuclear program was first protested, then accepted, and hope to follow that example, which also isn’t going to happen,” Sherman said.

North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Earlier this week, the U.S. raised an alarm with a projection that the North’s nuclear arsenal could expand from 10 to 16 nuclear weapons now to up to 100 in five years.

Sherman said diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang keeps mounting, including U.S. President Barack Obama’s executive order authorizing fresh sanctions on the regime early this year, China’s firm opposition to the North’s nuclear program, and the U.N. Security Council’s first-ever review of the North’s human rights record.

“They are apparently under the illusion that the best way to conceal a weak hand is with a clenched fist,” Sherman said. “Despite its bluster, the North’s strategy has failed utterly. Instead of gaining acceptance, the country is increasingly isolated.”  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

North Korea steps up threats over drills; US Congress advances sanctions bill http://t.co/yRNMZWzJ7c

— South Korea Daily (@SouthKoreaDaily) February 27, 2015

You have to hand it to the North Koreans for being creative here and showing how to take money from people and then claim it to be a Social Security program like we do here in the US:

North Korea has notified South Korea of its unilateral decision to raise the minimum wage for its workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex by 5.18 percent, the unification ministry said Thursday.

In a fax message sent Tuesday, the North said it would increase the minimum wage from $70.35 to $74 starting on March 1, a ministry official told reporters.

In addition, the North announced that it would collect 15 percent of their basic wage plus overtime payments as “social security,” he said. Currently, the South’s firms pay 15 percent of the basic wage alone.

The North Korean workers’ average wage amounted to $141.4 per month in 2014, according to the ministry’s data.

Under Pyongyang’s plan, South Korean firms will have to pay $164 on average for a North Korean worker a month, up 5.53 percent from the current $155, said the official.

He stressed that the South’s government can’t accept the North’s move.

“The two sides are supposed to set wages for workers at the complex and other working conditions through mutual consultations,” he said. “The government will advise our firms to pay the current level of wages until the issue is settled through consultations between the related authorities of the two sides.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Some people are thinking just that:

U.S. defense authorities are said to be concerned about the possibility of North Korean provocations during joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises beginning next month. Following the North’s anti-ship missile drills last week, Washington is not ruling out the possibility that Pyongyang could fire some of its new missiles to raise tension during the annual exercises in the South.
Our Bae Joo-yon has more.

Report: Diplomatic sources in Washington said Monday that U.S. defense authorities are concerned about possible localized provocations by North Korea during South Korean and U.S.’ military exercises next month.

Concerns emerged as North Korea test-fired a new high-precision anti-ship rocket in the East Sea in early February. And weeks later, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un staged a massive military exercise, firing again what it called new and cutting-edge anti-ship missiles.

During the highly publicized drill last week, the North Korean military simulated an attack and landing on South Korean islands in the Yellow Sea.

Experts like Thomas Karako of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) assessed earlier this month that the new battery indeed appears to be a more advanced weapon.  [KBS World]

You can read more at the link, but one of the theories the CSIS is throwing around is that the anti-ship missile could be tested during the exercise in the highly contested western maritime border area.

Mongolia will ship 25,000 tons of coal to North Korea’s Rajin port: http://t.co/A16xo7gPDb

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) February 25, 2015

NSA chief says Sony attack traced to North Korea http://t.co/OPUbo9JjLe via @thomsonreuters

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) February 21, 2015