Tag: North Korea

Here is the latest purge in North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un executed an army general last month in his latest purge of senior officials.

General Pyon In Son, head of operations in the Korean People’s Army, was killed for expressing an opinion different to that of Kim, a South Korean official told reporters in Seoul on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity as per government policy. The official didn’t say what they disagreed on.

Kim still mistrusts the military, the official said, adding that senior officers are growing increasingly uneasy. The “Supreme Leader” also removed Ma Won Chun, a National Defense Commission official overseeing construction design, from office in November for alleged corruption and a failure to follow orders.

Kim has relied on purges to consolidate his grip on power since he took over a country with a nuclear arms program and 1.2 million troops in 2011. After killing his uncle and one-time deputy Jang Song Thaek in 2013, he executed about 50 officials last year on charges ranging from graft to watching South Korean soap operas.

“The purge of Pyon sends a message that helps to discipline the military,” said Kim Yong Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul. “The execution is a symbol that will help tighten loyalty.”  [Bloomberg]

You can read more at the link, but it seems at some point if these purges continue the top brass in North Korea are not going to stand for it.

Instead of complaining to the ROKs maybe the Chinese should get their own house in order by getting the North Koreans to quit making threats against South Korea which is why THAAD is reportedly being considered for deployment to South Korea in the first place:

China’s defense minister expressed concern Wednesday over a possible deployment of the United States’ advanced missile-defense (MD) system in South Korea, Seoul’s defense ministry said.

The U.S. has said it is considering deploying a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery, an integral part of its MD system, to South Korea, citing evolving threats from North Korea. It is designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles at a higher altitude in their terminal phase using a hit-to-kill method.

“Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan expressed concern over the possible THAAD deployment on the Korean Peninsula,” defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told reporters, without further elaboration.

Chang made the remark to his South Korean counterpart Han Min-koo during a two-hour defense ministers’ meeting in Seoul.

“In response, Minister Han reaffirmed Seoul’s stance that Washington has not made any decision on the matter and has not asked South Korea (for any consultation). No agreement between Seoul and Washington exists on the issue,” Kim noted, adding that the missile-defense system “aims to solely deter and counter missiles from North Korea.”

It is the first time that a ranking Chinese official has raised the THAAD issue to South Korea publicly. China and Russia view it as a threat to their security, and critics also say it is part of a broader U.S. attempt to get the Asian ally to join its missile-defense system and could spark tensions with the neighbors.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Here we go again:

North Korea on Wednesday ruled out resuming dialogue with the “gangster-like” United States, and vowed to respond to any US aggression with nuclear strikes and cyber warfare.

The bellicose statement from the country’s top military body, the National Defence Commission (NDC), came after reported moves by Washington and Pyongyang to revive long-stalled six-nation talks on denuclearisation.

It also preceded the start in early March of annual joint US-South Korea military exercises that always presage a sharp spike in military tensions and rhetoric on the divided peninsula.

The NDC statement was an apparent reaction to remarks Barack Obama made regarding the eventual collapse of the regime in North Korea, which the US president called the “most cut-off nation on Earth”.

The NDC statement, which labelled the Obama administration a mud-slinging “cesspool,” said the president’s comments amounted to a threat to engineer the country’s downfall.

“Since the gangster-like US imperialists are blaring that they will ‘bring down’ the DPRK (North Korea)… the army and people of the DPRK cannot but officially notify the Obama administration… that the DPRK has neither need nor willingness to sit at negotiating table with the US any longer,” the NDC said.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link, but at least they didn’t resort to racist and sexist statements in this latest verbal attack.

It is the cold winter months in North Korea, so how do all those millions of North Koreans living in poverty keep warm?:

South Korea may have just started to prepare for winter, but the North – sometimes referred to as the “frozen land” – is already a few months in.

Winds from Siberia can mean that temperatures can dip to -13C (8.5F) in the capital Pyongyang, which sees an average of 37 snowfall days a year.

North Koreans start gearing up for the winter months in early autumn, and a lack of sufficient heating facilities means the process keeps them busy, say defectors.

Outside of the centrally heated apartment complexes in Pyongyang, people must find, and stock, their own firewood and coal for the winter. But most of the mountains are bare, devoid of firewood, and recent tree-planting projects mean there are restrictions on cutting wood.

Coal is produced in the North but is exported to bring in foreign currency, hiking up domestic market prices: as the weather gets colder, prices climb. Defectors say that even if people are able to burn coal in their homes, poor ventilation can lead to fatalities.

The common testimony is that the state has failed to issue any counter-measures against cold weather, even when cold waves are expected, the authorities fail to issue orders informing and helping people to prepare.

Kim Yeong-mi , 47, who defected to South Korea in 2012, told Daily NK how people prepare:

What is the most important part of the winter preparations?

Without a doubt it’s getting enough fuel to burn. In the northern regions, people prepare firewood, and in the central areas, it’s more coal-focused. Even further south, I’ve heard some use straws from rice. I lived in the central regions, where there used to be rationed coal. Now there’s no such thing, you have to buy it. After August the market prices of coal start to creep up.

How do people heat their apartments?

Apartments in the countryside usually have fireplaces to burn coal. In Pyongyang they use hot water from thermoelectric power plants to heat apartments – using the traditional Korean floor heating system, ondol.

If power plants grind to a halt, you can’t get hot water. But if you don’t use the pipes they can freeze and burst, so people have no choice but to use cold water – which exacerbates the cold.  [The Guardian]

You can read the rest at the link, but it sounds like North Korea is basically living like South Koreans did up to the 1970’s.

Due to the famine of the 1990’s North Korea is now requiring all females after finishing high school to serve 5 years in the military:

North Korea is making military service mandatory for young women in a bid to strengthen the nation’s armed forces, sources inside the secretive state have told DailyNK.

The measure is said to apply to women aged between 17 and 20, and has been handed down to mobilisation offices in each province, city, and county. Implementation is reported to be already underway.

“Late last year, we received orders for all women who have graduated from middle and high school to undergo mandatory military service,” a source based in North Hamkyung Province told Daily NK this week.  [The Guardian]

You can read the rest at the link, but women have to serve 5 years and men still have to serve 10 years.

South Korean citizens look at North Korean artists’ paintings during an exhibition at Kintex in Goyang, north of Seoul, on Jan. 29, 2015. (Yonhap)

I think former ROK President Lee Myung-bak was right to squash any summit hopes with such outrageous demands as this from the North Koreans:

When former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung met with the late Kim Jong-il on North Korean soil in 2000, it was seen as a landmark event and a huge step towards possible reunification. Whatever optimism the meeting inspired, however, was quashed when it was revealed the South Korean administration secretly paid hundreds of millions of dollars to make the summit happen.

According to former South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, Pyongyang set even steeper demands for a summit when Lee began his own term, which ran from 2008-2013. In his memoir The Times of the President, which is set to be published next week, Lee writes that Pyongyang demanded $10 billion in cash and half a million tons of food as part of a deal for Lee to meet Kim Jong-il.

“The document looked like some sort of standardized ‘summit bill’ with its list of assistance we had to provide and the schedule written up,” Lee writes, according to excerpts obtained by Reuters.

The “conditions for a summit” included 400,000 tons of rice, 100,000 tons of corn and 300,000 tons of fertilizer. The $10 billion would go towards setting up a development bank.

Lee flat out refused. “We shouldn’t be haggling for a summit,” he wrote.  [KoreAm Journal]

You can read the rest at the link, but President Lee’s predecessor Roh Moo-hyun was able to get a summit with Kim Jong-il because he was actually paying the North Koreans more per year than what the ROK was contributing to the US-ROK alliance at the time.

North Korea may be importing these smartphones, but they are connected to North Korea’s internal Internet which still allows the regime to control what information the public can access:

North Korea’s smartphone imports from China surged to a record high last year, a sign of a growing number of people there being connected to the net, according to data released Friday.

North Korea brought in US$82.8 million worth of smartphones from China in 2014, almost double the amount recorded a year earlier, according to the Seoul-based Korea International Trade Association.

It marked the largest volume since 2007, when related data were introduced.

Imports of portable data-processing devices, including laptops, also jumped 16 percent on-year to $23 million in 2014 despite a 3-percent decline in the North’s overall imports from China in the year.

Around 10 percent of the communist nation’s 24-million residents reportedly use smartphones, with its 3G network run by Koryolink, a joint venture with an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom. [Yonhap]

People living on border areas with China have long been secretly using cell phones off of Chinese towers so maybe some of these smartphone buyers will be doing the same thing to access the Internet as well.

The Park Administration is still pushing forward with this plan to connect road and rails to North Korea:

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said Tuesday it will push forward a project this year to restore severed sections of inter-Korean railroads and highways.

The project was announced as part of the ministry’s 2015 agenda. It is also part of the Park Geun-hye administration’s ambitious proposal to operate trains from Seoul to cities in the North this summer in celebration of the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s colonial rule – but only if Pyongyang goes along.

Earlier this month, the Ministry of Unification unveiled a plan to restore the two Koreas’ western and eastern railways to operate trains this summer from Seoul to the North Korean cities of Rajin and Sinuiju. Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae has said the goal is to link the railways and have trains operating in time for the Aug. 15 Liberation Day.

While the Park government is optimistic that Pyongyang will accept the offer, North Korea has yet to even respond to the proposals. Despite the North’s silence, the Transport Ministry announced Tuesday it will push forward the project by restoring missing sections of railways and highways in the South to the inter-Korean border.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I see this ending two ways, either North Korea getting free roads and rails for little to nothing in return or a whole bunch of potential hostages whenever the North needs to manufacture a reason to keep some.

Kim Jong Un to Visit Indonesia Marking First Official Trip Abroad / Sputnik International – http://t.co/xfTuZRsYfc

— Zachary Keck (@ZacharyKeck) January 26, 2015