Via One Free Korea comes this news that the BBC may begin radio broadcasting into North Korea:
This is just asking for a caption contest!
The BBC is planning a new North Korea service to give the totalitarian state’s 25 million people an alternative to Kim Jong-un’s propaganda.
In a move that could plunge the corporation into confrontation with the North Korean dictator, the World Serviceis examining how to set up a special news channel that will get around Pyongyang’s ban on foreign media broadcasts.
The plan has echoes of Western broadcasts into the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries during the Cold War, when the BBC, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America all broadcasted to listeners behind the Iron Curtain.
However, it is likely to spark fury from Pyongyang’s volatile leadership, and could lead to the British embassy in Pyongyang being targeted for protests or being shut down altogether.
It could also put Britain in the firing line for North Korean-led cyberattacks, such as the one that targeted Sony Pictures last year over its film “The Interview”, which lampooned Kim Jong-un. [BBC]
You can read the rest at the link, but I have been a supporter of radio broadcasts into North Korea for years. Hopefully the BBC follows through with this, but according to One Free Korea they may be having second thoughts. So is the BBC being scared off by cyberattack threats?
Shown is a file photo of North Korea’s SA-5 ground-to-air missile at a military parade in Pyongyang on April 15, 2012. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on March 13, 2015 that North Korea had test-fired seven ground-to-air missiles into the East Sea the previous day in an apparent saber-rattling against the South Korean-U.S. joint military exercises, Key Resolve, which Pyongyang denounces as a rehearsal for invasion. (Yonhap)
It is going to be interesting to see what other dirt the ROK government digs up on Kim Ki-jong:
Kim Cheol-jun, lead investigator from the National Police Agency, gives a briefing on March 13, 2015, on the probe into Kim Ki-jong, the man who is suspected of attacking the top U.S. envoy last week. (Yonhap)
The suspected attacker of the top U.S. envoy in Seoul contacted a South Korean man previously convicted of spying for North Korea before carrying out the attack, police said Friday.
Kim Ki-jong was arrested last week on charges of slashing U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert on his face and wrist with a knife during a breakfast function in downtown Seoul. The attack left Lippert with wounds that required 80 stitches.
The 55-year-old faces charges of attempted murder, violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction. Police said they are planning to ask the prosecutors to take over the case later in the day.
Kim has said he was acting alone. But a special task force investigating the case said the 55-year-old contacted more than 30 people — including a former spy for North Korea and a key member of a pro-North Korea organization here — in the run-up to the incident.
Kim Cheol-jun, the lead investigator from the National Police Agency, said authorities are delving further into Kim’s phone and bank transaction records to find out whether any of them had been involved. (……….)
Police said they also believe the attack was premeditated. Kim’s Internet browsing history shows that he had looked up Lippert’s blog, his height and South Korea’s criminal law a day before the incident, according to authorities.
He also appeared to have had an intent to kill, police said. He reportedly said he brought a knife because his previous attempt to harm a Japanese ambassador to Seoul years ago failed. He also slashed Lippert at least twice, leaving deep gashes on his face and arm that required more than 80 stitches. [Yonhap]
I feel bad for the families effected by this, but once again these people only have themselves to blame for being detained and governments should not feel compelled to get them released when their own stupidity by traveling to North Korea in first place is the cause for what happened:
Canada’s government has confirmed that a Canadian pastor has been detained in North Korea, the man’s family said Thursday.
Canadian officials told the family that North Korea’s government confirmed the detention of Reverend Hyeon Soo Lim, said Lisa Pak, a spokeswoman for the family and the Light Korean Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Pak said Lim is facing charges but could not say what they are.
Pak said Lim was supposed to return from a humanitarian trip to North Korea more than a month ago. He has not been heard from since he travelled to North Korea on Jan. 31 as part of a regular humanitarian mission where he supports a nursing home, a nursery and an orphanage, she said. [Associated Press]
Like I said before when this plan was first hatched if the North Koreans allow this to happen there is some kind of propaganda value for them effectively making these people useful idiots for the Kim regime:
Organizers of WomenCrossDMZ.org, including lead coordinator Christine Ahn, left, and honorary co-chair Gloria Steinem, right, hold a UN press conference announcing plans fro rare walk. Photograph: Bebeto Matthews/AP
Gloria Steinem and 30 other women including two Nobel peace laureates have announced plans for a rare walk across the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to call for reunification.
The DMZ is the world’s most fortified border, with the two countries still technically at war. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers face off across the heavily mined zone.
Organizers of the effort called WomenCrossDMZ.org said on Wednesday they hope for 30 women to cross from North Korea to South Korea on May 24, which is International Women’s Day for Disarmament.
The walk also marks the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean Peninsula.
The women say they are still seeking approval from both countries and the United Nations. [The Guardian]
You can read more at the link, but why is there an International Women’s Day for Disarmament?
North Korea’s slave labor network has been operating for decades, but South Korea has no right to complain about it considering the near slave labor they are using at the Kaesong Industrial Complex:
A construction site in Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is one of 40 countries where North Korean laborers are dispatched to work and earn cash for the North Korean regime. UPI Photo/Norbert Schiller
North Korea’s massive network of slave laborers is kept under strict surveillance and in case of injury or death are cheated of their compensation by the North Korean state, a South Korean NGO said Tuesday.
The report, based on interviews with 20 North Korean defectors in South Korea, highlighted severe human rights violations and wage exploitation that occurred at work sites in a total of 40 different Asian and African countries, The Korea Times reported.
Poland was the sole European nation that allowed North Koreans to work within its borders. Seoul’s foreign ministry estimates 50,000 North Korean nationals work at state-sanctioned sites.
One North Korean defector testified how the North Korean state cheated a family of its benefits after a construction worker fell to his death from a building in Kuwait. Of the $160,400 in compensation, the family of the victim received only $2,000.
Defectors who worked at sites in Russia said for every $100 earned, $90 would go to the state.
These workers were forced to work 15 hours a day. Even as temperatures reached below freezing, one defector said they were only given “one thin uniform” The Korea Times reported. [UPI]
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) tours a nursing home for seniors in Pyongyang. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency reported it on March 6, 2015, without elaborating on the timing of the visit. Circled is Yo-jong, Kim’s younger sister. (KCNA-Yonhap)
I can understand the ROK government’s viewpoint on this, but if the activists do not get media attention for their activities then they will have a hard time receiving support to sustain their operations:
South Korea expressed concern Tuesday over civic groups’ plans to publicly send leaflets to North Korea, indicating that it will try to block them.
Days ago, a group of civic groups announced their plan to send anti-Pyongyang leaflets to North Korea on March 26, the fifth anniversary of the North’s torpedoing of a South Korean Navy ship in March 2010.
Civic groups involved in the leaflet campaign have often pre-announced their campaigns so their activities could draw media and social attention. Such campaigns intended to spread dissenting messages, however, often lead to wild indignation and military reaction from Pyongyang.
“Believing that spreading leaflets publicly is not right, the government has been urging prudent and wise decisions (from civic groups),” a unification ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity. “I think there needs to be expression of such a government stance through whatever means, including person-to-person contact.”
Still, scattering leaflets basically falls in the sphere of a constitutionally given right to free expression, which the government cannot regulate with force, the official said. [Yonhap]
Interesting article in the Diplomat which discusses what should be the trigger for the ROK to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea’s nuclear program?:
As North Korea continues to develop both nuclear weapons and the missile technology to carry them, pressure on South Korea to take preemptive military action will gradually rise. At some point, North Korea may have so many missiles and warheads that South Korea considers that capability to be an existential threat to its security. This is the greatest long-term risk to security and stability in Korea, arguably more destabilizing than a North Korean collapse. If North Korea does not arrest its nuclear and missile programs at a reasonably small, defensively-minded deterrent, then Southern elites will increasingly see those weapons as threats to Southern survival, not just tools of defense or gangsterish blackmail. [The Diplomat]
You can read the whole thing at the link, but the author makes an argument that at some point the ROK cannot allow the North Koreans to manufacture a huge stockpile of nuclear arms. Right now they have it is believed 5-10 nukes which is good enough for regime survival purposes, however what happens if they begin developing over 100 nukes? This would change the military balance of power on the peninsula towards North Korea because the ROK does not have the missile defenses to survive an attack from that many nuclear weapons not to mention the conventional artillery strikes they would launch.
I think the wild card in this is if the Chinese want that many nuclear weapons right on their doorstep or the threat of a war caused by a preemptive strike to stop their nuclear program.
