Tag: North Korea

I agree that there is definitely something going on in North Korea to have implemented this travel ban:

The North Korean capital has been placed under lockdown, according to sources with Pyongyang, raising new questions about the stability of Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Quoting sources within North Korea, the respected New Focus International news web site has reported that a ban on new travel passes to leave or enter Pyongyang was introduced on September 27.

And while the North Korean authorities have in the past limited access to the capital, the latest restrictions even apply to permanent residents of Pyongyang, who are by definition the elite of the regime.

“This sort of action suggests there has either been an attempted coup or that the authorities there have uncovered some sort of plot against the leadership,” Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University and an authority on North Korean affairs, told The Telegraph. (The Telegraph)

You can read more at the link but this news if true definitely makes the visit by North Korea’s 2nd most powerful leader this week to South Korea more interesting.

I would be surprised if much comes out of this unless there is more going on within North Korea that we do not know about since Kim Jong-un has dropped out of sight the last month:

North Korea’s presumptive No. 2 led members of Pyongyang’s inner circle in a rare trip Saturday to South Korea for the close of the Asian Games, with the rivals holding their highest level face-to-face talks in five years.

After months of tensions, including a steady stream of insults between the divided neighbors and an unusual number of North Korean missile and rocket test firings, expectations for any breakthrough weren’t high, but even the visit itself was significant, allowing valuable contact between confidants of North Korea’s authoritarian leader and Seoul’s senior official for North Korean affairs.

The North Korean delegation to the games in Incheon was led by Hwang Pyong So, the top political officer for the Korean People’s Army and considered by outside analysts to be the country’s second most important official after supreme leader Kim Jong Un. Hwang is also a vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission led by Kim and a vice marshal of the army.

The visit comes as rumors swirl in the South about the health of Kim, who has made no public appearances since Sept. 3 and skipped a high-profile recent event he usually attends. A recent official documentary showed footage from August of him limping and overweight and mentioned his ”discomfort.”  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

I would not be surprised if there are undiscovered invasion tunnels South of the DMZ, but I find it hard to believe that the North Koreans could have dug a tunnel underneath the Imjim River that reached all the way to Seoul:

Gen. Hahn Sung-Chu never believed North Korea could dig a tunnel that reached Seoul — until now.

Standing inside a basement of an apartment block in the heart of the capital, the former two-star general in the South Korean military says, “This is a kind of invasion, North Korean soldiers working underneath us.”

Hahn says residents had complained of underground vibrations, but the subway does not run beneath them.

He says dowsers detected three tunnels, 13 to 16 feet (4 to 5 meters) wide at a depth of up to 39 feet (12 meters). His team drilled two bore holes to lower a camera, but before they could, they detected two underground explosions and their drill holes were blocked. Hahn is certain that North Korean soldiers were working beneath their feet, protecting the tunnel. [CNN]

You can read the rest at the link, but I don’t think the North Koreans need to dig a tunnel to Seoul to infiltrate a brigade in case of hostilities.  Isn’t that what the KCTU is for?

With the Asian Games soon to be over is this a sign that the North Koreans plan to begin another provocation cycle in the coming months based on a rocket launch at this upgraded launch facility?:

New satellite imagery suggests North Korea has completed the upgrade of a launch site in its northwest that will allow it to launch much bigger rockets than the long-range projectile it fired from the base two years ago.

In a report featuring satellite photos of North Korea’s Sohae launch site, about 50 miles northwest of Pyongyang, 38 North, the website of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, said construction appeared to have ended after a yearlong revamp.

“Should a decision be made soon to do so in Pyongyang—and we have no evidence that one has—a rocket could be launched by the end of 2014,” the report said.

North Korea in December 2012 launched a long-range rocket called Unha-3 from the site that put a satellite into space. Other countries, including the U.S. and its Asian allies, viewed the launch as a test of long-range missile technology.  [Wall Street Journal]

You can read more at the link.

Just another example of what a fiasco the Asian Games being held in Incheon has become:

But while touting their own victories, North Korea’s coverage of the games has made virtually no mention of the other 44 countries participating, the fact that South Korea trails only China in medals won, and has far more than the North, or, more politically tricky, the setting of the games south of the Demilitarized Zone.

In sharp contrast, the South’s media, while duly reporting the results of each event and heralding their own team’s achievements, have been quick to find fault with the Incheon organizers, and to lament how the games have failed to generate much interest, let alone inspire their nation.

In particular, they have pointed out that empty seats — never a problem at major televised events in the North — have been visible in almost every games venue.

But they have also noted another reason why Pyongyang might want to dance with joy — South Korea’s taxpayers may well end up footing the bill for the North’s propaganda coup.

According to South Korea’s Yonhap news, Seoul is prepared to pay as much as 1 billion won ($940,000) to cover the North’s rental of satellite broadcast equipment, worth around 400 million won, and the cost of their delegation’s stay at the athletes’ village.  [Associated Press]

You can read the rest at the link.

Growth of NK tourism continues: New air routes delivering Chinese tourists to Pyongyang confirmed http://t.co/mWelrhFCeG

— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) October 1, 2014

"Is it you comrade?" – North Korea issues a guide to mobile phone etiquette. #NewsFromElsewhere http://t.co/1pMuRaYpiz via @BBCMonitoring

— Groove Korea (@groovekorea) October 1, 2014

Considering that last year the North Korean government spent a lot of money renovating a Korean War cemetery honoring North Korean veterans of the Korean War; I would not be surprised if the Chinese leadership were unhappy that their cemetery did not receive the same treatment:

North Korea has begun renovation work on a cemetery in the North’s capital for Chinese soldiers who were killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, China’s state media reported Tuesday.

China’s ambassador to North Korea, Liu Hongcai, attended a ceremony in Pyongyang to celebrate the start of renovation work, the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, reported on its website. [Yonhap]

So does anyone expect anything to come of this?

North Korea says it is willing to cooperate with the U.N. and other international organizations on human rights, but is bristling at what it views as politicization of the issue by its arch enemy, the United States.

In February, a U.N. commission of inquiry concluded there was evidence of crimes against humanity by North Korea’s authoritarian government. Washington this week called on Pyongyang to shut its “evil system” of prison camps.

Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong did not directly address the findings of the commission, which Pyongyang has refused to cooperate with.

Ri accused the U.S. of “abusing” the human rights issue for political purposes.

He told the U.N. General Assembly on Saturday that North Korea is willing to cooperate on the issue with countries that aren’t hostile to it. (Associated Press)

North Korea has decided to play the delay game in regards to the report on abductions they promised to deliver to the Japanese:

North Korea will not announce the preliminary report on its probe into the fate of more than a dozen Japanese nationals it has admitted to kidnapping decades ago when it holds a new round of talks with Japan next week, an envoy from the communist country said Saturday.

Song Il-ho, the North Korean ambassador for normalization talks with Japan, made the remarks as he arrived in China’s northern city of Shenyang earlier in the day for talks with Junichi Ihara, head of the Japanese foreign ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau.

The Monday talks between Song and Ihara come after North Korea failed to produce its first report on its probe into the abduction issue, causing Japan to complain about the slow pace of the investigation. In May, Pyongyang agreed to re-investigate the abductions and, in return, Tokyo lifted some of its sanctions imposed on the North over its missile and nuclear programs. [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but this is a classic North Korean negotiation tactic to make promises in exchange for something they want.  Once they get what they want which in this case was the easing of Japanese sanctions they then renege on the promise for some made up reason in hopes of receiving more of what they want for little to nothing in return.