Tag: North Korea

I wonder if these sanctions will actually do anything or are they just for show because wouldn’t China have to enforce them?:

The U.S. on Thursday imposed sanctions on a North Korean husband and wife living in Beijing accused of helping to procure equipment for ballistic missiles that ended up in the hands of North Korean and Iranian customers.

Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Choe Chol Min and his wife Choe Un Jong work through North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, a state organization that conducts research for the nation’s ballistics missiles program, to help procure equipment for buyers.

Treasury says Choe Chol Min worked with North Korean weapons trading officials to buy equipment for Iranian customers. His wife is accused of coordinating at least one order for dual-use bearings that are used in North Korean ballistic missile production.

The isolated Asian nation uses a network of representatives in foreign countries, including China and Iran, to illegally import restricted materials used to create ballistic missiles and other weapons in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, Treasury said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Remember this criticism is occurring in the English language North Korean state media. I have seen no indications that the domestic media is sharing this sentiment in North Korea. I doubt the North Korean public even knows of the failed launch:

North Korea called its failed attempt to launch a purported military reconnaissance satellite the “most serious” shortcoming in the first half of this year and reaffirmed its pledge to put it into orbit soon, Pyongyang’s state media said Monday.

The North made the assessment following a plenary meeting of the 8th Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, attended by leader Kim Jong-un, that wrapped up the previous day, referring to its botched attempt to launch a rocket carrying a military spy satellite on May 31.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this interesting article from the BBC where they secretly interview three North Koreans about life under the Kim Jong-un regime:

Under the tyrannical rule of Kim Jong Un, North Koreans are forbidden from making contact with the outside world. With the help of the organisation Daily NK, which operates a network of sources inside the country, the BBC has been able to communicate with three ordinary people. They are eager to tell the world about the catastrophic toll the border closure has taken on their lives. They understand if the government discovers they are talking to us, they would likely be killed. To protect them, we can only reveal some of what they have told us, yet their experiences offer an exclusive snapshot of the situation unfolding inside North Korea.

BBC

According to one of the North Koreans interviewed the food situation has gotten very bad due to the sealing of the border with China because of COVID:

“Our food situation has never been this bad,” Myong Suk tells us. (….)

Now when her husband and children wake, she prepares them a breakfast of corn. Gone are the days they could eat plain rice. Her hungry neighbours have started knocking at the door asking for food, but she has to turn them away.  

“We are living on the front line of life,” she says.

Here is what another North Korean had to say about the food situation:

At first Chan Ho was afraid he might die from Covid, but as time went on, he began to worry about starving to death, especially as he watched those around him die. 

The first family in his village to succumb to starvation was a mother and her children. She had become too sick to work. Her children kept her alive for as long as they could by begging for food, but in the end all three died. Next came a mother who was sentenced to hard labour for violating quarantine rules. She and her son starved to death. 

More recently, one of his acquaintance’s sons was released from the military because he was malnourished. Chan Ho remembers his face suddenly bloating. Within a week he had died. 

You can read much more at the link, but the interviewees say that COVID is being used as an excuse to crackdown on the people and stop cross border trade with China and defections to South Korea. It is apparently working because people are starving and many of those that attempt to escape now are publicly executed. Here is the final comments from the article:

Chan Ho blames the international community. “The US and UN seem half-witted,” he says, questioning why they still offer to negotiate with Kim Jong Un, when it is so clear he will not give up his weapons. Instead, the construction worker wishes the US would attack his country.  

“Only with a war, and by getting rid of the entire leadership, can we survive,” he says. “Let’s end this one way or another.” 

Myong Suk agrees. “If there was a war, people would turn their backs on our government,” she says. “That’s the reality.” 

The problem is no one wants a war with North Korea to save starving people at the cost of destroying Seoul and possibly causing a greater regional war. Thus these poor North Koreans are stuck starving while their leader Kim Jong-un and his family get fatter and fatter.

I people are wondering why Japan is growing their military capabilities this is just another example why:

North Korea sent at least two ballistic missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in waters off Ishikawa Prefecture on Thursday, the Defense Ministry in Tokyo said, further ramping up tensions after a failed satellite launch last month.

Both missiles splashed down some 250 kilometers northwest of Ishikawa’s Hegura Island, traveling about 850 km and 900 km, respectively, Parliamentary Vice Minister of Defense Kimi Onoda told reporters, adding that there had not been any reports of damage to aircraft or ships.

Onoda called the launches into Japan’s EEZ, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its coast, “absolutely unacceptable” and “a serious matter concerning the safety of residents of the country.”

The launches were the first to land in Japan’s EEZ since mid-February.

Japan Times

The North Koreans are claiming the launches were in response to joint US and ROK live fire exercises:

The allies ended the fifth and last round of the Combined Joint Live-Fire Exercise, the first of its kind in six years, at the Seungjin Fire Training Field in Pocheon, just 25 kilometers south of the inter-Korean border, on Thursday to mark the 70th anniversary of the bilateral alliance.

More than 610 military assets were mobilized for the drills, including F-35A fighters and K9 self-propelled howitzers from the South Korean side, and F-16 fighter jets and Gray Eagle drones from the U.S. side.

The North’s defense ministry accused the allies of escalating tensions, saying the drills warrant its “inevitable” response.

“Our army strongly denounces the provocative and irresponsible moves of the puppet military authorities escalating the military tension in the region despite its repeated warnings and warns them solemnly,” the spokesperson said in the statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Good luck trying to get any reimbursement from North Korea with this lawsuit:

South Korea’s unification ministry said Wednesday it lodged a damages suit against North Korea over Pyongyang’s 2020 demolition of an inter-Korean liaison office in the North’s border city of Kaesong.

The government filed the lawsuit with the Seoul Central District Court against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea over 44.7 billion won (US$35 million) in damage incurred on the South’s state properties, according to the ministry.

On June 16, 2020, the North blew up the joint liaison office in Kaesong in anger over Seoul’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

It marked the first time that the South Korean government has sued North Korea.

The legal action came as the statute of limitations for damages to property related to the case is set to expire Friday. Under the civil law, the statute of limitations for the right to claim compensations for damages runs out three years after damage occurs.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This shouldn’t be too surprising because it will likely be months before North Korea’s scientists are able to asses the data and repair whatever went wrong with their previous space launch. Additionally they likely have to build another satellite to put on top of the rocket:

The office of President Yoon Suk Yeol said Sunday it is not letting its guard down even though the window for North Korea’s satellite launch has expired, as the country can go ahead with a launch at any time.

North Korea had set a period between the start of May 31 and the start of June 11 as the window for a satellite-carrying space rocket launch. The country fired the rocket on the first day of the window, but the launch ended in failure with the rocket crashing in the Yellow Sea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It makes me wonder if their were marital difficulties and the wife defected knowing what the consequences for her husband would be:

Authorities in Vladivostok, a port city in the far eastern region of Russia, have launched an investigation into the disappearance of two North Koreans, Russian news outlets reported Tuesday.

The missing North Koreans are believed to be wife and son of an official working at the North Korean consulate general there, according to the Arguments & Facts weekly owned by the Government of Moscow.

The two — 43-year-old Kim Kum-sun and 15-year-old Park Kwon-ju — were last seen leaving the North Korean consulate general office in Vladivostok on Sunday morning and have been unaccounted for since, the report said.

The report said the cab driver who picked them up outside the consulate general office told authorities he dropped them off near a building on the city’s Russkaya Street, which was confirmed by closed-circuit TV footage.

The investigation was opened following a missing person report filed by the North Korean consul general office.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.