Tag: North Korea

The ROK has concluded that the North Koreans were trying to conduct a legitimate space launch with their rocket that crashed in the ocean back in May:

The salvaged wreckage of a North Korean space rocket is displayed on the deck of the ROKS Gwangyang at the Navy’s Second Fleet in Pyeongtaek, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, on June 16, 2023. (Pool photo) (Yonhap)

South Korea has retrieved a North Korean spy satellite wreckage and concluded it has “no military utility,” Seoul’s military said Wednesday, ending a 36-day operation to salvage the sunken debris of a failed North Korean space rocket launch in late May.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said that the military raised multiple key parts of the rocket and the satellite through the operation that began May 31 and ended earlier in the day.

South Korean and U.S. experts have conducted a detailed analysis of the wreckage and found that the salvaged satellite debris has no military utility, the JCS said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This was a pretty typical statement from the North Koreans on the 73rd anniversary of the Korean War:

North Korea fires a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile from the Sunan area in Pyongyang, in this file photo released by the Korean Central News Agency on Nov. 19, 2022, a day after the launch.

North Korea’s foreign ministry on Monday accused Seoul and Washington of pushing tensions to “the brink of a nuclear war” akin to the 1950-53 Korean War, saying it will continue to bolster its self-defensive capabilities.

In a research report released by the foreign ministry’s Institute for American Studies, North Korea likened the current military tensions in the region to the night before the outbreak of the Korean War as it slammed the United States and South Korea for their “delusional anti-communist military confrontation” and “rhetorical threats.”

“Such bellicose moves of the U.S. have pushed the military tensions on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia already plunged into an extremely unstable situation closer to the brink of a nuclear war,” the ministry said in the English-language report released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

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.