Tag: North Korea

North Korea is making it clear they are never going to come clean on Japanese abductees. This likely because the unaccounted for abductees provided language training to North Korean operatives still within Japan:

Photos of Megumi Yokota, who was abducted from Japan by North Korea in 1977, are displayed at Shinjuku Station in Tokyo, May 9, 2018. (Stars and Stripes)

North Korea is willing to hold talks with Japan on improving their relationship but considers further discussions over abducted Japanese citizens “a waste of time,” according to North Korean state media.

Nothing prevents the two nations from meeting, provided Japan makes “a new decision from a broad perspective of recognizing each other” and “seeks a way of improving the relations,” North Korean vice-minister of foreign affairs Pak Sang Gil was quoted as saying by the Korean Central News Agency on Monday. 

The abduction issue, still a sticking point in Japan, is already resolved, Pak said.

In 2002, North Korea admitted for the first time to abducting Japanese nationals in the 1970s and ‘80s and apologized at a summit meeting with Japan, according to Japan’s Foreign Ministry. Five abductees returned to Japan in October of that year, but another 12 remain unaccounted for.

Japan continues to investigate more than 800 people who might have been abducted, according to Japan’s Cabinet Office. 

“Without the resolution of this issue, there can be no normalization of relations between Japan and North Korea,” the Foreign Ministry website states.

North Korea said it has returned all living abductees; the remainder are either dead or never entered the North.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It makes me wonder how many other underground Christian groups are operating in North Korea?:

st as they had every Sunday at 5 a.m., the five Christians gathered at the farmhouse for prayer and Bible study. But this time the police were waiting for them. 

Tipped off by an informant, authorities arrested the believers on charges of believing in God, a crime in a country where all religion is illegal – except for the reverence everyone is required to show for the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, and its past leaders, his father and grandfather.

Sources told Radio Free Asia’s Korean Service that the Christians, arrested on April 30, are relatives who met weekly at the farmhouse in Tongam village, outside Sunchon city in South Pyongan province, in central North Korea.

“At the site of the worship service, the police retrieved dozens of Bible booklets and arrested all in attendance,” a resident of the province told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Radio Free Asia

You can read more at the link.

The only way the rocket North Korea is launching to put a satellite into space lands in Japanese territory is if there is a failed launch causing debris to land in the southwest islands. Japan has their military ready to respond to if that possibility happens:

The Defense Ministry in Tokyo

Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on Monday ordered the Self-Defense Forces to prepare to destroy a North Korean missile in case it falls within Japan’s territory.

The order, effective through June 11, was issued after North Korea notified Japan of its launch plans.

At a hastily convened press conference on Monday morning, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno referred to the possibility that the rocket could pass over Japan’s territory, including the Nansei Islands that span Kyushu and Okinawa Prefecture.

Matsuno condemned North Korea’s planned launch, calling it a “serious provocation.”

The SDF are expected to respond to the situation by mobilizing Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) units deployed in the Miyako, Ishigaki and Yonaguni islands in Okinawa Prefecture, as well as deploying an Aegis destroyer equipped with Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor missiles to the East China Sea.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters at the Prime Minister’s Office on Monday morning, “A launch using ballistic missile technology is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and a serious matter concerning the safety of the people.”

Yomiuri

You can read more at the link.

This is interesting because is the first time I have seen North Korea issue such a warning to a civilian ship in the East Sea. It makes me think they may have thought it was being used for intelligence collection purposes:

A North Korean boat warned a South Korean cargo ship sailing in the international waters of the East Sea to “move out to the open sea” earlier this month, a source said Tuesday, raising maritime safety concerns amid heightened cross-border tensions.

People aboard the North Korean boat gesticulated toward the 30,000-ton cargo ship and sent a message demanding it move farther out into the high seas through an international maritime communication network on May 8, according to the source.

The cargo ship was reportedly carrying 21 crewmembers, including two South Koreans.

It remains unclear whether the North Koreans are civilians or military personnel.

Following the message from the North, the South Korean ship informed its headquarters and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries of what happened and took a detour to reach the waters south of the Northern Limit Line, a de facto inter-Korean sea border.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Just think that for housing this is about as good as it gets for most people in North Korea:

North Korea has held a ceremony to mark the completion of building another housing district in Pyongyang as part of the country’s project to construct 50,000 units of new homes in the capital by 2025, state media reported Monday.

The North held the ceremony to celebrate the completion of the construction of new residential areas in the Taephyong district in Pyongyang on Sunday, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The Taephyong district in western Pyongyang is located near Mangyongdae, the birthplace of North Korea’s late founder Kim Il-sung, also the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is why it is important to continue to undermine the Kim regime by providing access to outside information into North Korea:

North Korean brothers who brought their family members out of the country earlier this month are late millennials, part of the tech-savvy younger generation of North Korea who have increased access to external information.

Sources with knowledge of the latest defections told The Korea Herald on Sunday that it was the two brothers in their early 30s who had made the decision to leave North Korea with their family.

The sources said that the brothers told Seoul officials here in a screening interview that they had yearned for a life in South Korea after secretly watching South Korean TV. In particular, they cited the talk show “Now on My Way to Meet You,” featuring North Korean defectors, as having had a major influence.

Analyses say North Korean millennials are the main consumers of foreign media content, mostly from South Korea, in the totalitarian country where such acts are severely punished.

According to a South Korean government report on the human rights situation in North Korea released in March, North Korea has publicly executed citizens including teens for watching South Korean media.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

It looks like Kim Jong-un is making sure we are building up to another “crisis” on the peninsula with his expected space launch:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspected the country’s first military reconnaissance satellite and gave the green light for its next action plan, Pyongyang’s state media said Wednesday, adding that the satellite is “ready for loading” on a rocket. 

Kim made the on-site inspection to the Non-permanent Satellite Launch Preparatory Committee a day earlier to check the overall status of the spy satellite and approved of its “future action plan,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a move that signals the launch could be imminent.

“After acquainting himself in detail with the work of the committee, he inspected the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1 which is ready for loading after undergoing the final general assembly check and space environment test,” it said in an English-language dispatch.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.