Tag: North Korea

This is supposedly the first time open source imagery has located one of North Korea ICBM bases:

North Korea has an undeclared ballistic missile operating base near its border with China, which likely possesses intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of reaching the continental United States, a U.S. monitor confirmed Wednesday.

Beyond Parallel, a project of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, unveiled the Sinpung-dong Missile Operating Base in North Pyongan Province, about 25 kilometers from the border with China, as it released its analysis of satellite imagery taken July 11.

It marks the first open-source study confirming the base, according to the monitor.

“Preliminary analysis suggests that the base likely houses a brigade-sized unit equipped with a total of six to nine nuclear capable Hwasong-15 or -18 ICBMs, or an as yet unknown ICBM, and their transporter-erector-launchers (TEL) or mobile-erector-launchers (MEL),” it said in a report posted on its website.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is a bit surprising that South Korea is holding on to North Korean operatives when they have aged into their 90’s:

 Six former North Korean soldiers and spies who were jailed in South Korea for refusing to renounce their socialist beliefs have asked the Seoul government to repatriate them to the North, officials said Tuesday.

Yang Won-jin, 96, Ahn Hak-sop, 95, and four others have recently submitted the formal request to the unification ministry, seeking to return to North Korea, a ministry official said.

Known as “unconverted” long-term prisoners, they are former North Korean soldiers and spies who were arrested in the South before and after the 1950-53 Korean War, an ideologically driven conflict that left the Korean Peninsula divided into the communist North and the democratic South.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The big question is what is the North Koreans doing to restore these agreements, or will it all be one sided:

Lee said the South under his leadership will respect the North’s current system and that it will not pursue any form of unification by absorption. 

He also said that Seoul will take “proactive, gradual steps” to restore the Sept. 19 military agreement, signed between the two sides in 2018 to reduce border tensions.

“If small, practical steps pile up like pebbles, mutual trust will be restored. The path to peace will widen, and a foundation will be laid for South and North Korea to grow together,” Lee said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but that is the problem with the Korean left; they actually think the North Koreans want peace. The North Korean system of government cannot survive if there is peace with the South. The Kim regime uses the unification of the Korean peninsula by removing the U.S. imperialists and the traitorous ROK government as a rationale for their continued one party rule. Without the goal of reunifying the peninsula what unifying ideology would the Kim regime be left with to justify their rule?

I would be more impressed if Kim Jong-un came out and told his people the same thing about South Korea:

President Lee Jae Myung said South Korea will not seek to absorb North Korea for unification, in an address marking the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from 1910-45 Japanese colonial rule, Friday.

This conciliatory message is the latest in the Lee administration’s conciliatory overtures toward Pyongyang, signaling a commitment to peaceful dialogue and indicating a softer approach to inter-Korean relations. 

“We affirm our respect for the North’s current system, aver that we will not pursue any form of unification by absorption and assert that we have no intention of engaging in hostile acts,” Lee emphasized in the speech.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I would rather North Korea would remove their artillery from the border than loudspeakers. When they do that then we will know they are serious about peace on the peninsula:

South Korea’s military said Saturday it detected North Korea removing some of its loudspeakers from the inter-Korean border, days after the South dismantled its own front-line speakers used for anti-North Korean propaganda broadcasts, in a bid to ease tensions. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t disclose the sites where the North Koreans were removing speakers and said it wasn’t immediately clear whether the North would take all of them down.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This guy must have been pretty desperate to attempt a high risk defection like this. Hopefully he doesn’t have any family left in North Korea that will be punished for his defection:

A North Korean man defected to South Korea after he swam down the coast and evaded armed border guards with orders to shoot anyone fleeing Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The unidentified man was detected late on the evening of July 30, according to South Korean officials, who made the defection public on Thursday. He used tied-on plastic foam for buoyancy and swam down the Korean Peninsula’s west coast.

After a journey of around 10 hours, the man, who reportedly waved his hands and declared his intention to defect, was retrieved by South Korea’s military about 1.6 miles south of North Korean soil.

Defections to the South have become extremely rare in recent years after Kim ordered extra fortifications and boosted security along the border. That has left only dangerous routes and the risk of a death sentence if caught.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link.

Here is an interesting read about how a down on her luck American woman became a laptop farmer for North Korea:

Soon, more laptops arrived. Zhonghua got back in touch and told her she’d receive $300 a month for each one she hosted. Her dream job had landed on her doorstep, or so it seemed.

Instead, it would prove to be the beginning of a long nightmare. Zhonghua’s company wasn’t a company at all, but a front for agents of the North Korean government, who were using the laptops to work remote IT jobs for oblivious US businesses. And the promise he’d recognized in her was not as a software engineer. It was as a “laptop farmer”—an American providing geographic cover for North Korean IT workers, making it appear they were Americans working on US soil. All told, the United Nations estimates the wages paid to these illicit telecommuters generate $250 million to $600 million for the regime each year, much of which is funneled directly into its rocket program.

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.