Tag: North Korea

I guess we will see if there will be an upcoming North Korean missile launch, but it seems like the timing for one make no sense right now:

Analysts and security officials say they are watching for signs that North Korea may use an upcoming holiday to unveil new weapons or test fire a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), after a flurry of activity was detected at a key base. 

Formations of troops have been seen practicing for what is expected to be a major military parade Oct. 10, the 75th anniversary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. Some observers say North Korea may showcase its largest missiles for the first time since 2018. 

Meanwhile, imagery analysts and security officials caution that so far there is no conclusive evidence of an impending launch. But after several typhoons lashed North Korea in early September, satellite photos have shown a flurry of activity at the Sinpo South Shipyard, including in a secure basin where a barge used in previous underwater missile launches is docked.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

You can tell that President Trump loves taking shots the intellectual elites in the U.S. government:

 U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday acknowledged that he had considered sending former Chicago Bulls basketball player Dennis Rodman to North Korea to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“He really does like Dennis Rodman, I will tell you. It’s sort of great. I always said Dennis would be better than some of these staffs that they used to send over to get to know him (Kim),” Trump said in an interview with Fox Sports Radio.

The sudden revelation came after the show’s host asked if Trump and Kim had ever talked about basketball.

Trump and Kim held three meeting between June 2018 and June 2019.

“He really did like Dennis Rodman. And they said we should maybe use him instead of somebody that graduated No. 1 at Harvard. Maybe we should use that and so I thought about that,” said Trump.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is what USFK Commander General Abrams had to say lately about North Korea’s coronavirus prevention methods:

North Korean authorities have issued shoot-to-kill orders to prevent the coronavirus entering the country from China, according to the commander of US forces in the South.

The impoverished North ― whose crumbling health system would struggle to cope with a major virus outbreak ― has not confirmed a single case of the disease that has swept the world since first emerging in China, the North’s key ally.

Pyongyang closed its border with China in January to try to prevent contamination, and in July state media said it had raised its state of emergency to the maximum level.

US Forces Korea (USFK) commander Robert Abrams said that the border shutdown had increased demand for smuggled goods, prompting authorities to intervene.

The North introduced a new “buffer zone, one or two kilometers up on the Chinese border,” Abrams told an online conference organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington on Thursday.

“They’ve got North Korean SOF (Special Operations Forces) out there. … Strike forces, they’ve got shoot-to-kill orders in place.”

The border closure had effectively “accelerated the effects” of economic sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear programs, he added, with imports from China plunging 85 percent.

Korea Times

It looks like the gulags will have a few local Wonsan party officials added to it, regardless of if the flooding was really their fault or not:

North Korea has vowed to punish local officials over a typhoon that hit the eastern coast on Wednesday.

A Workers’ Party newspaper blamed authorities in the coastal city of Wonsan for failing to prepare for Typhoon Maysak, and accused them of having an “irresponsible attitude”.

The paper did not say how many were missing, injured or dead, but said there were “dozens of casualties”.

It claimed officials failed to follow orders given by the ruling party.

Local authorities in Wonsan had been instructed to “immediately organise a project to thoroughly identify properties at risk and evacuate all residents”, Saturday’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper said.

“A decision was made to impose severe party, administrative, and legal punishment to those responsible for the casualties.”

BBC

You can read more at the link.

North Korean spy operations have entered the 21st century:

North Korea on Saturday broadcast a series of mysterious numbers, presumed to be an encrypted message to its spies in the South, for the first time on YouTube. 

A video clip was posted on the state-run Radio Pyongyang’s YouTube account, in which a female announcer read what she described as “an information technology review assignment of the remote education university for No. 719 expedition agents.” 

She repeated phrases such as “No. 23 on Page 564, No. -19 on Page 479” for about one minute in the posting, which had been viewed 2,500 times as of 11 a.m. The numbers were not broadcast on the radio.

North Korea has broadcast such seemingly random numbers via radio since the Cold War era, as recently as March 7 and 13.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This just confirms what I have been saying for years, the Kim regime is never going to give up their nuclear weapons:

North Korea is believed to have up to 60 nuclear bombs and the world’s third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons totaling up to 5,000 tons, the U.S. Army has said.

The U.S. Department of the Army headquarters made the assessment in its report, titled “North Korean tactics,” which was published last month, saying Pyongyang is unlikely to give up these weapons to ensure the regime’s survival.

“Estimates for North Korean nuclear weapons range from 20-60 bombs, with the capability to produce 6 new devices each year,” the U.S. military said, noting that some reports state that the regime could obtain as many as 100 by the end of this year.

“North Korea sought nuclear weapons because its leaders thought the threat of a nuclear attack would prevent other countries from contemplating a regime change,” according to the report, which also pointed out that leader Kim Jong-un witnessed the case of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and “does not want something similar to happen in North Korea.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is likely just propaganda for Kim’s domestic audience to show how much he cares for his people as well as a signal to an international audience to send aid regardless of whether they need it or not:

Severe flooding caused by intense monsoon rains have prompted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into an atypical response that may signal a dire situation in the isolated country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Nearly 1,500 acres of rice fields have flooded and about 730 singe-story homes and 179 housing blocks have been destroyed as of early August, North Korea has announced. (………..)

According to the the regime’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim ordered grain from his special food reserves to be dispensed to victims of the recent flooding. The regime also claimed that no one from the county Kim visited died in the flooding, though similar flooding has killed dozens in South Korea and China.

Business Insider

You can read more at the link, but I think what will happen is that the Kim regime and the Moon administration in South Korea will use the floods as an excuse to violate sanctions to send aid to North Korea. This move by Kim allows the Moon administration to say that, “Look even Kim Jong-un is giving up his food, how can we not help?” I guess we will see what happens.