Tag: North Korea

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.

If the White House settles for something less than full denuclearization a deal can likely be reached with North Korea:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday he will make deals with North Korea “very quickly” if reelected in November.

Trump was referring to his administration’s stalled efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for concessions.

“If and when we win, we will make deals with Iran very quickly. We’ll make deals with North Korea very quickly,” he said during a press conference in Bedminster, New Jersey.

“Now whatever happened to the word North Korea? You haven’t seen that, have you?” he continued. “If I didn’t win the election in 2016, our country would now be — maybe it would be over by now — but in war with North Korea.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the best deal North Korea will ever agree to is “pretend denuclearization“.

The faces in the Unification Ministry may change but the goal remains the same, find a way to avoid sanctions to send bulk cash transfers to North Korea:

“I’ll actively look for ways to restart the Mount Kumgang tour project,” he said while visiting Jejin Station in Goseong, northeast of Seoul, near the Demilitarized Zone that separates two Koreas. “The resumption of the tour program will send a message of peace on the Korean Peninsula and revive the economy of border regions.”

The minister also said he will go ahead with plans to reconnect the rail network to North Korea in a bid to create a new economic order on the Korean Peninsula.

During his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Lee said he would look for a “creative solution” to restart the tour program to North Korea’s scenic mountains in the form of individual tours as a way to improve inter-Korean relations without violating international sanctions imposed on Pyongyang.

Started in 2003, the project was suspended after a South Korean tourist was shot dead near the mountain resort in 2008. The program’s formal resumption requires a sanctions waiver, as it involves bulk cash transfer to the North.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.