Kang Chol-Hwan on the Dangers of Nuke-centric Policy

From The Chosun Ilbo:

The strongest prop of the North Korean regime is concentration camps. These are less like Stalin's Siberian gulags or Mao Zedong's Laogai concentration camps than Hitler's Auschwitz. After World War II, humanity promised never again to permit such camps on earth, and the world community intervenes in crimes against humanity across borders. The collective insanity of the Hitler regime was intricately linked with the concentration camps, which crushed all dissent. 



By running the concentration camps, the North Korean regime has been able to maintain power even after starving 3 million people to death in peacetime. These camps house some 200,000 to 300,000 political prisoners and their families, who are systematically slaughtered. Even party officials are afraid of being sent there. Hwang Jang-yop, a former secretary of the Workers' Party who defected to the South, said, "Even senior party members can't talk freely at homes for fear of being wiretapped, so they always have important conversations outside." 



The silence of the international community on the barbaric massacres in the concentration camps committed by Kim Jong-il borders on the criminal. Some 17,000 North Korean defectors in the South are complaining about the atrocity, but no country pays any attention. Even the South Korean government and people do not realize how serious the problem is.

Full story here.

North Korea Has Two Ways to Make Bomb

From yesterday's NYT, a bit more context on the DPRK's nuclear ambitions.

SEOUL — North Korea’s announcement on Friday that its experiment in enriching uranium is at “completion stage” marks the strongest signal yet from Pyongyang that it is racing to develop a second method of making nuclear bombs.

North Korea also said it was building additional nuclear bombs with plutonium it had recently gleaned from its reactor in Yongbyon. It said it had completed reprocessing the latest batch of spent fuel unloaded from the reactor, repeating the procedure believed to have given the North enough plutonium for six to eight bombs.

For years, officials in Washington and elsewhere have debated whether North Korea was pursuing a clandestine uranium-enrichment program. After years of denial, North Korea announced in April that it intended to enrich uranium.

In June, it said its enrichment program was in an “experimental stage.”

Full story here.

Pyongyang's "Hotel of Doom" - Now With Less Gloom!

Here's an odd piece from Reuters:

SEOUL (Reuters) - A towering North Korean hotel which Esquire magazine once dubbed "the worst building in the history of mankind" has come back to life with a facade of shiny glass windows affixed to one side of the concrete monolith.

But few expect the North will ever finish construction of its 105-storey Ryugyong Hotel, started in 1987 and halted for 16 years because it could have bankrupted the destitute state.

"The hotel doesn't look as shoddy as it once did, probably because of the reflective glass," said a member of a civic group in South Korea that recently returned from a visit to the North.

The 330-meter (1,083 ft) tall hotel dominating the Pyongyang skyline consists of three wings rising at 75 degree angles capped by several floors arranged in rings supposed to hold five revolving restaurants and an observation deck.

(Photo: Reuters)

Full story here.

DPRK In Final Stage of Enrichment?

From CNN:

(CNN) — North Korea’s state-run news agency said Thursday that the country has sent a letter to the United Nations announcing that “reprocessing of spent fuel rods is at its final phase and extracted plutonium is being weaponized.”

North Korea can also now enter the final stage of uranium enrichment, it said in the letter to the president of the U.N. Security Council, according to state-run KCNA.

Despite stating in the letter that they “totally reject” a Security Council resolution in June that demanded that the country no longer pursue nuclear weapons, the North Koreans said they are “prepared for both dialogue and sanctions,” KCNA reported.

The government also warned, “If some permanent members of the UNSC wish to put sanctions first before dialogue, we would respond with bolstering our nuclear deterrence first before we meet them in a dialogue,” according to KCNA.

The news comes on the heels of the Obama administration’s latest attempt to restart stalled nuclear negotiations with the reclusive state. In the coming days, U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth and the director of the State Department’s Office of Korean Affairs, Sung Kim, will meet with officials representing China, Japan, South Korea and Russia — all countries partnering with the United States in talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear program.

Hmmm.

Lee and Ling Speak Out

I'm playing catch-up after some vacation time, but Lee and Ling wrote this piece in the LATimes Tuesday detailing their capture and imprisonment.

They concede they entered North Korea briefly, but, sure enough, they were snatched on the Chinese side of the border.

Feeling nervous about where we were, we quickly turned back toward China. Midway across the ice, we heard yelling. We looked back and saw two North Korean soldiers with rifles running toward us. Instinctively, we ran.

We were firmly back inside China when the soldiers apprehended us. Producer Mitch Koss and our guide were both able to outrun the border guards. We were not. We tried with all our might to cling to bushes, ground, anything that would keep us on Chinese soil, but we were no match for the determined soldiers. They violently dragged us back across the ice to North Korea and marched us to a nearby army base, where we were detained.

...

In researching the story, we sought help from several activists and missionaries who operate in the region. Our main contact was the Seoul-based Rev. Chun Ki-won, a well-known figure in the world of North Korean defectors. Chun and his network have helped smuggle hundreds of North
Koreans out of China and into countries -- including the U.S. -- where they can start new lives. He introduced us to our guide and gave us a cellphone to use in China, telephone numbers to reach his associates and specific instructions on how to contact them. We carefully followed his directions so as to not endanger anyone in this underground world.

Because these defectors live in fear of being repatriated to North Korea, we took extreme caution to ensure that the people we interviewed and their locations were not identifiable. We met with defectors away from their actual places of work or residence. We avoided filming the faces of defectors so as not to reveal their identities. The exception was one woman who allowed us to film her profile.

Most of the North Koreans we spoke with said they were fleeing poverty and food shortages. One girl in her early 20s said she had been told she could find work in the computer industry in China. After being smuggled across the Tumen River, she found herself working with computers, but not in the way she had expected. She became one of a growing number of North Korean women who are being used as Internet sex workers, undressing for online clients on streaming video. Some defectors appeared more nervous about being interviewed than others. But they all agreed that their lives in China, while stark, were better than what they had left behind in North Korea.

Full story here.

Mobile Phones in the North?

Apparently so. From Daily NK:

Changchun, China -- The number of mobile phone users within Pyongyang has been increasing rapidly since the service was launched last December, with affluent citizens and even some students using them.

A source from Pyongyang said in an interview with Daily NK on the 17th, “Demand for mobile phones has been increasing. Almost 30 percent of Pyongyang citizens seem to be using them. Only cadres in the Central Committee of the Party and foreigners cannot.”

…

People may only use phones in their own name, and any impropriety is investigated by the National Security Agency. Additionally, one cannot use two phones simultaneously.

“The authorities seem to be listening in to the mobile phones as well,” the source said. “There was a case last month where a trader dealing with antiques using his mobile phone was uncovered by the NSA,” the source said.

…

The price of a mobile phone is around 120 dollars, but just 90 dollars when bought by a group. The charge for a phone is fixed at 3,000 North Korean won a month for eight hours of talk time. If that time is exceeded, 15 Euros is levied in extra charges.

“The usage of mobile phones is only currently for Pyongyang citizens, and although they can call Sariwon in North Hwanghae Province the call quality is not so good. Therefore, people use them only within Pyongyang.”

Full story here.

DPRK to Reopen Border with South

Looks like the North will allow some reunions of families separated by the border. They will also allow tour groups to visit certain parts of the DRPK. From NYT:

The conciliatory move, coming just after the high-profile releases of two American journalists and a South Korean worker detained by the North, seemed likely to ease the growing anxiety on the Korean peninsula.

...

But the North, in the announcement Monday by its official news agency, also warned the United States and South Korea about their joint military exercises, which the North said were “obviously maneuvers for a war of aggression.” It said an “annihilating” retaliation could be one consequence. Still, that kind of bellicose language is almost standard from the North and was eclipsed by its outreach about the border and tourism.

Analysts have said North Korea is eager to re-establish contacts with Washington and Seoul in hopes of undermining the United Nations’ sanctions over its nuclear program.

The North said it would allow reunions of Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War, with visits taking place at Mount Kumgang, or Diamond Mountain, during the three-day Harvest Moon Festival, when Koreans traditionally visit their hometowns. This year the festival begins Oct. 3.

Regular visits to Mount Kumgang on North Korea’s eastern coast will start “as soon as possible,” the official North Korean news agency reported, as well as visits to the ancient border town of Kaesong.

Programs allowing tour groups — predominantly South Koreans — to visit the North were expanded in October 2007 but were stopped last year when a South Korean tourist at Kumgang who apparently entered a restricted zone was fatally shot by a North Korean guard.

Full story here.

DPRK Frees Auto Worker

The North has released a South Korean prisoner held since March. Friom the AP:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea freed a South Korean worker Thursday it had detained for months for allegedly denouncing its political system — an apparent goodwill gesture toward Seoul and Washington amid the standoff over the regime's nuclear weapons program.

Last week, the North released jailed American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, helping ease months of tensions stoked by the country's recent atomic and long-range rocket tests.

On Thursday, Pyongyang deported Yoo Seong-jin, a 44-year-old technician who worked at a joint industrial park in the North, where about 110 South Korean-run factories employ about 40,000 North Korean workers.

Yoo has been held for allegedly denouncing the North's government and attempting to persuade a North Korean worker to defect.

"I'm happy that I returned safely," Yoo told reporters in a brief comment after arriving at a South Korean immigration control center near the border.

Hyundai Group Chairwoman Hyun Jung-eun has been in the North for the past few days, and she may have negotiated the release of Yoo, who is an employee for Hyundai's North Korean business arm, Hyundai Asan.

Full story here.

Kang Chol-Hwan Weighs In...

Kang Chol-Hwan is a North Korean refugee who has become a South Korean journalist. His chilling memoir of growing up in the Yodok prison camp, The Aquariums of Pyongyang, is one of the best books I've read on North Korea thus far.

Everything he writes is worth reading, including his new column in The Chosun Ilbo, in which he responds to Clinton's visit to Pyongyang to free Ling and Lee.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's surprise visit to North Korea to win the release of two American journalists went according to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's script. The North used the capture of the two reporters to its utmost advantage, the hostages providing it with an ideal opportunity to lure an eminent American onto its soil just when it became subject to tighter sanctions over its nuclear tests and missile launches from the international community and the U.S. in particular. It was a lucky break of the first order.

...

In the past half century, the North has essentially consolidated itself by the sole expedient of anti-Americanism, defining the U.S. as a longstanding enemy. According to North Korean propaganda, America is the great imperial power, desperate to destroy the last bastion of socialism. North Korea alone holds out against it now that the Soviet Union has fallen and China has deserted the cause.



Few North Koreans believe the propaganda any longer. Many among the North Korean privileged classes are beginning to think it is not China but North Korea which has deserted socialism, and some of them question the wisdom of dealing with the U.S. alone over the nuclear issue when they feel it could better be resolved with China. Hwang Jang-yeop, a former Secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party who defected to the South, recalls, "I often heard Kim Jong-il slander the Chinese leadership, but never heard him criticize the United States."



...

A sort of farce is being played out whereby the Kim regime, whose survival depends on China, is desperate to win recognition from the U.S. Why does North Korea insist on direct negotiations with Washington while distancing itself from its ally China, which holds all the economic and military keys? The answer lies in the threat called reform and opening.


The essence of all North Korean problems including nuclear, missile and human rights issues, is the fixation on maintaining the current dictatorship. Expanding trade between South Korea and China as well as China's rapid economic development represent the biggest threats to Kim Jong-il, who, accordingly, believes that nuclear armament is the only way to defend himself. North Korea's groveling reception of Bill Clinton and the release of detained journalists even as a South Korean remains locked up incommunicado at the joint Kaesong Industrial Complex, can be seen not as a diplomatic victory but as the last desperate effort to maintain the regime through hostage taking.

Full story here.

Kissinger on North Korea

Henry Kissinger offers his thoughts on Clinton's visit and its ramifications. From Sunday's NYT (emphasis added):

Context matters. It is less than six months since Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test and resumed the production of weapons-grade plutonium in violation of an agreement signed at the six-power conference in Beijing in February 2007. North Korea refused a visit by the new U.S. envoy charged with discussing its proliferation efforts. Pyongyang has rejected various U.N. Security Council resolutions to desist from these activities and to return to the six-party talks. A visit by a former president, who is married to the secretary of state, will enable Kim Jong-il to convey to North Korea, and perhaps to other countries, that his country is being accepted into the international community — the precise opposite of what the U.S. secretary of state has defined as the goal of U.S. policy until Pyongyang abandons its nuclear weapons program.

...

The root cause of our decade-old controversy with Pyongyang is that there is no middle ground between North Korea being a nuclear weapons state and a non-nuclear weapons state. At the end of a negotiation, North Korea will either destroy its nuclear arsenal, or it will become a de facto nuclear state. So far, it has used the negotiating forums available to it in a skillful campaign of procrastination, alternating leaps in technological progress with negotiating phases to consolidate it.

We seem to be approaching such a consolidating phase now. North Korea may return to its well-established tactic of diverting us with the prospect of imminent breakthroughs. This is exactly what happened after the last Korean nuclear weapons test in 2006. Pyongyang undoubtedly will continue to seek to achieve de facto acceptance as a nuclear weapons state by endlessly protracted diplomacy. The benign atmosphere by which it culminated its latest blackmail must not tempt us or our partners into bypaths that confuse atmosphere with substance. Any outcome other than the elimination of the North Korean nuclear military capability in a fixed time period is a blow to non-proliferation prospects worldwide and to peace and stability globally.

Full story here.

Refugees and Human Trafficking

A good article from VOA via Han Voice. Key graphs:

Bang Mi Sun left North Korea and crossed illegally into China in 2002. Countless other North Korean women have done the same since the mid 1990s. Hunger and severe shortages of necessities such as medicine and heating fuel have driven them from home.

She says after she and her two children crossed the Tumen River, a Chinese family welcomed them. The son said Bang should earn money to feed her children. She says she thought he was offering her a job.

But instead of a job, the Chinese family arranged for human traffickers to separate Bang from her children and sell her into marriage to a Chinese farmer.

She says her Chinese husband was 15 years older, and had a crippled leg. From that point on, she says, she was his slave. If she did not obey his orders, he beat her, and often locked her in a storage shed for the full day.

Eventually, she made it to South Korea, but human rights activists say Bang's story is typical of tens of thousands of other North Korean women who flee poverty and repression at home.

...

Lee says most of the men who buy the women are either physically or mentally disabled, and incapable of earning a living.

"The rural family or rural husband actually falls into debt because they had to pay a lot of money to buy this woman. So they are again in the poverty trap, which they really wanted to get out of with North Korea," noted Lee.

Some of the women flee - but most of them, says Lee, make do with their new lives - knowing at least that they will not starve.

"But the thing is, these women are young - in their 20's, 30's - and they become pregnant pretty soon. And they kind of give up the idea of running away. Things change - and they try to accept their fate," said Lee.

There are, by some estimates, as many as 50,000 North Korean women in China. Those women are believed to have had up to 20,000 children.

Full story here.

North Koreans Not So Fond of Kim Jong-Un?

Some anecdotal evidence provided by Jiro Ishimaru via The Daily NK:

In mid-June, I visited Jilin in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, where I met with two North Korean men and seven women who had crossed the border and were staying in China on a temporary basis.

...

In the beginning, just after it leaked out, the interviewees did not know about the succession, but later they heard the story from military acquaintances. It is just a matter of time before rumors spread beyond the military like this.

Once the rumor started circulating, there were some aggressive reactions from among the people. Some said, “The small one (a derogatory way of saying Kim Jong Il) is trying to make a novice in his 20s his successor,” while others say, “The General (Kim Jong Il) is almost dying, and if his son is the next general, we won’t be able to follow orders anymore.”

This is, the people respect Kim Jong Il because of his father’s achievements, but there is no reason to respect Jong Woon.

An interviewee from North Hamkyung Province was sure, “If a war begins, there is no one who would fight for Jong Woon.”

These North Korean people agreed with the idea that the fifteen years since Kim Il Sung’s death have been years of failure. This is because after going through the great famine of the 1990s, still the situation has not been reformed at all.

North Korean people generally believe that Kim Jong Woon’s succession means the period of failure will continue.

Full story here.

Kristof: North Korean Policy Needs Less Carrot, More Stick

In his column in today's NYT, Nicholas Kristof changes course. Key graphs:

There are new indications that North Korea may be transferring nuclear weapons technology to Myanmar, the dictatorship also known as Burma, and that it earlier supplied a reactor to Syria. For many years, based on five visits to North Korea and its border areas, I’ve argued for an “engagement” approach toward Pyongyang, but now I’ve reluctantly concluded that we need more sticks.

…

There are no good options here, and a grass-roots revolution is almost impossible. North Koreans, even those in China who despise the regime, overwhelmingly agree that most ordinary North Koreans swallow the propaganda. Indeed, Kim Jong-il’s approval rating in his country may well be higher than President Obama’s is in the United States.

Our best bet will be to continue to support negotiations, including a back channel that can focus on substance instead of protocol, as well as economic and cultural exchanges — but backed up by sticks. The Obama administration is now working with allies to reimpose economic and financial sanctions that a few years ago were very successful in squeezing the North Korean regime. China is surprisingly cooperative, even quietly intercepting several shipments of supplies useful for W.M.D. programs.

Where we have intelligence that North Korean ships are transferring nuclear materials or technology to a country like Myanmar or Iran, we should go further and board those vessels. That’s an extreme step, but the nightmare would be if Iran simply decided to save time and buy a nuclear weapon or two from North Korea. We can’t allow that to happen.

Full story here.

Bubba Got 'Em Out

Lee and Ling left North Korea with President Clinton. Full story here, and pretty much anywhere else you look for it.

Bill Clinton and Kim Jong-Il in North Korea Tuesday

(Photo: AFP/Getty Images)

DPRK rolls out Kim Jong-Un (Jong Woon) Propaganda

Looks like it's official: Kim Jong Un (Woon) will succeed Kim Jong-Il.

From The Daily NK:

Shenyang, China -- A source from North Korea reported on Monday that the authorities gave a public propaganda lecture on July 20 to passengers preparing to board the international train from Pyongyang to Beijing. The short lecture extolled the virtues of Kim Jong Woon and announced him as the successor to Kim Jong Il.

The source said, “Around 9:20 A.M. in the waiting room at Pyongyang Station, a female member of a propaganda unit came and announced that, in essence, Captain Kim Jong Woon is a youthful captain who will be able to lead the strong and prosperous state. He was given credit for the successful nuclear test, and it was emphasized that no imperial state can look down on Captain Kim Jong Woon.”

...

According to the source, the propaganda slogan was “Let’s bring glory to the fatherland, which the Great Leader Kim Il Sung recovered, Dear Leader Kim Jong Il developed, and Youthful Captain Kim Jong Woon will lead to a bright future.”

The lecturer continued, “We will be under the guidance of Kim Jong Woon as we construct the strong and prosperous state,” indicating the strong likelihood that the succession may take place in advance of 2012, when the strong and prosperous state is due to come to fruition.

Full story here.

CNN: Clinton (Bill) to travel to DPRK

Former President Bill Clinton will travel to North Korea to negotiate the release of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. CNN has the tip from "a source with detailed knowledge of the former president's movements."

I'll have more on this as it plays out. Full story here.

UPDATE: Look's like he's already on his way. Here's the top of the NYT story.

WASHINGTON — Former President Bill Clinton was headed to North Korea to negotiate the release of two American television journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering North Korean territory, a news agency reported early Tuesday morning in South Korea.

Mr. Clinton was on his way to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, according to the Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified source familiar with the situation. The White House declined to comment on Monday night.

Book Watch: ESCAPING NORTH KOREA by Mike Kim

Mike Kim is a Korean-American who has spent several years on the Chinese-Korean border working with North Korean refugees. Escaping North Korea combines straight reporting, analysis, impressions and autobiography to give a vivid picture of refugee life.

The result is often harrowing -- stories of human trafficking and North Korean women being sold as wives or slaves to Chinese farmers are among the most frightening things I've ever read -- but also inspiring, even charming.

In one chapter, Kim describes helping four teenaged refugees force their way past a Chinese security guard to enter the British Consulate in Shanghai and request asylum. Its a suspenseful episode - if the guard manages to stop one or more of the kids, its almost certain they'll end up in a gulag back in the DPRK. Kim advises the youths to punch, kick, scratch and even bite their way free if the guard manages to grab them.

Yet despite the danger, Kim takes the time to describe the kids first encounter with McDonald's and Starbucks, and shows them teasing each other and having a laugh as normal teenagers would. It's a striking, hopeful moment, a vivid reminder of how little actually separates those of us outside the DPRK with those within.

Kim's organization is called Crossing Borders, and it's a Christian NGO with a multifaceted approach to aiding North Korean refugees (on the Chinese) that includes placing families in shelters, running orphanages for refugee children and even providing work to some, making small crosses to be sold in the US.

The website stresses that in no way does Crossing Borders require that refugees become Christian to receive their services, but the organization does provide "spiritual healing" and "spreads the message of the Gospel with all refugees."

The regime is clearly threatened by religion, and documents acquired by Open Doors International suggest that North Korea feels Christianity is responsible for the fall of communism in Europe.

Some estimates have put the number of North Korean Christians at over 100,000, Kim writes.

Yet I have doubts about how useful a tool Christianity can be against the regime because of the dangers the converted face if they choose to return to North Korea.

Kim describes meeting one North Korean Christian, whom he calls Mr. Lee, in China just before the man returned to the DPRK.

"Here in China," Lee says. "I've learned about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. I'm thankful that people here have taught me the Bible...When I go back to North Korea, it will be very hard. I will get beaten, and I might even die." Lee then breaks down in tears.

Kim also describes the dangers and difficulties of smuggling Bibles across the border.

The persecution of Christians in the DPRK is abominable. In prisons, they are not allowed even to look at the sky, and many develop hunchbacks or "90-degree curvature of the spine." Some have had their fingernails and toenails pulled out and had nails hammered into their skin.

Executions are also common, and repression in the DRPK is so pervasive, and the slightest infraction - or even suspicion - can get a three generations of a person's family put into a gulag.

Religion may provide hope and comfort to the oppressed, but I'm not yet convinced that returning to the DPRK and becoming a martyr has much practical value.

Information is the key to undermining the regime and bringing about change for the North Koreans, so why risk lives and efforts to teach them about the rewards awaiting them in the next life instead of focusing efforts on spreading the news, politics and history of the outside world that has been denied to them for generations?

Anyone out there have any thoughts?

Kim Jong-Il's Grandson Gets Jiggy At A Pop Concert

From AP via FoxNews.

Kim Jong Nam — the boy's father and the North Korean leader's eldest son — bought the tickets worth about $1,400 and allowed his son to invite his friends, the newspaper said.

North Korea's state-run media frequently warn that imperialists are trying to poison the country's culture and ideals. But South Korean pop culture still appears to be gaining popularity through smuggled TV dramas and movies, defectors say.

Full story here.

Selling Cars in DPRK

I'll be writing more about business in North Korea soon, particularly the markets (seen on Google Earth) that North Korean Economy Watch, among others, has been covering. But I wanted to share this Wall Street Journal article, largely because I'm not sure what, if anything, it signifies.

SEOUL -- A South Korean company that builds and sells cars in North Korea made money -- albeit a small amount -- for the first time last year, the company said Wednesday.

Pyeonghwa Motors Corp., closely linked to the Unification Church, earned about $700,000 on the sale of about 650 cars in North Korea, a company spokesman said. The company remitted $500,000 of the net profit to its headquarters in Seoul in a U.S. dollar-denominated transactions through Hong Kong, he said.

It's not clear who's buying the cars, but I would imagine its the government, especially since some models seem to look like the coveted Mercedes-Benz models long favored by DPRK officials.

Another interesting graph on the state of foreign trade in North Korea:

Pyeonghwa, like other companies that do business in North Korea, faced enormous difficulty moving its money out of the country. Many Chinese businesses resort to buying commodities in North Korea with their profits, then exporting them to China to be sold for Chinese currency.

Anyone out there got any thoughts?

Inside the Gulags

WaPo's Blaine Harden has a great piece about the prison camps in North Korea, with an interactive map. Check it out here.

The Heir, Apparently, Ctd.

WaPo has as good a profile on Kim Jong-Un as we're likely to get for a while. The reports we keep seeing are that he was a shy student, was known as "Pak Un" while in Switzerland, and was keen on Jackie Chan and basketball.

Some personality details:

A senior U.S. official says he appears to have "the same interests as most 26-year-olds," noting that these do not generally involve nuclear strategy.

...

During his first few months in Liebefeld, Pak Un attended a remedial language course for foreign students with poor German. A swift learner, he soon switched to a regular class, said Studer, the education official, who described the boy as "well-integrated, diligent and ambitious." Friends recalled that Pak Un spoke fluent, if sometimes ungrammatical, German but struggled with the Swiss dialect. He also knew English.

...

Though generally quiet in class and sometimes awkward, particularly around girls, Pak Un showed a different personality on the basketball court, former friends recalled. He fell in with a group of mostly immigrant kids who shared his love of the National Basketball Association.

Kovacevic, who shot hoops with the North Korean most days, said Pak Un was a fiercely competitive player. "He was very explosive. He could make things happen. He was the playmaker," said Kovacevic, who now works as a tech specialist in the Swiss army. "If I wasn't sure I could make a shot, I always knew he could."

Marco Imhof, another Swiss basketball buddy, said the Korean was tough and fast, good at both shooting and dribbling. "He hated to lose. Winning was very important," recalled Imhof. Pak Un also liked action films featuring hand-to-hand fighting, particularly those starring the Hong Kong kung fu star Jackie Chan, and played combat games on a Sony PlayStation.

This picture of a focused, competitive young man matches what until now has been the only firsthand account of Kim Jong Un. That was provided by a Japanese sushi chef who claims to have worked in Pyongyang as a cook for the Kim family. The chef, who wrote a book on his experiences in Japanese under the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto, described the boy as strong-willed, proud and "boss-like."

During his time in Liebefeld, friends remembered, Pak Un showed scant interest in politics and never vented publicly against Americans. Instead, he worshiped American basketball stars. He spent hours doing meticulous pencil drawings of Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan.

Full story here.

Kim Jong-Il May Have Pancreatic Cancer

A South Korean TV station is reporting that "dear leader" Kim Jong-Il has pancreatic cancer.

From Guardian:

The reports came days after images appeared of the 67-year-old looking gaunt in a rare public appearance, increasing speculation that his health was worsening after a reported stroke last year.

Seoul's YTN television channel reported that Kim had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, citing unidentified intelligence officials in South Korea and China as saying the illness was threatening his life.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service said it could not confirm the report, and a unification ministry spokesman, Chun Hae-sung, told reporters he knew nothing of the claims.

Full story here:

Kim Jong-Il, looking frail at a recent event (Photo: AP)

Clinton Appeals for Amnesty For Ling and Lee

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called for amnesty for Laura Ling and Euna Lee, saying that the two women had expressed "great remorse for the incident." Clinton also said that "everyone is very sorry that it happened."

The BBC News article also has more on Han Park, the University of Georgia professor who recently returned from Pyongyang.

If Park's reports are accurate and North Korea is likely to respond to a formal apology, then this might be a very good sign.

North Korea NOT Behind Cyber-Attack?

From AP, via The Philadelphia Inquirier:

"Cyber experts familiar with the probe are divided on the extent of North Korean involvement, split between those who believe hackers may have simply used zombie computers in the region and those who think the communist nation has moved to the digital battlefield. "

Hmmm. Full story here, plus PC World's take here.

Detained Journalists Reportedly Being Held in Guest House

Hat tip: ROK Drop.

If its true, it suggests both that the North Koreans don't want Euna Lee and Laura Ling to be able to report conditions in a labor camp and that they are willing to discuss the journalists' release with the U.S.

From Huffington Post:

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has delayed sending two convicted U.S. journalists to a prison labor camp, in a possible attempt to seek talks with Washington on their release, a scholar who visited the North said in an interview published Friday.

Laura Ling and Euna lee, who work for former U.S. Vice President Al Gore's California-based Current TV media group, are being kept at guest house in the North Korean capital and have not yet been sent to a prison camp as called for in their sentences, University of Georgia political scientist Han Park said.

"I heard from North Korean officials that the American journalists were doing fine at a guest house in Pyongyang," Park told South Korea's JoongAng Ilbo newspaper. Park, originally from South Korea, arrived Thursday in Seoul following a trip to Pyongyang.

...

North Korea's move not to carry out the sentence suggests that it could release them through a dialogue with the United States and they could be set free at an early date, depending on the U.S. gesture," Park said.

Separately, Park told South Korea's Yonhap news agency that the issue of the journalists could be resolved if the U.S. government offers an official apology over their hostile acts and promises that such things won't happen again.

He also predicted that Washington and Pyongyang could hold a dialogue soon over the journalists' release and their return to the U.S., according to Yonhap. No timeframe for a possible meeting was given, and officials in Washington could not immediately be reached to comment on the likelihood of such discussions taking place.

Detained Journalist Talks to Sister - A Message from the DPRK?

From Reuters:

Lisa Ling told Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA that her sister Laura told her by telephone on Tuesday that she and colleague Lee had violated North Korean law and needed help from the U.S. government to secure amnesty.

She quoted Laura Ling as saying: "We broke the law, we are sorry, and we need help. We need our government's help to try and get amnesty because that really is our only hope."

Soon afterward, U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly called on North Korea to release them on grounds of "amnesty," implying for the first time that the U.S. government believes they committed an offense.

Previously, the State Department had called for their release on "humanitarian" grounds and had not acknowledged the possibility of any wrongdoing.

Lisa Ling goes on to say that this phone calls sounded different from the two previous conversations she'd had with her sister since Laura was detained in March; this time, her sister spoke very slowly and deliberately. Full story here.

Very possible, of course, that the entire call was staged or that the slow and deliberate speech was Ling reciting a prepared statement. If that's the case, and its the North telling her to ask the US government for help, does this mean they're willing to talk?

Euna Lee and Laura Ling (Photo: AP)

A DPRK Cyber-Attack on Seoul and Washington?

From The Times, Fox News and Korea Times.

Reports are coming in that North Korea is behind a series of attacks that affected South Korean known as a distributed denial of service. Essentially, a virus infects computers and makes them flood the targeted websites with traffic, causing them to overload and shut down.

The attack reportedly targeted 25 websites including the White House, the Blue House (the office of the South Korean president), the website of the Chosun Ilbo (a South Korean Newspaper), various foreign ministries, two banks and a joint US-South Korea military command.

An unnamed U.S. defense official told Fox News that the defense and state departments were also targeted.

The South Korean Defense Security Command reported last month that it detects an average of 95,000 attempts to penetrate the country's military computer networks per day.

A Yoduk Survivor Tells Her Story

Hat Tip: DPRK Forum:

Seven More Missiles Launched

Larger than the ones tested earlier this week, but still short-range. WaPo's report here.

Two New Launches from DPRK:

The first, as expected, was of four short-range missiles, fired into the Sea of Japan on Thursday. There are persistent media reports, apparently based on Japanese intelligence reports, that North Korea plans to launch a long-range ballistic missile towards Hawaii on July 4th.

More on Thursday's missile launch from NYT and The Korea Times.

The second launch was far more surprising: a beer commercial.

The DPRK has begun airing ads for the brew on state television. BBC reports that the Taedonggang beer company bought a brewery from the UK and had the entire plant shipped back to North Korea in 2002. Full article and commercial here.

More on signs of commercialization in the DPRK to follow in later posts.

The Heir, Apparently

From June 19: Japan's Yomiuri Shinbun reports on Kim Jong Un's schooling in Bern, Switzerland.