Family Care Foundation - North Korean Refugees

North Korea will shift to collective rule

2011-12-22T00:48:00.003-05:00

North Korea will shift to collective rule from a strongman dictatorship after last week's death of Kim Jong-il, although his untested young son will be at the head of the ruling coterie, a source with close ties to Pyongyang and Beijing said.

The source added that the military, which is trying to develop a nuclear arsenal, has pledged allegiance to the untested Kim Jong-un, who takes over the family dynasty that has ruled North Korea since it was founded after World War Two.

The comments are the first signal that North Korea is following a course that many analysts have anticipated -- it will be governed by a group of people for the first time since it was founded in 1948.

The situation in North Korea appeared stable after the military gave its backing to Kim Jong-un, the source said. "It's very unlikely," the source said when asked about the possibility of a military coup. "The military has pledged allegiance to Kim Jong-un."

North Korea's collective leadership will include Kim Jong-un, his uncle and the military, the source said. Jang Song-thaek, 65, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-il and the younger Kim's uncle, is seen as the power behind the throne along with his wife Kim Kyong-hui, Kim Jong-il's sister. So too is Ri Yong-ho, the rising star of the North's military and currently its most senior general.

Reuters

Premature to predict a Pyongyang Spring

2011-12-21T12:36:00.001-05:00

What does Kim's death mean for East Asia and for the United States?

This is a region that matters. East Asia is the world's major economic hub and a focal point of the Obama administration's global strategy. The 38th Parallel that divides North and South Korea is, moreover, a major geopolitical fault line. On one side is North Korea, backed by China. On the other is South Korea, bound by alliance to the United States. Nowhere, save Taiwan, is regional conflict more likely to embroil the world's sole superpower and its Chinese challenger.

The question is this: Does Kim's death make regional and world politics more or less stable? The future is unknowable, but some perspective may help us to gauge the stakes, especially insofar as American interests are concerned.

We should beware appealing but misleading analogies. It would be premature to predict a "Pyongyang Spring." North Korea is a regime quite different from Hosni Mubarak's Egypt. A Stalinist relic of the Cold War, North Korea is authentically totalitarian -- not just authoritarian -- and far less vulnerable than was Egypt to the challenge of civil society.

The passing of a dictator who has ruled for three decades will be traumatic nonetheless. South Korea and the United States should be prepared for a phase of uncertainty, even testing, across the 38th Parallel.

The more interesting question, though, is where the regime's new masters will go over the medium to long term. The fact is that North Korea has backed itself into an unfavorable corner. It is poor, benighted and dependent on China, its mighty patron. The change in leadership may yet provide an opportunity to plot a new course. Here, the key issue will be how Kim Jong Un positions himself in relation to Beijing. China's rise has, after all, sent other East Asian countries scattering toward Washington.

--Daniel Sargent, assistant professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley.

North Korea and China remain as close as lips and teeth

2011-12-20T12:17:00.003-05:00

Last May, Kim Jong Il visited China again to ask for continued economic and military aid and political support. As urgent a mission was introducing his heir apparent, Kim Jong Un, to the Chinese senior leaders.

As North Korea's major ally, experts say, China's support for the young Kim was important.

China-North Korean ties are so close they are frequently described "as close as lips and teeth," and the two neighbors were Korean War allies. Of all the regional powers, Beijing has the greatest potential leverage over Pyongyang. China supplies at least 80% of North Korea's oil and significant amounts of food, fertilizer and military aid. The two Communist neighbors have frequent political, military and party-to-party exchanges.

Former CNN correspondent, Mike Chinoy, a veteran Korea-watcher who has visited North Korea several times, said: "The Chinese have made it extremely clear that they are not going to let Korea go down the drain. They are going to do whatever they need to do to prop it up."

Foremost in Beijing's mind, North Korea serves as a buffer, keeping the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea away from the Chinese border.

Meantime, experts say, all eyes are on the young and untested Kim Jong Un. Chinoy, now a senior fellow at the Los Angeles-based U.S. China Institute, notes the young Kim's big challenge: "How does somebody who's not yet 30 win the loyalty and respect and command authority over the entrenched party apparatus, the entrenched military bureaucracy, and the senior party officials who may have been in their positions for a long time?"

Kim Jong Un has only had two years to ascend as a senior party leader and four-star general. He is expected to rely on powerful backers of close relatives, including Kim Jong Il's sister and brother-in-law Jang Song Taek, who experts say will serve as regents, tutoring behind the scene.

Most Korea-watchers do not expect North Korea to implode immediately, nor is any huge policy change expected.

Kim Jong Il dies

2011-12-19T13:07:00.005-05:00

The leadership of North Korea appeared to pass to a third generation of the Kim family Monday after the weekend death of Kim Jong Il, who ruled the reclusive Stalinist state since 1994.

The man known as the "dear leader" died of a heart attack Saturday at age 69, state news outlets announced Monday. The ruling Worker's Party declared the youngest of his three sons, Kim Jong Un, the "great successor" to his father's mantle.

The news of his death spurred South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North more than five decades after their 1950-53 conflict, to put its military on high alert. But across one of the world's most heavily fortified borders, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told his citizens "to go about their lives" in the meantime.

On North Korea's state television network, a tearful anchor broke the news Monday morning. The news was followed by scenes of similarly emotional residents of the capital Pyongyang.

The network said Kim died of "overwork" while "dedicating his life to the people." And the official news agency KCNA said Kim suffered "great mental and physical strain" while on a train.

KCNA acknowledged that Kim had been treated for "cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases for a long period." He suffered a heart attack on Saturday.

Know your Kim's

December 9 Worldwide Demonstration Protesting Crimes Against Humanity in North Korea

2011-12-05T14:27:00.006-05:00

On December 9 -- the 63rd anniversary of the United Nations Genocide Convention -- a call has gone out to organize protests and hunger strikes in front of DPRK/PRC/UN offices worldwide. There are three main objectives of these international protests to take place on December 9:

1) To bring unprecedented pressure upon not both North Korea and the international community to meaningfully address the horrific crimes being perpetuated systematically by North Korea.
2) To influence and awaken global public opinion to the real, genocidal nature of the North Korean regime.
3) To create a watershed movement for the liberation of NK itself.

Protests confirmed this far include:
New York City
12:00pm: Grand Army Plaza in Manhattan, silent march to DPRK Mission to the UN
1:00pm: Demonstration at DPRK Mission to the UN
Speech by North Korean Defector Activist Ji Seong Ho (President of NAUH)
ent Coordinator: cbk2004@gmail.com

Seoul, Republic of Korea
3:00pm ~ 4:00pm: Demonstration at Seoul Station Plaza
4:00pm ~ 5:00pm: March to UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees)
7:30pm ~ 8:30pm: Candlelight rally in Seoul Plaza
Event Coordinator: pink2011info@gmail.com

Berlin, Germany
3:00pm ~ 6:00pm: Demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate
Event Coordinator: kimsunderhiswing@googlemail.com

Tokyo, Japan
12:00pm ~ 12:50pm Demonstration at Hachiko Square in Shibuya, Tokyo
1:30pm: Demonstration at Chongryon
Event Coordinator: kanandoj@yahoo.co.jp

London, UK
1:00pm ~ 3:00pm Demonstration at North Korea Embassy
Event Coordinator: S.Yang10@lse.ac.uk

The nuclear lesson from North Korea and Libya

2011-10-18T00:30:00.001-04:00

So the Libyan rebel forces, aided by the massive military power of the United States and NATO, have cast Muammar Qaddafi onto the rubble heap of history.

As pundits contemplate the lessons that other states may take away from this undertaking, it may surprise one to learn that perhaps the shrewdest of those pundits has been none other than the "volatile," "unpredictable," and "irrational" leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-Il.

Just days after NATO commenced its "enforcement" of a UN-authorized "no-fly zone" by launching cruise missiles directly at Mr. Qaddafi's house, an anonymous North Korean Foreign Ministry official stated that "The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson."-- Qaddafi should have held on to his nuclear weapons program.

If Libya had possessed the capability, oh, to obliterate a major American military base in Italy, or to vaporize an entire American "carrier battle group" off the southern coast of France, it almost certainly would have dissuaded Washington (not to mention Rome and Paris) from military action. If the Libyan regime wanted to ensure its own survival, then, just like North Korea, it should have developed a nuclear deterrent – small, survivable, and just lethal enough to inflict unacceptable damage on any aggressor.

But instead, Qaddafi was seduced by the siren song of the West. Give up your weapons of mass destruction, they said, and we will welcome you into the international community.

No such fate awaits North’s Korea’s Kim. Volatile, irresponsible, and loathsome though his regime, he holds in his hands the royal flush of a nuclear deterrent.

-Tad Daley, author of “Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World”

Kim Jong-un portrait to hang alongside his father and grandfather’s?

2011-10-10T12:59:00.002-04:00

In one week, North Korea will celebrate the 85th anniversary of the founding of The Down-with-Imperialism Union by Kim Il-sung, the father of the country's current leader Kim Jong-il.

But the current focus in the Democratic People’s Republic is not on the current father, but on the son, Kim Jong-un -- the North Korean heir-apparent. "He is now performing the role of successor," Yoo Ho-yeol, a professor at Korea University in South Korea, told AP. "He has virtually cemented his status as the next leader."

Kim Jong-un burst onto the international spotlight last year when he was made a four-star general and the vice chairman of the Communist Party's military commission. Since then, Kim has been pushed into the public's consciousnesses in North Korea, where he is depicted as an intelligent, strong-willed future leader.

Kim Jong-un reportedy takes the helm of the country when Kim Jong-il is away on official state trips and he is also said to be in control of the military.

On Monday, Kim Jong-un was seen sitting next to his father during a Party Foundation Day military parade, the holiday celebrating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea.

There have also been poems and lyrical ballads composed to praise his Kim Jong-un's leadership abilities, and the government has printed 10 million official portraits of him, according to BBC. The images could soon very well hang beside those of his father and grandfather.

North Korean refugees flown to Seoul from Japan

2011-10-04T20:11:00.000-04:00

Nine North Koreans who defected to Japan have been flown to South Korea for resettlement.

The group was put on a flight out of Japan on Tuesday. Japanese authorities said they had requested to be sent to South Korea, and Tokyo decided to honor that request for humanitarian reasons.

The nine said they departed North Korea on September 8. By the time they were spotted by Japan's Coast Guard about a week later, they had only a small amount of rice, some pickled vegetables and snacks, and had run out of drinking water.

North Korean defectors sail to Japan

2011-09-13T11:19:00.001-04:00

Japanese Coast Guards found a eight-meter wooden boat Tuesday morning drifting off Japan's western coast with nine men, women and children on board claiming they are from North Korea, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

A fisherman saw the boat drifting about 25 km (15 miles) off the coast of Noto peninsula of Ishikawa prefecture, West Japan, and reported it to authorities.

It is rare for North Korean defectors to sail to Japan's coast. According to Coast Guard records there have been only two other cases. One was in 2006, when four North Korean men and women floated to northern Japan. The other was in 1987, when a family of 11 drifted to west Japan.

North Korea calls for fresh six-party talks

2011-08-01T12:53:00.004-04:00

North Korea reiterated its call Monday for a resumption of six-party talks without preconditions, its state-run news agency reported from Pyongyang.

The call follows a rare visit to the United States by North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kae-Gwan, who met with senior U.S. officials last week. It was the first direct meeting between North Korean and U.S. officials since North Korea pulled out of six-party talks in 2008.

In addition to the United States and North Korea, the six-party talks involved China, Japan, Russia and South Korea. The goal was nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula.

North Korea has called for the resumption of six-party talks without preconditions before. The United States and South Korea, however, have insisted on some tangible demonstration that North Korea is serious about denuclearisation.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said recently, for example, that the United States hoped to determine in its meetings with the North Korean foreign minister whether North Korea is ready to "take concrete and irreversible steps toward denuclearisation."

On the Debate of Aid to North Korea

2011-07-06T23:35:00.002-04:00

An opinion offered by Kim Yong-soon, research fellow at the Institute of East and West Studies, Yonsei University:

There have been many voices heard from both in and outside of the South Korean government advocating the resumption of aid to North Korea. The debate between the doves and the hawks has raged on ever since the peninsula was divided in 1945.

The possibility of resuming aid to North Korea begs the question of “to whom are we sending our aid to?” Is the aid going to the North Korean regime or is it going to the North Koreans who are in dire need of such aid? Neither the South Korean government, nor anyone else, can verify, let alone designate, where the aid is going to.

It is conventional wisdom that the aid is in fact going to the areas and people that the North Korean regime will designate, leaving the donors powerless to attach any means to enforce measures that ensure that the aid goes to the people that are in need.

Thus, the aid originating from South Korea has not served its twin goals of relieving the dire situation of the North Korean people and obtaining the ability to influence North Korea in any positive way, and has remained symbolic at best.

The only goal that the aid has served is the self-satisfaction gained by those that have advocated continuous aid to the North with vague hopes of reaching out to the ordinary North Koreans.

EU sends food aid to North Korea

2011-07-06T01:56:00.004-04:00

The European Commission announced that it would provide 10 million euros ($14.50 million) of food aid to North Korea despite South Korean opposition and US doubts as to the veracity of Pyongyang's calls for help.

The European Commission said it was convinced that the North's pleas for help were genuine after a team of experts reported seeing in June severely malnourished children in hospitals and nurseries where no treatment was available.

"The purpose of this aid package is to save the lives of at least 650,000 people who could otherwise die from lack of food," European Union Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said.

The EU's decision comes as Washington also weighs resuming food aid to the North, after suspending its shipments in 2008 in a monitoring row.

Analysts said any resumption of US aid would annoy Seoul, which stands firmly against sending food to its neighbor.

On North Korea being named to chair UN's Conference on Disarmament

2011-07-02T14:29:00.003-04:00

The naming of North Korea's Ambassador So Se Pyong as chair of the UN's Conference on Disarmament drew sharp criticism from Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird.

"North Korea is simply not a credible chair of a disarmament body," he said of the bellicose nuclear-armed state, which faced UN accusations as recently as May of trading missile know-how with Iran. Baird said the appointment was "unacceptable" given North Korea's "efforts in the opposite direction."

Meanwhile, another veteran Canadian diplomat, Marius Grinius, used his farewell address to the conference to congratulate the North Koreans! Grinius went on to recall his memories of visiting Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The fact the UN reports that other ambassadors — including Britain's — also welcomed the appointment of the North Korean illustrates the make-believe world that defines the UN, where diplomats of even the most heinous regimes are routinely treated as respected equals. It implies that a disconnect exists between the internationally based members of the bureaucracy, and the government.

Five North Korean students enroute to US

2011-07-01T02:09:00.001-04:00

Five North Korean defectors, now students in college, will soon experience the American way of life. This is thanks to the concerted efforts by the U.S. Embassy, the Ministry of Unification, and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

The five North Korean defectors presently in South Korean universities have qualified to participate in the W.E.S.T. (Work, English Study, and Travel) program. The five are scheduled to leave in July, according to the ministry officials.

Generally, students would have five months of English language education, 12 months of internship, and one last month of traveling. The five will go through a modified program on a trial basis, staying for five months of English lessons and an additional month of work.

Anti-Government Graffiti in North Korean capital

2011-06-30T00:41:00.003-04:00

Anti-Kim Jong Il graffiti was found on the wall of a college in Pyongyang. And then the government locked down the entire capital to hunt for the culprit.

The graffiti, found June 24th on a wall at Pyongyang Railroad College reportedly called Kim Jong Il "a dictator who starved people to death." Not exactly Banksy, but it gets the point across.

NK Daily talked to a Chinese trader about the investigation: According to the trader, the authorities launched the search for the person responsible via a joint investigation team including the National Security Agency and People's Safety Ministry, specifically targeting students and people from other provinces. They established road blocks on the roads linking Pyongyang Station and West Pyongyang Station, Pyongyang-Pyongsung, Pyongyang-Wonsan and Pyongyang-Kanri, then began questioning all passers' by.

North Korean defectors offered internships in Seoul

2011-06-25T22:49:00.001-04:00

Dozens of North Korean defectors will be offered internships at several major companies in an effort to help them find jobs and adapt to life in the South, the Unification Ministry said yesterday.

Under the program, about 20 North Korean college students and graduates living in the South will work as interns at banks, including HSBC and SC First Bank, and several big European firms.

A further 20 North Koreans will work at South Korean small and medium-sized companies, it said, adding the interns could receive $740 or more every month.

In May, the British embassy in Seoul launched a program to provide English-language skills and work experience to North Korean defectors.

South Korea building new refugee center for North Koreans

2011-06-23T19:15:00.001-04:00

South Korea is building a new facility to house North Korean defectors arriving in the country.

Most defectors - who include economic migrants and political refugees - spend their first three months in a government center known as Hanawon. They are taught the skills they need in a capitalist country - such as how to work cash machines, or get a job.

The government has already extended the time that new arrivals must spend in the facility from two months to three. The current facility has already been expanded, and now holds 1,000 people. The new centre will have room for 500 more.

Seoul says almost 3,000 North Koreans arrive each year and the current center is danger of becoming overcrowded.

According to the Unification Ministry, it will offer retraining programs for new arrivals, to help North Koreans compete for jobs. Fewer than half of all North Koreans find work in the South - and many who do end up in menial low-paid jobs.

Defectors highlight abuses in North Korean prisons

2011-06-22T02:53:00.001-04:00

A group of 14 North Korean defectors filed a petition with South Korea’s human rights watchdog over abuses they allegedly suffered in two North Korean prisons, a spokesman said.

The petition comes as Seoul’s National Human Rights Commission collects cases of human rights violations in the communist state as part of a campaign to improve rights conditions in the North.

Of the group, eight claimed they had suffered severe abuses at the Jongori prison in the northeastern city of Hoeryong and six others said they were mistreated at a prison in the southwestern county of Jungsan.

One case involved a woman, who fled to China to escape hunger only to be captured, repatriated and imprisoned at the Jongori prison. She was pregnant when she was jailed. “She was forcibly injected for abortion but the baby came out alive. Then prison guards killed the baby,” Secretary General Kim Hee-Tae of the Meeting of Promotion for North Korea Human Rights said.

In another case, a defector alleged he had seen around 800 dead bodies during an 18-month jail term in the Jungsan County prison between 2000 and 2001. Deaths were caused by malnutrition, disease and mistreatment at the prison, he said, where up to 4,000 prisoners were held, four times its capacity.

South Korea’s conservative government has abandoned the previous liberal administration’s strategy of quiet diplomacy and decided to turn up the heat on North Korea over its human rights situation.

North Korean prostitution feeds families

2011-06-21T02:31:00.002-04:00

It has been a growing phenomenon that young women in North Korea have become involved in prostitution to survive.

They do whatever it takes to feed their family, from toiling in a patch of field, to trading, or to becoming a maid. However, there are still days that pass without food. If a woman in such a situation winds up “selling her flower,” a euphemism for selling sex, no one can blame the woman for her immorality.

A woman’s body often becomes a means of survival. The poorer the society, the more unequal is the status of women, and women’s body easily ends up falling into an instrument to provide sex in return for payment. North Korea is no exception.

Pyongyang has become home to restaurants that serve food normally during the day and change to houses of prostitution at night. Officially, the restaurants belong to government establishments, but the real owners of these restaurants are commonly powerful party cadres or wealthy foreign trade officials.

These establishments are generally frequented by wealthy or powerful men, but judiciary officials are by far the most numerous. Illegal activity would not be possible if not for these officials, and women are instructed to serve them almost on a daily basis. According to one manager of a restaurant in Pyongyang’s Daedong River District, “Most of the young women working at our restaurant are poor and they all want relationships with those who come by the most frequently, the party cadres, businessmen or wealthy men. They all prefer men who they can carry out a long-term stable relationship with, not the men who are just looking for a one-night stand.’

A Pyongyang City Party official interviewed does not pay much attention to government crackdowns. “Once or twice each year, the government conducts crackdowns on prostitution saying it will punish the capitalist elements agitating and polluting society. However, just surviving these crackdowns is all you need to do to walk away scot-free.”

US assessment team concludes North Korea is not suffering from food crisis

2011-06-20T01:40:00.002-04:00

The Dong-a Ilbo reports that the U.S. has tentatively concluded that North Korea is not suffering from a food crisis though certain areas in the Stalinist country do have food shortages.

This conclusion is based on the visit by a U.S. team for food assistance to the North led by Robert King, U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights, said a South Korea diplomatic source Sunday.

“Though the U.S. has yet to release an official report on the visit, it made a preliminary judgment based on the results of the assessment team’s trip that the North has no comprehensive food crisis,” the source said.

Based on the judgment, Washington is known to believe that food assistance is necessary for certain regions in the North where food is in short supply.

The U.S. will make a final decision on sending food assistance to the North by putting together the results of the U.S. visit and those of European Union officials to the Stalinist country between June 6 and 17.

Dong-a Ilbo

North Korea demands the return of latest defectors

2011-06-17T23:58:00.004-04:00

North Korea has demanded the return of nine of its citizens who defected by boat and warned that cross-border relations would suffer otherwise, Seoul officials said.

The North's Red Cross sent a message to its South Korean counterpart to demand the return of the nine immediately. Failure to do so could further damage relations, the message added.

The latest incident comes at a time of high cross-border tensions, after the North announced it was breaking all contacts with the South's government. However, one analyst said he did not believe the latest defection would seriously aggravate the situation.

"The North cannot help but demand their return, as usual, but it will have to swallow (the situation) as the nine came to the South of their free will," said Kim Yong-Hyun, of Seoul's Dongguk University.

Nine North Korean Defectors Brave Sea Passage to Seoul

2011-06-16T01:53:00.001-04:00

Nine North Koreans defected to South Korea on Saturday by crossing the disputed maritime border.

A government source said a 50-year-old man, his 42-year-old brother and their family members boarded an engineless boat and crossed the Northern Limit Line, the de facto maritime border, at around 6 a.m. on Saturday. The group, which consisted of three men, two women and for children, waved to onlookers and expressed their desire to defect when they drifted into the waters off the west coast and were spotted by the South Korean military. "All of them have expressed their intention to defect to the South," the source added.

The group left Haeju, Hwanghae Province on Friday night after having planned their escape for some time and preparing a boat for their escape, the source said. The fact that the defectors were all part of a large family enabled them to maintain the level of secrecy needed for such an operation.

The source added that the group sought out chances to escape as they fished off the coast of Haeju on Wednesday of last week. They decided to defect in order to escape the harsh economic conditions in the North.

North Korean defectors decry 2000 North-South agreement

2011-06-14T00:08:00.003-04:00

JoongAng Ilbo reports twenty North Korean defectors will gather today at the Korea Press Center building in Seoul to denounce the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration signed by former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

Seven of the defectors carry doctorate degrees and 10 more are on track to earn a doctorate. They will hold an academic symposium to concentrate on the agreement and how to democratize North Korea.

“The summit meeting between North and South Korea in June 2000 and the joint agreement brought great joy,” the group said in a press release. “But Kim Jong-il threw away his promise of visiting Seoul, which was atop the list for the agreement to be upheld. There are still those in the South who carry on as if the agreement is a bible for reunification.”

More than 600 North Korean defectors will sign a petition supporting the North Korean Human Rights Act, which has been pending in the National Assembly, and ask for improved human rights in North Korea.

North Korea successfully test fires Short-Range Missile

2011-06-13T23:49:00.000-04:00

North Korea's test launch of a KN-06 surface-to-air missile into the West Sea early this month appears to have been successful, Chosun Ilbo quotes South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin as saying.

The KN-06 is a surface-to-air missile that shoots down enemy fighters. Unlike previous North Korean missiles, such as the KN-02 inter-continental ballistic missile that follows an arch-like trajectory, the KN-06 is stored in a launching tube and fired vertically toward a flying target. The KN-06 is apparently capable of hitting targets up to 150 km away. Each launcher truck can hold two to three missiles.

Kim also confirmed a report by AP last month claiming that North Korea was nearing the completion of a second long-range missile base in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province.

North Korean defectors suggest 30,000 NK electronic warfare specialists

2011-06-11T01:19:00.000-04:00

The Korea Herald reports the North Korean military has 30,000 electronic warfare specialists with capabilities rivaling those of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, citing defectors and other sources.

The U.S. broadcaster’s report titled “North Korea’s cyber army gets increasingly sophisticated,” came after a series of cyber attacks on key government and corporate websites in South Korea, which Seoul officials believe were masterminded by the communist state.

“Defectors say that the regime now culls the brightest students from the nation’s universities and funnels them into special secret schools that concentrate on hacking and developing cyber warfare programs targeted at South Korea,” the report said.

Pointing out that among the most frequent visitors to U.S. military web sites are computers traced to North Korea, it said the North could pose a serious threat to U.S. military networks.

“In fact, South Korea’s intelligence agencies now believe that North Korea has the capability to paralyze the U.S. Pacific Command and cause extensive damage to defense networks inside the United States,” the report said.

Citing one defector, who was an officer in the North Korean electronic warfare command, the report said, “The heart of the effort is centered at Automation University, where 100 to 110 hackers a year are trained in advanced electronic espionage every year.”

Kim Heung-kwang, who defected to the South in 2004 after working as a professor at a computer technology university in the North for 20 years, said that the North was focusing on cyber and electronic warfare capabilities as it can cause massive damage to its enemy at low cost. “Cyber warfare capabilities are asymmetrical ones that can shake up the centerpiece of the South Korean society. The cost of establishing and running cyber warfare facilities is very low while its impact is great,” he told The Korea Herald.

Chinese companies posed to jump-start North Korean economy?

2011-06-10T02:18:00.001-04:00

In the aftermath of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's visit last month, Chinese companies in recent days have held a series of low-key groundbreaking ceremonies across the border for projects designed to jump-start the moribund North Korean economy.

The North Korean regime, largely out of desperation, has leased parcels of its territory to the Chinese. This includes ports at the northern tip of the country that will give China access to the Sea of Japan through North Korea for the first time in 150 years.

Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and Jang Song Taek, Kim's brother-in-law, attended a groundbreaking ceremony for an industrial park on Hwanggumpyong, an island on the Yalu River, that is supposed to take advantage of Chinese capital and cheap North Korean labor.

Businesspeople working in North Korea say a similar ceremony was held Thursday at Rajin, the seaport where Chinese companies are building another industrial zone, as well as a new road that leads to the port.

A lack of publicity in China about all this may reflect Beijing's ambivalence about doing business with an unreliable neighbor and a desire to avoid international criticism for propping up a nuclear-armed country with an abysmal human rights record.

For the North Korean regime, the deals with China look like an easy fix for its tangle of diplomatic and economic woes. Kim Jong Il has set 2012, the centennial of the birth of his father, Kim Il Sung, as a deadline for North Korea to become a "strong and prosperous nation," the government's latest propaganda slogan.

EU team visits North Korea to assess food aid needs

2011-06-08T01:13:00.001-04:00

VoA reports a team of European officials is traveling in North Korea to assess the need for food aid. The five-member team flew to North Korea from Beijing on Monday and is expected to remain until June 17, visiting both the countryside and the capital, Pyongyang.

The five are members of the European Union's humanitarian aid agency. The head of the team, Marco Capurro, told Japan's Kyodo news agency the group expects to discuss its findings with international agencies and with members of a U.S. team that just completed a similar mission.

The head of the U.S. team, human rights envoy Robert King, said his group still has not decided whether food aid is warranted. He said that even if there is a need, North Korea must find a way to assure donors that it will go to those most in need.

United Nations food agency teams recently reported that more than one quarter of North Korea's population is in urgent need of food aid.

North Korean defector appointed to high-level S.Korean post

2011-06-07T11:28:00.001-04:00

South Korea says it has decided to appoint a North Korean defector as head of a government research institute. It would be the highest South Korean government job that a North Korean refugee has ever taken.

The Unification Ministry in Seoul said in a statement Tuesday that economist Cho Myung-chul will be formally appointed as chief of the ministry-affiliated Education Center for Unification later this week.

Media reports say Cho taught at Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung University and defected in 1994. Cho currently works at Seoul-based Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

North Korea turning the tables

2011-06-06T11:56:00.002-04:00

It did seem like a fun idea at the time. Why not hoist huge photos of Kim Jong-il and son and heir Kim Jong-eun and have young South Korean army soldiers fire away at them for target practice? … It just didn't strike the North Koreans as funny. No sooner did they get word about it than they were off on a rhetorical bender, promising the same "retaliatory military strikes" that they have said they will deploy against those so bold as to launch the dreaded balloons.

The North Korean language in the case of the use of images of the Dear Leader and son was particularly harsh. The Korean People's Army and the Worker Peasant Red Guards "will launch practical and overall retaliatory military actions to wipe out the group of traitors at a stroke," said a military spokesman. On top of that, the spokesman called on "South Korean puppet authorities" to apologize "for the hideous provocation" and to "guarantee" it would never happen again.

The bottom line is the North now has another avenue that it's pursuing in search of aid and empathy. This one, it seems, is far more promising for Pyongyang and infuriating to Seoul than the revelation that Lee would like to follow the footsteps to Pyongyang of the two previous presidents whose soft-line "Sunshine" policy he has gone to great lengths to reverse.

North Korea's ace is the relationship that its skilled negotiators appear to have struck up with the US envoy on human rights to North Korea, Robert King. His quick trip there, on a "fact-finding" mission about the North's need for food and other forms of aid, was only the beginning. A North Korean official, King said, specifically invited him back to talk about "human rights," and he's "looking forward to the opportunity". In other words, while spurning President Lee's hesitant overtures in no uncertain terms, North Korea is happy to chat it up with a representative of the regime that's seen as pulling the strings on the South Korean marionette.

--Donald Kirk writing in Asia Times

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How do the North Koreans manage to con the Americans so easily?

2011-06-06T11:53:00.003-04:00

The question South Koreans are asking, as they've asked regularly over the years, is how do North Korean negotiators manage to con their American interlocutors so easily. Here's a regime that has time and again rejected, deflected and derided any attempt at confirming the most egregious violations of human rights, and US Envoy Robert King apparently thinks he's going to get somewhere by accepting another invitation to Pyongyang.

King's got South Korean officials extremely nervous, if not infuriated, by giving the impression that he really thinks he's going to get anywhere in talks with the North Koreans. The whole goal of the North Korean game, they believe, is to dig a ditch between North Korea and the US - and relegate the South to the role of the "puppet" to whom there's no point in talking about much of anything.

King himself finally acknowledged what had been clear for some time, that South Korea really opposes US moves to resume providing food and fertilizer to North Korea. The US cut off aid in tandem with the South in the early months of Lee's administration, but pressure is mounting fast for a shift in US policy.

If North Korea can get King to come back on the pretense of talking about "human rights", it's a safe bet the North Koreans will come up with a scheme for addressing what King has called "our serious concerns about monitoring and outstanding issues related to our previous food program".

Among these issues is what the North Koreans did with 20,000 tons of food that the few Americans who were there never got to monitor as promised. They were ordered out of the country more than two years ago before that food was ever distributed. Another issue is the North Koreans don't want any Korean speakers on the American team - no need to have these interlopers snooping around chatting casually with someone with an inkling of what's going on.

--Donald Kirk writing in Asia Times

Time for Implementation of the North Korean Human Rights Act

2011-06-05T00:08:00.002-04:00

Excerpts of a testimony by Robert King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues:

My position exists because North Korea remains one of the worst human rights violators in the world. State security forces reportedly commit severe human rights abuses and subject political prisoners to brutality and torture. Elections are not free or fair; the judiciary is not independent; and citizens are denied freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association. In addition, the DPRK imposes severe restrictions on freedom of religion and freedom of movement. Finally, we hear continuing and widespread reports of severe punishment of repatriated asylum seekers and of trafficking of women and girls across the border into China.

In my recent trip to Pyongyang, I engaged directly on human rights issues with Kim Kye-gwan, First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, and other high-level officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This was the first time the United States’ Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues was granted entry to the DPRK and the first time we were able to engage in a direct dialogue about ways in which North Korea can improve its human rights record. This is a significant first step.

We have made no decision on whether we will provide food aid to North Korea. … The DPRK must first address our serious concerns about monitoring and outstanding issues related to our previous food aid program, which North Korea abruptly suspended in March 2009 and our humanitarian personnel were ordered to leave the country and forced to leave behind approximately 20,000 metric tons of U.S. food items.

In visits to North Korean resettlement and assistance centers in the ROK, including Hanawon, I have seen the extent to which the ROK has invested in providing opportunities to the 21,000 North Koreans they have resettled. I have learned from North Korean refugees themselves, about the grim conditions inside the DPRK and their often perilous journey in seeking a better life in the ROK.

Editor's Note: In more than 6 years since the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, the United States has resettled only 120 North Korean refugees and their families.

North Korean defectors to visit US

2011-06-04T23:46:00.000-04:00

Yonhap - A group of five North Korean defectors currently enrolled in South Korean colleges will visit the United States on a U.S. government-sponsored program. The five North Koreans will likely head for the United States next month, according to the official from Seoul's Unification Ministry.

"The U.S. Embassy in South Korea and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology selected the five students in April for the West program," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Under the student exchange program, South Korean students can visit the United States for up to 18 months -- five months of mandatory language programs plus internships up to one year long at U.S. companies, followed by one month reserved for travel. Thousands of students have visited or are visiting the United States under the program since its launch in early 2009, but no one originating from North Korea had been offered the chance until now.

"The ministry will consider extending the program to more North Korean defectors," a ministry official said, adding there are currently about 850 college students here who defected from North Korea.

South Korea acknowledges secret talks with North Korea

2011-06-03T01:56:00.003-04:00

South Korea's government on Thursday admitted it held secret discussions with North Korea last month. And South Korean president Lee Myung-bak is facing criticism across the domestic political spectrum for the talks, which were revealed by Pyongyang.

On Wednesday, North Korea claimed three South Korean officials "begged" for a summit between leaders of the two countries and offered bribes at secret meetings in Beijing last month.

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek on Thursday confirmed to lawmakers the clandestine encounter did occur. Hyun says there was no attempt by South Korea to arrange a leaders’ summit. Rather the secret talks were intended to press North Korea to apologize for last year's military provocations, which Seoul insists is a prelude to improving the chilly relationship.

Marcus Noland, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute of International Economics and the East West Center in the United States, says, "Really the story is not that the South Koreans were talking to the North Koreas - just like the Chinese and Americans are - but rather that the North Koreans chose to publically embarrass him just like they had done to a previous delegation of international statesmen that tried to reach out and open up some doors."

Some western intelligence analysts say this signals a new, dangerous phase in inter-Korean relations. The analysts say the recent statements from the North could mean it is willing to take some sort of military action in response to any perceived provocations by the South. Noland, an economist who closely follows North Korea, agrees with that scenario.

VoA

North Korean defector claims North grooming hackers

2011-06-02T02:27:00.000-04:00

JoongAng Ilbo reports North Korea is bulking up the ranks of its cyberwarriors, and is even sending them overseas to study the dark art of Internet hacking, according to a representative from a group of North Korean defectors.

Kim Heung-kwang of the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group known for reliable information, said yesterday that North Korea has increased its number of cyber terrorists to 3,000, up from around 500 in the past.

Kim said those who show talent in computer skills are detected at a young age and sent to a special middle school in Pyongyang to be groomed in the art of cyber attacks.

“These young, gifted students are placed in the best environment possible and once they graduate from school with the highest scores, their families are brought to Pyongyang to live with them,” Kim said.

The students are then sent to Kim Il Sung University or the Kim Chaek University of Technology to further their computer studies. Once in that training, the future hackers are sent to study abroad, Kim said, and by the time they return, the hackers are in their 20s.

Kim said North Korea realized that building the ranks of cyber warriors “costs less money than to train Army or Air Force soldiers.”

North Korea has been blamed for several recent South Korean cyber security breaches, including the hacking Nonghyup Bank servers. The South Korean military believes that North Korea was behind spam e-mails sent to high-ranking South Korean military officials that unleashed a virus into the recipient’s computer and extracted personal data and information.

More on release of American missionary Jun Young-su

2011-05-31T23:59:00.008-04:00

Official reports from the Korean Central News Agency has said that Jun Young-su, 60, of Orange County, California, was released by North Korea on humanitarian grounds. The reports stated: “The investigation proved that Jun committed a serious crime … which he frankly admitted himself.”

Pyongyang did not report under precisely what charges it was holding Jun under, however it is understood that he was accused of attempting to spread Christianity in North Korea.


American citizen Jun Young Su (R)

Visiting U.S. delegates had called for Jun’s immediate release, with the calls climaxing with the visit of Robert King, the U.S. envoy for North Korean Human Rights. He was successful in overseeing the final details of Jun’s release.

Other high profile names to add their weight to calls for Jun’s release were former U.S. President Carter, and the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of legendary evangelist Billy Graham.

Sam Kim, the executive director of the Korean Church Coalition (KCC), an NGO advocating for human rights on behalf of North Koreans, has released a statement greeting the release. He said, “While we are thankful for Missionary Jun’s release, there are millions who are still living in North Korea and there can never be peace on the Korean Peninsula when half of Korea remains in bondage, in darkness and under religious persecution. Kim emphasized that “no person should be arrested for simply exercising his religious beliefs”.

Kim Jong-il completes his third visit to China in a year

2011-05-30T13:12:00.001-04:00

The China Daily reports Kim Jong-il’s week-long trip to China “sends a strong signal to the outside world that the two will make joint efforts to maintain peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

Kim Jong-il paid a visit to China from May 20 to 26, his third visit to China in a year, a clear indication that China and the DPRK maintain frequent high-level contacts. During Kim’s visit, President Hu Jintao and other state leadership held talks on issues of mutual concern ranging from bilateral ties to the situation on the peninsula.

Beijing supports Pyongyang’s efforts to improve people’s livelihoods and promote economic and social development and is willing to share experiences with Pyongyang on many facets of nation building and development.

China’s stance is that the six-party talks should be revived at an early date. Launched in 2003, the six-party talks include China, the DPRK, the United States, the ROK, Japan and Russia. The talks, the only platform for discussing security matters on the peninsula in East Asia, have been suspended since December 2008.

During his visit, the DPRK leader reaffirmed his support for denuclearization on the peninsula, an early resumption of the six-party talks and improving inter-Korean relations.

American freed by North Korea without aid promise, US says

2011-05-28T23:47:00.002-04:00

North Korea freed an American it held for a half year for reportedly proselytizing. US envoy, Robert King, accompanied Eddie Jun on a flight from the North Korean capital. After Beijing, Jun flew to Seoul where he told reporters he would have a medical checkup.

Jun, a Korean-American from California who traveled to North Korea several times and had business interests there, was arrested in November, with the North's official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, saying he was accused of committing a serious crime. Pyongyang didn't provide details, but South Korean press reports say Jun was accused of spreading Christianity.

North Korea officially guarantees freedom of religion but often cracks down on Christians, who are seen as a Western-influenced threat. The distribution of Bibles and secret prayer services can mean banishment to a labor camp or execution, defectors have said.

King, the U.S. envoy for North Korean human rights, traveled to Pyongyang this week with specialists to assess the severity of the latest of North Korea's chronic food shortages, tried to quash any speculation that the U.S. had offered aid to obtain his freedom.

American Eddie Yong Su Jun freed by North Korea

2011-05-27T11:38:00.002-04:00

An American detained by North Korea since November has been released, state-run news agency reported Friday, following a four-day visit by a U.S. delegation assessing the country's food shortages.

Eddie Yong Su Jun, a Korean-American businessman, was detained for "committing a crime" against North Korea after entering the country, state-run KCNA reported. Jun admitted his crime during an investigation, the news agency said, but it did not specify what crime he allegedly committed.

Jun's release follows a visit by special envoy for North Korean human rights, Robert King, and the Deputy Assistant Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, Jon Brause, to assess food shortages that have left thousands starving after floods and harsh weather devastated North Korea's crops.

The news agency also said former President Jimmy Carter asked North Korea to pardon Jun.

In 2010, Carter helped secure the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a U.S. citizen who was fined about $600,000 and sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing over the Chinese border into North Korea. Gomes was also a Christian activist.

Making it difficult for North Korea defectors to send funds

2011-05-26T11:53:00.001-04:00

The Korean Herald reports North Korean defectors are strongly opposing a South Korean government plan to require them to gain approval before making remittances to relatives in the cash-strapped state.They say that the approval process could put them and their loved ones in the North in dangerous situations and make brokers demand more money for delivering funds. They also say that since their remittances are made through “complicated multi-layered” procedures, it would be difficult to detect those sending money without approval.

“We have been scrimping on food, clothes and others to send some of the hard-earned money ― at most 1 million won ($917) ― to help our family, not the North Korean regime. The approval system is wrong,” a 43-year-old North Korean defector, who has taken asylum here since 1997, told the Korea Herald, declining to be named.

He also pointed out that the planned system may not be effective. “All these have so far taken place secretly. Who would ever like to willingly tell the authorities about their remittances at the risk of revealing their identities and those of their relatives in the North? One out of 10 may be willing,” he said.

North Korean defectors usually send their money through ethnic Chinese people here, who ask their Chinese relatives or acquaintances inside the North or near the North Korea-China border to deliver the money. The brokers are known to take 30 percent of the total remittances.

According to a survey by a private Seoul-based group, which was released early this year, nearly half of North Korean defectors here have sent money to their families in the North.

US human rights envoy visiting North Korea

2011-05-25T13:04:00.003-04:00

U.S. human rights envoy Robert King has begun a week-long visit to North Korea to assess the country's food shortage and a possible resumption of U.S. food aid.

King, the first U.S. official to visit North Korea in 17 months -- and the first by a human rights envoy since 2004 -- arrived to little fanfare. He has been highly critical of North Korea's record on human rights. In January last year, during his first trip to Seoul after being confirmed by the U.S. Senate in his post, King said the North was "one of the worst places in terms of the lack of human rights." He also said human rights issues will play a part in any agreement with the United States.

King is to remain in Pyongyang until at least the weekend, although some of the delegation may stay longer if they decide to travel to remote parts of the country.

"We will be making a decision on [resuming food aid] over the next few days," U.S. Envoy to South Korea Stephen Bosworth said.

Not apparent if Heir Apparent Kim Jong-un visiting China

2011-05-20T16:15:00.002-04:00

South Koreans pay close attention to the movements of the leadership of North Korea, perhaps the world's most secretive regime.

Midst the conflicting accounts of whether Kim Jong-il's heir apparent son, Kim Jong-un, accompanied his father to China on Friday, The Korea Herald reports that a source in a Chinese border city confirmed the junior Kim Jong-un’s presence. The junior Kim appeared to be heading to Mudanjiang in northeast China after arriving in the Chinese border city of Tumen early Friday morning, the source in Tumen told Yonhap News Agency.

Open Radio for North Korea, a South Korean NGO partly staffed by defectors from the North, and who maintains a network of informants in North Korea, reports: "I checked through my sources, and one had heard from a military officer working at the border yesterday that there was some kind of 'emergency' along the border," said Ha Tae-kyung, the organization's president.

"According to that military officer, it was Kim Jong Il who is going -- not his son."

The term of Chinese President Hu Jintao's term is set to expire next year, prompting some to anticipate greater diplomatic interchange between Beijing and Pyongyang as Kim seeks to forge relations with the incoming leader.

"Kim Jong Il wants to get something from South Korea or the U.S. or China -- economic aid or security assurances -- but at the moment he is not getting anything and China is preventing North Korea from further provocations," said Choi Jin-wook of Seoul's Korea Institute of National Unification. "Kim wants to know what China is going to do for them."

North Korean cyber army increasingly sophisticated

2011-05-19T02:22:00.001-04:00

South Korea’s intelligence agencies now believe that North Korea has the capability to "paralyze the U.S. Pacific Command and cause extensive damage to defense networks inside the United States,” Fox News reported Tuesday. According to Washington and Seoul, their abilities rival those of the CIA, it said.

Among the most frequent visitors to U.S. military websites, according to the U.S. Defense Department, are computers traced to North Korea, the report said.

The North Korean military has amassed as many as 30,000 electronic warfare specialists and they have become the elite core of the military, Fox News said, quoting defectors.

Defectors say that the regime now culls the brightest students from the nation’s universities and funnels them into special “secret” schools that concentrate on hacking and developing cyber warfare programs targeted at South Korea, the broadcaster said. At one secret school, security is so tight that only one outsider ― dictator Kim Jong-il ― is allowed to drive onto the campus.

According to Jang Se-yul, a defector who attended one of the schools and was an officer in the North Korean electronic warfare command, the heart of the effort is centered at Automation University, where “100 to 110 hackers a year” trained in advanced electronic espionage every year often, Fox News said.

“Modern war is electronic warfare. Victory or defeat in a modern war depends on how to carry out electronic warfare,” Kim told his military several years ago. Kim has since made cyber warfare a top, though secret, priority of his paranoid regime, it said.

Report highlights North Korean abductions

2011-05-14T02:17:00.003-04:00

A new report detailing North Korea's decades-long policy of abducting foreign nationals has been published by a US-based human rights group. The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea says more than 180,000 people from 14 countries have been taken.

The vast majority of these cases are not typical abductions. They involve prisoners not returned after the 1950-53 Korean War and Japanese who settled in North Korea but were never allowed home. Other reports highlight North Korea's foreign operations - including a Japanese college student and his girlfriend snatched from a beach in Japan by North Korean agents.

The figure includes more than 3,000 South Korean fishermen forcibly towed into North Korean waters and students in European cities - including London, it says - lured to the secretive state with the promise of jobs and then denied permission to leave.

The figure of 180,000 is much larger than usually quoted because researchers have added together all the groups that may have been affected by North Korea's alleged practices.

Some abductions, they say, are apparently a bid to train its intelligence agents, but the report also cites more recent claims that North Korean agents are targeting those in China's border areas who are suspected of helping their people escape the closed state.

The allegations are almost impossible to verify.

BBC

Debate over food shortages in North Korea continues

2011-05-11T01:58:00.001-04:00

The U.N. says hunger is driving some North Koreans to eat wild grass, and humanitarians are pressuring the U.S. and South Korea to send food. But South Koreans who study the North say the crisis has been overstated.

American televangelist Franklin Graham, who has warned of famine and joined calls for more food aid, arrived in the North Korean capital Tuesday to discuss possible contributions from a Christian charity.

After a visit there last month, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter blasted Washington and Seoul on the issue. "One of the most important human rights is to have food to eat, and for South Korea and the U.S. and others to deliberately withhold food aid to the North Korean people is really a human rights violation," Carter said.

The U.N. in March called for more than 430,000 metric tons (474,000 tons) of food aid to fend off disaster, and activists want the U.S. and South Korea to override any political reasons for not giving.

"It is an exaggeration to say there is a looming crisis," said Kwon Tae-jin, a South Korean expert on North Korean food and agriculture.

Figures for the North's food production are likely to undercount the total, said the Daily NK, a Seoul-based media outlet that specializes in the North and has sources inside the country. Many collective farms in the North underreport their food production to the central government so they can sell extra food to raise money for fertilizer and farm equipment, Daily NK said in a report posted online.

There also are suspicions Pyongyang is exaggerating shortages and seeking food donations in part so it can devote more resources to its campaign to build a prosperous society during the 2012 centennial of the birth of North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.

The U.N. report from March paints a stark picture: More than 6 million North Koreans, about a quarter of the population, need urgent international food aid. The World Food Program said last month it is launching an emergency operation to help feed 3.5 million hungry people in North Korea.

Activists say that if food is sent and if the North allows outsiders to properly monitor it, the aid generally gets to the intended recipients.

Only 101 North Korean refugees accepted by US over 5 years

2011-05-08T01:52:00.003-04:00

The United States has received 101 North Korean refugees during the past few years under legislation to help improve human rights conditions in the reclusive communist state and accommodate North Korean refugees, statistics showed Saturday.

US Immigration admitted 73,293 people in total to the U.S. as refugees in 2010.

South Korea has received more than 20,000 North Korean defectors.

The US total breaks down to 9 for 2006, 22 for 2007, 37 for 2008, 25 for 2009 and 8 for 2010, according to figures released Saturday by the Office of Immigration Statistics at the Department of Homeland Security.

The North Korean refugees were admitted into the U.S. under the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004, which calls for the provision of financial aid to help improve North Korea's human rights and accept North Korean defectors into the U.S.

In 2008, Congress approved the North Korean Human Rights Reauthorization Act for another four years, calling for "activities to support human rights and democracy and freedom of information in North Korea," as well as "assistance to North Koreans who are outside North Korea," and 12-hour daily broadcasting to North Korea.

Yonhap

50-fold increase of North Korean defectors to Thailand

2011-05-07T02:24:00.003-04:00

The number of North Korean defectors to Thailand has jumped more than 50 times since 2004, a U.S. report claimed Saturday.

Radio Free Asia (RFA), citing a Thai newspaper, the Bangkok Post, said the number of North Koreans who illegally entered Thailand and were arrested soared from 46 in 2004 to 2,482 in 2010.

Through April this year, 870 North Koreans have been arrested for illegal entry, RFA added.

Thailand is a frequent destination for North Koreans escaping through China. North Koreans are not granted refugee status in Thailand, but after serving their prison sentences for illegal entry, they're deported to South Korea or the U.S.

Yonhap News

American Christians challenged to emulate North Korean underground church

2011-05-04T01:19:00.001-04:00

Rev. Eric Foley, co-founder of Voice of the Martyrs/Korea, has authored "The Whole Life Offering," a new manual designed to help American Christians grow by emulating discipleship practices of the North Korean underground church.

"The North Korean church is the most persecuted church in the world," says Foley. "They have had to learn ways of worship that do not depend on special buildings or paid pastors or freedoms granted by the government.

“The early church was born in homes, with worship centered in families. The North Korean church still worships that way today, and they are stronger Christians than we are because of this. They treasure the word of God more than we do because it is so scarce for them. Their living rooms have become sanctuaries for God, not just places to watch television. They lack our worldly freedoms, but because of this they have become freer than we are in Christ."

“I am hopeful that [this book] can reawaken American Christians to true freedom in Christ, which leads to real maturity, not permanent Christian adolescence," says Foley.

Earned Media

North Korea crackdown on mobile phones

2011-05-02T23:46:00.000-04:00

North Korea has started a drive to confiscate mobile phones in an attempt to suppress news from the outside world, a group of North Korean defectors said.

North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity said in its latest newsletter police in North Hamkyong and Yangkang provinces bordering Russia and China have started urging residents to voluntarily surrender mobile phones or face punishment. It cited sources in the border cities of Hyesan and Hoeryong.

The police warned that special devices to detect mobile phone use had been brought in to punish "those spreading capitalist ideas and eroding socialism", the group quoted one of the sources as saying.

Many residents in border areas that can receive mobile reception from China are known to use smuggled phones to talk to relatives and friends who escaped the impoverished state to settle in China or South Korea.

At present users restrict conversations to five minutes, the minimum time authorities need to trace a call, said the source.

Resettled North Korean defectors seek asylum in Britain

2011-04-30T15:15:00.002-04:00

Police in Busan, South Korea, recently conducted a survey on 25 North Korean defectors in an effort to gain insight into North Koreans’ motivation to move overseas.

Among them, eight North Korean defectors are believed to be staying in Britain in an attempt to win asylum, after staying for years in South Korea, according to a police official handling defectors in Busan.

South Korea is home to more than 20,000 North Koreans who fled hunger and political oppression in their communist homeland, but many of them fail to get decent jobs, falling further down the social ladder in this highly competitive society. Such challenges apparently prompt some North Koreans with hopes of a higher quality of life to leave South Korea and seek asylum in foreign countries.

South Korea provides defectors with three months of mandatory resettlement training and doles out 13 million won ($11,650) to each household as housing subsidy while offering vocational training to help them find jobs.

North Koreans fleeing their homeland can seek asylum in South Korea, but once they become South Korean citizens, they are not eligible to seek refuge in foreign countries, said Lee Jong-joo, a spokeswoman for the Unification Ministry handling inter-Korean affairs.

Former President Carter’s message departing from North Korea

2011-04-29T19:19:00.003-04:00

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants direct talks with South Korea's leader — an offer unlikely to be accepted until Pyongyang takes responsibility for violence that killed 50 South Koreans last year.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has also floated the possibility of one-on-one talks with Kim — but only if the North takes responsibility for the sinking of a South Korean warship blamed on Pyongyang and an artillery attack on a South Korean island.

Carter told reporters hours after he returned from the North that he and three former European leaders didn't have a hoped-for meeting with Kim during their three-day visit to North Korea. But he said that Kim sent them a written personal message as they were leaving, saying he's prepared for a summit meeting with the South Korean president at any time.

Carter has sharply criticized the United States and South Korea for their refusal to send humanitarian aid to the impoverished North. Mr. Carter said their deliberate withholding of food aid amounted to ''a human rights violation''.

Robert Park on Genocide in North Korea

2011-04-21T15:18:00.002-04:00

In the Opinion section of The Washington Post, activist missionary Robert Park writes:

“Holocaust” is the word used to describe the systematic extermination of millions of innocent European Jews during World War II. In the aftermath of this mammoth failure of humanity, many nations “repented” and declared that “never again” would such inhumanity and absolute disregard for human dignity and life be tolerated.

Yet on Jan. 1, the regime of Kim Jong Il warned that a “nuclear holocaust” would be inevitable if South Korea engaged the North in war. While the world watches peoples in the Middle East and North Africa rise up against tyranny, another people suffers on the Korean Peninsula. And that Pyongyang so irreverently invoked this term to describe its so-called necessary defense is a stark reminder of the genocidal and inhumane nature of Kim Jong Il’s regime and the atrocities it has committed against millions of innocents.

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem, called on the international community in 2004 to investigate “political genocide” in North Korea. In response to reports of “North Korea’s use of gas chambers to murder and perform medical experiments on political dissidents and their families” and the “chilling image of the murderers coolly watching their victims’ death agonies . . . all too reminiscent of Nazi barbarism,” the group’s chairman, Avner Shalev, wrote to then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that “the issue is all the more severe due to North Korea’s status as a member of the U.N.”

In other words, the world’s foremost authorities on genocide appealed to the international community, one of the few rays of hope for the North Korean people, who are trapped in a living hell.

An estimated 1 million innocent men, women and children have been murdered in North Korean political concentration camps since 1972, academics believe.

Virtually nothing has been done to speed the closure of these camps since 2004, though the testimony of tens of thousands of refugees provides mounting evidence of crimes against humanity and genocide.

Outside observers and nongovernmental organizations estimate that 3.5 million North Koreans died of starvation between 1995 and 1997. They continue to die in huge numbers in a government-organized famine akin to the Holodomor famine-genocide in Ukraine (1932-33), which was orchestrated by Joseph Stalin.

Billions in humanitarian aid have been shipped to North Korea, more than enough to feed the nation’s population, but government and academic studies have revealed that North Korea systematically diverted the aid, using it to bolster its military might while millions, for whom the aid was intended, starved to death.

Raphael Lemkin’s Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide included political murders in its first draft definition of genocide, but Stalin objected, the definition was amended and the Soviet Union was not held accountable for the tens of millions of innocents murdered without just cause by starvation and in the Gulag. Some have incorrectly concluded that mass murder and genocide in North Korea would also be exempt from prosecution under the convention.

This is not the case. North Korea has been considered the world’s worst persecutor of Christians for many years by objective researchers of religious persecution such as Open Doors and Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Soon Ok Lee, one of the few survivors of the North Korean concentration camp system, has testified before Congress and later told MSNBC that “since the Korean War — in Korea they call it June 25 War — the No. 1 enemy is God. Kim II Sung hated God most.”

It is common knowledge among refugees and people who follow North Korea that those discovered to have any kind of faith or religious belief — and their families, to three generations — are executed or sent to concentration camps for life. This constitutes genocide under Article 2 of the convention; consequently, the world has not only the moral duty but also the legal right and obligation, under Article 8, to intervene.

Actions that all of us in the free world can, and must, take immediately to save the North Korean people and stop the crimes against humanity include:

An NGO strike. The nongovernmental organizations supporting the genocidal Pyongyang regime must withdraw all support from Kim Jong Il immediately and unambiguously declare their action a protest of the North’s concentration camps, systematic diversion of food aid and mass atrocities.

Use our resources effectively. The United States, South Korea, Japan and the rest of the international community must recognize that there is a way to effectively save those in desperate need. It is through the refugees, most of whom still have relatives and friends in the North with whom they are in secret communication. North Korean refugees and their ally organizations must be provided all possible resources.

Mass demonstrations. Never have more than 100,000 people gathered to protest the mass atrocities in North Korea. All who object to the genocide must organize, assemble and make their voices heard.

We should get to work immediately, realizing that we are already far too late.

Korean American Jun Young-Su held in North Korean for missionary work

2011-04-18T13:43:00.004-04:00

North Korea has said it would charge an American detained last November with crimes against the nation, amid reports he was engaged in missionary work in the hardline communist state.

A man identified as Jun Young-Su has been investigated "for committing a crime against the DPRK (North Korea) after entering it", the official news agency said without specifying the offense. "He admitted his crime in the course of investigation," it said, adding officials were preparing to bring charges.

A source in Seoul identified the man as a Korean-American businessman in his 60s who was detained for missionary work. The man, who attends a church in Orange County, California, travelled frequently to the North. The source told AFP, "It looks like the North had been watching the missionary for quite some time and arrested him for a political bargaining chip at what it thought was a suitable time to take advantage of him."

This is the third apparent case in less than a year of a US Christian activist being detained in the North. Missionary Robert Park was held on Christmas Day 2009, after walking across the border to make a one-man protest about human rights violations.On January 25, 2010, the North detained Aijalon Mahli Gomes for crossing the border illegally and sentenced him to eight years' hard labor.

Former President Jimmy Carter is due to visit North Korea again soon, reportedly late this month. Jo Sung-Rae of the Seoul-based Christian activist group Pax Koreana predicted the former US leader would also secure the release of the latest detainee.

Carter has said he would try to revive stalled six-party talks on the North's nuclear disarmament and address humanitarian woes during his visit.

[Yahoo News]

North Korean defectors highlighted in "The Journals of Musan"

2011-04-17T14:10:00.001-04:00

A young man climbs a dusty, narrow staircase toward a job interview. A kindly police officer walking ahead of him looks back and says, "Don't tell him you're from North Korea, OK?"

The telling scene comes early in "The Journals of Musan," a dark and brooding South Korean movie that has won international acclaim for its portrayal of the struggles faced by refugees from North Korea in the capitalist - and, as depicted in the film, often heartless - South. The movie opened in Seoul last week.

Raised in an impoverished totalitarian state, many North Koreans lack the education, financial resources and personal connections to compete in South Korea, one of Asia's richest countries. In turn, they complain of discrimination in the job market.

Park Jung-bum, the 36-year-old director of "The Journals of Musan," is part of a young generation of filmmakers inspired by their plight. The movie is loosely based on the experience of his late friend, Chun Seung-chul, who came from the North in 2002 and died of stomach cancer a few years later. Park also incorporated stories about other North Koreans he knows into the main character.

"My big question was this: They came here to be happy, but if they have to stay in the bottom class in South Korea, was there any meaning for them to come all the way here?" he said in an interview.

Film critic Park Yoo-hee, a research professor at Korea University, described movies such as "The Journals of Musan" as a turning point in how filmmakers approach North Korea. The escapees are now seen as an internal South Korean issue, rather than fantasized characters from someplace far removed.

Korean-American detained in North Korea

2011-04-13T13:48:00.001-04:00

An American man has been detained in North Korea, two State Department officials told CNN.Diplomatic sources speaking on condition of not being identified said the man is a Korean-American businessman. One of the sources said the businessman had a visa to enter North Korea.

The State Department is working with the Swedish Embassy in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the officials said.The Swedes have been granted consular access to the man and have visited him, the officials said.

North Korea has detained several Americans in recent years, increasing tension levels in what is already a rocky relationship between Pyongyang and Washington.

In 2010, former President Jimmy Carter helped secure the release of Aijalon Mahli Gomes, a U.S. citizen and Christian activist, who had been fined roughly $600,000 and sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing over the Chinese border into North Korea.

North Korea parliament watched for signs of Kim Jong-un succession

2011-04-07T08:26:00.001-04:00

A rare session of North Korea's parliament scheduled to begin today is being watched closely for signs of succession. Analysts of North Korea's opaque politics believe Kim Jong-un, the son of leader Kim Jong-il (69), could be appointed to the National Defense Commission.

This parliamentary session is the first major national meeting since Kim Jong-un made his political debut last September. His predicted appointment to the defense body would cement the succession process, and make him the country's second most powerful man and the next step in the path to formally naming him as successor.

Analysts expect the succession process to be formally completed by April 2012, the centenary of the birth of late President Kim Il-sung, father of the current leader.

Others question whether Kim Jong Un will ascend to a major National Defense Commission post only six months after being made a four-star general and assuming senior Workers' Party posts.

Separately, North Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan is reported to be in Beijing to meet with his Chinese counterpart, as part of efforts to re-start international talks. China and North Korea have expressed readiness to restart the six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programs "without preconditions".

Former President Carter to North Korea April 26-28

2011-04-04T09:31:00.005-04:00

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will make a private trip to North Korea on April 26-28, Yonhap News Agency reported Monday, citing an unnamed source.

The visit comes after a North Korean economic delegation ended a 16-day U.S. tour, and a senior North Korean diplomat attended a seminar hosted by a U.S. think tank in Berlin last week.

Carter will travel to Pyongyang with members of a group comprised of former heads of state from around the world, the source added.

‘‘Carter’s coming visit will provide a chance to see if there is a change in North Korea’s behavior and also gauge the possibility of a breakthrough’’ in the diplomatic deadlock with the country, the source was quoted as saying.

Carter previously visited North Korea last August to bring back an American man detained for illegal entry.

After Libya, North Korea less likely to drop nuclear ambitions

2011-04-02T11:41:00.001-04:00

A Christian Science Monitor writer speculates, “It's a pretty good bet that, as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi sits in his fortified compound, Western airstrikes targeting his military, that Qaddafi rues the day he heeded US pressures and gave up his nuclear weapons program.”

And, more than a bet, it's now a matter of record that North Korean and Iranian leaders interpret Colonel Qaddafi's plight as a lesson in why not to compromise with the US and other international powers on nuclear development. Their assumption is that, were Qaddafi still in possession of his nuclear and other WMD programs, the West would have thought twice before it attacked.

The Obama administration has often said Iran and North Korea face that same choice that Qaddafi once did. But at this juncture in time why would North Korea be willing to compromise its nuclear programs?

North Korea was even more direct than Iran in addressing the "lessons" of Libya. Calling the deal the US extended to Qaddafi in 2003 "an invasion tactic to disarm the country," Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry declared this week that Libya's nuclear dismantlement "turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby the [US] coaxed [Libya] with such sweet words as 'guarantee of security' and 'improvement of relations' to disarm, and then swallowed it up by force."

Pyongyang and Tehran have concluded that "the US and its allies had a plan for premeditated treachery [against Qaddafi] where none likely existed," writes Doug Bandow in Friday's online issue of The National Interest.

A listening ear for North Korean defectors

2011-04-01T01:43:00.001-04:00

North Korean defectors, like many others living in South Korea, suffer from ailments, but, unlike most, they have difficulty conveying them to doctors.

Tucked inside the National Medical Center in Seoul, the North Korean Defector Medical Counseling Center has been host to over 4,000 patients since its opening in 2007. Run by The Organization for One Korea, a civic group in favor of unification, the center helps refugees communicate with hospital staff and understand the medical culture here.

The center also gives them a place free from judgment and prejudice. “There are a lot of people who come for consultations and while they are waiting they usually talk about their hometown and things they have been through without hesitation, developing a bond like relatives,” said Im Hyang, 38.

Im, a defector herself, said it doesn’t matter if they do not know one another because, for those 10 minutes of waiting, they are family. “It almost acts as a community center because people come in here and pour out their feelings that they could not do otherwise, which helps people here become more familiar with each other,” she said.

Many defectors are struck by depression and loneliness which become root problems for other ailments. According to Im, they defect into the South alone and have no one to lean on in tough times, often exacerbating illnesses and leading to excessive drinking.

North Korean refugees come from as far as Jeju Island and Busan to seek medical counseling in Seoul, simply for this companionship.

China boosts border security over fears of North Korean famine

2011-03-31T02:11:00.003-04:00

China is reinforcing fences and has stepped up patrols along its border with North Korea as fears mount of a catastrophic famine in the secretive state.

Fences more than 13ft high, topped with barbed wire, are now being erected along an eight-mile stretch of the Yalu river around the Chinese city of Dandong. This is a popular entry point for North Korea refugees seeking food or better lives.

Previously the border was only marked by a 10ft fence which "anybody could cross if they really wanted", a resident added.

Fears for the stability of North Korea have increased in recent weeks with reports of a growing food crisis following the severest winter in 60 years and an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that has affected the oxen that are still used to plough fields.

Foreign aid agencies based in Pyongyang issued a joint statement warning that six million North Koreans need urgent food aid because crops of potatoes, wheat and barley have all failed.

International aid agencies appeal for food donations for North Korea

2011-03-30T02:20:00.001-04:00

Aid agencies working in North Korea have issued a rare joint appeal for increased food donations, warning that millions of vulnerable citizens are living on a knife edge, according to The Guardian..

The groups, which include Save the Children and the Swiss government's relief agency, say bad weather and livestock disease have hampered domestic production, while high global food and fuel prices are making it harder to import supplies. They fear that unless aid is increased now, it will be too late to support people who are already chronically malnourished through the lean season that begins in May.

Their warning comes days after a United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) assessment found the country was "highly vulnerable to a food crisis", with more than 6 million people in urgent need of international food aid. Today's joint statement highlighted the needs of children and mothers, the elderly, disabled and sick and pointed to a need for healthcare, water and sanitation as well as food.

Andy Featherstone, the region's director of strategy for Save the Children, said: "We would hope [donors] would review decisions they have taken and be more generous in meeting the appeal [following the WFP assessment]."

Ireland's Concern Worldwide, Belgium's Handicap International and France's Triangle Generation Humanitaire also signed the statement.

North Korea closely monitoring radiation from Japan

2011-03-29T10:03:00.001-04:00

A North Korean scholar says Pyongyang is closely monitoring whether radiation from Japan's stricken nuclear plant will reach its territory.

Yoon Yong Geun made the comments Tuesday at the start of talks with South Korean experts about an active volcano touted in the North as leader Kim Jong Il's birthplace.

The talks took place at a South Korean border village. He said the North was "monitoring diligently if radioactive contamination could reach us."

South Korean officials say traces of radioactive material believed to be from the leaking Fukushima nuclear plant have been detected across South Korea but the amounts are far below anything that would cause health problems.

Pastor assists nine North Korean refugees to make it to South Korea

2011-03-26T12:05:00.001-04:00

A Christian pastor said Friday that two years of planning helped him secure the defection of nine North Koreans to the South in a daring transfer at sea that could further inflame cross-border tensions.

Kim Sung-Eun, who leads a church mostly made up of defectors from the North, said he arranged to bring the defectors to the South for reunions with their relatives who had already entered the country.
The new arrivals left China's northeastern port of Dalian last Monday on a chartered Chinese fishing boat and were bundled on to a South Korean trawler in international waters in the Yellow Sea.

"It took me two years to pull it off as we have to be very careful about security," he told AFP by phone from his church in Cheonan City, 85 kilometres (53 miles) south of the capital Seoul.

The nine refugees comprised six people belonging to two families and three individuals, said Kim, who is married to a North Korean.Some of them had been in China in hiding for up to four years while others came directly from the North via China. South Korean Christian missionaries have come into conflict with Beijing for their attempts to spread Christianity among North Koreans hiding in China who are then helped to defect to the South.

The latest defection comes as Pyongyang remains angered over an incident involving 31 North Koreans whose boat drifted across the disputed Yellow Sea border in thick fog last month, and then four of the group asked to stay in the South.

North Korean defectors continue unhampered balloon propaganda

2011-03-24T09:15:00.001-04:00

Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Thursday that it would not intervene in a plan by North Korean defectors here to fly anti-Pyongyang leaflets to the North, a day after the communist state renewed its threat to strike South Korea’s propaganda apparatus.

“We have no plan to call on them to refrain (from sending anti-North propaganda leaflets),” a ministry official told reporters, refusing to be named. “In the past, we had requested that the groups refrain from flying them, in light of the possible impact on inter-Korean ties. However, since March 26 when the Cheonan sank after an attack (by the North), we have not made any special request.”

In an interview with the official Korean Central News Agency, an unidentified North Korean commander warned “From a military perspective, psychological warfare is an act of war. If the South does not want to see the repeat of the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, it should stop all psychological warfare activities immediately and behave discreetly.”

Some 20 groups of North Korean defectors plan to send some 200,000 leaflets and memory sticks that contain videos, designed to enlighten North Koreans living in the tightly-controlled society with little access to outside information. The leaflets include messages pinpointing North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as the culprit for the sinking that killed 46 sailors; criticizing the lavish lifestyle of his three sons; and comparing Kim with other autocratic rulers such as Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Park Sang-hak, chief of the Fighters for Free North Korea, which leads the upcoming leaflet-sending event, said that he and other North Korean defectors would not be intimidated. “We will carry out the plan to send the leaflets as scheduled. The threat from the North is just a bluff and we don’t need to be intimidated by that,” he told reporters.

South Korea ponders food aid to North Korea

2011-03-23T11:32:00.003-04:00

South Korea on Wednesday stated it has no intention of resuming food aid to North Korea, and denied a news report saying that it has decided to follow United States's move to provide assistance to the impoverished nation, reports Yonhap news agency.

"We have to look at the WFP report first. I understand that the U.S. has not made any decision on that either," a South Korean official said on condition of anonymity.

Other sources in the government said Seoul plans to consider the possibility of providing limited humanitarian assistance to the North after taking a look at the upcoming WFP report, though large-scale aid carrying political meaning won't be possible.

Food aid to the North has been a focus after Pyongyang asked Washington to resume assistance earlier this year. Officials from the WFP and the Food and Agriculture Organization conducted an on-site inspection of the food situation in North Korea earlier this month. The team is expected to release a report on its findings as early as this weekend.

Is it right to give North Korea humanitarian aid?

2011-03-22T13:25:00.002-04:00

Should countries that abhor North Korea’s system respond to appeals for food aid to keep its people from starving?

First, donors are denied the ability to make sure the aid gets to needy civilians. Much of it in fact is siphoned off by officials who eat it themselves, supply it to the military or sell it to market traders. Second, the regime has the effrontery to use the aid, judo-style, as a political weapon. It boasts in its internal propaganda that enemy countries give not out of charity but because the brilliant “general,” dictator Kim Jong Il, by turning North Korean into a nuclear armed, ferociously war-ready country, has frightened them into paying tribute.

A reporter who had covered North Korea for years was asked whether foreigners should provide food aid, even though much of it would be diverted. Yes, he said — because every bit of aid increases the country’s overall food supply and tends to bring down the price that civilians must pay in the markets.

A young North Korean woman he had videotaped last year died later in the same year. “Kim filmed that footage in June, 2010. Kim had a chance to visit the same location in November and found out that she died of hunger there.” The woman was a victim of the regime’s North Korea’s disastrous currency redenomination of late 2009 “Business and distribution suddenly stopped. Her parents had to sell their house and the family became homeless. The parents had died of starvation before the daughter.”

The same reporter has recently spoken with an officer in Kim Jong Il’s elite bodyguard service, who said even he and his men were getting only 300 grams of grain each per day, less than half the former rationing standard of 800 grams for uniformed personnel. “It suggests that the government does not have enough foreign currency even to buy enough food for its soldiers,” he said.

Reporters have said that “even in the capital, Pyongyang, the situation is deteriorating, as shown by worsening electricity shortages. Although food is available at public markets, it’s expensive. Fear is spreading among the people about what will happen come spring, the most difficult time of the year,” when much of the harvest will have been used up.

So there are valid reasons to consider charity.

Kim Jong Il's former bodyguard

2011-03-21T01:09:00.001-04:00

For 10 years, until 1988, Lee Young-guk was a personal bodyguard for Kim Jong Il, working among the phalanx of trained killers who protect the North Korean dictator.

Lee oversaw the enigmatic strongman's younger years as a leader in training, observing a privileged life played out inside grim fortresses and hideaway villas. Eventually, Lee came to detest what he now sees as a farcical leader who enjoyed unparalleled luxury while his impoverished nation starved.

He watched high-ranking officials hide behind trees rather than face the mercurial "Dear Leader," who was so fearful of duplicity that he constantly switched limousines, so fussy that he demanded his favorite perfume sprayed throughout his villas. Displeasing Kim could mean imprisonment, as it did for the guard sent to a gulag for using one of Kim's favorite ashtrays.

"As time went on, I saw the real evil," said Lee, who defected to South Korea in 2000 and wrote a tell-all book two years later about his experiences. "He's a man who is not qualified to be a world leader."

The former bodyguard senses that the years have only made the ailing 70-year-old leader even more dangerous.

Further promotion coming for Kim Jong Un?

2011-03-18T09:36:00.001-04:00

North Korea will convene its parliament early next month in a session closely watched for further signs that leader Kim Jong Il is handing over power to his youngest son to succeed him as leader of the nation of 24 million people.

Kim Jong Un, who is in his late 20s, was unveiled to the public last year when he was made a four-star general and promoted to a key military leadership role in the ruling Workers' Party.

North Korea's parliament typically meets a few times a year to discuss and approve the year's budget. However, sessions also are scrutinized by the outside world for signs of key changes in policy and leadership. The 12th Supreme People's Assembly will meet in Pyongyang on April 7, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Friday in a brief report monitored in Seoul.

The next major step in the succession campaign would be a promotion for Kim Jong Un to the powerful National Defense Commission, where Kim Jong Il serves as chairman, analysts said.

[TIME]

Financial plight of North Korean defectors living in the South

2011-03-17T01:45:00.001-04:00

Less than half of North Koreans who have defected to South Korea since 2000 are “economically active,” according to research conducted by a support foundation for North Korean defectors based in Seoul. The term “economically active” refers to people who furnish the labor for the production of economic goods and services, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The North Korean Refugees Foundation surveyed 1,200 defectors last year and found that only 42.5 percent of them were economically active after defecting. By comparison, 61.1 percent of South Koreans are active, according to Statistics Korea. Hiring rates were found to be lower for the defectors, at 38.8 percent, compared to 59.1 for South Korean citizens.

According to the report, 20.4 percent of defectors employed were engaged in simple labor, 19.6 percent in machinery operation or assembly and 18.7 percent in service occupations. Only 4.1 percent are self-employed and 0.9 percent are employers.

Other survey results dealt with the health conditions of the defectors, of which 44.3 percent said that they “did not feel they were healthy.” Nearly a third of the 1,200 were suffering from arthritis, lumbar and joint problems. 　

JoongAng Daily

North Korea ready to return to six-party talks?

2011-03-15T01:53:00.001-04:00

BBC reports North Korea has told Russia's deputy foreign minister Alexei Borodavkin that it is ready to discuss its nuclear enrichment plans at six-party talks.

Separately, a South Korean envoy is on his way to Russia to pursue talks. The new flurry of diplomacy comes just over a month after talks between North and South Korea broke up in acrimony.

North Korea's state news agency, KCNA, reported comments from Pyongyang's foreign ministry after a four-day visit by Mr Borodavkin. "The DPRK (North Korea) is willing to come to the six-party talks unconditionally," Pyongyang's foreign ministry said.

KCNA quoted a ministry spokesman as saying that the North did "not object to the issue of uranium enrichment program being discussed at the talks".

The six-party disarmament talks - involving North and South Korea, China, Japan, the United States and Russia - have been stalled for two years.

North Korean defectors taught farming in South Korea

2011-03-12T10:49:00.005-05:00

South Korea has begun a class to help North Korean defectors become farmers and find similar jobs in the country's rural areas, Yonhap news agency reported.

The two-day course comes as many North Koreans are still struggling to find decent jobs and adjust to new lives in the capitalist South, though they undergo three months of mandatory resettlement training and receive some financial aid.

This past Tuesday, some 30 defectors attended the class at the Rural Development Administration in Suwon, south of Seoul, to learn about the agricultural industry and basic methods of cultivating crops, said Park Sun-yong of the administration. The two-day course was jointly organized by the Rural Development Administration and the Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency.

Instructors take the defectors to nearby farms and an agricultural equipment exhibition to give them opportunities of learning from local farmers, officials noted.

Vast numbers of North Korean orphans

2011-03-11T01:50:00.003-05:00

Thousands of North Korean orphans are adrift in South Korea or overseas, separated from their parents during their escape or born to fathers in third countries like China and abandoned there.

Kim Yun-tae of activist group Network for North Korean Democracy, said, "Each organization produces different estimates because it's difficult to conduct an accurate census, but there are thought to be between 10,000 and 35,000 of such children in China and other foreign countries or living in South Korea."

Those who were separated from their parents during their escape and escaped on their own to South Korea are in a slightly better situation. But "children born in third countries such as China ... can't get any support as defectors in South Korea because they cannot be seen as defectors in a strict sense," a Unification Ministry official said.

Women account for 70 percent of all defectors, and they often fall prey to human traffickers. Civic groups estimate that up to 10,000 children were born and abandoned in China alone.

North Korea new tactic of using families to weaken resolve of defectors

2011-03-10T09:17:00.002-05:00

Australian news reports a remarkable first for North Korea, the secretive communist state has posted online interviews with the families of four of its citizens who want to defect to the South. The four are part of a large group of North Koreans who accidentally drifted over the Yellow Sea maritime border on a boat last month.

North Korea has hit back, posting interviews with family members where they plead for their loved ones to return, warning that they will face brainwashing if they stay in South Korea.

As one distraught mother spoke to the camera, the teenage girl sat quietly holding her hand, but as soon as her mother finished the girl made an urgent appeal. "Father I miss you. Please come back now," she cried. The girl's father is Hong Yong-hak, a 44-year-old North Korean who is among the would-be defectors.

"They make the ridiculous claim that my daughter's defecting," said another woman, who says she is the mother of 22-year old Pak Myong-ok.

The mother of 21-year-old nurse Bong Un-ha says it is all a conspiracy. "How would Un-ha ever fall to brainwashing by the enemy?" she said.

Of the 31, 27 North Koreans who want to come home were taken to the heavily fortified border by South Korean authorities last week. But officials from the North refused to take them back until the other four were returned as well.

Seoul says the two men and two women have chosen to stay of their own free will, but Pyongyang is not backing down.

North Korea jamming S. Korea GPS devices

2011-03-06T03:22:00.003-05:00

North Korea used jamming equipment to block South Korean military communication devices last week, a report said Sunday, amid high tension over the joint drills between Seoul and Washington.

Yonhap news agency said strong jamming signals sent across the border on Friday had caused minor disruptions to phones and navigational devices using GPS (Global Positioning System) at military units near the capital Seoul.

The signals are believed to have been sent from the North's military facilities in Haeju and Kaesong close to the heavily-fortified border, it said, citing Seoul intelligence and military officials.

South Korea's former defence chief Kim Tae-Young said Pyongyang was thought to have been behind the intermittent failure of GPS receivers on naval and civilian craft along the west coast during the joint military exercise between the South and the US last August.

The North's GPS interrupter is believed to be effective in preventing US and South Korean guided bombs and missiles from hitting their target accurately.

South Korean government and financial websites under cyber attack

2011-03-05T11:31:00.003-05:00

The websites of South Korea's key government agencies and financial institutions came under cyber attack for a second day Saturday, with few leads on who might be behind the attacks.

The sites of the U.S. forces in Korea and the department of unification, which handles relations with North Korea, were among those targeted by the "distributed denial-of-service" (DDoS) attacks.

On Friday sites including the presidential Blue House, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, the ministries of foreign affairs and defense and the tax office, came under DDos attacks. The Korea and Communications Commission (KCC) said the attacks resumed Saturday morning against 29 websites including those of government agencies and banks.

In 2009, government websites in South Korea and the U.S. were paralyzed by a similar type of attack that South Korean officials blamed on North Korea. But U.S. officials have largely ruled out North Korea as the origin of these attacks, according to cyber security experts.

South Korean police have isolated 30 overseas servers that were ordering more than 34,000 "zombie computers" to carry out DDoS attacks. The servers had been traced to 18 countries and territories around the world, including the United States, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Israel and Hong Kong.

North and South Korea spar over four remaining defectors

2011-03-04T09:54:00.001-05:00

South Korea has accused the North of blocking the return of 27 North Koreans who strayed across the border. The North has said Seoul is keeping hostage four North Koreans, from the boatload of 31 which drifted over the sea border in heavy fog on 5 February.

Both North and South have called for talks to ease tensions; the last effort ended without agreement last month.

For its part, North Korea has accused the South of "despicable unethical acts … This cannot be interpreted otherwise than a grave provocation to the DPRK (North Korea)," said a statement attributed to a spokesman for the North's Red Cross.

Of the large-scale military drills being carried out by US and South Korean forces, the North says they are a rehearsal for invasion to topple its government.

Latest North Korean defectors

2011-03-03T08:52:00.001-05:00

Four members of a group of 31 North Koreans who accidentally crossed over into South Korean waters on a fishing boat, have decided to defect to the South, despite Pyongyang's demands that they all be repatriated to the North, the South Korean Red Cross said.

The defection of the four North Koreans could spark tensions on the peninsula, where joint U.S.-South Korea military drills have kicked off this week. North Korea had threatened to engulf Seoul in a "sea of flames," a day before the opening of the exercise.

The South will return the remaining 27 members of the group through Panmunjom, a truce village on the ground border between the two sides, and send the fishing boat back through the waters in the West Sea on Friday, the Red Cross said.

US considers resuming food aid to North Korea

2011-03-02T01:19:00.002-05:00

VoA reports that special envoy for North Korea Stephen Bosworth told the Senate Committee on Foreign relations that North Korea has asked for U.S. food aid and that Washington is considering the request.

The U.S. government suspended food handouts to the impoverished Asian country in 2009, after Pyongyang expelled its aid monitors who were there to make sure the food gets to the children, nursing mothers and the elderly, who most needed it.

Five non-governmental U.S. charities, that recently visited the reclusive country say that harsh weather and floods in recent months have destroyed much of the crops, including grains and vegetables. They say the families worst hit by the shortages are those that depend on the public food distribution system.

There are concerns that resuming food aid to North Korea could be seen as rewarding its belligerent behavior, including a 2009 nuclear test and last year's attacks on South Korea.

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, told lawmakers Tuesday that no decision has been made, but that sending food to starving people is a humanitarian, not a political issue.

Heir apparent Kim Jong-un apparently a father

2011-03-01T08:50:00.001-05:00

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s two younger sons ― heir apparent Kim Jong-un and Kim Jong-chul, 29 ― both have children, Japanese TV Asahi has reported.

The news is the latest in the barrage of information or rumors about the third-generation in the isolated regime’s royal family.

Jong-un’s child was born sometime between fall and winter last year, a TV Asahi report said. Jong-chul’s child was born last August.

There was no mention of who the mothers were or whether the children were male or female. The speculation was that ailing Kim Jong-il was pushing for his children to create offspring as he looks to secure a power transfer to his heir and youngest son, Jong-un, 28.

Earlier this week, both South Korean and Japanese media released photos of Jong-chul at an Eric Clapton concert on Valentine’s Day. He was accompanied by a young woman who was speculated to be either his wife, or his younger sister, Yo-jong, 24.

Jong-chul, Jong-un and Yo-jong were born to Japanese born-dancer Ko Young-hee, the second wife to the North Korea leader.

Propaganda balloons strike nerve in North Korea

2011-02-27T03:16:00.001-05:00

North Korea will open fire across the tense land border if South Korea keeps sending anti-regime propaganda materials via balloons, state media said Sunday.

Says the Korean Central News Agency, the North's military will launch "direct, targeted firing attacks" towards border areas where the South's activists and military float balloons carrying anti-government leaflets and DVDs if the practice continues.

Left: South Korean activists launching balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets near the border with North Korea

Propaganda and supplies floated into North Korea by S Korean military

2011-02-26T13:45:00.002-05:00

For the first time in eleven years, the South Korean military resumed an operation of sending packages of daily necessities to North Korea. Packages are floated into North Korea in baskets tied to large balloons, with a timer attached to the balloon to track and direct the balloons.

Since late last year, the investment has cost the military $500,000. Included in the packages are propaganda leaflets. The military sent 400,000 leaflets shortly after the Yon Pyong Island attack, and recently more than 2.6 million leaflets pertaining to the uprisings in Egypt and Libya have been sent north, comparing the hereditary dictatorships of Egypt and Libya to that of North Korea.

North Koreans are often afraid to eat anything from such food packages because the NK regime has told them they contain deadly poisons. The South Korean military therefore puts notes on the packages reading, “This is from the Republic of Korea Army. You may consume these food packages. They are safe to eat. If you don’t believe it, have your domestic animals eat them first. Do not consume the packages if the dates on the packages have expired.”

Packages include small rice packages and radios to bring outside news to them, as well as daily necessities such as medicines, medical supplies, and stationery items.

South Korean Assemblywoman Song Young Sun said, “What is happening in Egypt and Libya may happen in North Korea. A North Korean defector who arrived in South Korea in May 2010 said, ‘The people near the border have been listening to Chinese news about the uprisings in Egypt and Libya. The NK regime is viciously trying to block the news.’ ”

Why North Korean Hunger

2011-02-25T09:00:00.002-05:00

Chosun Ilbo states its belief that hoarding by the government and military is the main reason for the food shortage in North Korea. The reasoning:

◆ No Drop in Food Production - According to South Korean government statistics, North Korea had bumper crops in 2005 and 2006. And the estimate of the 2010 crop yield is that it could be the best harvest in 20 years.

◆ Hoarding Rice for the Military - In September last year, Grand National Party lawmaker Kim Moo-sung said North Korea has stored 1 million tons of rice for a war. That is enough to feed the country's 24 million people for three months. "Since 1987, North Korea has been setting aside 12 percent of its rice output as emergency supplies in case of war and 10 percent for military consumption," an intelligence official said.

◆ Preparing for 2012 - After the severe famine from 1995 to 1997 when more than a million people starved to death, North Korea began to boast about its goal of becoming a "powerful and prosperous nation" by 2012. "North Korea is using the fantasy as a tool to keep its people calm," said Prof. Cho Young-ki of Korea University. "The North needs to stock up on food for use in the celebrations next year.”

◆ No Assistance from China - The South Korean government says there are no signs that Beijing has provided food aid to Pyongyang recently. "If the regime was on the brink of collapse due to a food shortage, China would be the first to step in," a diplomatic source said.

◆ Implacable Regime - According to data from Statistics Korea in January, North Korean mines contain an estimated 2,000 tons of gold and 5,000 tons of silver. There are no accounts that the North sold any of the gold or silver to buy food or that Kim Jong-Il tapped into his overseas cash hoard.

International charities reveal details of food shortages in North Korea

2011-02-24T08:50:00.001-05:00

The BBC reports that officials from five aid agencies who have just returned from a trip to North Korea say they saw evidence of looming food shortages and alarming malnutrition, including people picking wild grasses to eat. The charity workers - from World Vision, Mercy Corps, Samaritan's Purse, Christian Friends of Korea and Global Resource Services - spent a week in North Korea earlier this month, invited by the government.

It is well documented that during food shortages in the North, people will forage for weeds, herbs and wild grasses to supplement their meager diet. What is harder to know is the extent to which this is normal or something out of the ordinary.

The agencies report the Pyongyang government saying between 50% and 80% of the wheat and barley planted for harvesting in the spring has been killed by the extreme cold of the past two months, as well as potato seedlings.

The team also says hospitals reported an increase in malnutrition over the past six months - the aid workers themselves saw acute cases too.

The United Nations currently has a team of food experts in North Korea. A spokesman said as well as there being a known shortfall of nearly a million tons in cereals, the last vegetable harvest was much poorer than expected.

Animal Feed for Human Consumption in North Korea

2011-02-23T18:57:00.001-05:00

North Korea is reportedly importing animal feed from China for human consumption.

And in a sign of just how desperate the reclusive regime is, the poor-quality feed is being fed to its powerful military forces, amid reports soldiers are deserting to forage for food.

Civilians are even more vulnerable to food shortages: the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates a third of the population is undernourished, and last week a WFP spokesman reported North Korea had a “severe winter and a poor vegetable harvest.”

Compounding the problem, Pyongyang just confirmed an outbreak of foot-and-mouth-disease. To stop the virus’s spread, animals have to be killed and buried ahead of this year’s rice planting, yet another blow for a nation dependent on oxen for plowing.

Through its embassies, North Korea is appealing directly to foreign governments for food aid. However, with world food prices rising and nations increasingly resistant to North Korea’s erratic and bellicose demands, Pyongyang has received few offers of help.

[Macleans]

Defectors highlight sad state of North Korean soldiers

2011-02-22T01:18:00.003-05:00

North Korean soldiers are increasingly plagued by malnutrition and human rights abuses amid the communist state's worsening food shortage, according to testimonies made by a number of former North Korean soldiers who defected to South Korea.

"I weighed 42 kilograms when I entered the military, but my weight was reduced to 31 kilograms in two years," Paek Hwa-seong, one of the defectors, said at the seminar hosted by North Korea Strategy Center, a Seoul-based conservative private think tank on human rights in the communist state. "My hair almost fell out after turning yellow and I was bony."

Park Myeong-ho, a former captain, said starving soldiers have often stolen food from civilians, which created a saying in the North that the best place to live is where there is no military unit.

He said there could be a rise of anti-Kim Jong-il forces in the North as pro-democracy movements sweep the Middle East. "Some claim there is no possibility of revolt in North Korea, but I think, once ignited, the fire of democratization can turn around the current situation in a short period because of the collective nature of the North Korean society," Park said.

North Korea's female soldiers suffer from serious sexual harassment in addition to malnutrition and poor supply of necessities, according to Choi Hee-kyung, a female defector who worked as an instructor at the North Korean Air Force Command. The women often had months without menstruation as a result of malnutrition, she said.

"Sexual harassment on female soldiers was so serious that they had to endure a physical touch. Some got pregnant from sexual assault and had to work wearing a maternity belt," Choi testified.

Yonhap News

The spin from North Korea’s side

2011-02-21T09:52:00.001-05:00

The spin from North Korea’s side, as reported in the Russian press RIA Novosti:

Early this month, the South and North Korean army command envoys met in Panmunjom, on the de facto border between the two countries, to reach an agreement on the agenda, date, and location for the higher level talks suggested by Pyongyang at the end of January.

Pyongyang launched “a peaceful offensive” including a series of initiatives meant to revive the inter-Korean dialog in the spheres of politics, economy, etc. Initially, Seoul seemed unreceptive but – largely under pressure from Washington – had to accept Pyongyang's offer to organize contacts between the army commands.

The impression by the end of the first day of Panmunjom talks was fairly positive as the South Korean media reported profound discussions in a heated but still constructive atmosphere. However, fundamental disagreements over basically every issue on the table surfaced the very next day and bridging the gaps turned out to be impossible. The consultations were therefore suspended on February 9 and the North Korean delegation withdrew in a demonstrative manner without even trying to schedule another meeting.

Seoul described the outcome as a collapse and predictably blamed it on Pyongyang. The North's envoy similarly shifted the whole responsibility to Seoul in a statement referring to the North Korean administration as a puppet and claiming that the people of North Korea see no point in sustaining the dialog.

First court decision bestowing refugee status on a Korean-Chinese

2011-02-20T10:25:00.001-05:00

A Korean-Chinese is to be recognized as a refugee if at risk of persecution for helping North Korean defectors upon returning to China, a Seoul court said.

The Korean-Chinese, surnamed Kim, had filed a suit against the South Korean justice minister to annul the ministry’s decision which denied him refugee status. He had sought refugee status in January of last year.

The court said Kim was likely to be subjected to criminal punishment if he were to go back to China because he had provided food and transportation to North Korean defectors in China. One of his colleagues had already been punished for doing collaborative work.

“Considering the maximum penalty in Chinese law is a life sentence for people who are caught helping North Korean defectors, Kim may be arrested if he returns to China even though he wasn’t actively involved in aid work,” the court said in the ruling.

Kim provided North Korean defectors with food and transportation to airports between 1995 and 2000 at the request of one of his colleagues. He came to Korea in September 2000 as a migrant worker, and heard from his wife in China that his colleague was executed for the aid work.

Boarding school for children of North Korean defectors

2011-02-19T08:40:00.001-05:00

A boarding school for children of North Korean defectors will open in Seoul next week, aimed at offering Korean language lessons to those from low-income households.

Some defector children have difficulty adapting to general local schools. Among other things, they cannot speak the Korean language well due to their long stay in other countries such as China before entering South Korea.

In consideration of the fact that their parents usually return home late after work, the school will be operated as a boarding school. Tuition fees and boarding expenses will be offered free of charge. According to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity (NKIS), the Samheung School will start its first semester on February 25.

“We will help them gain a basic academic background and offer cultural and sports activities so that they can attend a local school and better adapt to society,” said Kim Myung-sung, director general of NKIS, which is composed of defectors who have graduated from North Korean universities.

The school’s first principal is Chae Kyoung-hee, 41, former mathematics teachers at a middle school in North Hamkyoung Province in the North. She also taught in Hanawon, a resettlement center for defectors here.

Kim Jong Un, heir more apparent

2011-02-18T00:36:00.001-05:00

At a time when dynastic rule is under attack in popular uprisings throughout the Middle East, the heir apparent to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il smoothly acceded to a senior spot on the National Defense Commission.

Chosun Ilbo reports that Kim Jong-un had cemented his spot as the second most powerful person in the country when he was named recently to the post of vice chairman of the defense commission, which is led by his father.

The move was announced at a mass gathering of military leaders and security officials on February 10, the newspaper's source said, but emerged only on Wednesday, as the 69th birthday festivities for the elder Kim were in full swing in the nation's capital, Pyongyang.

''Kim Jong-un assuming such a position is quite natural and not surprising,'' said Paik Hak-soon, director of the centre for North Korean studies at the Sejong Institute near Seoul. ''It's not too early for something like this. Sooner or later it was to be expected.''

Although his emergence as a serious political figure has been undeniable, some political experts had remained unconvinced that Kim Jong-un was secure in his anointed position. But if the report of his promotion to the No. 2 post on the National Defense Commission is true, there can be no further doubts.

The 15-member defense commission has several vice chairmen, including Jang Song-taek, the leader's brother-in-law. It is widely believed that Mr Jang, the husband of Kim Jong-il's sister, has day-to-day control of the country. But in terms of power and position, ''Kim Jong-un is already ahead of Jang Song-taek,'' Mr Paik said

Only a free press can hurt Kim Jong-il

2011-02-17T12:47:00.000-05:00

Reporters Without Borders and several independent North Korean media marked North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s birthday on February 16th by giving a news conference at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club about the efforts of Seoul-based exile media, especially radio stations, to offer North Koreans an alternative to the regime’s propaganda.

The news conference was part of a campaign that Reporters Without Borders launched on January 17 to draw attention to Kim’s status as a “Predator of Press Freedom” and to drum up support for the exile radio stations. The campaign’s graphic has been a crumpled photo of the “Dear Leader” accompanied by the words: “Only a free press can hurt him.”

The campaign accused Kim and his family of being directly responsible for the suppression of all press freedom in North Korea and urged South Korea’s government and civil society to provide more support for the exile radio stations, which are trying to break down the wall of propaganda and political control.

Several North Korean exiles addressed the news conference. Kang-Il Jung, a former detainee at the Yo Duk prison camp, described the plight of journalists in North Korea’s labor camps. Chul-Hyun Jang, a former journalist with North Korea’s Chosun Central TV, stressed the importance of independent radio stations for the population. They can “rescue North Koreans from their daily brainwashing,” he said, adding that “radio offers the only way to bring down Kim Jong-il.”

North Korean defects through minefield to South Korea

2011-02-16T10:55:00.001-05:00

As the North Korean elite prepared to put on choreographed celebrations to mark Kim Jong-il's birthday, a North Korean man walked across the heavily mined border into South Korea in a rare defection. Military and spy agency officials could not explain how the man managed to walk across the 4km (2.5 mile) wide minefield and past North Korean guards.

The demilitarized zone border, which has divided the Korean peninsula since the end of the 1950-53 conflict, is rarely crossed. Hundreds of North Koreans flee the impoverished country each year across its northern border with China, and then make their way overland to the South.

While defections are cause for deep embarrassment for the North Korean authorities, the country's masses never hear or read about them through the state-controlled media.

The news came as North Koreans celebrated the country's biggest holiday, marking the 69th birthday of Kim Jong-il, the ailing Dear Leader.

In the South, balloons with anti-Pyongyang messages were released across the border, while in the capital, Seoul, protesters burnt posters of Kim Jong-il and his son Kim Jong-Un.

The Guardian

Transparency required in distribution of food aid to North Korea

2011-02-15T11:51:00.001-05:00

A senior U.S. senator Richard Lugar called on the Obama administration to secure transparency in the distribution of food aid to North Korea before any resumption of the aid, which was suspended years ago over the same issue, is made.

The leading Republican senator at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee issued the statement amid reports that the Obama administration is reviewing North Korea’s request for food aid made through the North Korean mission in the United Nations in New York.

U.S. food aid to the North was suspended in early 2009 amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests and controversy over the transparency of food distribution. North Korea at the time refused to issue visas to Korean-speaking monitors, whose mission was to assure that the food was not funneled to the military and government elite.

The U.S. provided more than 2 million tons of food aid to the North over the past decade.

International relief organizations suspended humanitarian food aid to North Korea in early 2009 as the North Korean government expelled international monitors amid escalating tensions over its rocket test launch and an ensuing nuclear test, the second after one in 2006.

Relief organizations have said that North Korea will need about 1 million tons of food from abroad to feed its 24 million people every year amid reports that thousands have starved to death this winter.

[Korea Herald]

What ails Kim Jong il?

2011-02-14T11:24:00.001-05:00

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il turns 70 on February 16, midst speculation over his ill health. Chosun Ilbo reports that doctors say he mainly suffers from health problems in three areas.

◆ Stroke - Kim is slowly recovering from a stroke he suffered in 2008. In recent footage he looks as though he is still dealing with the fallout, with movement in his left hand restricted and his left foot dragging. Depending on progress, these handicaps will improve. But the real problem is the depression or impulse control disorder that stroke patients often suffer.

"If part of your brain is damaged due to stroke, you may suffer from depression as you become extremely sensitive to your emotions, or from uncontrollable anger attacks," a doctor said. "If people don't carefully manage the aftermath of a stroke, their judgment can be severely affected."

◆ Chronic Renal Failure from Diabetes - Kim has also reportedly been suffering from diabetes for more than a decade which has now led to chronic renal failure. Recent pictures of Kim show that the dark spots on his face have grown and his nails are whiter. This is probably due to a buildup of toxins in his body because the kidneys are failing. His wrists often look swollen, and he is said to be going undergoing kidney dialysis twice a week, but without a transplant his kidneys are unlikely to hold out for another five years. Even if he wants a kidney transplant, it is unclear if North Korea has the wherewithal to perform the operation.

◆ Cardiovascular Disease - Doctors believe that Kim had a stroke due to the complications of diabetes. He seems to have gained some weight and started smoking again. A combination of diabetes, abdominal obesity and smoking greatly increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases recurring.

Cho Kyung-hwan, a professor at Korea University Anam Hospital, said, "After the age of 70, serious chronic diseases like diabetes can affect various parts of the body."

Half of all North Korea defectors send remittances to relatives back home

2011-02-13T09:52:00.001-05:00

Nearly half of North Korean defectors living in Seoul have remitted money to their families in the impoverished communist nation, a poll showed Sunday.

According to the survey of North Korean defectors residing in South Korea, 49.5 percent said they have sent money to their families in the North, while 46 percent said they have not and 4.5 percent said that they have no family there.

The findings mark the first confirmation of widespread speculation that North Korean defectors provide financial help to their families facing chronic hunger in the North.

The Influence of North Korean Defectors on their Homeland

2011-02-13T09:44:00.002-05:00

A 43-year-old North Korean defector who has taken asylum in South Korea since 1997 believes that his and other defectors’ remittances to their relatives in the communist state help enlighten them about the free, democratic and capitalist South.

“When we make remittances to our loved ones in the North, we talk to them over the phone to ensure the money was properly sent. Through such talks, a wave of news about our capitalist society flows in and spreads there,” Kang said, refusing to give his full name to protect his family remaining in the North.

“Such circulating news forms public opinion there, enabling North Koreans to come to terms with how they have been fooled (by the regime).”

“I annually send about 1 million won ($890) to my aunt ― enough for a family of five to live on in the North. We defectors send the money, not because we have much money, but because we know better than anyone else about their economic ordeals and hardships.”

Kang explained that North Korean defectors usually send their money through ethnic Chinese in Seoul, who ask their Chinese relatives or acquaintances inside the North or near the North Korea-China border to deliver the money. The brokers take 30 percent of the total remittances, he said.

“As North Korean authorities are rarely harsh in dealing with Chinese nationals, the brokers with Chinese nationality can operate in the North to deliver the money from us here,” Kang said.

North Korea pleads for food aid

2011-02-12T10:38:00.001-05:00

In a dramatic and poignant sign of a state nearing collapse, North Korea has asked its embassies to appeal to foreign Governments for aid to feed a population close to starvation.

The plea poses a major dilemma for the international community on how to deal with a totalitarian regime which it accuses of developing a nuclear arsenal while, at the same time, facing massive and endemic deprivation.

The United States stopped food aid two years ago after continuing friction over Pyongyang's stance on atomic weaponry and South Korea has drastically reduced its contributions after a series of recent clashes.

South Korea has a contingency plan for the possible implosion of its neighbor which involves sealing the border to prevent an influx of famished refugees while sending massive amounts of aid to the North.

China, which has long served as North Korea's food supplier of last resort, faces its own food crisis as a result of a sustained drought, and, according to US State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks, Beijing has become increasingly exasperated by the Kim Jong-il Administration's seemingly intransigent stance on the nuclear issue.

The direct plea for help from all quarters is highly unusual for North Korea, which normally negotiates deliveries from organizations such as the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization.

[New Zealand Herald]

North Korean Dependence on Oxen Increases Foot-And-Mouth Risks

2011-02-11T09:08:00.001-05:00

North Korea’s dependence on animals to plow fields and haul harvests adds greater urgency to containing an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease before planting begins in the country, already dependent on food handouts.

“Oxen are so important in North Korea’s agricultural industry that the government owns them all, while individuals can keep pigs,” said Kwon Tae Jin, vice president of the Korea Rural Economic Research in Seoul. “During the rice planting season you can see more oxen than tractors.”

The outbreak of the contagious animal virus may disrupt farming in a nation where an estimated 2 million people died from famine in the mid-1990s and where flood damage to crops late last year exacerbated shortages. The disease may also mar plans to mark Kim Jong Il’s 69th birthday on February 16 and a pledge to put meat on every table.

More than 10,000 draught oxen, milk cows and pigs have been infected with the disease, with thousands of them already dead, North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization is discussing with the North’s government how it can help, the Rome-based agency’s regional office for Asia said today in an e-mailed response to inquiries by Bloomberg News.

“If North Korea fails to contain the virus before the planting season begins, it will disrupt farming with fewer animals to put to work,” Kwon, an economist specializing in North Korea’s agriculture industry, said today in a telephone interview. “That explains why they are in such a hurry to seek help from outside.”

Using animals to transport crops and plow the land also raises the risk of spreading the virus if it isn’t contained by May, when planting begins in North Korea, he said.

Bloomberg

China urges Koreas to resume dialogue

2011-02-10T08:50:00.002-05:00

Forward progress may still be possible, as authorities in Beijing have urged North and South Korea to put their differences aside and resume dialogue, a day after the acrimonious collapse of talks that were aimed at easing tensions.

Meanwhile, South Korea indicated it would allow 31 North Koreans who drifted into its waters to return home, with North Korea demanding their return. The North Koreans were on a fishing boat that crossed over the sea border Saturday, and they were taken to Incheon for questioning by South Korean authorities.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry said it will respect the “free will” of the individuals, who have not expressed any desire to defect.

Defectors Send $10 Million a Year to North Korea

2011-02-09T01:14:00.003-05:00

North Korean defectors settled in South Korea are sending secretly some US$10 million a year to their families in the North.

Some 3,000 to 5,000 of 20,000 defectors settled in South Korea are sending cash each to their families back home through middlemen every year, the government and defectors' organizations believe. Defectors organization said middlemen take commissions of about 30 percent.

The money is believed to be a mainstay of the North Korean underground economy. A security official said the defectors' money has created a lively economy in the North Korea-China border area.

Chosun Ilbo

North and South Korea begin military talks

2011-02-08T01:21:00.003-05:00

North and South Korea opened working-level military talks Tuesday at the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, marking the first inter-Korean dialogue in months.

The talks signal a change in tone after tensions between the two sides escalated sharply last year, and are meant to help pave the way for higher-level military discussions.

North Koreans arrive by boat in South Korea in possible defection

2011-02-07T01:22:00.003-05:00

Thirty-one North Korean people crossed the tense Yellow Sea border by boat and arrived in South Korea two days ago, but they have not expressed any wishes to defect to the South, a military official said Monday.

The North Koreans, consisting of 11 men and 20 women, arrived on Yeonpyeong Island in a wooden fishing boat amidst thick fog.

Officials said they were not immediately clear on whether those aboard were fleeing the communist North for the South or whether they had simply drifted across the border unintentionally.

There are no children among the North Koreans, and they were believed to have left North Korea's western port city of Nampo, about 60 kilometers southwest of Pyongyang, according to the military official.

Yonhap News