Monthly Archives: July 2017

North Korean missile test with claim to reach anywhere in the world

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North Korea claims to have conducted its first successful test of a long-range missile that it says can “reach anywhere in the world.”

Tuesday morning’s missile test reached a height of 2,802 kilometers (1,741 miles), according to state broadcaster Korea Central Television, which would be the highest altitude a North Korean missile had ever reached.

The country claimed it was an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, which would put the United States on notice that Pyongyang could potentially hit the US mainland. South Korea said this latest missile had an “improved range” compared with its May launch.

North Korea appears to have timed the launch for maximum political effect, giving the order to fire on the eve of the July Fourth holiday, just days after President Donald Trump spoke with Japanese and Chinese leaders about the North Korean threat and before this week’s G20 meeting.

The launch was North Korea’s 11th missile test this year and comes amid increasing frustration from Trump about the lack of progress in curbing Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

[CNN]

North Korean refugees bought and sold as wives to Chinese men

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Due to the gender imbalance created by China’s having millions more men than women, and the migration of poor women from rural areas, bride trafficking of women and girls has been occurring for years.

Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean defector based in the UK, and coordinator of the non-profit, European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, said Chinese men consider their purchased North Korean “wives” as merchandise which they can resell.

Park should know, as she was sold to a Chinese farmer for 5,000 yuan ($750) in 1998 and eventually escaped.

Most trafficked women, after crossing the Tumen River into China out of extreme desperation, continue to live in extreme fear and loath their husbands. Some were even sold multiple times.

Su-jin, for instance, was lured by a trafficker who promised her a job and a better life. She was sold for 1,000 yuan (US$150) to her first “husband”.

[South China Morning Post]

How North Korean women and their children become victims of human trafficking

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North Korean refugee women fleeing their country are all too often trafficked as soon as they cross into China, sold as brides to poor farmers or forced into cyber pornography that caters to South Korean men, according to frontline workers.

Dan Chung of Crossing Borders, a non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian support for trafficked North Korean women and their children of forced marriages, says there’s not enough resources to help care for traumatized children born to North Korean refugees with a Chinese father. Many of these children do not have citizenship and, as a result, are unable to attend school.

“They’re all born into poverty,” Chung said. “Most of them have witnessed their mom abandoning or disappearing or getting arrested by Chinese police and never to be heard again. [There’s] immense trauma from losing your mother. They also hear how ruthless North Korea is.”

Some of these trafficked women are even sold multiple times.

Ji Hyun Park, a North Korean defector based in the UK, and coordinator of the non-profit, European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea, said if the Chinese men considered the North Korean women they purchased as “wives” as damaged or useless, they would immediately “resell” them, like merchandise, to other people.                      Read more

US singles out China for trafficking North Korean refugee women

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Last week the US State Department singled out China as one of the worst offenders for human trafficking globally, downgrading the nation to Tier 3 – the lowest level, on par with Sudan, Iran and North Korea.

Tim Peters, a prominent advocate of Helping Hands Korea said: “Such a downgrade is richly deserved in my view. There has been a virtually lawless environment in China’s three northeast provinces adjacent to the DPRK [North Korea] with respect to widespread sex trafficking of North Korean women. Hundreds of thousands of women border-crossers have been funneled into ‘red light’ districts but especially into illegal ‘brides for sale’ networks.”

In a televised speech, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pointed out the United States’ concerns over forced labor, forced begging and sex trafficking in China and forced labor involving North Korean migrants whose salaries go directly to a North Korean government that is hard pressed for cash due to international sanctions.

The report called on China to stop forcibly repatriating North Koreans back to North Korea “without screening them for indicators of trafficking” and instead offer them humanitarian assistance and legal alternatives. According to several frontline groups, North Koreans who are sent back to the isolated state face forced labor and execution.

However, in past years, a secretive network of operators who rescue North Koreans who have fled into mainland China has helped take them safely along the 3,000-mile long “underground railroad” to a third country like South Korea where they get automatic citizenship.

[South China Morning Post]

The secrets behind Kim Jong Un’s funding

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Despite international sanctions, Kim Jong Un continues to enjoy the good life, with recent purchases thought to include a gleaming white yacht, expensive liquors and even the equipment necessary to kit out a luxury ski resort. When the world’s most mysterious leader arrives for a parade, he steps out of a black Mercedes Benz. But who sold North Korea’s Supreme Leader a brand new, top-of-the-line limousine?

In 2015, North Korean imports totaled $3.47 billion. But if you remove China — Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner — from the equation, the breakdown reveals North Korea spent more on luxury goods than it did on licit imports from the rest of the world combined, according to UN data processed by the MIT Media Lab’s Observatory of Economic Complexity.

So how can the leader a country that in March of last year warned its citizens to prepare for possible famine and severe economic hardship afford to live in such luxury?

Experts say these types of purchases are made using Kim’s personal piggy bank, filled by Pyongyang’s illicit dealings across the globe. North Korea has been accused of crimes such as hacking banks, selling weapons, dealing drugs, counterfeiting cash and even trafficking endangered species — operations that are believed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars. North Korean diplomats around the world have been accused of using their diplomatic privileges to conducted crimes such as smuggling gold and running guns.

A 2008 Congressional Research Service report said Pyongyang could generate anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion in profits annually from its ill-gotten gains.

In order to really pressure Kim until he’s desperate enough to get to the negotiating table on the US’ terms, US President Donald Trump may need to go after that money, analysts say. But cutting off that revenue may prove difficult, like playing a game of international whack-a-mole.

[CNN]