Category: DPRK Government

How might President Donald Trump deal with Kim Jong-un?

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In the list of urgent priorities awaiting the US president-elect North Korea is likely to be near the top. With the best expert advice suggesting it could have a functioning nuclear arsenal capable of hitting the US within five years, how might Donald Trump deal with Kim Jong-un?

Donald Trump has called Kim Jong-un a “bad dude”. But he also added that he would be prepared to meet him over a hamburger.

And Kim Jong-un seems to have made an assessment of the president-elect. In June, the state-controlled media called Mr Trump a “wise politician” and the right choice for American voters.

In Iowa in January, the American president-elect betrayed a trace of admiration, even as he suggested his counterpart was crazy. “This guy, he’s like a maniac, OK? And you have to give him credit. How many young guys – he was like 26 or 25 when his father died – take over these tough generals, and all of a sudden, you know, it’s pretty amazing when you think of it,” he said. “I mean, this guy doesn’t play games. And we can’t play games with him. Because he really does have missiles. And he really does have nukes”.

So what might President Trump do to prevent North Korea fulfilling its ambition to become a fully-fledged nuclear power? On television in February, Mr Trump indicated that he thought China was the key: “China has control – absolute control – over North Korea. They don’t say it, but they do…I would force China to do it economically”.

[Read full BBC article]

North Korea wiretapping defectors’ families

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North Korea’s state security department is wiretapping the homes of people whose family members defected. Residents have also found hidden wires on their bicycles.

A source in North Hamgyong Province told South Korean news service Daily NK that state surveillance of defectors’ families is growing to be a source of distress for people in the area.

“Because they do not know who installed the device, the families of defectors are under tremendous stress,” the source said, adding that when a person who is not a relative stops by, families are saying they need to inspect their homes for hidden bugs afterwards.

Local residents are also wary of unexpected visits by security agents and are refraining from speaking out loud on topics that may lead to questioning.

A source in South Pyongan Province said the state is bolstering propaganda about the regime, and making claims “all would be forgiven” if defectors return to the North. “But locals are not being fooled. They know ‘forgiveness’ is lip service and [returnees] would be under surveillance until they die.”

[UPI]

North Koreans joke about Kim Jong Un and his government

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Political satire, jokes at the expenses of national leaders, and outright criticism of the government are normal parts of both public and private lives in democratically based states across the globe.

But North Korea is not a free and open society. So what do North Koreans think about their leaders?

An interview project with North Koreans currently residing in North Korea found that 35 of 36 respondents’ family, friends, or neighbors complain or make jokes about the government in private.

The fact that all but one of the interviewees say people they know complain and makes jokes about the government is an extraordinary number given the gravity with which the North Korean regime responds to criticism.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights (published in February 2014) on the subject of North Korean’s rights and freedoms  found that there is “an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought… as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion.”

People who express dissent or criticize the state, even if unintentionally, are subject to harsh punishments and detention, often punished without trial. Suspects of political crimes may simply disappear and their relatives may never be notified of the arrest, the charges, or the whereabouts of the alleged criminal. If not executed, citizens accused of major political crimes are sent to a political prison camp.

[Read more at Beyond Parallel]

The next US president’s North Korea dilemma

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Among the many challenges facing the next occupant of the White House, few will be more pressing, or more complex, than that posed by North Korea’s seemingly inexorable drive to nuclear statehood. Whatever the outgoing administration’s policy was with regard to curbing the North’s nuclear ambitions, it has clearly failed.

The one thing the new president will not lack is vocal advice from any number of think-tanks, policy wonks, former diplomats and retired generals who believe they have the solution. The policy argument essentially pits those who favor threatening the North Korean regime’s very existence with crushing sanctions backed by military threat, against those who prefer a cocktail of measures in which tough sanctions and military strength provide a base for offering talks and incentives to denuclearize.

In a stark assessment delivered to a Washington think-tank last week, the US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said convincing North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons was “a lost cause”.

Those who back dialogue include Jane Harman and James Person of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars who wrote a recent op-ed in the Washington Post titled: “The US Needs to Negotiate with North Korea.”

The only real area of consensus on North Korea is that …its nuclear and missile testing program has accelerated to the point where previous estimates — once seen as alarmist — that it could have an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the United States by 2020, are now seen as soberly prudent.

[The Star (Malaysia)]

Where is Kim Jong-un’s wife, Ri Sol-ju?

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The wife of Kim Jong-un has not been seen in public for seven months prompting speculation that she is either pregnant or perhaps has fallen out of favor.

Experts monitoring the situation in Pyongyang have suggested Ri Sol-ju, who was introduced as First Lady in 2012, may have fallen out with Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong, who is increasingly regarded as the power behind the throne. Kim Yo-jong was put in charge of North Korea’s Propaganda and Agitation Department last year and is responsible for building up her brother’s cult of personality.

Ri was last seen on a tour of a new commercial district and health complex in Pyongyang on March 28 March of this year, South Korean news agency Yonhap News reported. In contrast Kim Jong-un has frequently been seen touring the country and hosted the country’s first party congress in 36 years in May.

Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo’s Waseda University who focuses on the Pyongyang leadership, said: “There are several possible reasons, including that she is pregnant or that there is some sort of problem between the two of them. There have also been reports of instability in Pyongyang and rumors of several attempted attacks, including by factions in the North Korean military, against Kim last year. So it is also possible that Ri has not appeared in public because she is being closely guarded.”

In 2012, Ri disappeared from public view, prompting speculation that she had fallen out of favor or was pregnant. It was later revealed that she gave birth to the couple’s first child, a daughter, sometime in late 2012.

On the other hand, Kim Jong-un is not above disposing of those closest to him if they fall out of favor. He executed his uncle, Jang Sung-taek, after finding him guilty of treason despite their relationship being reportedly close beforehand. Announcing the execution, Kim Jong-un denounced him as “human scum worse than a dog” for an alleged attempt to introduce reform.

[The Independent]

Red Cross on North Korean flood relief: “Put politics aside and recognize this is a humanitarian tragedy”

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The Red Cross is struggling to raise needed funds to aid flood-affected regions of North Korea after a disappointing response from the international community to its emergency appeal, a spokesman said on Saturday.

Red Cross has only raised 25 percent of the $15.38 million it sought in an emergency appeal aimed at helping more than 330,000 people needing humanitarian assistance over the next 12 months, and with winter fast approaching.

Donors’ political concerns about the North Korean government have hampered efforts to raise funds, Patrick Fuller, communications manager for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), said, even though the money donated to the Red Cross is spent by the organization, without passing through the government. International donors need to “put politics aside and recognize this is a humanitarian tragedy for thousands of people,” said Fuller.

North Korean government-led reconstruction efforts have moved at an incredibly fast pace, the IFRC said, with cement factories working overtime and a constant stream of building materials reaching the affected areas by train and ship.

“Credit has to go to the government for what they’ve achieved,” Fuller said. “They will have achieved in three months probably what most other countries achieve in three years after a major disaster.”

[Reuters]

Major loophole and other weaknesses with North Korean sanctions

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North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. And so far, these punitive measures have yet to achieve their aim — forcing North Korea to denuclearize, or at least return to the negotiating table.

The most recent round of U.N. sanctions — which U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power called the “toughest … in more than two decades” — was passed by the Security Council last March.

One sanctions workaround for North Korea has been to station North Korean businessmen in China. While there, they work with a network of private Chinese companies. “So these private Chinese companies were able to order parts and materials from other Chinese companies or from European companies that had set up production platforms in China, selling their goods without ever knowing that they were ultimately going to the North Koreans,” Jim Walsh, an international security researcher at MIT, says.

China signed on to the package of new sanctions in March, which called for cutting off trade in commodities, such as coal. Many analysts thought that was a big deal at the time, since coal is North Korea’s No. 1 export and makes up an estimated 35 percent of the economy there.

But before signing on to the sanctions, China insisted on a key loophole called the “livelihood exemption.” It allows the export of a product if cutting it off might affect the livelihood of the exporter, so long as the revenue doesn’t go to North Korea’s nuclear program. The problem is, companies self-certify that’s the case.

[NPR]

North Korea claims country stronger despite UN sanctions

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North Korea’s economy shrank last year, but, CBS News correspondent Adriana Diaz reports, [at least Pyongyang] looked like a place that was expanding, not one crippled by sanctions.

“The purpose of the sanctions is to squash us,” North Korean Ri Kum Jin told CBS News. “But we cannot surrender. We have to defend our lives and our nuclear program,” he said.

“We have abundant natural resources that can be used for nuclear technology,” said economist Ri Ki Song, who advises on policy in North Korea. He was selected by the North Korean government for an interview with CBS News. “It’s the nuclear threats made by the U.S. that caused all of this,” Song said. “The question is whether the new president is willing to abandon hostile policies. Your presidents all sanction us, and we just grow stronger.”

Despite this claim, Diaz reports, in 2016, the average person in North Korea earned just over a thousand dollars a year, less than half what individuals made in the 1980s. They were staying afloat because of China and its appetite for commodities like coal.

China bought 60 percent more coal from North Korea in August than in April, when the sanctions took effect. It did this by taking advantage of a humanitarian exemption in the law; a loophole which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry wanted to see eliminated.

China would have to sign on to any new U.N. sanctions against North Korea, and though they opposed the country’s nuclear program, they have so far been unwilling to go as far as Western powers wanted, Diaz reports. Their fear is that an economic collapse would send millions of refugees across their border, Diaz says, as well as American troops to their doorstep.

[CBS]

North Korea unhappy about UN threat of more sanctions

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North Korean officials lashed out Monday at efforts in the United Nations to strengthen sanctions following the North’s latest missile launches and nuclear test in September.

The United Nations has imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 for its nuclear tests and rocket launches. Last week, the U.N. Security Council called on members to “redouble their sanction efforts.”

“The sanction resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are illegal criminal documents,” Pang Kwang Hyok, vice director of the department of international organizations at the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the APTN crew in Pyongyang.

“These resolutions determined that our nuclear tests and satellite launches pose threats to international peace and security, but then the problem is why has the U.N. Security Council never taken issue with the nuclear tests and satellite launches conducted by other countries?” Pang said.

Pang repeated the North’s claim that sanctions won’t stop Pyongyang from developing its nuclear arsenal. “I can state that it is a complete miscalculation to think that any sanctions or pressure can have any effect on us,” he said.

[AP]

North Korea ‘purges’ top official amid spike in high-level defections

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North Korea has purged a vice foreign minister, punishing the 72-year-old and his family with farm work, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said. Vice Minister Kung Sok Ung “took responsibility for the management of the embassies in the European region and was purged.”

The daily reports Kung Sok Ung, 72, and four other ranking officials in charge of European affairs were expelled from Pyongyang on the orders of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. It said Kung oversaw relations with Russia and Europe for nearly 20 years.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye recently said, “While the defections by North Korean elites, as well as regular citizens, are on the rise, the motivations for their defections have become varied, with some fleeing their country with a sense of despair about lack of their own prospects or for their children’s future,” Park said.

Before 2001, nearly 70 percent of those fleeing North Korea cited hunger, but now almost 88 percent cite non-economic reasons such as surveillance and fear, the news agency said.

Among those now fleeing to freedom are significant numbers of senior officials. “Since the execution of Kim’s uncle Jang Song Thaek in 2013, defections by the privileged class have risen due to the North’s leader’s reign of terror,” Yonhap on Sunday quoted Sohn Kwang-joo, who heads the South’s defector resettlement agency, as saying.

On Oct. 5, Japan was said to be handling a request for asylum by a senior North Korean official in Beijing. Tokyo denied the reports, while South Korean media said the official’s final destination was likely to be Seoul.

Pyongyang is reported to have executed more than 100 dissenting state, party and military officials since Kim came to power in late 2011.

[Japan Times]