South Korea continues questioning North Korean defectors

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South Korea’s intelligence agency will continue to hold 13 North Koreans at the heart of a bitter dispute between the rival countries. South Korea says they defected of their own free will, while the North claims they were abducted.

Intelligence officers want longer to question the group of 12 waitresses and a manager at a North Korea-run restaurant in China, who arrived in Seoul in April. The move came ahead of a South Korean court’s decision to delay a request for a hearing by a group of lawyers. The lawyers want to question the group about whether they defected freely, after the intelligence agency refused to present them in court.

The National Intelligence Service has held the group since they arrived in South Korea on April 7 at a facility it runs on the southern outskirts of Seoul. More than 1,000 people from North Korea stay at the facility each year in the initial stages of defection. For up to 180 days, they are screened and questioned on their lives in the North.

The agency’s decision to extend the women’s stay means they will not be moved to a resettlement complex where defectors spend 12 weeks learning about life in the South.

[The Guardian]

Kim Jong Un oversees successful launch of a ballistic missile

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Kim Jong Un oversaw what looks like the successful launch of a ballistic missile that reached an altitude of 1,000 km and got over half way to Japan’s main island of Honshu.

Experts said the launch, which came after five failed tests including one earlier the same day, marked progress in North Korea’s weapons program, and underlined Kim’s steely determination as well as his patience with scientists involved.

Reclusive North Korea’s state propaganda has painted Kim as a demanding but generous and understanding leader willing to forgive the failures of its scientists.

That contrasts with his reputation overseas as ruthless and impulsive, after he executed his own uncle, replaced his defense chief five times and defied the world with two nuclear tests.

Michael Madden, an expert on political leadership in the North who has contributed to the Washington-based 38 North think-tank, said rumors of technicians behind failures being shot or purged were “nonsense”.

“One thing to note is that people don’t get shot behind failures,” said Madden, who edits North Korea Leadership Watch. “They get shot because they lie in their reporting or refuse to accept responsibility.”

[Reuters]

North Korea reacts to publicity generated by ex-captive Kenneth Bae

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North Korea has a message for former captive Kenneth Bae: Stop talking, or else U.S. prisoners in Pyongyang’s custody won’t be released.

State-controlled news agency KCNA said Monday that North Korea will “neither make any compromise nor conduct negotiations” with the United States as long as Bae keeps “jabbering” about his term of imprisonment, Yonhap reported.

“American criminals now in custody in [North Korea] will never be able to go back to the U.S.,” KCNA added.

North Korea has in custody two U.S. citizens: University of Virginia student Otto Warmbier and Kim Dong Chul, a resident of Fairfax, Va.

Bae, a U.S. missionary who was arrested in 2012 and released in 2014, had been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea on charges of carrying out religious activities. The imprisonment took a heavy toll on Bae’s health, and he was hospitalized three times for diabetes, an enlarged heart and back pain. Bae recently published a memoir and has been interviewed by several U.S. television networks.

[UPI]

Dispute boils over Seoul court hearing on North Korean defectors

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About two months after fleeing their oppressive homeland, 12 former workers of a North Korean restaurant in China face a legal debate over the legitimacy of their stay in South Korea under Seoul’s protection.

The Seoul Central District Court opened a hearing to review a request by the Lawyers for a Democratic Society, better known as Minbyun, to determine whether the 12 had defected on their own free will and thus whether the government’s current holding of them is lawful.

The Unification Ministry’s unprecedented announcement of the defection, made just days ahead of the April 13 general election, stoked rumors that the National Intelligence Service had orchestrated the escape with a political intention.

Controversy is simmering as the court issued a summons to the 12 defectors, fueling concerns over their safety and that of their family members left behind in the North.

In another development, the NIS has decided to have the group remain in their current residence instead of sending them to Hanawon resettlement center, citing the special nature of their situation including Pyongyang’s ongoing propaganda offensive against them.

[The Korea Herald]

UN sanctions usually fail

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To rein in countries like North Korea … global powers are boosting their reliance on United Nations sanctions aimed at forcing recalcitrant a government to drop weapons programs, stop attacking their civilians or respect the results of elections. They usually fail.

Countries should be wary of seeing sanctions as a magic bullet, US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew recently said in a speech. “We must guard against the impulse to reach for sanctions too lightly or in situations where they will have negligible impact,” Lew said.

“Sanctions have failed to achieve their objectives, and even the success stories have a mixed record,” said Daniel Wagner, author of the Political Risk Insurance Guide. “Countries have found ways around the sanctions and can counter them.”

“Sanctions are applied to the most complex, intractable problems where the military option is not the solution,” said Thomas Biersteker, a professor at the Graduate Institute of Geneva, who has written extensively on sanctions.

[South China Morning Post]

US Treasury further cracks down on North Korea’s money laundering

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North Korea has been accused of using state-owned corporations and front companies to pay for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. And the U.S. Treasury Department has announced new steps it’s taking to “further isolate North Korea.”

Treasury officials want to prohibit American banks from doing business with North Korean financial institutions. To accomplish that, they’ve designated North Korea a “primary money laundering concern” under the Patriot Act. That designation will require U.S. banks to “implement additional due diligence measures” to make sure North Korean banks don’t get access.

In a statement, Treasury pointed out that, unlike most banks, North Korea’s financial institutions operate with little or no international supervision — making it easier for them to shift money for illicit purposes.

[CNN]

Kim Jong Un still smoking

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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been spotted smoking in public for the first time in around two months, despite the country being in the middle of an official anti-smoking campaign.

State media this week showed the country’s Supreme Leader with a cigarette in his right hand during a visit to a children’s camp in Pyongyang. Until now, news reports on Kim’s activities have shown him without his habitual cigarette and an ashtray on a nearby table. He’s known to be a heavy smoker, and BBC analysts say he may have just stopped smoking on official duties for the sake of the cameras.

The sight of Kim smoking comes as a surprise, as the country is in the midst of what state newspaper Rodong Sinmun calls a “brisk” anti-tobacco campaign in a country which has a large smoking population. According to the World Health Organisation, over half of North Korean men were smokers in 2012, South Korean news agency Yonhap says, one of the highest rates in Asia.

[BBC]

Details on latest North Korean defectors to have made it to Seoul

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The North Korean propaganda website Uriminzokkiri on Tuesday alleged that three North Korean women who fled from China to South Korea were “abducted” by South Korea’s National Intelligence Service. The website also published the photos, identities and passport numbers of two South Koreans and a Korean-Chinese man it accuses of “luring and abducting” the women at the orders of the South Korean “National Intelligence Service” (NIS).

But Yoon Jae-hong, one of the men in the photos who helps North Korean defectors in China, denied the claims. “They were anything but kidnapped,” he told the Chosun Ilbo. “They were the ones who asked us to rescue them.The NIS has nothing to do with this.”

According to Yoon, two of the women worked in a restaurant in Shanghai for two years until late 2015. They were senior employees and had their own cell phones and were allowed to leave the restaurant freely. They became friends with two South Korean businessmen in Shanghai and exchanged phone numbers.

But the restaurant closed down late last year due to financial difficulties and the women were moved to another restaurant in Weinan, Shaanxi Province. From there they continued to exchange text messages with the two South Koreans in Shanghai.

Hearing of the defections of 13 North Korean women from another restaurant strengthened the resolve of the two women in Weinan to also [defect]. They contacted the two South Korean men to ask for their help in getting to South Korea. One of the South Koreans contacted Kim Yong-hwa of the North Korea Refugees Human Rights Association in Seoul to ask for help. Kim arranged for Yoon to help them.

“Originally, three restaurant workers intended to defect, but one changed her mind at the last minute,” Yoon said. “On April 15, they left the restaurant and got in a taxi to a prearranged spot, and from there they traveled for two days by bus to Yunnan Province.”

The women crossed the border into Laos and traveled to Thailand to board a flight to Seoul.

[Chosun Ilbo]

South Korean Defense Minister on Kim Jong Un

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Young, rash and impulsive.

A frank assessment of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by South Korean Defense Minister Han Minkoo. Speaking exclusively to CNN on the sidelines of a defense forum in Singapore, Han says it’s a combination that concerns him greatly.

“Kim Jong Un was just 27 when he came to power with very little time to prepare. Add to that, he is very young, he lacks experience.”

Kim certainly seems to be in a rush to perfect his nuclear and missile capabilities, the intensity of testing this year alone is unusual even for North Korea. “If you look at his father, Kim Jong Il, during his 18 year reign, there were about 18 missile tests. During Kim Jong Un’s four year reign there (have been) 25 missile tests,” says Han.

[CNN]

China and US reaffirm enforcement of sanctions against North Korea

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China pledged yesterday to work with the US to enforce sanctions against North Korea.

The pledge was made as China and the United States wrapped up their two-day annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue, labelled by officials as most productive in years despite many divisions.

But they disagreed on how to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons. The US favors putting more pressure on Pyongyang, while China insists on reviving talks and strongly opposes US deployment of an anti-missile system in South Korea.

US Secretary of State John Kerry also voiced concern over China’s crackdown on lawyers and religious freedom, and a new law’s restrictions on non-governmental organizations.

[South China Morning Post]