Gruff former general the right man for North Korean mission

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The North Koreans passed word they wanted a high-ranking U.S. government official for the job, so President Barack Obama sent a gruff former general to spirit home two Americans held captive. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is no diplomat by training, and that’s perhaps just why he earned the clandestine call.

For past visits to the unpredictable and reclusive country, the United States has sent smooth-tongued luminaries such as former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and former U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson. Or North Korean experts, one of whom was Sydney Seiler, a former intelligence official who is now with the State Department.

But analysts who follow North Korea say Clapper may have been perfect for the role. The spy chief was senior enough to convey a message of respect to the North Korean. But he is not a diplomat, so he could beg off any unrelated demands the North Koreans may have made. The two countries do not have diplomatic relations.

“The director of national intelligence was just the right person for this,” said Joseph DeTrani, who used to work for Clapper as his North Korean mission manager.

Matthew Miller arrives in US from North KoreaOn Saturday, Clapper landed on a U.S. government plane with the two Americans, Matthew Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Kenneth Bae of Lynnwood, Washington, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Washington.

Many analysts suggested that the conciliatory moves, after years of bellicose rhetoric and inflammatory actions, were in response to recent pressure over North Korea’s human rights record.

DeTrani said he believed that report may have been a factor, but he saw the releases as a hopeful sign that North Korea “wants to come out of the penalty box. … The North Koreans want to come back to negotiations,” said DeTrani, who nows leads an intelligence contractor trade group. “They are going through a bad patch. The last two years have been a disaster. They are more and more of an isolated state. We’re seeing an outreach – the leadership in Pyongyang is saying, ‘we’ve got to change course, it’s not working.”

[Associated Press]

Released Americans and the behind-the-scenes fixer who has North Korea’s ear

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Few people know how or why Pyongyang decided to release two American prisoners over the weekend. Acts of leniency from the autocratic North Korea are rare indeed.

Kun “Tony” NamkungBut one man who could shed light on an uncommon act of diplomacy is Kun “Tony” Namkung, a mysterious intermediary who has for years negotiated with the unpredictable regime. With no official position, Kun ‘Tony’ Namkung seems to have played a central role in the sudden release of three American prisoners.

Offering sensitive advice to high-level US, Japanese and South Korean figures in their dealings with North Korea, Mr Namkung, 67, has played a critical backstage role in bringing about the release of three Americans: first, last month, Jeffrey Fowle, and then, at the weekend, the missionary Kenneth Bae and “adventurer” Matthew Todd Miller, both sentenced to hard labour for “hostile acts”.

On his most recent visit to Pyongyang last month, Mr Namkung lobbied hard with a wide range of contacts to win freedom for all three of the Americans. His efforts followed a prolonged campaign for mercy for 46-year-old Mr Bae, arrested two years ago for trying to spread “Christian propaganda” while leading a tour group from China to the industrial zone at Rason near the Chinese border.

Mr Namkung knew Mr Bae’s and Mr Miller’s release was imminent when Mr Fowle, who had been detained at a hotel awaiting trial, was told 30 minutes before being taken to the airport that he was going home. “One down, two to go,” Mr Namkung, who holds a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, emailed after Mr Fowle’s release.

[The Independent]

North Korea worried that Kim Jong Un could be accused in the International Criminal Court

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The release of Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller is the latest twist in the fitful relationship between the Obama administration and the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, whose approach to the U.S. has shifted back and forth from defiance to occasional conciliation.

A senior Obama administration official said the president approved the mission last week and U.S. officials spent the next several days planning the trip. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, spent roughly a day on the ground and met with North Korean security officials — but not with Kim. Clapper went with the sole purpose of bringing home the two detainees, although the U.S. anticipated that other issues of concern to the North would come up during Clapper’s discussions, the official said.

Analysts who study North Korea said the decision to free Bae and Miller now from long prison terms probably was a bid to ease pressure in connection with its human rights record. A recent U.N. report documented rape, torture, executions and forced labor in the North’s network of prison camps, accusing the government of “widespread, systematic and gross” human rights violations.

North Korea seems worried that Kim could be accused in the International Criminal Court, said Sue Mi Terry, a former senior intelligence analyst now at Columbia University.

Bruce Klingner, a former CIA analyst now at the Heritage Foundation, agreed that efforts to shine a spotlight on the country’s human rights record “startled the regime and led to frantic attempts to derail the process.”

[Associated Press]

Last two Americans held captive by North Korea back in US

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Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller landed Saturday night at a Washington state military base after a top U.S. intelligence official secured their release from the reclusive Communist country.

kenneth bae releasedBae, surrounded by family members, spoke briefly to the media after the plane carrying him and Miller landed about 9 p.m. He had been serving a 15-year sentence for alleged anti-government activities. He was detained in 2012.

“I just want to say thank you all for supporting me and standing by me,” he said.

“It’s been an amazing two years, I learned a lot, I grew a lot, I lost a lot of weight,” said Bae, a Korean-American missionary with health problems. Asked how he was feeling, he said, “I’m recovering at this time.”

His family has said he suffers from diabetes, an enlarged heart, liver problems and back pain.

Miller was serving a six-year jail term on charges of espionage after he allegedly ripped up his tourist visa at Pyongyang’s airport in April and demanded asylum. North Korea said Miller had wanted to experience prison life so that he could secretly investigate North Korea’s human rights situation.

U.S. officials said Miller of Bakersfield, California, and Bae of Lynnwood, Washington, flew back with James Clapper, the director of national intelligence. Clapper is the highest-ranking American to visit Pyongyang in more than a decade.

[Associated Press]

Americans Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller released from North Korean imprisonment

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U.S. citizens Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller have been released from North Korea, where they were detained for two years and seven months, respectively, the U.S. State Department announced Saturday.

“The safety and welfare of U.S. citizens abroad is the Department of State’s highest priority, and the United States has long called on [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] authorities to release these individuals on humanitarian grounds,” spokesperson Jen Psaki said in a statement.

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, took part in discussions with North Korea about Bae’s and Miller’s release. Accompanied by Clapper, the two were en route back to the United States to be reunited with their families Saturday.

“We welcome the DPRK’s decision to release both Mr. Bae and Mr. Miller,” said Brian P. Hale, the director of public affairs for the office of the director of national intelligence, in a statement.

[TIME]

Kim Jong Un and relations with China

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Kim Jong-un’s vanity has been on display in the promotion of costly yet impractical construction projects that would be worthy of a pharaoh. These public works involve the mobilization of the masses—soldiers and students in addition to laborers—in “speed campaigns” to achieve hasty completion according to Kim Jong-un’s whim. The projects, including an elaborate ski resort, a refurbished amusement park, and an aquarium with a dolphin show, have done little to address the chronic malnutrition and meager living standards of a people isolated in an island of poverty in the midst of the most economically dynamic region of the world.

The projects, ostensibly undertaken to promote tourism, reflect the young general’s narcissistic lifestyle, as vividly described last year by retired basketball star Dennis Rodman. Rodman had made a visit with Kim Jong-un to the latter’s pleasure island, complete with horseback riding, free-flowing alcohol, and yachts.

The indulgent lifestyle probably also explains the use of a cane by thirty-something Kim Jong-un. He allegedly suffers from a series of debilitating illnesses—including obesity, gout, diabetes, and high blood pressure—usually associated with individuals twice his age.

In almost three years in power, Kim Jong-un, who once lived as a student in Switzerland where he was reportedly an avid fan of Western sports teams and rock music, has not left the country. This indicates a degree of insecurity and is in marked contrast to his father, Kim Jong-il, who is thought to have traveled three times to China and once to the Russian Far East during the last two years of his life. Kim Jong-un’s lack of an invitation to visit Beijing, North Korea’s sole ally in the world, has reached the point of embarrassment—especially after President Park Geun-hye of rival South Korea was invited on a state visit to Beijing in 2013, which was reciprocated by a visit to Seoul of Chinese president Xi Jinping this summer.

There is the question of the increasingly frosty relations between the two erstwhile allies. Kim Jong-un’s father was always careful to treat China, North Korea’s economic and energy lifeline, with a degree of respect, even traveling to China in May 2011, although in frail health, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between China and North Korea. Kim Jong-un, however, has treated China with barely veiled contempt, causing Beijing to lose face when he went forward in early 2013 with a nuclear test despite Chinese admonishments to cease and desist. He then publicly purged and executed his uncle, a key Chinese ally, after condemning him for “economic crimes” linked to a foreign power—obviously a reference to China.

[The Weekly Standard]

Did you know one in 12 North Koreans have smartphones?

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What’s the point of a computer in a hermit country sealed off from the internet? What use can a smartphone be if the smartest uses are blocked? And why would anyone learn computer coding in a country closed off from the world-wide-web?

These are the conundrums at the core of the puzzle about technology in North Korea. If the South is the most teched-up nation in the world, the North ought to be the least — except it’s not.

At least one in 12 people in North Korea have smartphones. We know that North Korea has so many smartphones because its 3G network is run by Koryolink, a joint venture between an Egyptian company, Orascom Telecom, and the North Korean state. The Egyptian end publishes figures which add up to about two million North Korean subscribers.

Another question: How do North Koreans manage without the global internet? With difficulty, is the answer.

A few bright students are trained and do have access from controlled and monitored institutions while the mass of the citizenry have to make do with the internal North Korean intranet called the Kwangmyong.

There’s advice in English, Korean and Chinese on diet and age, the kind of health webpage which would generate clicks on any website anywhere. But this is some way short of the sum of all knowledge and delight provided by the worldwide web.

For the general populace this intranet has to suffice. The authorities are hyper-keen to close the slightest crack in the wall to the internet outside.

[BBC]

Where the majority of North Koreans access their news

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In North Korea the media is broadcast, printed and distributed under strict surveillance and censorship – the only information you’re allowed to access has been pre-approved.

North Korean media does cover international news, but there is a very limited amount of coverage and only information which has been approved by the government is shown. The North Korean media is not interested in reporting on Tibet or the ‘umbrella revolution’ in Hong Kong – any region demanding more autonomy from China is off-limits. But it does report news stories about anti-government demonstrations in South Korea, or demonstrations against human rights violations by the US government.

When it comes to domestic news there is Rodong Sinmun, KCNA, and Chosun Central TV – all relatively well-known, even to the outside world, plus a variety of other news outlets. Newspapers are the mouthpiece of the Korean Workers’ Party.

They are only interested in publishing stories that emphasize the superiority of the regime which means crimes or accidents are never reported. You’ll never see a news article about corruption and you’ll certainly never read about social injustice. Investigative journalism doesn’t exist.

Rodong Sinmun, regarded as the most influential newspaper, is at the forefront of “the battle of ideologies and politics” led by the government. The main business of disseminating news has been taken up by KCNA. It has access to most domestic and international information and is fast in reporting breaking news such as the arrival of VIPs.

In North Korea, there are two TV stations: Central Chosun TV and Mansudae TV. Chosun Central TV broadcasts news, but also soap operas, comedy shows, cooking shows, fashion programmes (complete with tips for viewers) and the weather. Mansudae TVis the cultural station.

There are also two radio stations: KCNA and Radio Pyongyang. Few people own TVs so radio is the main source of information.

[Kim Yoo-sung, who left Hamgyeongbuk–do province in 2005]

How North Korean defectors send money to their families

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Under one common method of transferring money, North Korean defectors use online banking sites to wire money to a bank account of a Korean-Chinese broker based in a Chinese town near the border with North Korea. The broker then takes out 20 to 30 percent of the money as commissions and asks a Korean-Chinese trader, who can freely cross the border into North Korea, to deliver the rest of the money to the defector’s relatives.

The step of carrying money across the border is not always necessary when the go-betweens are involved in separate operations of smuggling Chinese goods for sale in North Korean markets. For example, a North Korean broker who owes money to a Chinese supplier could pay the debt by giving a defector’s family cash, if the supplier is also involved in the transaction.

If a defector’s family lives far from the Chinese border, a transfer will take more effort because North Korea restricts its citizens’ movement and has poor transportation services.

In the early days, brokers frequently cheated defectors, but the business has since become more orderly and lucrative, with brokers more concerned about retaining customers.

It’s not known how many North Koreans have been arrested for getting money from their relatives in South Korea or communicating with them. But activists who have interviewed defectors say many North Koreans have avoided trouble by using some of the money to bribe local officials.

At the same time, activists and defectors say North Korea has been cracking down, using equipment near the border to check for signals from Chinese mobile phones.

[AP]

Smuggling preferences for North Koreans

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A North Korean defector calling himself “Mr Chung” revealed North Korea’s smuggling preferences in a Channel 4 documentary last year.

He smuggles radios, USB sticks and DVDs of soap operas and entertainment shows into the North, posing as a mushroom importer.  He said, “Men love their action films! I sent them Skyfall recently. The women enjoy watching soap operas and dramas.

“The more people are exposed to such media the more likely they are to become disillusioned with the regime and start wanting to live differently.”

A group of activists in South Korea led by another defector from the North send satchels containing anti-regime flyers, noodles, $1 bills and USB sticks containing South Korean soap operas over the border attached to balloons.

North Korea forbids its 24 million people from watching foreign broadcasts and videos out of fear outside influence could undermine the dictatorship’s ideology.

Anyone caught smuggling them in or distributing illicit material can be executed for crimes against the state and viewers have reportedly been sentenced to years in prison camps or hard labor. A purge was reported last year, when around 80 people were said to be executed for watching South Korean television shows in November.

[The Independent]