What's New at Kimsoft? |
02/29 N Korea nuclear talks end in limbo (Australian) -- IT is an indication of the gulf between the US and North Korea that, after four days around the negotiating table, they could not commit in writing to even the basic aim of peacefully resolving the Korean peninsula nuclear crisis. In the end, an unsigned "chairman's statement" was all that could be salvaged from the four-day talks in Beijing, because North Korea insisted at the last minute that such any joint communiqué must contain reference to "differences" among the talk participants.
02/29 S Korea rejects Japan's protest over stamp (Japan Today) -- South Korea has rejected Japan's latest protest over Seoul's issuance of stamps featuring a disputed island in the Sea of Japan that has been claimed by the two countries.
02/26 North Korea's Nuclear Program in 2003 (Atomic Scientists) -- North Korea has apparently become the world’s ninth nuclear power. Last November, the CIA estimated that Pyongyang has one, perhaps two, nuclear weapons.
02/26 Obstacles to the Second Round of 6-Party Talks (Minjok) -- As the second round of six-party talks to relieve tensions between Washington and Pyongyang and to prevent nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula is underway in Beijing of China, the issue regarding the highly enriched uranium (HEU) program has emerged as the most controversial subject as expected.
02/26 Did Pakistan, N Korea conduct joint N-tests? (Times of India) -- Pakistan may have helped North Korea test a plutonium-based nuclear device in 1998, former and current US intelligence officials were quoted in a report as saying on Friday.
02/26 North
Korean Official Says No Breakthrough in Talks (Bloomberg) -- U.S. demands
that North Korea end all of its
nuclear programs before it gets concessions for doing so is preventing the two
countries and four others meeting for talks in Beijing from reaching an
agreement, a North Korean envoy said.
02/26 U.S., North Korea lay their cards on the table (Reuters) -- South Korea's proposal for a three-stage end to Pyongyang's nuclear programme and details of a rare meeting between the U.S. and North Korean envoys were set to dominate a second day of six-way talks on Thursday. Host China said some consensus emerged after the first day of talks, a result of six months of delicate diplomacy after an inconclusive first round last August.
02/26 DPRK proposes `stop' of nuclear activities (China Daily) -- The Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK) put forward a proposal for a "comprehensive stop" of nuclear activities during the second day of the on-going six-party talks, said the Chinese host Thursday. Liu Jianchao, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman and member of the Chinese delegation to the six-party talks told reporters after Thursday's discussions that all sides had a "deep and practical" discussion on the proposal.
02/26 North Korea Again Offers Nuclear Freeze as South Proffers Aid (Bloomberg) -- North Korea again offered to freeze its nuclear program and South Korea's government said it's ready to offer energy aid in exchange, provided the North ultimately dismantles its weapons development facilities.
02/26 Guess who's in the driver's seat- Not the US (AsiaTimes) -- As the second round of the six-party North Korea talks opens on Wednesday in Beijing, guess who's in the driver's seat? It's not Washington - not by a long shot.
02/25 North Korea upbeat on nuke crisis talks (NZHerald) -- North Korea sounded positive yesterday on the eve of six-party talks aimed at resolving the crisis over its nuclear weapons programmes, saying the circumstances were better than at the first round in August.
02/25 Japanese Red Army wife arrested on return from North Korea (GoAsiaPacific) -- The wife of one of nine Japanese Red Army radicals who have lived as fugitives in North Korea after hijacking a Japan Airlines plane in 1970, has been arrested on her return to Japan. Police say 51-year-old Tamiko Uomoto had been sought for refusing a 1988 government order to return her passport after she allegedly had contact with North Korean agents in Europe.
02/25 N Korea's blind eye gives hope (TheAustralian) -- AS diplomats from six countries today kick off a new round of talks in Beijing aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear arms capability, US troops are gathered on the jittery border with South Korea for a combat-readiness exercise.
02/25 N. Korea Talks May Point Up Differences Between Sides (Bloomberg) -- North Korea and the U.S. meet tomorrow for the first time in six months for international talks on the communist country's nuclear program that may do little more than highlight the differences between the two sides.
02/25 North Korea Seeks Compensation for Freeze (ABC) -- Ahead of six-country talks about its nuclear ambitions, North Korea demanded compensation Tuesday in exchange for freezing its weapons program as China, the host and mediator nation, played down expectations of an imminent breakthrough. North Korea issued its latest condition hours before delegates from the Koreas, China, the United States, Russia and Japan were to convene in Beijing on Wednesday. It was a common maneuver for the North, which often deploys such statements as leverage in sensitive situations.
02/24 North Threatens 'Bombshell Declaration,' if Six-Party Talks Fail (Chosun Ilbo) - The Chosun Shinbo, a news organ of the pro-North Korean General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, said in a dispatch from Pyongyang on Wednesday that "North Korea will not depart from the formula of a comprehensive settlement and simultaneous action." It also said, "At this point, the stern reality is that North Korea possesses a nuclear deterrent, and if during the talks, the U.S. reiterates its demand that North Korea give up its nuclear program prior to a deal, the head of the American delegation will hear an even greater 'bombshell declaration' than last time."
02/23 [The
Dawn of Modern Korea] Ethnic Koreans' Deportation to Central Asia (Korea Herald)
-- In October 1937, railway stations of the Russian Far East were crowded with
people. Thousands and thousands were waiting for the trains, and
then boarded the cargo carriages under the watchful eyes of the guards. They
were ethnic Koreans, who were deported to Central Asia by a special order of the
Soviet government. Their only crime was being Korean. This was the most tragic
episode in the long and eventful history of the Korean community in
Russia-USSR-CIS, which is now nearly half a million
strong.
02/21 The Huns Came from Koguryo (The Learning Channel) -- Europeans called them "Huns". Originating from the main land of Korea, they invade d the Roman empire during the 4th century. Ancient Greeks historian recorded them Scytians, and later European called them Mongols. Around early 4th century, the temperature fell lower than usual for many years in far East Asia. It caused grains not to ripen, grazing grass land for animals was scarce. For these reasons a large number of semi-nomadic tribes left from what is known today as the Korean mainland to Eastern Manchuria.
02/20 U.S.
Practices Evacuation of South Korea (Guardian) -- It's a scenario Monica
Tucker hates to consider, yet the Army wife diligently prepares for it: North
Korean artillery raining down, communist soldiers streaming south and panicked
civilians fleeing Seoul as war erupts on the divided Korean Peninsula.
Tucker's fears were allayed, if only slightly, this week as the U.S. military
launched a three-day exercise to practice evacuating thousands of foreign
civilians in South Korea in the event of attack.
02/19 I Was Kim Jong Il's Cook (Atlantic Monthly) -- The author, who writes under a pseudonym, is a Japanese sushi chef. In 1982, at the invitation of a Japanese-North Korean trading company, he started working in a sushi restaurant in Pyongyang. In 1988 he agreed to serve as Kim Jong Il's personal chef—a job he held until 2001.
02/18 SOUTH Korea plans ecotourism site near DMZ (AsiaTimes) -- Areas near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that separates North and South Korea may be turned into tourist attractions, a move hoped to be the first step in developing the inter-Korean buffer zone into an ecotourist destination, South Korea's state-run tourism agency said on Wednesday.
02/16 7 Missing Men Confirmed as Agents of Unit 684 on Silmido (KoreaTimes) -- Seven men, who went missing in Okchon, North Chungchong Province 36 years ago, were recruited as agents of the special ``Unit 684'' established to assassinate former North Korean leader Kim Il-sung in the late 1960s, and four members of the unit were executed in 1972.
02/16 Japan, North Korea stumble over abductions (AsiaTimes) -- In the cockeyed world of diplomacy with North Korea, the small Japanese Foreign Ministry entourage that returned from a brief visit to Pyongyang achieved quite a lot - or not very much. The issue of Japanese nationals abducted by Pyongyang was dominant.
02/13 N. Korea Continues to Develop Ballistic Missiles (VOA) -- While the world focuses on the dangers posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons program, a separate danger - the communist state's ballistic missile development program - lurks in the background. That danger was highlighted again recently by Pyongyang's offer to cooperate on missile technology with Nigeria.
02/13 S.Korea Parliament Approves Sending Troops to Iraq (Reuters) -- South Korea's parliament on Friday approved the government's plan to send 3,000 troops to Iraq, responding to a call from the United States, its key ally, for military help in restoring stability to the nation.
02/12 No Canadian asylum for N Korean diplomat (AsiaTimes) -- Canada, one of the world's most generous countries when it comes to immigration and political asylum, has said "no" to the request for refugee status from a defecting North Korean trade official with a high-level posting in China. Still, he won't be deported and might even become a Canadian resident in three years.
02/12 South Korea reports a therapeutic cloning breakthrough (ArtsTechnica)
02/10 The Lost Tribe of Koreans in Cuba (KWW) -- A tiny community of ethnic Koreans in Cuba wants your help to remain Korean.
02/10 Dr. Qadeer Khan’s Unbelievable Admission (PakWire) -- "There was never ever any kind of authorization for these activities by the government. I take full responsibility for my actions," adding that such activities "will never take place in the future."
02/10 Kim
Jong Il’s Nuclear Strategy
02/10 Iran, N Korea join nuclear blame game (AsiaTimes) -- Iran has rejected a confession by top Pakistani scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan that he passed nuclear secrets to Tehran for personal profit. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said on Monday that "what is being raised in the media" about Khan's admissions "is not true".
02/08 Fossilized footprints from Stone Age men found in South Korea -- Some 100 detailed footprints from the Paleolithic Age, which dates back 50,000 years, were found on the southern coast of the southern island of Jeju last October, the Cultural Properties Administration said. This is first discovery of Paleolithic men's fossilized footprints in Asia and the world's seventh, according to officials of the Cultural Properties Administration. The six other countries where they were found are Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Italy, France and Chile.
02/08 US Terror Expert Warns of Dirty Bomb (AP) -- Terrorists have the will and some of the expertise to make a chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapon, and are "doing everything they can" to acquire the materials, the U.S. State Department's top anti-terror official said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Korea Web Special Report: The Koguryo Arts of War -- Koguryo (高句麗) had advanced arts of war that enabled it to occupy a large territory and defend it against numerically superior enemy forces for nearly a millennium.
02/08 North Korean Human Rights (KWW) -- This is a paraphrased version of the interview that Victor Fic gave to Channel Islam International on Tues, Feb. 2 regarding the North Korean human rights crisis. Fic is a Canadian writer and broadcaster based in Seoul who also reports for CBS News radio and others.
02/04 SKorea pushes for independent air surveillance -- South Korea's military has unveiled a $A1.7 billion project to buy four early-warning surveillance planes. The project is part of South Korea's new push to strengthen independent electronic-warfare capabilities and reduce its heavy reliance on American equipment.
02/04 North Korea:
Japan prepares sanctions noose -- Japanese lawmakers are expected to approve
a bill on Friday
enabling the government to impose economic sanctions on any country considered a
threat to Japan's security - read North Korea. The bill amends the Foreign
Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law and would allow Tokyo to halt trade,
block cash remittances to North Korea and even halt ferry service.
02/03 Korea: Naming names of Japan's collaborators (AsiaTimes) -- The effective repatriation, in two or three years, of Yongsan - real estate formerly held by the Chinese and for the first half of the 20th century by the Japanese - is prompting soul-searching about the past and a possible, belated re-evaluation of Korea's recent history, especially under Japanese occupation. Alleged collaborators with the Japanese are expected to be named this summer by an umbrella group of civil organizations.
02/03 Armitage: Abductions on agenda (Asahi) -- Visiting U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Monday said Washington is willing to raise the issue of abductions of Japanese at the next multilateral talks with North Korea.
02/02 Coming to Black America (LATimes) -- Growing up in Africa, my impression of the black American was of a lazy, uneducated, ghetto-dwelling, dependent, disruptive and accomplished criminal. Upon arriving in America in 1980, I was surprised to find black American students on a college campus. Racial preferences, I thought, and distanced myself from them. But now, at least according to the Korean video clerk, I was one of them.
02/02 To Understand North Korea, Toss Out Old Assumptions (LATimes) -- Former chief weapons inspector David Kay's criticism of U.S. intelligence on Iraq underscores the limits of our ability to collect and interpret such data. It should also caution neocons in Washington not to be smug about the depth of U.S. understanding of North Korea.
02/02 Pakistani Nukes: Humiliation on Fast Track (PakNews) -- From December 21, 2003 to January 08 2004, there were no less than 13 stories in these publications highlighting Musharraf’s importance and exaggerating Pakistan’s nuclear threat. Most of these were editorials and some multiple-part articles. These stories appeared in simultaneously with the seeming surrender by Libya, mounting pressure on Iran and peace prospects between India and Pakistan.
02/02 6 Scientists Placed in Protective Custody- Army (aljazeera) -- Six Pakistani nuclear scientists were placed in “protective custody” following accusations of passing nuclear technology to Iran and Libya, the Pakistani military announced yesterday. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan denied that Abdul Qadeer Khan, known as “the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb”, had been arrested.
02/02 Libyan Nuclear Equipment Arrives in U.S. (PakNews) -- The 55,000 pounds (27,500 kilograms) of components and materials, including guidance sets for long-range missiles, stock and centrifuge parts to enrich uranium, had been moved to a "secure facility" for analysis, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told a press conference.
02/02 Key Pakistani Is Said to Admit Atom Transfers (NYTimes) -- The founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, has signed a detailed confession admitting that during the last 15 years he provided Iran, North Korea and Libya with the designs and technology to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons, according to a senior Pakistani official and three Pakistani journalists who attended a special government briefing here on Sunday night.
02/02 South-North Ministerial Meeting Opens (KoreaTimes) -- The 13th inter-Korean ministerial talks will start on Tuesday in Seoul, which will likely indicate and herald this year's inter-Korean relations though the agenda will certainly be topped by the nuclear crisis. Seoul is trying to use the talks as a venue to convince Pyongyang of the need for the second round of six-nation talks aimed at resolving the nuclear crisis with the communist neighbor.
02/01 China, Korea Dispute Ancient Kingdom (Yahoo) -- The ancient kingdom of Koguryo, famed for its mighty castles and horseback warriors, has sprung back to life in a "war of history" between South Korea and China that carries alarming modern-day implications. The dispute has raised diplomatic hackles and symbolizes what many say are rival geopolitical designs on Northeast Asia, a region rich in conflict and currently riled over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
Monthly Archives
|
|
|
Abbreviations
- kww -
- dprk - DPRK - North Korea Virtual Library
- kim-spy - Intelligence & CounterIntelligence
- kimpol - Political Activism Resources
- crimes - Crimes Against Humanity
- kimtrib -Kimsoft Tribune - News Links
- kimfind - Information Search: Just About Anything You Want Find
- kimsoft - Software Search
- kimjobs - Job Search
- kimadvs - Advertising Your Web Sites
- kimlist - Mail Lists & Email Campaigning