What's New at Kimsoft? |
03/31 The Unification Solution (KWW) -- The real answer to the nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is unification. The problem with it is, once again, the Kim Dynasty. It is the DPRK that must be willing to change. President Roh should offer Kim Jong-il immediate amnesty and protection from the United States and even the United Nations, if he will sit down and work out a program to unify the Koreas.
03/31 No exception for Pyongyang (JapanTimes) -- No issue more clearly illustrates the chasm in public perceptions that has developed between the United States and South Korea than the issue of human rights in North Korea.
03/31 North Korea Wants Nuclear Talks To Be Aimed At "Arms Reduction" (GlobalSecurity) -- North Korea says it wants talks on ending its nuclear programs turned into arms reductions negotiations, saying the United States should cut its nuclear forces. VOA's Kurt Achin reports on the latest demand from Pyongyang, which has stalled on returning to nuclear negotiations for nearly 10 months.
03/31 Nuclear fears linger in America (HoustonChronicle) -- Though the Soviet Union is gone, the nuclear fears that fueled the Cold War haven't disappeared. Most Americans think nuclear weapons are so dangerous that no country should have them, and a majority believe it's likely that terrorists or a nation will use them within five years.
03/31 Presidential panel to unveil own intelligence report (HoustonChronicle) -- A presidential commission, working quietly for a year, goes public today with its conclusions that intelligence on Iraq's weapons was deeply flawed and that the U.S. spy apparatus remains hobbled despite its post-Sept. 11 makeover.
03/31 Reviewing the Speech Given in Berlin by the Honorable Chung Dong-young (KWW) - David Granberry - First, let us notice that Minister Chung did not say that war is impermissible on the Korean peninsula. War, by its very definition, occurs irrespective of anyone's permission. Only the truly empty-headed make such statements and it is good to know the Minister has better sense.
03/31 An island dispute with a past (Yomiuri) -- The Shimane Prefectural Assembly's establishment of an ordinance designating Feb. 22 as "Takeshima Day" to reiterate Japan's territorial claim to the Takeshima islands, known as Tokdo in South Korea, and the Liancourt Rocks elsewhere, has aroused strong protests in Seoul and soured otherwise good bilateral relations.
03/31 The Korean Peninsula: Six Party Talks and the Nuclear Issue (US Congress) -- For over a decade, as the eyes of Washington and the world have turned progressively toward other crises in other places, a dark cloud has been slowly rising over the Korean peninsula. The question today is whether that cloud has taken on a mushroom shape and, if so, what we should do.
03/31 N.K. Nuclear Exports Would Be Last Straw: Ex-Negotiator (Chosun) -- Former U.S. undersecretary of state Robert Gallucci, a key figure in the Geneva Accords of 1994, said Wednesday if North Korea exported nuclear materials abroad, it could be the last straw prompting the U.S. to attack the country. Gallucci, now dean of Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., in a press conference in Seoul stressed that the U.S. and North Korea needed to get down to sincere negotiations fast
03/31 Photos from Jeju (OhmyNews) -- Capturing the essence of a Korean landscape requires a delicate touch. The peninsula is small, its environment and fauna are relatively uniform and much of its overt beauty has been destroyed by man. But one Korean photographer with a capacity to wait hours or days for that perfect shot has succeeding in bringing out the most striking beauty in an otherwise common panorama. His subject encompasses Jeju Island, which lies to the southwest of the Korean peninsula.
03/30 Without Asia's Trust, Japan Will Remain a Political Pygmy (Chosun) -- Nariaki Nakayama, the Japanese education and science minister, answering a question in the Diet on Tuesday, said there was no mention in the guidelines for the country's textbooks that Takeshima -- his name for the Dokdo Islets -- and Senkaku Islands are Japanese territory. "This must be clearly mentioned when [the guidelines] are revised next time," he said.
03/30 NSC Official Backs Korea's Break with 'Camp Diplomacy' (Chosun) -- A top official from the National Security Council on Wednesday threw his weight behind a change in Korea's geopolitical strategy away from what he called the "Cold War camp diplomacy" in East Asia, pitting a northern alliance of North Korea, China and Russia against the southern alliance of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan.
03/30 Japan apologetic: Prisoner of the past? (JapanTimes) -- It is irrefutable that Japan did extremely terrible things to its neighbors during World War II and should always be contrite about this fact. Even so, if love is never having to say you're sorry (as the popular American novel "Love Story" pointed out), will Japan never get the love and respect that her mostly admirable postwar record of domestic pacifism and regional contributions deserve? Or is Japan always going to have to say it's sorry . . . forever.
03/30 Takeshima/Dokdo: Not Territory, But History (OhmyNews) -- On Feb. 16, 2005, the Shimane Prefectural Assembly passed an ordinance designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Japan's assumption of control over Takeshima Island by establishing a "Takeshima Day." This exposed a fundamental problem in the relationship between Japan and South Korea and drew a severe response on the part of the South Korean people and government. On Feb. 17 the South Korean government announced a shift in policy towards Japan in the unprecedented form of a statement from the Permanent Committee of its National Security Council.
03/30 'There Go the History-Obsessed Koreans' (OhmyNews) -- Japan and South Korea have come to blows again over a group of islets called Takeshima in Japan, and Dokdo in South Korea. Japanese television showed angry South Koreans preparing to cut off their little fingers in protest as commentators back in the studio bemoaned the "emotionalism" of the dispute. The implication in much of the coverage here was "There go the Koreans again, obsessed with history," while for Korea of course the problem is that Japan does not know enough about history, or pretends not to know.
03/30 Politics, price of Seoul's collaboration probe (Atimes) -- Since the presidential campaign of 2002, South Korea has not had a moment's respite from ideological clashes between progressives and conservatives. The former emerged the winner when Roh Moo-hyun was elected president. He still has not triumphed, however, in his ideological and political battles. A potent and potentially dangerous strategy, fueled by anti-Japanese sentiment, is a probe into those - many of them powerful conservatives who oppose him today - who collaborated with the Japanese during the colonial era.
03/30 Democracy - Pyongyang style (ATimes) -- Pyongyang watchers have an enviable lot: they always have something to talk about. North Korea never stops providing fodder for the rumor mill. Even if the exact meaning of many strange and inexplicable actions will remain a mystery for decades, it's great fun in looking for interpretations. Over the past month North Korea has been especially active, and produced quite a few topics to ponder.
03/28 War is inpermissable on the Korean Peninsula (OhmyNews) - Unification Minister Chung Dong Young, on visit to Germany, declared a plan to offer "comprehensive and concrete aid" to North Korea -- massive economic aid -- from the moment it begins the process of giving up its nuclear program.
03/28 North Korea's Million Dollar Defector (CNN) - Her talent was discovered in North Korea, her country of birth, where she was identified at age 11 as a top athlete and given special training and food rations. She fled with her family last year and is back in training, hoping to represent her new home country in the ring.
03/28 Armitage
urges calm on N. Korea (Asahi) -- Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of
State Richard Armitage said that economic sanctions against North Korea should
be applied gradually when Tokyo steps up pressure on Pyongyang. Armitage's
statement in a live interview with TV Asahi on Sunday morning seemed intended to
ease the growing anger in Japan over the abduction issue. DG
comment - The way to cook a frog without killing him first is to raise the
temperature slowly.
03/28 Who is blocking the 6-party talk? (OhmyNews) US and North Korea in a tie.
03/28 EU arms trade ban with China set to end, Chirac tells Koizumi (JaoanTimes) - The European Union will probably lift its arms embargo against China by the end of June as scheduled, despite opposition from Japan and the United States, visiting French President Jacques Chirac told Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Sunday evening.
03/27 Insights into the World / China-led plans for Asia threaten U.S. alliance (Yomiuri) - China is rapidly emerging as a military superpower. It already deploys many ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads--the whole of the Japanese archipelago is within their range. Against such a background, China claims its sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands--which are indisputably and inherently part of Japan--while its submarines have repeatedly intruded into Japan's territorial waters and the Chinese continue to explore natural resources in Japan's exclusive economic zone, infringing upon our sovereignty. We have to be aware that such moves by China are designed to test the determination of Japan and the United States and the effectiveness of the Japan-U.S. alliance, while trying to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington.
03/26 Alliance lets Japan, Britain influence America to change (JapanTimes) -- The UK-Japan 21st Century Group, set up two decades ago by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, has been mulling over the foreign-policy dilemmas of the two countries at their annual get-together. At first sight, these appear to have considerable symmetry. The two nations both now appear to face a giant strategic quandary about which way to go. In the British case, the choice is said to be between Europe and America; in the Japanese case, between China and America.
03/26 Victory for Korean A-bomb victims (OhmyNews) -- The world has little noted nor long remembered the multinational character of atomic bomb victims including Americans of Japanese ancestry, Chinese, and, by far the largest group, Koreans. Many of the tens of thousands of Korean hibakusha were forced laborers conscripted during the war to work in mines and factories of Japan's leading corporations. Like their brothers conscripted into the Japanese military, and their sisters kidnapped into sexual slavery, Korean forced laborers were cut loose following the end of the war, frequently denied the most rudimentary benefits, shortly deprived of Japanese citizenship and, notably in the case of those who returned to Korea, denied access to government-funded treatment available to hibakusha in Japan.
03/26 MND says subs can deter China (TaipeiTimes) -- The Ministry of National Defense (MND) yesterday said that if Taiwan procures eight diesel-powered submarines, Taiwan will be able to blockade China's sea lanes and attack its ships if Beijing starts a war against Taiwan.
03/26 China's moves bear watching (eWeek) -- Am I alone or were other people in technology scared when China recently passed a law allowing it to go to war if Taiwan declared its independence? This doesn't sound like the China we've lately come to know and respect. And the change could have direct consequences for technology companies, along with everyone else.
03/26 Japan-India ties under China's shadow (AsiaTimes) -- When Japanese President Junichiro Koizumi visits India next month, China - their common neighbor - will be watching closely to see what transpires. Tokyo has been sending out feelers signaling interest in a closer relationship with New Delhi, an interest that some say is motivated by its concerns regarding Beijing.
03/25 Koizumi Wants to Meet Roh (KoreaTimes) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday dialogue is the only way to resolve the deepening dispute with South Korea over the ownership of Tokto (Dokdo) islets, dismissing calls for bringing the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
03/25 Condi Rice not the right person to deal with: N. Korea (IndiaTimes) -- .North Korea on Wednesday harshly rejected US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as a partner in talks over giving up its nuclear program, ahead of the top US diplomat's visit to the region aimed at seeking a breakthrough in the two-year-old standoff.
03/24 U.S. denies covering up N.K. nuke sale (KoreaHerald) -- The U.S. State Department yesterday denied a recent Washington Post report that it misled allies about North Korea's nuclear export to increase pressure on the communist state.
03/24 A Counter Point to: "U.S. Struggles to Place Pressure on North Korea" (PINR) - A commentary by Donald Granberry.
03/23 "U.S. Struggles to Place Pressure on North Korea" (PINR) -- On her recent whirlwind trip through Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice stressed the need to convince North Korea to return to the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. The talks -- which comprise the United States, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea -- have been through three rounds, all held in Beijing. North Korea walked out on the last round of talks on February 10, openly declaring that it has "manufactured nuclear weapons" and would "suspend participation in the six-party talks for an indefinite period."
03/23 Iran, US: Fissures within Fissures (ATimes) - As international pressure increases over Iran's controversial nuclear ambitions, analysts say both the Iranian and United States leadership are divided on exactly which policy to implement as a means to address the problem. If the Americans talk so politely with the North Koreans, if they never talk about attack, it is just because they have the bomb," spokesmen for the faction tell anyone who will listen to them.
03/23 Red-Handed (ForeignAffairs) -- As individuals who have negotiated with North Korea and are well versed in the development of Pyongyang's nuclear programs through our service in the Clinton and Bush administrations, we feel compelled to comment on Selig Harrison's "Did North Korea Cheat?" (January/February 2005) in order to clarify a number of the misstatements and misunderstandings in Harrison's article.
03/21 Revival of the US-Japan alliance (AEI) -- After a period of decline, security ties between the United States and Japan have been revitalized by both countries' responses to the threats of terrorism and a nuclear North Korea. The invigorated alliance has also taken significant steps to deal with the rise of China as a military power, including the coordination of security policy, missile defense cooperation, and U.S. support of Tokyo's efforts to assert its interests in the Asia Pacific region. U.S. policymakers should welcome these developments and continue to support Japan's emergence as a strong American ally.
03/21 Dokdo Facts - Historical archives on Dokdo - Who owns it?
03/21 When did Israel arm itself with nuclear option- (MiddleEast) -- Israel armed itself with the "nuclear option" 40 years ago for use as a last resort should Arab countries threaten its existence, one of the men responsible for the state's nuclear program said in remarks published on Friday. The Jewish state has never formally acknowledged having nuclear weapons although foreign experts believe it used its desert Dimona reactor to arm itself with some 200 nuclear warheads capable of being carried by medium- or short-range missiles.
03/21 North Korean Nuclear Testing (Global Security) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK said in an answer given to the question raised by KCNA on 17 October 2003 that "Recently some people of the international community argued whether the DPRK possesses a nuclear deterrent force or not in an attempt to sound out its inmost thought. The DPRK, however, does not care about this. When an appropriate time comes, the DPRK will take a measure to open its nuclear deterrent to the public as a physical force and then there will be no need to have any more argument."
03/21 Rice's Ultimatum to Kim Jong Il? (Chosun) -- "Listen up - that woman means business!"
03/21 Rice leans on Beijing - UN sanction next? (Chosun) - China is to send a second special envoy to North Korea in April or May after the Chinese Communist Party's international liaisons head Wang Jiarui met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on Feb. 19 but failed to convince him to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks.
03/20 USFJ commander addresses force realignment, North Korea concerns (Stars&Stripes) -- For months, as Washington and Tokyo have negotiated on troop realignments in the region, local media outlets have speculated about everything from a reduction in U.S. Marines on Okinawa to the movement of the U.S. Army’s I Corps from Fort Lewis, Wash., to Camp Zama, Japan.
03/20 WP-
Bush Administration Has Misled Allies on NK N-ExportN. Korean Material Landed in
Pakistan, Instead of Libya (WP) -- In an effort to increase pressure on
North Korea, the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier
this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a
significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to
create a new nuclear weapons state.
03/20 ROK interfering in Japan's affairs (Yomiuri) -- The South Korean government's latest statement on its policy toward Japan poses a problem for bilateral relations. On Thursday, the administration of South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun released a statement setting new principles and policies for ties with Japan. The statement says that South Korea's basic policy toward Japan is to demand this country "thoroughly uncover the truth about problems" related to the history of the two nations and "truly apologize for and reflect on its conduct."
03/20 Pyongyang’s New Equidistant Diplomacy With China and Russia (Donga) -- North Korea, who once was unilaterally cut off from the rest in a five versus one situation, is receiving the spotlight with a new “equidistant diplomacy,” as it shows signs of restoring the tripartite alliance with Russia and China.
03/20 US National Defense Strategy (GlobalSecurity) -- Despite our strategic advantages, we are vulnerable to challenges ranging from external attacks to indirect threats posed by aggression and dangerous instability. Some enemies may seek to terrorize our population and destroy our way of life, while others will try to 1) limit our global freedom to act, 2) dominate key regions, or 3) attempt to make prohibitive the costs of meeting various U.S. international commitments.
03/20 US National Security - Planning Scenarios (GlobalSecurity) -- The Homeland Security Council (HSC) – in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the federal interagency, and state and local homeland security agencies – has developed fifteen all-hazards planning scenarios for use in national, federal, state, and local homeland security preparedness activities. These scenarios are designed to be the foundational structure for the development of national preparedness standards from which homeland security capabilities can be measured. While these scenarios reflect a rigorous analytical effort by federal, state, and local homeland security experts, it is recognized that refinement and revision over time may be necessary to ensure the scenarios remain accurate, represent the evolving all-hazards threat picture, and embody the capabilities necessary to respond to domestic incidents.
03/20 How the U.S. Secretary of State Views Korea (Chosun) -- Recently, of America's two strategic pillars in East Asia, the U.S.-Korea and U.S.-Japan alliances, the U.S. has been placing much more importance on its relationship with Japan, as Rice’s remarks confirm. In the six-party talks, the U.S. has been more in step with Japan than with Korea, with some in America believing that South Korea stands alongside China in North Korea’s corner. This is the result of differences in position between the Korean government, which wants aid to Pyongyang even before it abandons its nuclear program, and the U.S. and Japan, which say it must be the other way round.
03/20 Japan Not Qualified for Permanent Security Council Seat (Donga) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated that “I support Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.” This is not a new stance of the U.S., but it adds meaning to the Japanese Prime Minister’s proclamation of Japan’s plan to become a permanent member on the UN Security Council last fall, since it is the first time a U.S. official with authority over foreign policy issues has officially made such a declaration. Besides, since it happened following the Korean government’s announcement of its negative view of Japan’s continuing distortion of its history, it has become a sensitive issue to Korea.
03/20 US Secretary if State Rice's Remarks at the Sophia University in Japan (US State Dept.) -- No one denies that North Korea is a sovereign state. We have said repeatedly that we have no intention of attacking or invading North Korea. With others in the Six-Party Talks, we are prepared to offer multilateral security assurances to North Korea in the context of ending its nuclear program. We have offered to examine North Korea’s energy needs. North Korea knows all of this.
03/20 Masan City Stakes Claim Over Taemado (KoreaTimes) - The council of Masan City in South Kyongsang Province yesterday passed a bill declaring its territorial jurisdiction over Japan-controlled Taemado Island, council officials said. Taemado, just 50 kilometers from Pusan, called Tsushima in Japan, is located in the Korea Straits in the South Sea. The island was once under the control of the ancient Korean dynasty of Choson, according to Korean and Chinese historians.
03/19 Dokdo Revisited - Lee Wha Rang (KWW) -- Anti-Japanese sentiment has ebbed and flowed in Korea, but it is reaching a new height over the Dokdo Island dispute as Koreans across the globe are protesting Japan's latest step in its "awakened expansionism." Japan's renewed to claim to Dokdo is due in part to recent discovery of huge hydrocarbon deposits around the island and to the rising neo-Nazism in Japan fanned by extreme right-wingers in America. The timing cannot be any any worse - a mass movement to expose pro-Japanese Koreans has been going on in South Korea and Japan's claim to the island is adding fuel to the movement and not helping their stooges in Korea.
03/19 Koizumi
told Bush Japan to beef up SDF
03/19 Globalist- Nationalist excitement keeps focus off North (IHT) -- Bush administration may think the Korean issue of the moment is the presence of a nuclear-armed tyrant in the northern half of the peninsula, but it is wrong. What really has people here exercised are Japanese claims to a couple of rocky, rainy, remote islets in the midst of the Sea of Japan
03/19 What Will Japan Reflect on, and How (Chosun)- After the Korean government announced on Thursday a new hardline doctrine for its dealings with Japan, Tokyo issued a statement saying, "Japan humbly accepts the Korean people's feelings about history, and it looks squarely at history and reflects on what it should reflect on."
03/19 The Real China Threat (AsiaTimes) -- Recall 40 years ago, when I was a new professor working in the field of Chinese and Japanese international relations, that Edwin O Reischauer once commented, "The great payoff from our victory of 1945 was a permanently disarmed Japan." Born in Japan and a Japanese historian at Harvard, Reischauer served as US ambassador to Tokyo in the administrations of presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Strange to say, since the end of the Cold War in 1991 and particularly under the administration of George W Bush, the United States has been doing everything in its power to encourage and even accelerate Japanese rearmament.
03/19 Chinese release a prominent dissident (WP) -- The Chinese government released a well-known political prisoner Thursday, and hours later the Bush administration announced it would not seek a resolution criticizing China's human rights record at a U.N. meeting in Geneva. DG comments -- that this is part of a deal to help refugees coming out of the DPRK. Neither China nor the US is saying so, but one may hope.
03/19 A
Trans-Altantic Crisis Foretold (Spiegel) -- China's military is already full
of European technology. The lifting of the EU arms embargo may soon mean more.
But not if the United States can help it; America is worried about eventually
having to face those weapons in a clash with China over Taiwan. The imbroglio is
threatening to become the next trans-Atlantic crisis.
-- DG comments: You might not think this is of direct concern to the Koreas,
but it most certainly is. The US will either pull out of NATO and the world
scene becomes dangerously complex, or we will indeed start buying arms from the
Europeans. Personally, I think we should buy arms from the Europeans. They make
some excellent stuff. Better we should buy it than the Chinese. We should also
be working similar deals with the ROK and Japan. The ROK is making some
excellent tanks that beat ours all hollow in rough terrain.
03/19 Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States (DIA) -- "Immediately behind terrorism, nuclear proliferation remains the most significant threats to our nation and international stability. We anticipate increases in the nuclear weapons inventories of a variety of countries to include China, India, Pakistan and North Korea." Admiral Jacoby - Director, Defense Intelligence Agency.
03/19 Takeshima (Dokdo) Day bill passed (Yomiuri) -- The Shimane Prefectural Assembly passed an ordinance Wednesday designating Feb. 22 as a commemorative day for Takeshima island, over which both Japan and South Korea claim sovereignty. The island in the Sea of Japan, which is called Tokdo in South Korea, officially became part of Shimane Prefecture in 1905.
03/19 Takeshima Day Approved (Asahi) -- The Shimane prefectural assembly has passed an ordinance designating Feb. 22 as Takeshima Day, causing quite an uproar in South Korea. Seoul issued a statement of protest demanding that the ordinance be abolished immediately. The governor of Kyongsangbuk-do province said he is severing all sister ties with Shimane Prefecture. ``Territory'' intermingled with ``history'' seems to have rekindled anti-Japanese sentiments in South Korea.
03/18 Park Geun-hye Reunited With Rumsfeld After 31 Years (Chosun) - Grand National Party (GNP) chairwoman Park Geun-hye and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were reunited on Thursday 31 years after their first meeting. The two first met when Rumsfeld visited Korea with then-president Gerald Ford on November 22, 1974 shortly after Park assumed the role of first lady following the assassination of her mother, Yook Young-soo, on August 15. Rumsfeld was then White House chief of staff.
03/18 US demands Pakistan nuclear help (BBC) -- US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has pressed Pakistan to tell Washington everything it knows about the AQ Khan nuclear weapons-smuggling network.
03/18 The story that refuses to die (BBC) -- Dr AQ Khan was once revered in Pakistan as the father of the country's nuclear weapons development programme. He is now a pariah spending time in virtual house arrest in the Pakistani capital Islamabad, a city that was once his citadel.
03/18 Pyongyang under EU's wing (JapanTimes) -- The European Union is increasingly showing a new independent stance on foreign-policy issues as the logic of its industrial and economic integration plays out in the international arena. Already the EU has taken a distinct and independent approach to both the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the nuclear crisis in Iran. Now it has broken ranks over the Korean Peninsula, fed up and concerned with the failure to resolve the ongoing crisis over North Korea's development of nuclear arms
03/17 Seoul Announces New Hardline Japan Doctrine (Chosun) -- The government on Thursday announced a new doctrine for its dealings with Japan in which seeking an apology and compensation from the former colonial power for its wartime atrocities take center stage. The doctrine announced in a National Security Council meeting responds to recent Japanese moves Seoul calls "a second dispossession of the Korean Peninsula that denies the history of Korea's liberation."
03/17 Japan Perplexed at Korea’s Exceptionally Hard-Line Stance (Donga) -- The Korean government on March 17 strongly condemned the Japanese claim to Dokdo as a justification for Japan’s past exploitation over Korea rather than a mere territorial dispute over the islets. The government formulated the “Four Pillars and Five Strategies in its Future Policies” plan toward Japan in the Standing Committee of the National Security Council, and asserted in a statement released by Chung Dong-young, chairman of the NSC Standing Committee and Minister of Unification, “The Japanese government is claiming territorial dominion over our territory which, during Japanese colonial rule, had been forcibly incorporated into Japanese territory, but which was recovered after our liberation.
03/16 Penetrating North Korea's Isolation (OhmyNews) -- Halfway through a video from North Korea, the camera pans on a propaganda portrait of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, magnificent in his general's dress uniform with gold epaulets. Scribbled in black ink across his smooth face is a demand for "freedom and democracy." If genuine, the graffiti speaks of political opponents willing to risk execution to get their message out. If staged, the video means that a North Korean hustler was willing to deface a picture of the "Dear Leader" to earn a quick profit by selling it to a South Korean human rights group.
03/16 Body snatching, North Korean style (AsiaTimes) -- An old photo, taken in 1974, recently was smuggled from North Korea. It depicts a group of men, mostly in their 20s and 30s, against the background of Myohyangsan Mountain, a famed North Korean resort. They look like a typical group of North Korean "model workers" who were rewarded with a government-paid tour for their hard work and devotion to the Great Leader and founding father, Kim Il-sung. But this is not the case: all these people are South Korean fishermen whose boats had been intercepted on the seas and who were taken to the North.
03/15 Koizumi
seeks calm with
03/15 Seoul's Clumsy Diplomacy Makes Matters Worse (Chosun) -- Unification Minister Chung Dong-yung said Monday a taunt from a U.S. lawmaker that Korea must first designate its main enemy before it can count on help from the United States betrayed "a misunderstanding of the objective and spirit of the alliance." He added, "There is no change in [our] perception that the U.S. is an ally, and that North Korea is an ethnic brother."
03/15 Subtle Signs Betray Uncle Sam's Displeasure (Chosun) -- With Unification Minister Chung Dong-young calling U.S. House Foreign Relations chairman Rep. Henry Hyde’s demand for Korea to clearly define its enemy “inappropriate,” subtle waves have been detected in the United States.
03/14 Exposing Delusions (WashingtonTimes) -- John R. Bolton, the nominee for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, laid out his opinions on the world body in "Delusions of Grandeur," which was published by the Cato Institute in 1997 and contains a classic Bolton essay titled "The Creation, Fall, Rise and Fall of the United Nations."
03/14 Unification Minister Gives U.S. Hardliner Short Shrift (Chosun) -- Unification Minister Chung Dong-young on Monday dismissed as "inappropriate" a taunt from a U.S. lawmaker that Korea should make up its mind who the enemy is before it can rely on U.S. help. Ministry spokesperson Kim Hong-jae quoted Chung as saying Northeast Asia was trying to move from hostile confrontation to coexistence, reconciliation and cooperation. Chung said U.S. House International Relations Committee chairman Henry Hyde's confrontational thinking was not helpful in resolving problems on the Korean Peninsula.
03/13 US says North Korea need not completely disarm before reaping benefits (yahoo) -- "I don't think anyone is asking DPRK to completely disarm ... and only then will the United States and other members of the six-party process give them benefits," senior State Department official Evens Revere said Friday.
03/13 The Takeshima (Dokdo) issue (Asahi) -- A century ago, Shimane Prefecture claimed Takeshima island as part of its territory. The remote island is located in the Sea of Japan. On Thursday, a Shimane prefectural assembly committee approved a bill to designate Feb. 22 as ``Takeshima Day.''
03/13 Is the CIA Taking Sides With Japan Over Dokdo? (Donga) -- It has been reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is reflecting Japan’s logic of claiming ownership of Dokdo in its government information report.
03/13 How KATUSA Almost Didn't Happen (KoreaTimes) -- In September and October 1950, the U.S. Army advanced into central and northern Korea and many Koreans were extremely surprised to see that a large number of U.S. soldiers were actually Koreans. Dressed in American uniforms and among the American soldiers, they were known as KATUSAs, or Korean Augmentations to the U.S. Army. They were attached to U.S. units where they were supposed to become ``normal'' soldiers, doing the same jobs and receiving the same treatment as their America counterparts.
03/13 China Views U.S. as Obstacle to Peaceful N. Korea Solution (Chosun) -- China believes Washington is a bigger obstacle to a peaceful solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis than Pyongyang itself, Chinese diplomat Quan Jing said Friday.
03/13 No More Carrots for North Korea: Rice (Chosun) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has ruled out giving North Korea fresh incentives to return to six-party nuclear disarmament talks, the Washington Times reported Saturday.
03/12 How diplomacy can defuse the North Korean crisis (JapanTimes) -- North Korea is blackmailing the U.S. With time, the conditions of blackmail are bound to get worse, and the diplomatic options for dealing with them will become scarcer. The next act of brinkmanship may come in the form of a nuclear test.
03/09 An Aussie in Pyongyang - Photos and impressions of North Korea today.
03/07 Restore US nukes to South Korea (ATimes) -- It's the counter strategy that dares not speak its name: return US tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. North Korea's announcement on February 10 that it had nuclear weapons only surprised those who were not paying attention. After all, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has a history of nuclear research dating to the 1950s, and is believed to have initiated nuclear weapons development programs in the late 1970s.
03/07 North Korea is China's borrowed knife (WebCommentary) -- It just never fails to amaze me how, throughout history and, in particular, the last century, nations great and small saw what was coming and yet were unable or unwilling to stop two world wars and an endless spate of smaller, but no less deadly conflicts. Which brings us to today where we peer across the vast Pacific Ocean at North Korea and wonder whether its leader is insane enough to launch a nuclear-armed missile at us or maybe just at South Korea or Japan?
03/07 Clinton: Mutual trust key in settling North Korea, Iraq, China issues (Asahi) -- Visiting former U.S. President Bill Clinton shared his views Feb. 26 on issues ranging from the Middle East peace process; the North Korean nuclear crisis; tension over the Taiwan Strait; and trilateral relations between Japan, China and the United States.
03/06 Speedy North Korean Nuclear Dismantlement Possible, Bolton Says (US State Dept.) -- At a July 23 press conference in Tokyo, Bolton said that after three rounds of Six-Party Talks, "the ball is in North Korea's court now." The talks -- which include North Korea, South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and the United States -- are aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear programs permanently and obtaining nonproliferation commitments from that country.
03/06 Listen to the plea behind Roh's harsh words (Asahi) -- South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun, in his address to the nation Tuesday from Seoul, mentioned his visit two days earlier to the Independence Hall of Korea, in Cheonan, about 80 kilometers south of Seoul. I have been there. The precincts contain seven pavilions filled with displays on the history of the Korean people and their struggle for independence from Japanese colonial rule. My tour guide told me that Independence Hall has attracted 8 million visitors in the less than one year since its opening
03/06 North Korean Memoirs (iUniverse eBook) -- Journey into the life of a renegade American who decided to defect to the most reclusive and oppressive nation in modern history: North Korea. An American idealist defects to North Korea in the 1970’s only to discover the true horrors of this Stalinist state. What happens next would shock even those familiar with authoritarian regimes. The author, an American Foreign Service worker in china, meets a man by the name of “David”. David entrusts the author with his diary and makes the author promise him that the diary will be shown to the world as “evidence of what North Korea is really like”.
03/03 Japan tests North Korea sanctions waters (AsiaTimes) -- Japan has imposed what amount to maritime sanctions against North Korea by requiring that all ships - not only North Korean - must carry hefty insurance against oil spills and other liabilities, and most of Pyongyang's ships do not buy that costly coverage. Japan has started random checks of ships of various nationalities entering Japanese waters.
03/03 Hints of secret nuke plant in N. Korea (Asahi) -- US spy planes flying near North Korea have detected traces of a radioactive gas emitted during the reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel rods, which could be a possible sign of a secret nuclear facility, sources here said. U.S. intelligence analysts are still trying to determine the significance of finding krypton 85, a radioactive isotope that is a byproduct of reprocessing nuclear fuel rods to extract plutonium, in the atmosphere near North Korea last December.
03/03 North Korean Cigarettes Sell Like Hotcakes (ChosunIlbo) -- “How come these cigarettes are so cheap? It says ‘Pyongyang’ on the pack. Hey mister, is this really the Pyongyang in North Korea?” “Of course! These are from North Korea, and they're only W8,000 a carton. Give them a try.”
03/01 Roh Calls on Japan to Compensate World War II Victims (KoreaTimes) -- President Roh Moo-hyun yesterday urged Japan to make a sincere apology and compensate Koreans for its misdeeds during World War II and its colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. ``Japan needs to apologize and compensate for its past wrongdoings,'' Roh said during a speech marking the 86th anniversary of the March 1 Independence Movement of 1919.
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