I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea or as I call him “Kim”, to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose.A tweet from Dennis Rodman • Urging his self-professed “friend for life,” North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, to release American captive Kenneth Bae from the 15-year hard labor sentence he recently received, for alleged “hostile acts” against the state. Rodman has since announced that he intends to travel back to North Korea, where he befriended the dictator back in February (with a trio of Harlem Globetrotters and Vice Magazine in tow), and that he’ll use the opportunity to push for Bae’s release. One obvious question — as unlikely as it seems that this could work, what if it did? That would be a whole new rubicon to cross. source
A North Korean court has sentenced the US citizen Kenneth Bae to 15 years’ hard labour after finding him guilty of unspecified “hostile acts” against the state, in a move possibly intended to force concessions from Washington.
Bae was arrested in November 2012 in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea’s far north-eastern region bordering China and Russia. His trial at the country’s supreme court began on Tuesday, according to the official KCNA news agency, which referred to Bae as Pae Jun-ho, the North Korean rendering of his name. The sentence was announced on Thursday.
Bae, a tour operator who lives in the Seattle suburb of Lynnwood, was accused of attempting to overthrow the government, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. In its latest dispatch KCNA did not state the exact nature of his alleged crimes.
Though he was born in South Korea, Bae is a naturalized U.S. citizen who has apparently made several trips to North Korea in the past via his travel agency Nation Tours. Our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time.
South Korea is due to withdraw its last workers from the Kaesong industrial complex on Monday, leaving the park, a highly symbolic joint-venture with North Korea, empty for the first time since it opened almost a decade ago.
The withdrawal of the 50 remaining managers will mark a serious deterioration in cross-border ties, coming soon after the North issued a string of threats against the South and its allies in protest at UN sanctions over its nuclear test in February and joint US-South-Korea military drills that ended on Monday.
The regime has toned down its rhetoric in recent days as both sides moved to defuse tensions on the peninsula, but Kaesong’s de facto closure is a serious blow to Seoul’s attempts to maintain at least some form of engagement with its neighbour.
The latest major setback on the Korean peninsula, though thankfully one which doesn’t involve threats of nuclear war (for now). The South Korean government has pledged financial support for companies affected by the closure; however, the shutdown could have a sharp impact on North Korea’s already weak economy.
“We are trying to be provocative in the best use of that term.” –Jon Rubin, Conflict Kitchen co-director
GREAT story we just posted about Conflict Kitchen, a Pittsburgh restaurant that only serves food from countries in conflict with the USA. Check this out, a great concept, and some great quotes.
“Reaction’s been great,” Rubin says when asked the obvious. “There’s never been this kind of food in Pittsburgh, and we didn’t know whether people would be into that. But people are starving for food and diversity.”
Such an amazing idea.
Hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough on the Korean peninsula have dimmed after North Korea dismissed US conditions for talks as “totally unacceptable” and demanded to be recognized as a nuclear state.
After weeks of tension in the region, including North Korean threats of nuclear war, Pyongyang had appeared willing to consider negotiations. But on Tuesday, the state-controlled Rodong Sinmun newspaper rejected the condition that the North must first begin to demonstrate a willingness to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme and suspend missile launches.
“If the DPRK sits at a table with the US it has to be a dialogue between nuclear weapons states, not one side forcing the other to dismantle nuclear weapons,” the newspaper said, referring to the North by the abbreviation of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Well, things were beginning to look better on the Korean peninsula…
There may be talks between us and the United States for the sake of arms reduction, but there will never be talks for denuclearization. Our position is clear. Never dream of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula before denuclearization of the world is realised.A statement from Pyongyang, North Korea • Appearing in North Korea’s state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, and not mincing words as to their attitude towards denuclearization — either nobody has them, or we have them. The North Korean nuclear program was first truly facilitated by Pakistani scientist AQ Khan, who outsourced his knowledge from extensive work producing an atomic bomb for Pakistan to spread nuclear weapons technology around, North Korea one of his chiefest clients. By 2006-2007, they’d claimed a successful nuclear test, and their status as a nuclear-armed nation. However insufficient their missile technologies, the North Korean power structure (headed up by Kim Jong-un) is clearly loathe to talk disarmament, lest they lose the main barrier to any interventionist military action against their state. source
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, pressed his message of potential dialogue with North Korea as he wrapped up his diplomatic tour in Japan, saying the US was “prepared to reach out” and consider direct talks under the right circumstances.
After weeks of tension on the Korean peninsula – with the North issuing angry threats, pulling its workers out of a joint industrial complex and possibly preparing for a missile test – Kerry has repeatedly focused on the US desire for a peaceful resolution during the Asian leg of his 10-day trip.
But speaking in Tokyo he warned that Pyongyang would need to show good faith “so we’re not going around and around in the same-old, same-old”.
While this obviously has the potential for a positive outcome, we wouldn’t be shocked to see this dominating the discussion among talking heads this week, given North Korea’s recent provocative statements/actions.
We’re in deep doo-doo.Dick Cheney, in a closed-door meeting with congressional Republicans, on the situation in North Korea. Cheney may be right, but his credibility is undermined both by his own record of assessing foreign threats and, perhaps more significantly, the fact that he used the word “doo-doo” to describe the prospect of nuclear war. He gets points, however, for reportedly wearing a cowboy hat to the meeting. source
knivesandcoffee asks: But isn't that graphic useless without some context? I mean what is the size of North Korea's military compared to the South or to the US?
» SFB says: I think that’s a fair point (and it’s one a lot of people in the comments on that link have raised), but I think it also shows that the country has enough firepower that it could do something. As the article itself puts it: “While North Korean arms are mostly antiquated, much of it dating back half a century, what they lack in modernity they make up for in both volume and location.” Now, whether or not the graphic was particularly useful because it was designed to be never-ending is another question entirely (it could use some compare/contrast), but just because the size of the military may perhaps be smaller than the United States or South Korea, if they’re the first to launch an attack, does it really matter? — Ernie @ SFB
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
Wrote a thing.
Hat tip to this headline writer.
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
The whole North Korean army in one place
When it’s all laid out like that in one graphic, it’s pretty huge.
North Korea’s statement advising foreigners to make plans to evacuate Seoul is more unhelpful rhetoric that serves only to escalate tensions. This kind of rhetoric will only further isolate North Korea from the international community, and we continue to urge the North Korean leadership to heed President Obama’s call to choose the path of peace and to come into compliance with its international obligations.White House spokesman Jay Carney • Responding to North Korea’s rather surprising anti-tourism warning on Tuesday, mere hours after North Korea’s state-run KCNA news agency warned foreigners in South Korea that the country’s military couldn’t be blamed if they were hurt should war break out on the Korean peninsula. The latest threats from North Korea come on the eve of previously announced ballistic missile testing which has already put a number of countries in the region on edge. source
Now that [North Korea] has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet. If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States.Fidel Castro, writing in Cuban state media to advise its ally North Korea against starting a war. source
“A representative of the North Korean foreign ministry suggested that the Russian side examine the question of evacuating the employees of the Russian embassy,” embassy spokesman Denis Samsonov said.
…
A spokesman from the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) confirmed embassies other than Russia had received the same warning. ”We can confirm that the British Embassy in Pyongyang received a communication from the North Korean government this morning.”
“[The warning] said that the North Korean government would be unable to guarantee the safety of embassies and international organisations in the country in the event of conflict from April 10.”
All bark and no bite? While conventional wisdom is that this is just more toothless blustering by the DPRK, Pyongyang has certainly gone farther this time with its rhetoric than in the past, causing us to—at the very least—question the conventional wisdom. That being said, we still don’t think anything major will come of this. By the way, if you’re still confused as to why North Korea is doing this, NKNews.org has a great round up of expert opinions on the matter.
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