North Korea (Superthread)

[a_majoor]

While good news for the people trapped in the DPRK, this should not be too surprising. A huge black market existed in the former USSR and all Warsaw Pact nations until the fall of the wall, and when the Allied governments took control of the wartime economies during the Second World War, a black market sprang to life almost immediately. And the story of Prohabition in the 1920's or the "Drug Wars" today indicates that where there is a demand, there will always be someone willing to provide the supply end of the economic equation.

 

[CougarKing]

Speaking of North Korea's underground economy, the common folk will need it again as the country is gripped by another drought. This is even as international food aid is diverted for the North Korean government and its military.

Straits Times

N. Korea suffering ‘severe’ drought – state media
Agence France-Presse

SEOUL – North Korea is suffering from its worst spring drought in more than three decades, threatening thousands of acres of staple crops, state media said Friday.

“Severe drought” has been reported across the country, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

Average rainfall between mid-February and late April – a crucial growing period – was 23.5mm, barely 35 percent of the normal seasonal precipitation and the lowest recorded since 1982.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

And the brinksmanship cycle continues:

:brickwall:

North Korea seen testing engine for intercontinental ballistic missile

SEOUL - North Korea has recently conducted engine tests for an intercontinental ballistic missile that could potentially deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States, a U.S. think tank said on Friday.

North Korea conducted at least one engine test for the KN-08 missile in late March or early April, the think tank 38 North said, marking the latest in a series of tests for a missile believed to have a range of more than 10,000 km (6,000 miles).

Following the engine tests, the next stage for North Korea would be a test launch of the missile, according to 38 North, which is affiliated with Johns Hopkins University's U.S.-Korea Institute.

"As this effort progresses, the next technically logical step in the missile's development would be a flight test of the entire system," 38 North said in its report.

Read more here...

MSN news

 

[tomahawk6]

The so called #2 has been replaced.I am not sure there is a #2,it would be too dangerous for Kim to allow anyone that much power.Stalin did pretty much the same promoting and then executing officials.Eventually a cabal formed to take out the dictator or else they feared they were next.The same could happen in North Korea.

http://news.yahoo.com/n-korea-number-two-replaced-army-political-chief-023807401.html

KCNA news agency named Hwang Pyong-So as the director of the Korean People's Army (KPA) General Political Bureau, not Choe Ryong-Hae, who previously held the position.

 

[CougarKing]

This shouldn't come as a surprise...

Source- (UK Telegraph)

China plans for North Korean regime collapse leaked


China has drawn up detailed contingency plans for the collapse of the North Korean government, suggesting that Beijing has little faith in the longevity of Kim Jong-un’s regime.

Documents drawn up by planners from China’s People’s Liberation Army that were leaked to Japanese media include proposals for detaining key North Korean leaders and the creation of refugee camps on the Chinese side of the frontier in the event of an outbreak of civil unrest in the secretive state.

The report calls for stepping up monitoring of China’s 879-mile border with North Korea.

***SNIP***

The Chinese authorities intend to question new arrivals, determine their identities and turn away any who are considered dangerous or undesirable.

“This only underlines that all the countries with a stake in the stability of north-east Asia need to be talking to each other,” Jun Okumura, a visiting scholar at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told The Telegraph.

“What we have learned from the collapse of other dictatorships – the Soviet Union, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya – is that the more totalitarian the regime, the harder and faster they fall,” he added.

“This is why we need contingency plans and I am sure that the US and South Korea have extensive plans in place, but the release of Chinese measures is new,” he said.

(...EDITED)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Hopefully he will cut off Chinese contacts, isolating the country even more forcing the Chinese to fund an overthrow to establish a Sino-friendly regime and start the country down the road to recovery.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Some interesting pictures here

http://www.sliptalk.com/2014/05/11/eric-lafforgue/

 

[CougarKing]

Reuters

North Korea may be close to developing nuclear missile, some say

(Reuters) - North Korea, which this month threatened to carry out a fourth nuclear test, may be closer than previously thought to putting a nuclear warhead on a missile, some experts say, making a mockery of years of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing such a program.

North Korea has long boasted of making strides in acquiring a "nuclear deterrent", but there had been general skepticism that it could master the step of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to mount on a ballistic missile.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

A shortage of building materials? How about corruption being another cause...similar to the way a number of shoddily constructed buildings collapsed in China during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake?  :

Reuters

North Korea building collapse may reveal Achilles heel of Kim's regime

Reuters

By Jack Kim and Ju-min Park

SEOUL (Reuters) - It may have taken the collapse of an apartment block in an exclusive district of the North Korean capital to reveal the Achilles heel of young leader Kim Jong Un's secretive regime.

Last week's accident killed the families of people important enough for North Korea to issue an obsequious and unprecedented public apology in a bid to quell public anger, some analysts said.

The 23-storey building in Phyongchon, central Pyongyang, was part of a construction boom driven by Kim that includes apartment blocks, roads, bridges and the Masik Ski Resort that has become synonymous with his policy of finishing projects at lightning speed.

South Korea said the building was home to 92 families and hundreds are feared dead, although the May 13 accident happened in the afternoon and many residents would have been at school or at work.

Apartments in buildings taller than 20 stories are normally reserved for party officials, professionals, academics and managers at state agencies, and those recognized for contribution to the state, the Architecture Institute of (South) Korea said last year.

(...EDITED)

The scale of Kim's construction projects had puzzled outside analysts as to how the impoverished state was able to supply the materials and equipment needed, and some suggested the North may be doing without, or using fewer, crucial materials like steel.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

CBC via MSN

Updated: Thu, 22 May 2014 07:28:45 GMT | By The Associated Press, cbc.ca

North Korea fires near South Korean warship

North Korea fired into disputed waters near a South Korean warship Thursday, a Joint Chiefs of Staff officer said, in the latest sign of tension rising between the bitter rivals in recent weeks.

The officer said North Korea fired artillery toward a South Korean navy ship engaged in a routine patrol mission near the countries' disputed maritime boundary in the Yellow Sea. The South Korean ship was not hit, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules.

The official could not confirm a report from Yonhap news agency that South Korea's military returned fire at waters near a North Korean warship. South Korean television network YTN said South Korea fired two rounds of artillery shells at the North, but other details were unknown, including whether artillery was fired from sea or land.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

One would think that Tokyo would be more cautious than be so to quick to normalize relations with Kim Jong Un's pariah state, especially considering all those Japanese citizens kidnapped by DPRK agents over the years.

Chosun link

" Japan has decided to lift sanctions imposed on North Korea in 2006 after Pyongyang promised to investigate a bizarre campaign from the 1970s and 80s to abduct Japanese citizens. "

(...EDITED)

" Japan has repeatedly hinted it could lift its sanctions against North Korea if the North is willing to investigate the abductions and reveal what became of the victims. There have also been calls from within the Japanese government to improve ties with North Korea in order to gain more leverage in negotiations with South Korea.

But few officials here had expected Japan to take such a bold unilateral step amid U.S. efforts to tighten regional cooperation with Seoul and Tokyo and even Beijing in pressuring Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear weapons. "

Plus more here on other issues that concern Japan, South Korea and the US:

Hani News

 

[CougarKing]

The spectre of nuclear weapons proliferation looming again in the rest of (East) Asia?

North Korea's Next Nuclear Test Could Serve as a Regional Tipping Point

South Korean President Park Geun-hye warned this week that if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, it could prompt the volatile country's neighbors to seek their own nuclear defense. "North Korea would effectively be crossing the Rubicon," she told the Wall Street Journal.

Back in March, North Korea threatened to carry out a "new form" of nuclear testing. The country's foreign ministry didn't offer more specifics, but some in the west suspect this means they will test out small nuclear devices that could be carried by intercontinental ballistic missiles. According to the WSJ, some experts fear that another test — the nation's fourth ever — would enable North Korea to successfully develop such weapons. Most experts believe they have working nuclear weapons, but still lack the capacity to deliver them via rocket.

Park thinks that this would prompt neighbors, like Japan and (presumably) South Korea itself, to explore their own nuclear options further. "It would be difficult for us to prevent a nuclear domino from occurring in this area," she said.

(...EDITED)


Yahoo News

 

[CougarKing]

Pyongyang amps up the rhetoric against Beijing:

From Reuters/Business Insider via Yahoo News

North Korean Officials Accuse Their Only Ally Of 'Being In Bed With Imperialists' In An Internal Memo

Business Insider
By Jeremy Bender

REUTERS
North Korea's Central Party Committee has released an internal decree urging party members to 'abandon the Chinese dream,' according to New Focus International, a media outlet run by prominent North Korean defector Jang Jin-sung.
The statement was allegedly issued in April during internal party lectures. The decree was particularly inflammatory in its attacks against Xi Jinping, the president of the People's Republic of China.

New Focus International:

The lecture materials stated that ‘Xi Jinping is a figure who regards the suffering of the Cultural Revolution as resulting from the repressive nature of the Chinese Communist Party’, and went on to say that ‘China is a bad neighbor that slanders even our nuclear self-defence capabilities, by taking sides with the US’.

The edict also alleged that China, "which is enjoying being in bed with the imperialists and dreaming dreams with them, is even openly critical of our nuclear defense capabilities."

China and South Korea agreed in May that the nuclear ambitions of North Korea posed a serious threat to regional security. China couched its agreement in a warning that all of the Korean peninsula should remain nuclear-free.

(...EDITED)

 

[dimsum]

Pyongyang amps up the rhetoric against Beijing:

From Reuters/Business Insider via Yahoo News

I wonder how smart that is, considering Beijing is their biggest ally and arguably propping up the regime.  I read in another article that the regime is seeking closer ties with Russia because China had "strayed off the path", which I find very odd considering Russia has gone even further away from Communism/Socialism.

 

[CougarKing]

Remember that ship stopped in Panama shipping North Korean weapons that had been refurbished in Cuba?

Defense News

Singapore Charges Firm Over Weapons-Smuggling To North Korea
Jun. 10, 2014 - 05:18PM  |  By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

SINGAPORE — Singapore on Tuesday filed criminal charges against a shipping firm based in the city-state accused of helping smuggle missiles and other military hardware from Cuba to North Korea.

The foreign and home affairs ministries said in a joint statement that the charges were filed against Chinpo Shipping Company Pte Ltd and a Singapore citizen identified as Tan Hui Tin.

Chinpo Shipping transferred $72,000 to a shipping company in Panama on July 8, 2013 in the knowledge the money could be used “to contribute to the nuclear-related, ballistic-missile-related, or other weapons of mass destruction-related programs or activities” of North Korea, according to the charge sheet.
s.

(...EDITED)

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I wonder how smart that is, considering Beijing is their biggest ally and arguably propping up the regime.  I read in another article that the regime is seeking closer ties with Russia because China had "strayed off the path", which I find very odd considering Russia has gone even further away from Communism/Socialism.

The NK hopes to convince China that they aren't the only game in town for NK. Russia will be happy to sell stuff to them, cash up front no doubt. But when push comes to shove Russia will say "China your problem" Unless Russia sees that China is such a potential future threat that it needs more friends to in the far east to help counter that. In which case I would back the Vietnamese before NK.

 

[CougarKing]

So if he runs them aground, will he blame the XO and execute the crew for his mistake?

Defense News intercepts

A Day at Sea with Dear Leader – N Korea’s Kim Jong-Un helms a sub
Christopher P. Cavas / 13 hours ago

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un is a man who gets around. The daily annals of the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are filled with his exploits, accomplishments, various deeds and, of course, honors and acclamations.

Recently, Kim added a spice of variety to his travels by going to sea on one of his Navy’s Romeo-class diesel submarines.

(...EDITED)

 

[Rifleman62]

Too bad the sub didn't spring a big leak.

 

[OldSolduer]

Too bad the sub didn't spring a big leak.

Come on now Rifleman! This is so amusing.....I can imagine the advice he gave to the skipper about navigation :

" front pointy end of boat go that way, don't hit rocks....."

 

[midget-boyd91]

Come on now Rifleman! This is so amusing.....I can imagine the advice he gave to the skipper about navigation :

" front pointy end of boat go that way, don't hit rocks....."

"How do I know we're really under water and you're not trying to play tricks on me? I command you roll down the windows!"