This page includes materials on the stationing of US forces in ROK,NMD, ROK reaction to US DPRK policy, etc. but does not attempt to go into wider US-ROK relations.
Nuclear reactors issue, KEDO, IAEA, etc. are currently on the nuclear programme page

2008

• December
• November
• October
• September
• August
• July
• June
• May
• April
• March
• February
• January

• NK-US relations 2007
• NK-US relations 2006
• NK-US relations 2005
• NK-US relations 2004
• NK-US relations 2003
• NK-US relations 2002
• NK-US relations 2001
• NK-US relations 2000

• An Initiative for US-ROK Cooperation for Peace in the Korean Peninsula and East Asia: Policy Suggestions for the Obama Administration
  The Peace Foundation
  Seoul, Republic of Korea December 2008
  Introduction North Korea, declared a member of the �Axis of Evil� by George W. Bush, responded by becoming a nuclear power. By the end of the Bush administration, however, it had completed Phase Two of the Beijing Six-Party agreement on denuclearization and normalization and in October 2008 was deleted from the list of terror-supporting states. After the vacillations and policy reverses that occurred under Bush, much remains on the plate for the incoming Obama administration.
  The Obama administration should take a new approach in addressing the DPRK nuclear issue: it should resolve the issue by normalizing its relations with the DPRK instead of pursuing normalization on the condition of resolving the nuclear issue.
• NK May Seek More Aid From Obama
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter It appears likely that North Korea has high hopes for the incoming Barack Obama administration in Washington. The reclusive regime may be under the impression that it could get better deals, including more economic aid and other incentives, from the new progressive U.S. government, according to a report. The U.S. News and World Report, a U.S.-based news magazine, argued in its latest December issue that next year, Pyongyang may seek more incentives and economic and fuel aid for continuing to dismantle its nuclear programs.
• �Firm and Patient�
  Editorial
  Published: December 28, 2008 President Bush has offered good advice about the off-again-on-again North Korea nuclear deal. The United States, he said recently, must remain �firm and patient� as President-elect Barack Obama assumes the challenge of separating North Korea from its nuclear program.
  We won�t dwell on the fact that if Mr. Bush had followed that course from the start of his administration, North Korea might not be sitting on enough plutonium for six or more nuclear weapons. His prescription was good; the administration still isn�t following it. Before Mr. Bush spoke, the State Department announced that the United States and its partners would halt deliveries of heavy fuel oil because Pyongyang refused to agree, in writing, on a plan for verifying its nuclear stockpile and facilities. China and Russia insisted that they had not agreed to any such decision. South Korea said it would delay shipping steel plates for North Korean power stations. Japan was already reneging on its commitment to supply fuel aid, and Australia, which had stepped into the breach, announced that it would withhold its contribution. If the shipments stop, North Korea would be within its rights to stop disabling its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and resume producing plutonium for weapons. That would present Mr. Obama with an immediate crisis. North Korea has a long history of cheating, and robust verification is essential. That includes getting it to commit in writing to allow inspections of key facilities, interviews with scientists and environmental sampling. But under the deal, a verification plan was supposed to come later. The timing was pushed forward as a condition for taking North Korea off the terrorism list by hard-liners seemingly bent on sabotaging the agreement. [Renege] [Terrorism List] [US NK policy] [Partisan]
• Obama�s Lineup for Asian Affairs Due
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Kurt Campbell, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific, is expected to be named as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, reports said Friday. He will replace Christopher Hill, who has concurrently served as chief U.S. envoy to the six-party talks to end North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, they said. Campbell has served as chief executive officer of the Center for New American Security (CNAS) since January 2007. He worked as a key policy advisor to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team. Jeffrey A. Bader, director of the China Initiative and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, is expected to take over as head of the National Security Council's bureau on Asian affairs, according to reports. Wendy Sherman, a former North Korea policy coordinator of the State Department, is favored to become a chief advisor to Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton, the reports said.
• Clinton-Era Asia Hand 'to Replace Hill'
  Kurt Campbell, a former Asia hand in the U.S. Defense Department, is a strong candidate to succeed Christopher Hill as chief nuclear negotiator with North Korea, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. The paper predicted Campbell, who was an advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton during her presidential candidate campaign, is likely to become assistant secretary for East Asia and Pacific affairs. Campbell was deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Asia and Pacific Affairs under Bill Clinton. Since her appointment as secretary of the state, Hillary Clinton has been filling top positions at the department with her supporters. [Pentagon]
• Obama offers new Asia tack: Vogel
  New administration will solicit Japan, China cooperation to help remedy world's ills Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008 By SAYURI DAIMON Staff writer Japan will continue to be a friend of the United States, but incoming President Barack Obama may try to approach China more to solve international issues because Beijing can more quickly effect policy, according to a noted American expert on Japan and China. News photo No. 1 hand: Ezra Vogel, Henry Ford II professor of social sciences, emeritus, at Harvard University, is interviewed in Minato Ward, Tokyo, on Nov. 18. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTO "It'll be easier to get the Chinese government to make an agreement, because when they make it, they can enforce it much more quickly," said Ezra Vogel, Henry Ford II professor of social sciences, emeritus, at Harvard University.
  Obama also tapped several Japan experts as advisers during the election campaign, including Gerald Curtis, a professor at Columbia University, Kurt Campbell, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia and the Pacific, and Rust Deming, former deputy chief of mission at the embassy in Tokyo and former ambassador to Tunisia.
  Obama may have a hard time trying to form a close personal relationship with Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose stint may be fleeting amid the rotating door of Tokyo's recent leadership, Vogel said. Bush was fortunate to be able to form a relationship with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, because he held office for several years, he said. "But now Aso is already almost a lame duck. So will Obama spend so much time to form a relationship with Aso? Of course he will form some relationship, but given all the other pressing issues, he may decide to wait for the (next) election, see who emerges as the new leader and try to work with that leader," Vogel said. [US Japan alliance]
• U.S. Policy toward the Korean Peninsula
  Statement by Dr. Kurt M. Campbell Deputy Assistant Secretary Of Defense (Asia And Pacific Affairs) Hearing on u.s. Policy toward The korean peninsula Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific House Committee on International Relations
  FEBRUARY 26, 1997
  The need for a combined U.S.-ROK military command and force structure to protect our common values is more compelling than ever. Today the United States and South Korea confront twin security challenges on the Korean Peninsula -- deterrence of armed conflict and preparation for crises short of war. On the first challenge, North Korea's large conventional military forces continue to threaten the security of the Republic of Korea. Two-thirds of its 1.1 million military personnel are positioned within 100 kilometers of the Demilitarized Zone, with a substantial artillery force capable of striking Seoul with little advance notice. In addition, North Korea possesses missile and other weapons programs that heighten concern over its intentions. The U.S. and ROK continue to focus their security cooperation on deterring the use of this military capability, whether in an all-out attack on South Korea or in a more limited military provocation. Let there be no doubt that deterrence is our first priority. Should deterrence fail, we will prevail militarily on the Peninsula.
• Kurt Campbell Advisory Board Member
  Expertise: Broad foreign and defense policy; elements of national strategy; homeland security, international terrorism; the politics and foreign policy problems of Asia; nuclear nonproliferation; implications of globalization for America and the world Contact: (202) 457-9413 Kurt Campbell is CEO of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a venture dedicated to advancing a strong, centrist national security strategy. He concurrently serves as director of the Aspen Strategy Group and as chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly. From 2000 to 2007, he served as senior vice president, director of the International Security Program, and Henry A. Kissinger Chair in National Security Policy at CSIS. Campbell is also founder and principal of StratAsia, a strategic advisory firm focused on Asia
• U.S.-South Korea Relationship Has Soured
  Los Angeles Times THE WORLD As America focuses on nuclear-armed North Korea, emerging powerhouse China and other Asian nations, its ties with Seoul languish. By Tyler Marshall and Mark Mazzetti Times Staff Writers
  January 17, 2006
  WASHINGTON � As the Bush administration strengthens ties in Asia as part of a hedging strategy to contain fast-rising China, it has allowed a key relationship in the region to fray: its half-century-old alliance with South Korea. Strong ties with Seoul have never been more pressing, regional experts say, and the administration plans to launch a diplomatic initiative to breathe new life into a relationship that, much like an unhappy marriage, has soured over the years as the partners drift apart.
  In the increasingly strained political atmosphere, the Pentagon has already pulled out nearly a quarter of the roughly 37,000 U.S. troops once stationed in South Korea and, by mutual consent, repositioned some of those remaining well south of the frontier with North Korea. Officials in Seoul have expressed their distaste for a decades-old arrangement that puts South Korean troops under the command of a U.S. general during times of war, and Pentagon officials seem more than willing to make changes in the future. In fact, Pentagon officials say they look forward to the day when Seoul's military can assume a larger role on the Korean peninsula, and insist that the South is "pushing on an open door" when it demands more control over its own security. "We've been clear that we are ready to move as rapidly as the Koreans want to, but have insisted that if they desire to take the leading position in the alliance, they must put the capabilities in place required to assume that role," Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard Lawless said in an interview. It is unclear to what extent the U.S. actions are determined by the need to stay ahead of increasingly anti-American public opinion in South Korea or whether the moves are driven more by other factors, including a simple desire to create distance from a difficult ally. "Part of me thinks [the Americans are] doing this to show the South Koreans they need us," said Kurt Campbell, a top Asia specialist at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration who is now at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Another reason, he said, "is that we need forces elsewhere. A third is that they've just had it with the South Koreans." Problems in the U.S.-South Korea alliance are magnified by administration steps to upgrade ties with another important East Asia ally: Japan. [Sovereignty] [US SK relations]
• Obama's Korean-American Advisor 'Got Game'
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who is in Hawaii this week, was spotted playing a round of golf at a par-72 public course on Dec. 21, accompanied by his Korean-American advisor, Eugene Kang, according to U.S. media reports. Obama is now on a 12-day ``working vacation'' in Hawaii before moving into his new home in Washington in January. When asked by reporters how his game was going, Obama, a left-handed golfer with a respectable 16 handicap, replied, ``I am not that good.'' He added, ``Gene though,'' referring to his aide Kang: ``He's got game.'' Kang may be no Tiger Woods, but he's been playing golf since he was 10, according to U.S. reports. A second-generation Korean-American, he has been a close advisor to Obama since the early days of his presidential campaign two years ago.
• ROK to pay 760 billion won for U.S. troops in 2009
  Yonhap News Service (Lee Chi-dong, "ROK TO PAY 760 BILLION WON FOR U.S. TROOPS IN 2009", 2008/12/23) reported that ROK will pay 760 billion won (US$571 million) for the stationing of 28,500 American troops here next year under a new deal on their defense cost sharing, the foreign ministry said Tuesday. The agreement, reached after five rounds of talks since July, calls for ROK to increase its share each year until 2013, in accordance with the consumer price index. [Tribute]
• North Korea's Capture of USS 'Pueblo' Still a Wound for Its Crew
  Forty years ago, North Korea freed the crew of the USS Pueblo, a U.S. Navy ship it had captured 11 months earlier. The ship itself is still in North Korea. Ralph McClintock is seen in this 1968 file photo on the day he was released from captivity in N. Korea. Ralph McClintock, a surviving member of the Pueblo's crew, was a 24-year-old communications technician aboard the Pueblo when it was captured off North Korea's east coast in January 1968. Pyongyang said the ship was in its territorial waters, which the ship's crew and the U.S. government denied.
  They were really sort of drummed out of the Navy," said Mitchell Lerner, author of �The Pueblo Incident,� and an associate professor at Ohio State University. "They were treated not as deserving heroes, but as people who surrendered a ship that they shouldn't have surrendered. And then capitulated to torture and signed a bunch of false propaganda statements. Essentially what they were told is that you should have gone down with the ship. And the fact you didn't means we're not going to do much for you upon your return." Some members of the Pueblo's crew were recommended for court-martial, but the secretary of the Navy intervened and all charges were dropped.
• 'No US Request on Troop Deployment to Afghanistan'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korean officials dismissed reports Tuesday that the United States has asked South Korea to deploy troops to Afghanistan again. ``We haven't received any request from the United States regarding a troop dispatch to Afghanistan,'' Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told reporters. Foreign Ministry spokesman Moon Tae-young also said the Seoul government was not considering the redeployment option at the moment. ``There has been no request from the U.S. government on the troop deployment. We aren't considering the option now,'' Moon said. [Tribute]
• Statue for Korean War Hero to Be Erected in Yongsan
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The Eighth U.S. Army (EUSA) in South Korea Tuesday held a groundbreaking ceremony for the raising of a statue of the late Gen. Walton H. Walker (1889-1950), the first commander of EUSA and UN forces during the 1950-53 Korean War. The EUSA organized the ceremony at the Yongsan Garrison in cooperation with the ROK-US Alliance Friendship Society to commemorate the fallen hero's brave and able performance during the war to help safeguard peace and democracy in South Korea, EUSA officials said.
  On Dec. 22, 1950, Walker was killed in an accident while trying to pass a stalled column of South Korean Army vehicles near Seoul. He was on his way to an awards ceremony to decorate soldiers of the Eighth Army. [Korean War events] [Spin]
• How to Walk Away from North Korea
  By Richard Halloran The negotiations intended to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arms have all but collapsed and the finger pointing to affix blame is under way. At the same time, the conventional wisdom says the issue has been passed to President-elect Barack Obama to resolve after he takes office on Jan. 20. Nowhere is it carved in stone, however, that he need do so. Walking away is a realistic option. Cutting through the diplomatic verbiage enveloping what is known as the Six-Party Talks, there's enough fault to go around: � North Korea has had no intention of giving up its nuclear program, has tested a weapon, and has indicated that it plans to test again. Pyongyang's purpose has been to string out the negotiations to see what it could get in oil and other economic bribes. � China, praised for hosting the talks, has done little to press North Korea. Rather, Beijing has allowed the talks to muddle along while claiming that China has little influence over North Korea. That contention from a rising power is increasingly hard to believe. � The United States has negotiated as if North Korea was governed by rational people susceptible to Western logic (sic). Instead, the North Koreans have scorned US pledges of diplomatic recognition, economic benefits, and a peace treaty to replace the truce that ended the Korean War of 1950-53. [Bizarre] [Inversion]
• A Fool's Errand for U.S. Diplomacy
  Friday, December 19, 2008; Page A34 In the Dec. 15 editorial "Three Kernels of Corn," The Post condemned American inaction on North Korea's concentration camps. U.S. diplomats face challenge enough in trying to persuade Pyongyang to denuclearize so as to lower the risk of an Armageddon. Having our diplomats add to their agenda the concentration camps, which are part of that ugly regime's control mechanisms, would be a fool's errand. Such a move would only heighten North Korea's paranoia that we are out to destroy it. Short of a war with several million casualties, those camps will not disappear. The editorial invoked President Franklin D. Roosevelt's failure to bomb the rail lines on which prisoners were moved to Adolf Hitler's camps. Does The Post propose an American war with North Korea? If not, it should get serious and recognize that while some evils can be cured with diplomacy, others cannot be stopped except at great cost in American lives. MARC E. NICHOLSON Washington [Manipulation]
• DPRK warns of "Korean-style preemptive attack" against U.S., S Korea
  PYONGYANG, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) will counter the United States and South Korea with "a more rapid and powerful advanced preemptive strike in the Korean style," a senior DPRK official said Tuesday. "A grave situation is prevailing on the Korean Peninsula" due to the U.S. hostile policy and its frantic moves to wage a war of aggression against the DPRK, the official KCNA news agency quoted Kim Il Chol, minister of the People's Armed Forces, as saying. The "Korean-style preemptive attack" will be more powerful than nuclear weapons, reduce everything "treacherous and anti-reunification" to debris and build an independent reunified country on it, he said. He made the comments at a meeting to mark the anniversary of top DPRK leader Kim Jong Il's assumption of the Korean People's Army's supreme commandership on Dec. 24, 1991
• Government book attributes S. Korea�s democratic roots to U.S. military rule
  Books distributed to schools nationwide contradict the Constitution to deny the legitimacy of the Provisional Government � The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is under fire for publishing and distributing a book, written by New Right scholars from the Textbook Forum, that describes the roots of democracy in South Korea as the �rule of the U.S. military� during the period between 1945-48. It has been found that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism published a book that describes the roots of democracy in South Korea as the �rule of the U.S. military� during the period between 1945-48. But this ignores the legitimacy of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, recognition of which is part of the preamble of the South Korean Constitution. About 30,000 copies of the book, which was published as part of the government�s efforts to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Korea, were distributed to middle and high schools nationwide.
• The Mythical North Korean Threat
  The Korean conflict is over, but Cold War warriors refuse to accept this reality because they need a �threat.� In 1994, the Military-Industrialist worked the media and politicians into a war hysteria which almost caused President Clinton to order air strikes in North Korea. In his book �Hazardous Duty,� retired Colonel David Hackworth describes his trip to Korea in which he uncovered this phony threat. Fortunately, former President Jimmy Carter heard the war drums and flew to North Korea as a private citizen and ended the phantom crisis. When Pentagon officials talk about the need to maintain a �two-war� capability, they often refer to Korea. This is absurd since South Korea can crush North Korea without American help. North Korea�s million-man army may look impressive on paper, but remember that Iraq had a million-man army, which also had modern equipment, combat experience, and plenty of fuel. In contrast, North Korean soldiers suffer from malnutrition and rarely train due to a scarcity of fuel and ammo. Most North Korean soldiers could not attack because they are needed to defend the entire DMZ and coastal approaches (they remember the 1950 landing at Inchon) while entire divisions must remain throughout North Korea to fend off heliborne offensives, food riots, and probable coups. On the other hand, the entire 700,000 man South Korean active duty army can be devoted to the defense of Seoul. The modern South Korean army is backed by over 5,000,000 well-trained reservists who can be called to duty in hours. South Korea has twice the population of the North, thirty times its economic power, and spends three times more on its military each year. South Korean military equipment is first class whereas most of the North Korean military equipment is over 30 years old and much is inoperable due to a lack of maintenance. If war broke out, South Korea has a massive industrial capacity and $94 billion in foreign currency reserves to sustain a war, while North Korea has no industry and no money. As a result, South Korea is roughly five times more powerful than North Korea. [Military balance] [Threat]
• U.S. Asks Korea to Help in Afghanistan Rebuilding
  The U.S. Defense Department on Saturday expressed gratitude to the Korean government's contribution in its war in Afghanistan so far but called for more. It was the first time a senior Defense Department official to openly asked Korea for support in Afghanistan. With the situation in the war-torn country showing no signs of improvement, the U.S. has asked Korea to help since it withdrew troops. The U.S. has expressed disappointment with Seoul's failure to offer further support. The official mentioned the political situation in Korea and the Taleban's abduction of Korean evangelicals in Afghanistan in 2007. As areas where support is needed, he cited reconstruction, peace-keeping, and the training of the Afghan Army. A diplomatic source in Washington said since U.S. president-elect Barack Obama is giving priority to the Afghan War over the Iraq War, the Defense Department hopes that Korea will reach a decision quickly in time with Obama's inauguration in January [Decline] [Tribute]
• 'US Should Test Pyongyang�s Motive for Nuclear Programs'
  By Kang Hyun-kyung Staff Reporter A former U.S. ambassador to South Korea called on Washington to figure out first if North Korea genuinely intends to end nuclear programs when dealing with the Stalinist state. ``We need to test the intentions of the North without any secondary impediments,'' said James T. Laney at a special lecture to commemorate the eighth anniversary of former President Kim Dae-jung's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. ``That can only be done in the context of a good-faith offer of normalization of relations with the United States and hopefully with South Korea,'' Laney said. He argued the incoming U.S. government's dispatch of a special envoy to Pyongyang would help it figure out the North's motives, singling out former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn as possible candidates for the special mission. ``Their presence alone would confer the dignity the North so longs to have acknowledged. Their astuteness and demonstrated wisdom would ensure that either a verifiable deal could be struck, or that the North did not indeed intend to give up its nuclear card,'' Laney observed. [US NK policy] [Bilateral]
• The (Non) Impact of UN Sanctions on North Korea
  Marcus Noland
  Abstract This study finds that North Korea�s nuclear test and the imposition of UN Security Council sanctions have had no perceptible effect on North Korea�s trade with its two largest partners, China and South Korea. Before North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, it was widely believed that such an event would have cataclysmic diplomatic ramifications. However, beginning with visual inspection of data and ending with time-series models, no evidence is found to support the notion that these events have had any effect on North Korea�s trade with its two principal partners. In retrospect, North Korea may have calculated quite correctly that the direct penalties for establishing itself as a nuclear power would be modest (or, alternatively, put such a high value on demonstrating its nuclear capability that it outweighed the downside risks, however large). If sanctions are to deter behavior in the future, they will have to be much more enthusiastically implemented. [Sanctions] [UNUS] [China-NK relations]
• China's exports thwart N. Korea sanctions
  Nicholas Kralev Friday, December 19, 2008
  U.N. sanctions on North Korea, imposed after it tested a nuclear device in 2006, have produced no impact, largely because China has failed to implement the measures and has increased exports of banned luxury goods to the North, according to a new report. agence france-presse/getty images North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, toasting Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in 2000, is known for his fondness for French cognac and fine wines. "Chinese exports of luxury goods to North Korea did not fall to zero in 2007" as required by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, which Beijing supported, said Marcus Noland, the author of the report and an expert on the North Korean economy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "Indeed, such exports increased between 2006 and 2007." [Sanctions] [UNUS] [China-NK relations]
• N. Korea proposed secret contacts with U.S. in 1974: document
  SEOUL Dec. 21 North Korea in 1974 proposed through Romania setting up secret summit talks with then U.S. President Gerald Ford, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday, citing a recently declassified U.S. document. An aide to then Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu met with Ford at the White House on Aug. 27, 1974, saying, "The North Korean leadership wants to have confidential contacts with the United States for discussions," the document said, according to the report. "They have suggested Romania," the aide told Ford, according to Yonhap. The aide told Ford that the Romanian president "has offered to help if you want to do it," without elaborating on what the North Koreans were hoping to discuss in the meetings, which in the end never came about. Ford's response to the proposal was noncommittal, Yonhap reported. "Certain things must precede such contacts. We don't want to go in without a firm understanding," Ford was quoted as saying. The suggestion was made days after the assassination of South Korea's First Lady Yuk Young Soo by a Japan-born Korean believed to be linked to a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan. December 21, 2008 [Bilateral][US-NK relations]
• N. Korea proposed secret contacts with U.S. in 1974: dossier
  By Hwang Doo-hyong WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (Yonhap) -- North Korea proposed setting up secret contacts with the United States through Romania in 1974, two years after U.S. President Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China ending decades of Cold War rivalry, a declassified U.S. document has shown. An aide to then Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu met with then U.S. President Gerald Ford at the White House on Aug. 27, saying, "The North Korean leadership wants to have confidential contacts with the United States for discussions," according to the recently declassified Memorandum for the President's File. "They have suggested Romania," the aide told Ford, according to the memorandum. The suggestion was made soon after the assassination of South Korea's First Lady Yuk Young-soo by a Japan-born Korean believed to be linked to a pro-Pyongyang organization in Japan. The aide told Ford that the Romanian president "has offered to help if you want to do it," without elaborating on what the North Koreans were hoping to discuss. Ford's response to the proposal was lukewarm. "Certain things must precede such contacts. We don't want to go in without a firm understanding." The U.S. president, however, told the aide he would discuss the matter with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was in attendance during the meeting between Ford and the Romanian official. Kissinger later said he would deliver the U.S. government's position on the issue to the Romanian ambassador in Washington. Ceausescu met with Ford at the White House on June 11, 1975, and said he had delivered Washington's position on the issue to then North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, according to the declassified document. hdh@yna.co.kr [Bilateral][US-NK relations]
• Challenges in Alliance Management between Washington and Seoul
  By Sun-won Park December 18th, 2008 Sun-won Park, Visiting Fellow at the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, writes, �Policy coordination between Washington and Seoul is essential in order to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea, diplomatic normalization between the U.S. and the DPRK, and the establishment of a peace arrangement through talks between the directly related parties. But the notion of policy coordination must not be used as a certain party�s justification for sabotaging cooperation with the new U.S. plan for the Korean peninsula.� [US SK relations]
• Seoul, Washington Must See Eye to Eye on N.Korea
  The latest round of six-party talks collapsed on Thursday. In the U.S., the Bush administration is on its way out, leaving many questions about the North Korean nuclear issue unanswered: When will the next round of six-party talks be held? When will the "firm and direct" diplomacy president-elect Barack Obama has promised kick in with the North? And how will that influence the six-party talks?
• N.Korea Socks It to Bush but Keeps Mum on Obama
  North Korea is putting out almost daily diatribes against the outgoing Bush administration in the U.S. while keeping a discreet silence about president-elect Barack Obama, evidently still hedging its bets about the next U.S. government. When Washington hinted at halting energy aid to North Korea immediately after the collapse of six-party talks on denuclearization last week, the official Rodong Shinmun daily on Saturday said the best thing for the Bush administration was to �shut up and leave the White House in silence now that is all there is left for it to do.� It said all the Bush government has done over the last eight years �is create trouble in the world, commit wrongdoings in its every endeavor, and bring about disaster.�
  On the day Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, North Korea sent its Foreign Ministry�s America chief Ri Gun to the U.S. and had him establish contacts with officials in the Obama�s camp. It has also so far made no negative comments about Obama. Baek Seung-joo, of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said, �North Korea seems to be cautiously studying the Obama administration before the real negotiations on nuclear weapons begins.� [NK US policy]
• N. Korea-U.S. relations could improve under Obama administration
  Analysis] Value of the six-party talks likely to diminish following the breakdown in this round of talks �In the future, the weight of the six-party talks will diminish and the two-party structure of North Korea and the United States will be strengthened.� In connection with the six-party talks held in Beijing from Monday to Thursday on the North Korean nuclear issue, which broke down after being unable to clear the hurdle of �verification protocol documentation,� many experts predicted that considerable changes will take place in the structure of the resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. This forecast is rooted in: the North Korea policy approach of the Barack Obama administration, which must tackle head-on the task of resolving this issue from January 20 of next year; the hard-line approach to Pyongyang from the South Korean and Japanese governments; and the perceptions of North Korea, which has regarded root issues between itself and the United States as �issues of ending the policy of antagonism, and of trust.�
• Musical Diplomacy Resonates With N. Korea as Official Efforts Stall
  By Nora Boustany Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, December 13, 2008; Page A09 North Korea's orchestras are eager to travel to the United States and replicate the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's bravura performance in February in the North Korean capital. The negotiations for such a visit that are underway between North Korean officials and American music leaders indicate that informal cultural diplomacy is advancing beyond government-sponsored efforts to ease tensions between the two nations. The Philharmonic's president and executive director, Zarin Mehta, who led the orchestra's trip to Pyongyang, said North Korean music leaders have asked if they can bring an orchestra to play for American audiences. The New York-based Korea Society is brokering discussions among North Korea's U.N. mission, the State Department and the Philharmonic with a goal of bringing 160 performers from Pyongyang's State Symphony Orchestra to New York's Lincoln Center next year, according to a spokesman in Mehta's office.
• U.S. indicates to put DPRK back on terrorism list
  www.chinaview.cn 2008-12-11 06:52:43 WASHINGTON, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The United States does not rule out the possibilities of putting back the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, a senior official said on Wednesday. "I suppose these things are always possible," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at the daily briefing, when asked whether Washington would put back the DPRK to the list of state sponsors of terrorism should Pyongyang takes uncooperative steps on its nuclear program. "I don't know the ins and outs of the law, but I think that it's based on behavior. And we'll see what behavior North Korea engages in," said the spokesman. [Terrorism list] [Renege]
• Kissinger Invited to Visit Pyongyang
  Henry Kissinger Former U.S Secratary of State By Kang Hyun-kyung Staff Reporter A high-ranking North Korean official has proposed that former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger visit the North and the former secretary of state has expressed his willingness to take up the offer if two conditions are met, a governing Grand National Party lawmaker said Friday. ``We were told that Ri Kun, North Korean foreign ministry director for the North American bureau, met Kissinger last month, asking him to visit Pyongyang,'' Rep. Chung Mong-joon told Korean reporters based in Washington D.C. Chung and three other GNP lawmakers are visiting the U.S. capital to meet think tank and foreign policy experts, including Kissinger, Harvard University Professor Joseph S. Nye Jr., and Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs. As for the North's offer, Kissinger was quoted as answering that he would visit Pyongyang if two conditions were met: a U.S. president officially asks him to do so as an envoy, and the North pledges to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs. [Arrogance] [Negotiating style]
• S. Korea, China Need Post-Kim Jong-il Plan
  By Sunny Lee Korea Times Correspondent BEIJING ? The idea of having a discussion among concerned countries about the post-Kim Jong-il era has been a sensitive proposal, as some policy makers fear it could provoke anger from the irascible Pyongyang government. Nonetheless, a well-known global security expert said it's time to have one. Susan Shirk, who served under the Clinton administration as deputy assistant secretary of state, told The Korea Times during an interview in Beijing: ``There are now a lot of questions on the domestic situation in North Korea. China, along with South Korea and the United States, don't want to see a violent collapse of the North Korean government. So, I think it's really important for all of these countries to have some discussions ahead of time about different scenarios to make sure there is no misunderstanding afterwards.'' [Collapse]
• Korea, the United States, and Central Asia: Far-Flung Partners in a Globalizing World
  by Dr. Kent E. Calder & Viktoriya Kim Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Korea, the United States, and Central Asia make up a disparate triangle, separated by thousands of miles. Yet, all three corners of the triangle have significant and growing economic and geopolitical relevance for one another. All three share concerns over energy, China, and the future of the post-Soviet space. While there are, of course, important differences of national orientation and approach among them, Dr. Calder's and Ms. Kim's paper presents an examination of these three important issues and in turn, provide us with important reference points for thinking about the future prospects of the strategic U.S.-Korea-Central Asian triangle itself. [Energy security]
• Reunification: Building Permanent Peace in Korea
  Conference Summary Paul L. Liem | December 1, 2008 What are the historical roots of the U.S. � D.P.R.K. conflict; how should U.S. policy adapt to a rapidly changing Korea; what are the challenges to Korean unification; and what are the prospects for a permanent peace in Korea? On October 10, 2008, eight eminent Korea scholars and policy analysts met in Berkeley, CA to pose answers to these questions. The conference, "Reunification: Building Permanent Peace in Korea," was convened by the Korea Policy Institute (KPI) and International Area Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Coinciding with the U.S. presidential campaign, the conference was intended as a primer on a wide range of issues in U.S. � Korea relations to be addressed by the next administration. The urgency for the U.S. and the D.P.R.K. to normalize relations and for a permanent peace to replace the fragile Korean War truce were common themes throughout the day.
• U.S. Congress Warns of Weapons from N.Korea
  A bipartisan report by the U.S. Congress enumerates the danger of possible terrorist attacks that involve nuclear and biological weapons. The draft report was compiled and released on Tuesday by the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Under the title "World at Risk," it talks about a fast-changing environment that could enable terrorists to get their hands on dangerous weaponry. The commission report urges president-elect Barack Obama to take �decisive action� when he comes into office. That includes a tough stance towards rogue states like North Korea and Iran, putting a halt to any kind of nuclear weapons development and the stockpiling of uranium or plutonium. When it comes to North Korea, the commission says there should be complete nuclear dismantlement through direct talks with a potential military back-up to diplomacy.
• Obama and North Korea: The Road Ahead
  By Peter M. Beck December 3rd, 2008 Peter M. Beck, Professor at American University in Washington, D.C. and Yonsei University in Seoul, notes �several suggestions that would greatly increase the chances of successful negotiations� with the DPRK including insisting �that any deal reached between Pyongyang and Washington incorporates improved North-South relations� If the North follows through with its threat to close border crossings between the two Koreas, it would completely undo the rapprochement of the past decade. Washington should make it clear that this is unacceptable.�
• Obama's Remarks on National Security Team Appointments
  President-elect Barack Obama announced key members of his national security team Monday during a press conference in Chicago, Ill. "Good morning. Last week, we announced our economic team, which is working as we speak to craft an Economic Recovery Program to create jobs and grow our struggling economy. Today, Vice President-elect Biden and I are pleased to announce our national security team.
  The national security challenges we face are just as grave -- and just as urgent -- as our economic crisis. We are fighting two wars. Old conflicts remain unresolved, and newly assertive powers have put strains on the international system. The spread of nuclear weapons raises the peril that the worlds deadliest technology could fall into dangerous hands. Our dependence on foreign oil empowers authoritarian governments and endangers our planet.
  Hillary's appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances. There is much to do -- from preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea, to seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, to strengthening international institutions. I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department, and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda.
  And we move forward with respect for Americas tradition of a bipartisan national security policy, and a commitment to national unity. When it comes to keeping our nation and our people safe, we are not Republicans and we are not Democrats: we are Americans. There is no monopoly of power or wisdom in either party. Together, as one nation, as one people, we can shape our times instead of being shaped by them. Together, we will meet the challenges of the 21st century not with fear, but with hope. [US foreign policy]
• Panel Fears Use of Unconventional Weapon
  By ERIC SCHMITT Published: November 30, 2008 WASHINGTON � An independent commission has concluded that terrorists will most likely carry out an attack with biological, nuclear or other unconventional weapons somewhere in the world in the next five years unless the United States and its allies act urgently to prevent that. In a report to be released this week, the Congressionally mandated panel found that with countries like Iran and North Korea pursuing nuclear weapons programs, and with the risk of poorly secured biological pathogens growing, unconventional threats are fast outpacing the defenses arrayed to confront them. �America�s margin of safety is shrinking, not growing,� the bipartisan panel concluded.
  The commission urges the Obama administration to work to halt the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs, backing up any diplomatic initiatives with �the credible threat of direct action� � code for military action, a commission official said.
• North Korea Update: November Promises for December
  by Nicole Finnemann (nmf@keia.org)
  95 Agree on North Korea�s Poor Human Rights Record: The U.N. General Assembly�s human rights committee approved a resolution on North Korea on November 21 by a vote of 95 to 24 with 62 abstaining. The resolution expressed "very serious concern" at rights violations in North Korea, including the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers, the "all-pervasive and severe restrictions" on freedom of thought and religion, and violations of workers� rights. The 192-member General Assembly will vote on the non-legally binding resolution this month. Most notably, South Korea cosponsored the resolution for the first time, in a clear departure from previous fears that criticizing the North would hurt bilateral ties and damage efforts to resolve a nuclear standoff. [human rights] [Manipulation] [SK NK policy]
• South Korea-U.S. "Combined Forces Command" Should Be Disbanded Forthwith
  Pyongyang, November 8 (KCNA) -- The last three decades when the south Korea-U.S. "Combined Forces Command" has existed are years of crime during which it has violated peace and increased the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula. As already reported, the 30th UN General Assembly Session adopted a resolution calling for dissolution of the "UN Forces" in south Korea and withdrawal of the U.S. forces from there by an overwhelming majority in 1975. Flurried by this, the United States was engaged in rigging up the "Combined Forces Command" with a wicked scheme to keep south Korea as its permanent colony and military strategic base and to step up the adventurous preparations for a war to invade the north. It made public "strategic guideline No. 1" in November 1978 and thus officially announced the formation of the "Combined Forces Command" in south Korea. It saw to it that the "Combined Forces Command" took over the "UN Forces Command's" Operation Control of the U.S. forces in south Korea and puppet army. [UNUS] [Joint US military] [Military presence]
• U.S.-S. Korea Joint Landing Exercise Slammed in S. Korea
  Pyongyang, November 9 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet bellicose forces staged the largest-ever joint landing exercises on the coast of Josa-ri, Phohang City, North Kyongsang Province, on Nov. 6. The landing exercises were participated in by the 31st expedition task force of the U.S. marines and the 1st division and the corps supporting the landing operation of the puppet marine corps, more than 10,000 in all, and 27 warships, at least 30 attack helicopters and aircraft and more than 70 landing armored vehicles. [Joint US military]
• Hoguk War Exercises Assailed
  Pyongyang, November 10 (KCNA) -- The Hoguk exercises staged by the south Korean puppet military together with the marines of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces with a total of more than 120,000-strong troops and huge modern war means involved were a dangerous DPRK-targeted saber-rattling aimed at mounting a preemptive nuclear strike at the DPRK and stifling it by force of arms, says Rodong Sinmun Monday in a signed commentary. [Joint US military]
• Reckless Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Defense Assailed
  Pyongyang, November 12 (KCNA) -- The U.S. secretary of Defense, addressing a recent meeting of the Carnegie International Peace Foundation, made reckless remarks that the U.S. would continue providing south Korea and Japan with nuclear umbrellas so that they might depend upon its nuclear deterrent to cope with the "nuclear threat from north Korea" and cried out for pushing forward a plan for the development and production of new type nuclear weapons. Rodong Sinmun Wednesday observes in a signed commentary carried in this regard: This is a revelation of a dangerous scenario of the U.S. to dominate the world with unchallenged nuclear edge and realize its aggressive strategy towards the DPRK through a preemptive nuclear attack on the latter in "contingency" on the Korean Peninsula.
  The U.S. loudmouthed "nuclear threat" from the DPRK is a sheer fiction fabricated by it. The nuclear issue surfaced on the Korean Peninsula entirely because of the military threat of the U.S. to the DPRK and the former's nuclear war moves. [Threat]
• U.S. Plans to Beef Up Its Air Force in S. Korea Blasted
  Pyongyang, November 19 (KCNA) -- The U.S. decided to deploy at least ten more A-10s and two more MH-53s with the missions to strike ground targets at its forces present in south Korea, according to the south Korean MBC on Nov. 16. The proposal to additionally deploy a squadron of F-16s is reportedly in the pipeline. [Military balance]
• Imperialists' Despicable Scheme to Lead DPRK to "Reform" and "Opening" Flailed
  Pyongyang, November 21 (KCNA) -- "Reform" and "opening" touted by the imperialists are a reactionary plot to block social progress and stem the trend of history and a sinister move to destabilize and undermine other countries under the signboard of "globalization" in a bid to attain their hegemonic purpose, says Rodong Sinmun Friday in a signed article. The article says: The imperialists are using "reform" and "opening" as pretexts for political pressure, economic sanctions and blockade, while putting them up as preconditions. They have gone the lengths of crying out for "reform" and "opening" when dealing with humanitarian issues in a bid to make humanitarianism a plaything for their political bargaining. What should not be overlooked is the pressure put by them upon the DPRK to accept "reform" and "opening" despite its firm adherence to the socialist principle. They are groundlessly accusing the DPRK of opting for "isolation" and "closure", not "reform" and "opening". This is nothing but sheer sophism which can be uttered by those who distort reality and make profound confusion of right and wrong. As far as reform is concerned, the DPRK transformed the old social system in a revolutionary manner decades ago and it has carried on a steady renovation drive to get rid of everything old and backward and create everything new. As for opening, the DPRK has always kept its door open. The DPRK has boosted foreign relations since it identified independence, peace and friendship with the avowed basic idea of its foreign policy. [Economic reform] [Opening] [Camouflage] [Development strategy] [Inversion]

• Bush=Obama=Lee Myungbak? Eccentric Syllogism!�
  By Wooksik Cheong November 26th, 2008 This article is available online at: Wooksik Cheong, representative of Peace Network (www.peacekorea.org), writes, �Obama's and Bush's North Korean policies are very similar but have important differences. Lee's and Bush's North Korean polices differed greatly and did not go well together. Then, there should be much greater difference in Obama's and Lee's North Korea policies. Then what should be the future of the ROK-US alliance and cooperation on dealing with North Korean nuclear issues?�
  But the government fails to notice two important differences. Firstly, Bush was pushed to change, while Obama got a different start. Bush had to change the North Korea policy due to the circumstances while Obama's idea originated from his international pragmatism. Obama made unconditioned dialogue with leaders of hostile countries to the core of his election pledges for diplomatic policies despite strong critic not only from the Republicans but also from the then competitor Hillary Clinton. [US NK policy] [US SK relations] [SK NK policy]
• N.Korea Betting on the Wrong Horse, Says U.S. Envoy
  U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Kathleen Stephens on Wednesday poured cold water on North Korea's apparent stratagem to make friends with the U.S. while leaving South Korea out in the cold. "The U.S. isn't interested in any suggestion that might alienate South Korea," she said.
• US Critical of North Korea's Hostile Move
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter U.S. analysts are wary of North Korea's hostility directed at South Korea. They said if Pyongyang severs inter-Korean ties, it will also hurt the prospects for improving relations with Washington, and that the move would reconfirm the assumption that the North cannot be trusted. North Korea is intensifying its hostile policy against the South, threatening to carry out measures that could sever much inter-Korean cooperation. Analysts say Pyongyang may be lashing out against President Lee Myung-bak's conservative policy. The Stalinist regime may also be undertaking what some observers call a ``tongmi bongnam'' strategy, or opening up to the United States but cutting ties with the South, and trying to drive a wedge between the two allies in the process.
• Engaging Pyongyang on Human Rights
  John Feffer | November 20, 2008 (Editor's note: The author presented a different version of this paper at the International Symposium on North Korean Human Rights, sponsored by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea, in Seoul in October.) In the evolving U.S. policy toward North Korea, human rights considerations and national security concerns have competed for precedence. During President George W. Bush's first term, when a more confrontational stance predominated, human rights issues had greater visibility in Washington. For instance, Bush emphasized human rights language when describing the authoritarian political structure and "evil" intent of the North Korean regime. In this atmosphere, Congress passed the North Korea Human Rights Act in 2004 to promote the human rights of North Koreans through an increase in the flow of information to the country, welcoming more North Korean refugees to the United States, and appointing a special envoy on the issue.
  To say that an improved human rights record is a ticket into the international community for North Korea separates the terms too starkly. North Korea's human rights situation will change through engagement with the international community. If North Korea views human rights only instrumentally, as a price it has to pay, it will never take human rights seriously in any fundamental or institutional sense. And if North Korea sees that only it is held accountable to international norms of human rights and that only it is required to accede to international covenants, then the prospects for improving the day-to-day lives of so many North Koreans will be very dim indeed. [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• N.Korean Orchestra Could Get New York Outing
  North Korea�s state symphony orchestra may perform in New York City this coming March. Radio Free Asia reports that the performance will be in response to the one given by the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang earlier this year. RFA said the Korea Society based in New York has already begun preparations for the concert following a request by North Korean officials based in the U.S. The North Korean state orchestra had sought to hold performances last year in New York and London, but the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis caused interested sponsors to withdraw their support.
• Obama's 'Tough' Diplomacy Baffles Koreans
  There was some head-scratching in Korea on Thursday over the meaning of the "tough and direct" foreign policy the U.S. president-elect promised for his administration. The Foreign Ministry sweated over the translation of "tough" in the course of preparing a report on the Obama-Biden Plan announced a day earlier, and in the end decided simply to render the word as closely as possible in Hangeul, as "??." "Tough diplomacy has been mentioned since the election campaign, but any specifics clearly defining the substance have yet to appear," a ministry official said. "Because there is no need for us to translate the phrase prematurely, we've put it off." [Spin]
• US Congress Proposes Establishing NK Refugee Task Force
  A joint committee of the U.S. Congress has recommended to its government that a special task force, aimed at persuading China to stop repatriating North Korean refugees to the Stalinist country, be established. A report, which was completed on Oct. 31 and was released to the press recently, proposed that the U.S. government form a special body to resolve the ongoing situation, RFA reported Saturday. The report was prepared by the �Congressional-Executive Commission on China,� which is composed of House lawmakers, senators and ranking government officials. The team should help the U.N. Refugee watchdog to have free access to the North Korean refugees, the report said. To accomplish such a goal, it said certain �incentives� should be explored with China to give up its repatriation policy and eventually develop a strategy to root out the Chinese policy.
• Obama Think Tank Suggests Envoy to N.Korea
  The Center for American Progress, a think tank that formulates policies for U.S. president-elect Barack Obama, has suggested sending a special presidential envoy to Pyongyang as soon as possible and ratifying the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. Gregory Craig, who has been designated as the White House legal adviser, suggests that within 100 days after his inauguration, Obama should send a special presidential envoy to the North. Craig, who was also mentioned as a possible candidate for national security adviser, made this suggestion in "Department of State: Rebuilding and Repositioning America's Diplomatic Strength" as part of a CAP report titled "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President."
• Obama�s N. Korea policy likely to alter security framework of Northeast Asia
  [4th Hankyoreh-Busan Symposium] President-elect�s comprehensive approach could include negotiations on the North Korean nuclear issue and a peace agreement � BUSAN -- At the 2008 Hankyoreh-Busan International Symposium on November 20, participants engaged in dialogue on the future of peace on the Korean Peninsula and the possibility of a security cooperative in Northeast Asia. The Fourth 2008 Hankyoreh-Busan International Symposium, an annual conference on the subject of peace in Northeast Asia organized by the Hankyoreh Foundation for Reunification and Culture, was held on November 20 at the Novotel Ambassador Hotel in Busan. Experts and scholars in the fields of diplomacy and security participating in this year�s symposium seemed to agree that the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is likely to exercise a �comprehensive approach� to his North Korea policy similar to that employed by the Clinton administration. There was agreement that this could alter the security framework on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia and go beyond the narrow format of diplomatic efforts that have been employed up to this point. With the incoming Obama administration expected to fundamentally change U.S. policy on North Korea, some experts expressed the concern that South Korea and the United States could experience friction over their policy differences on the North.
• Setting a New Course with North Korea
  By Bruce Klingner November 20th, 2008 Bruce Klingner, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia in the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation, writes, "More troubling, however, is a growing sense that Pyongyang's obstructionist antics are not merely negotiating ploys but are instead designed to achieve international acquiescence to North Korea as a nuclear power. If that is the case, then it is prudent to begin contingency planning, including identifying financial sanctions that could be imposed against those companies and nations in violation of U.N. Resolution 1718." [US NK policy]
• N.Korea Rates Passing Mention in Obama Plan
  U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday his administration will pursue �tough and direct� diplomacy with America�s allies and enemies but only made passing mention of North Korea. The Obama-Biden Plan was published on the official website the president elect has been running since he won the race. Obama and his vice president Joe Biden �will pursue tough, direct diplomacy without preconditions with all nations, friend and foe. They will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table and is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like confronting terrorism and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs.�
• Obama, Seoul 'See Eye to Eye on N.Korea'
  Barack Obama�s position on the North Korean nuclear issue is �very similar to ours,� a government official said Monday. Hwang Joon-guk, the deputy leader of the South Korean delegation to six-party talks, visited the U.S. from Nov. 5 to 8 and met with Frank Januzzi, the chief of Obama�s Korea policy team, at a forum organized by the U.S. National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York.
• A real chance at restoring inter-Korean relations
  Kim Jong-cheol, Editorial writer [Column] �If Obama wins he stays. If McCain wins he�s out.� So went the story among diplomats from the countries participating in the six-party talks, whenever they talked about the political future of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill. Some said Barack Obama�s election would mean Hill�s promotion. It�s symbolic of how Obama will �carry on� the policies of the Bush administration in regards to at least the Korean Peninsula. It gives you a peek at the pragmatic attitude you see in U.S. politics, where you adopt things from your opponent if they�re worthwhile. Compare this to the approach of the Lee Myung-bak administration, which claims it is pragmatist but is trapped up in an ideology that rejects any and all policy that came from the previous administration.
• Tomgram: John Feffer, Can Washington Make Sense of North Korea?
  Recently, TomDispatch launched a series of pieces aimed at the coming Obama era. Michael Klare wrote on the new president's "energy challenge of a lifetime"; I explored his future arrival in "airless Washington"; and today, John Feffer, co-director of the Foreign Policy In Focus website and a Korea expert, considers the thorny issue of American policy toward North Korea. [US NK policy}
  The North Korean Conundrum Change You Can Believe In or Policy Status Quo? By John Feffer As Barack Obama assembles his foreign policy team, he appears to be drawing from two primary sources: the Clinton faithful and Republican renegades. These old dogs might be up for some new tricks, but one risk of relying on such "experience" could be the triumph of conventional thinking in Washington -- when the world expects, and the times demand, fundamental change. [US NK policy]
• U.S.-Korea relations in the Obama era
  [Interview] Normalization of relations �could bring huge changes to the topography of foreign relations in Northeast Asia� With the Obama era, major changes in the topography are foreseen not only for the United States but for the rest of the world, and the Korean Peninsula in particular. Will friendly relations between North Korea and the United States become a reality? What kind of presence will South Korea be on the international stage? Can a multipolar system be realized? Jungsoo Jang, The Hankyoreh�s executive editor, sat down with Moon Chung-in, professor of comparative politics and international relations at Yonsei University, to delve deeply into the global changes to come from the Obama era. Jungsoo Jang: The new diplomacy pursued by Obama will inevitably bring considerable geopolitical changes to Northeast Asia. Moon Chung-in: If you listen to Obama�s people, it seems that there will be particularly large changes in relations between the United States and North Korea. As they enter the third stage of the dismantlement of North Korea�s nuclear program, there is plenty of room for the possibility of normalization of relations between Washington and Pyongyang as a verification system is created and verifiable dismantlement takes place. So the threatening elements in North Korea will be reduced or disappear, and U.S. relations with China will improve so that all issues will proceed with cooperation between the United States and China, which will reduce the threat of China and take away the justifiability of the missile defense system pursued by the United States and Japan. Currently, the logic of responding to the threats of North Korea and China by strengthening the South Korea-U.S. alliance, as seen in the Lee Myung-bak administration, is losing strength. It could bring huge changes to the topography of foreign relations in Northeast Asia. If what Obama has been talking about so far is realized, Northeast Asia will become a much better region to live in, without the threat of war. [US NK policy] [US foreign policy]
• Obama and North Korea
  By Tong Kim For the incoming Obama administration, North Korea will not be the top priority foreign policy issue but it will certainly remain as one of the flash points around the world ? along with a few other hot spots, including Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, a Bush legacy that the next president will inherit on January 20. The North Korean nuclear issue is in a worse shape today and it will be much more challenging to deal with than eight years ago when President Bush took over from President Clinton. After Bush refused to follow Clinton's engagement path, North Korea significantly increased its plutonium stockpile, tested a nuclear bomb and announced itself a ``nuclear weapons state." [US NK policy]
• Setting a New Course with North Korea
  By K.A. Namkung and Leon V. Sigal
  November 12th, 2008 K.A. Namkung, Foreign Policy Adviser to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, and Leon V. Sigal, Director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council, write, �getting North Korea to reverse course now will not be easy, but a comprehensive approach is needed if the next administration is to give Pyongyang more of a stake in keeping deals. It also would give Washington its first real leverage: U.S. steps could be withheld if � and only if � Pyongyang does not follow through on its commitments.�
  North Korean agreement to resume disabling its plutonium program and allow verification of its plutonium production in return for being delisted as a state sponsor of terrorism is welcome news. Yet the deal once again prompts a troubling question: How can Washington avoid reacting under pressure from Pyongyang, especially when the process of denuclearization could take years to complete? Moreover, now that Kim Jong-il's health is at issue, why take chances that his successor might be less able to keep a nuclear deal or control North Korea's nuclear weapons and material? The answer to both questions is for Washington to put a bigger deal on the negotiating table now. Instead of the incremental approach taken so far, the new U.S. president needs to propose a comprehensive menu of sequenced actions toward a fundamentally new relationship with North Korea - political, economic and strategic. In return, Pyongyang needs to agree to satisfy international norms of behavior, starting with steps to stop exporting nuclear technology and eliminate its nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs (sic). It also needs to welcome full people-to-people relations signifying its willingness to join the rest of the world. [US NK policy]
• Obama's Top Three Foreign Policy Priorities
  FPIF Senior Analysts | November 7, 2008 Foreign Policy In Focus asked our senior analysts to identify the foreign policy priorities of the new Obama administration. Here's what they said:
  Christine Ahn
  Sign a peace treaty with North Korea. Removing the DPRK from the terrorist list is one small step, but economic sanctions and hostility drive relations between North Korea and the United States. Not only has North Korea signaled for decades its desire to have normalized peaceful relations with the United States, peaceful negotiations have been taking place between North and South Korea, a peninsula that was divided by the United States 60 years ago. Ongoing hostility with North Korea not only stands in the way of North Korea's economic development and human rights, it fuels growing militarism on the Korean peninsula, which is closing civil society space in the north and south, emboldening hawks on both sides, and sparking a new arms race in Northeast Asia. [US NK policy]
• N.Korea 'to Move Down Obama's Diplomatic Agenda'
  North Korea�s nuclear arms program is expected to occupy a less prominent place on Barack Obama�s agenda than on the current U.S. administration�s.
• Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis
  Reviewed by John Delury
  Posted November 7, 2008 Just eight years ago, North Korea�s nuclear program was frozen, its reclusive ruler was readying himself for a string of historic summits with the leaders of Russia, South Korea, and Japan, and some kind of lasting peace on the Korean peninsula seemed, if not imminent, then at least plausible. Most promising of all was that the East Asian powers were united in the cause of negotiating North Korea back into the international community. But by the end of 2006, North Korea was a proven nuclear power, had tripled its store of weapons-grade plutonium, and was withdrawing once again from the world. The regime was no nearer to collapse, nor the suffering of its people mitigated.
• (Unsolicited) Advice on Asia Policy for President-elect Obama
  by Ralph A. Cossa
  Ralph Cossa is president of the Pacific Forum CSIS (pacforum@hawaii.rr.com). Foreign policy bloggers and pundits are already gushing forth with advice for President-elect Obama. Allow me to add some of my own, at least as far as Asia policy is concerned. The first bit of more general advice is to remember that the United States only has one president at a time and, like it or not, that president is George W. Bush until Jan 20, 2009. I start with this reminder since many experts are already talking about things that President-elect Obama should be doing now to hit the ground running. But the most important thing he can do between now and January 20 is to do nothing that undermines the incumbent president�s ability to conduct foreign policy. One case in point is the suggestion by several no doubt well-intentioned security specialists that Obama immediately send a high-level emissary to North Korea to lay out his views on moving forward with Korean Peninsula denuclearization. Some have nominated former Defense Secretary William Perry for that task; others suggest a bipartisan team including Perry and either Henry Kissinger or Colin Powell, both former secretaries of state. IF sending an emissary was a good idea, any combination of the above three individuals would constitute a dream team. But, sending such an emissary now would be an extremely bad idea, as it would undercut the very important and sensitive efforts currently underway to get Pyongyang to agree in writing to the nuclear verification protocol that it has reportedly agreed upon in principle. It would instead give Pyongyang an excuse to do nothing for the next several months or longer, since it will no doubt take several months beyond inauguration day before Obama�s Asia team is fully in place and ready for negotiations.
  Rightly or wrongly, Pyongyang feels �betrayed� by the perceived failure of South Korean President Lee Myung Bak to live up to the (in my view overly generous and unrealistic) promises of his predecessor once he took office this past February. As a result, it will likely need some signal of Obama�s commitment to the current negotiating process before it proceeds with talks. [US NK policy]
• North Korea�s uncertain future
  Charles K Armstrong
  The rocky path towards international agreement over Pyongyang's nuclear plans reflects the calculations of a regime facing a mix of domestic economic challenges and political uncertainties, says Charles K Armstrong. 3 - 11 - 2008 The American baseball star Yogi Berra's maxim "it ain't over till it's over" seems tailor-made for North Korea. The deal to eliminate North Korea's nuclear programme, agreed among the members of the six-party talks (North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan) on 3 October 2007, was on the verge of collapse ten months later - only to get back on track in October 2008. Now, the election of Barack Obama as new United States president will raise hopes of further diplomatic progress; though the tortuous history of the past year alone suggests that nothing can be taken for granted. [US NK policy]
• U.S. to Withdraw 24 Attack Choppers from Korea
  The U.S. will withdraw one battalion of Apache helicopters to the mainland U.S. but replace them with 12 air-to-ground attack aircraft. The U.S. will also deploy two mine-sweeping MH-53E Sea Dragon helicopters and increase the frequency of operation of U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over North Korea, in addition to the A-10 aircraft known as "tank killers." [Military balance] [Espionage] [Legality]
• U.S. to deploy Apache battalion to Iraq and Afghanistan next year
  12 A-10 attack aircraft and two MH-53 helicopters will be sent as replacements, but it is not known for how long The United States announced plans to withdraw its battalion of Apache attack helicopters from South Korea to deploy it to Iraq and Afghanistan in March 2009.
• The New Administration and New Congress: impact on DPRK Policy
  This issue brief provides a short analysis of possible leadership structures and a chart of the administration and congressional positions that will be influential in shaping and implementing the new administration's DPRK policy. The chart will be updated as these positions are filled. (The National Committee on North Korea, Washington DC)
• NCNK Newsletter Vol. 1 No. 6: The DPRK and Track II Exchanges
  This newsletter reviews some of the more well-known Track II forums between the US and the DPRK.
• U.S. Envoy to Meet North Koreans in New York
  A senior U.S. diplomat will meet a North Korean foreign ministry delegation Thursday in New York to discuss the next steps for the six-party accord, under which Pyongyang is to end its nuclear program in return for aid and diplomatic benefits. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department that China is expected to convene a six-party heads of delegation meeting soon. State Department officials said U.S. special envoy for the six-party talks Sung Kim will meet a delegation headed by the North Korean foreign ministry's North American affairs director Ri Gun to discuss the way forward following last month's U.S.-North Korean agreement on verifying Pyongyang's nuclear program.
• Korea, Japan, U.S. to Step Up Joint Drills
  South Korea, Japan and the U.S. will drastically step up joint military drills. An officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday said Korea and the U.S. agreed at their 30th Military Committee Meeting in Washington on Oct. 16 on the need for security cooperation among Korea, the U.S. and Japan �to maintain regional stability.� The three countries will take part in joint military exercises organized by U.S. Pacific Command. The two countries seem determined to revive a tripartite security system that weakened during the previous administration in Korea. [Role US military] [Dissension] [Militarisation]
• North Korean Plane Was Grounded at U.S. Request
  India blocked a North Korean plane from delivering cargo to Iran in August, responding to a U.S. request based on fears about the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The secret action, described by Western and Asian officials, took place nine weeks before President George W. Bush removed North Korea from Washington's list of terrorism sponsors, as part of an agreement to declaw the North's nuclear program. U.S. diplomats say engaging North Korea is the best way to ensure its nuclear program doesn't grow more dangerous. But the August incident underscores concern about the Stalinist state's ties to America's foes across the globe. U.S. intelligence officials have said North Korea was helping Syria build a nuclear reactor until the site was bombed by Israel last year. Syria and North Korea reject the charge. According to the Western and Asian officials, the North Korean plane, an Ilyushin-62 long-range jet owned by the North Korean state airline, made a stop in Myanmar on Aug. 7 and sought permission from Indian air-traffic controllers to fly over Indian airspace. India eventually blocked the flight at Washington's behest, the officials said. [Imperialism] [Arms sales] [Double standards] [US India] [Legality]
• The U.S. presidential election and the S. Korean response
  Lee Jong-seok, former Minister of Unification [Column]
  Right when I arrived in the United States two months ago a considerable number of Korean experts were saying there wouldn�t be any major differences between U.S. Republican Party candidate John McCain and Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama on issues relating to the Korean Peninsula. Both would be strict about the North Korean nuclear issue, and many predicted that even if McCain were to win, he would be more flexible than the neocons who controlled American foreign policy up through the first half of the Bush administration. In the course of the presidential debates, however, we learn that the two differ more than had been assumed. Seeing the continuously intense debate over what form dialogue should take -- something that is a basic part of diplomacy -- it occurred to me, for one, that depending on who becomes the next president of the United States, the world could either become a more peaceful place or it could become more tumultuous because of the restless recklessness of this superpower.

• U.S. Renews Call for N.Korea Military Action Plan
  U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has thrown his weight behind renewed calls from the U.S. to turn a conceptual scheme to deal with sudden contingencies in North Korea into a concrete action plan. Conplan 5029, long on the shelves because the previous South Korean government felt it interfered with sovereignty issues, is once again on the cusp of being turned into an operational plan. A government source on Tuesday said Gates� call came at the 40th bilateral Security Consultative Meeting in Washington on Oct. 17 to Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee. Conplan 5029, formulated in 1999, is a contingency plan for five kinds of scenarios, including anarchy or a civil war in North Korea in the wake of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's death or a coup.
• The Race to De-Nuclearize North Korea
  Scott Bruce | October 21, 2008 While speculation over Kim Jong-Il's health has dominated headlines, the real issue in North Korea (also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK), remains the country's nuclear program. It's possible to end the DPRK's ability to produce plutonium in a matter of months. Policymakers in the U.S. and North Korea can either act now to make a decisive deal that will support the long-term interests of both countries or let the months of effort invested in the nuclear deal go down as another in a long line of missed opportunities to improve security in Northeast Asia.
  Finding terms agreeable to both North Korea and the United States has been an obstacle in the negotiation process, but perhaps more vexing has been the inability of policymakers within the United States to agree on a negotiating strategy. Administration officials have been divided between hard-line and more pragmatic forces [US NK policy] [Dissension]
• Chomsky Lashes Out at Korean Military's Book Ban
  American linguist Noam Chomsky severely has criticized South Korea's Defense Ministry for imposing a ban on so-called "disturbing books," including his own, saying the move violates the country's hard-won democracy, according to a Web site. The ministry would have to be renamed "the Ministry of Defense against Freedom and Democracy," Chomsky said in an email to Playground for Disturbing Book Readers (http://cafe.daum.net/bullnori), a Korean online community for opponents of the book ban. [Human rights]
• USFK refuses to share costs
  2008.10.17 12:35 U.S. Forces Korea has refused to share the expenses the Korean government was forced to pay for lawsuits involving U.S. military activities, the Justice Ministry said yesterday. Seoul requested that USFK pay some 12.2 billion won ($9.8 million) in costs it incurred while compensating Korean residents claiming to have suffered damage due to U.S. troop bases here. [Friction]
• Too Close? Lawmakers Clash Over Ties with the U.S.
  Lawmakers from the ruling and the opposition parties disagreed on the North Korean nuclear weapons issue in a parliamentary audit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. While opposition lawmakers argued the government�s one-sided diplomacy heavily leaning on the United States made the situation worse, ruling legislators insisted that South Korea needs to react to the North in closer cooperation with the U.S.
• Lee Wants to Delay Reclaiming Wartime Control From US
  By Na Jeong-ju Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak appears to be having second thoughts over reclaiming wartime operational control of South Korean forces from the United States by 2012, according to indications from the 100-policy goals the conservative administration finalized Tuesday. [Sovereignty]
• The King from the East: DPRK-Syria-Iran Nuclear Nexus and Strategic Implications for Israel and the ROK*
  by Christina Y. Lin In the field of international security, relatively few connections have been made between the Korean peninsula and the Middle East. In her paper, Dr. Christina Lin highlights the link between the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula and nuclear issues in the Middle East, focusing on the DPRK-Syria-Iran axis and ramifications for Israel and the ROK specifically and for the United States more broadly. In doing so, Dr. Lin reframes the debate on the current nuclear stalemate on the Korean peninsula and even includes policy recommendations for the United States and its allies in mitigating the tensions and risks of a nuclear arms race in Asia and the Middle East.
• S.Korean Conservatives Slam Bush's N.Korea Policy
  Conservative on Wednesday condemned Washington�s North Korea Policy. Grand National Party lawmaker Chung Mong-joon likened Washington�s removal of North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism to �a second Acheson declaration," after U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson, who in the 1950s declared that Korea was outside America's defense perimeter. And lawmaker Song Young-sun of the splinter Pro-Park Geun-hye Alliance said, "President (George W.) Bush will give in to the tactics of Kim Jong-il, whom he used to call evil.� The attacks came in an audit of the Foreign Ministry by the National Assembly Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee on Wednesday. Lawmakers from the GNP and the alliance as well as the Liberty Forward Party said the delisting of the North shows that the U.S. government has failed in talks on the North's denuclearization and is willing to jettison security on the Korean Peninsula." It was a marked departure from conservative insistence until very recently on strengthening the Korea-U.S. alliance and combating anti-American sentiment here.
• Vietnam War Memorial Hall Opens Near DMZ
  A Vietnam War veterans memorial village will be dedicated on Thursday in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, where a total of 300,000 Korean troops underwent training prior to their departure for Indochina in the 1960s and 70s. Weapons used during the undeclared U.S. war will be put on display, and a Vietnamese village and a replica of the network of tunnels used by the victorious Vietcong as their hiding spots and communication and supply routes will be on display. The training camp was built in spring 1965 to prepare troops for combat in Vietnam. That year, more than 90 percent of troops underwent training here prior to their departure. About 30 years after the war ended, all facilities except the skeleton of a cinder block mess hall, have been removed and turned into a farmland. [Imperialism]
• DPRK's Stand on All Forms of Terrorism Reiterated
  Pyongyang, October 16 (KCNA) -- A DPRK delegate clarified the view of his delegation on the anti-terror struggle, addressing the meeting of the 6th Committee of the 63rd UN General Assembly which discussed the agenda item "Measure for combating international terrorism" held on October 8. Underlining the need to pay special attention to eradicating state-sponsored terrorism at an early date, he noted that the U.S. forces' armed invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq and their continued "anti-terrorism war" in those countries are typical examples of terrorism committed by state armed forces. He stressed the need for the international community to keep high vigilance against the dangerous terrorism by the state army and conduct all anti-terrorism activities in such a way as to serve the purpose and principle of the UN Charter and respect international law under any circumstances, centering around the UN. He also emphasized the need not to allow some specified states to use the anti-terrorism struggle as leverage for seeking their political and economic purposes in any case. In order to remove the root cause of terrorism it is necessary to direct primary efforts to eradicating the social inequality and poverty while establishing the fair international relations of mutual respect, equality, friendship and cooperation whereby all countries and nations can fully exercise their rights to live and develop independently, he said, and went on: The DPRK government has consistently maintained the firm stand of opposing all forms of terrorism and support of any form to them and will fulfill its responsibility and duty as a member state of the UN to eradicate the root cause of all forms of terrorism and build a peaceful, stable and prosperous world, guided by the idea of its foreign policy of independence, peace and friendship in the future, too. [Terrorism]
• U.S. Ambition for World Supremacy Blasted
  Pyongyang, October 20 (KCNA) -- The U.S. has recently staged the first test flight of B-52H equipped with laser-controlled guided missiles. This missile is the latest-type weapon called "juggler" which has been improved on the basis of the experience gained from the armed conflicts and others since its first use in the 1960s. Rodong Sinmun Monday in a signed commentary carried in this regard observes that the test flight of the above-said strategic bomber is a product of the U.S. policy of strength and its wild ambition for supremacy. [Imperialism] [Military balance]
• The Candidates on North Korea Policy
  September 30, 2008
  Democratic Ticket Barack Obama Joseph R. Biden Jr. Republican Ticket John McCain For much of the Bush administration�s tenure, the White House took an uncompromising approach to Pyongyang and, in 2002, President Bush listed North Korea in the �Axis of Evil� along with Iran and Iraq during his 2002 State of the Union address. Washington refused to hold bilateral negotiations with the North, opting instead for Six-Party Talks to try to control tensions on the Korean peninsula. In the months after North Korea conducted an October 2006 nuclear test, the administration shifted position, signing a February denuclearization deal and holding bilateral meetings. In June 2008, North Korea handed over an account of its nuclear program to Chinese officials as part of the Six-Party Talks. The Bush administration responded by lifting the provisions of the Trading with the Enemy Act and moving to remove North Korea from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The remaining 2008 presidential candidates have responded to changing circumstances in the U.S.-North Korea relationship with caution, and advise sanctions to be kept in place if North Korea fails to meet its obligations under the Six-Party Agreement.
• The Philharmonic: Strong but Showy
  By Anne Midgette Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, October 6, 2008; Page C01 The New York Philharmonic often plays with the insouciance of a society belle: projecting an expensive elegance, purring, "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful" over an exquisite shoulder.
  Maazel's tenure with the Philharmonic has been decent but unspectacular. He is a brilliant technician, but despite some notable highlights such as the concert in Pyongyang, North Korea, on the orchestra's Asian tour earlier this year, the orchestra has not done much to stake out its claim to a place in the forefront of New York's cultural life.. �
• After Kim Jong-il
  By Peter M. Beck October 7th, 2008 Peter M. Beck, Professor at American University in Washington, D.C., writes, �there is a much greater likelihood that the North will come to resemble Burma rather than South Korea or China. A collective leadership system dominated by the military will likely emerge. However, it could be months or even years before the North�s elites sort out who is in and who is out of the new ruling junta. The military will clearly be in the driver�s seat. The only question is whether it will use a member of the Kim Royal Family as a hood ornament.�
• 50 Warships on Display at Int�l Fleet Review in Busan
  Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS George Washington, arrives at the Busan harbor, Monday, to participate in the 2008 International Fleet Review which opened in the southeastern port city of Busan, Sunday. A fleet of over 50 warships from the South Korean Navy and 12 other nations are on display. / Korea Times By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter A fleet of over 50 warships from the South Korean Navy and 12 other nations will be on display Tuesday during the 2008 International Fleet Review in the waters off Busan, a government official said Monday. The naval festival opened Sunday for a five-day run to commemorate the 60th founding anniversary of the nation's armed forces. � [Military balance]
• U.S. carrier in South Korea, likely to irk North
  Reuters Monday, October 6, 2008; 5:08 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier group arrived in South Korean waters on Monday for a visit likely to upset prickly North Korea, which has said it sees such events as military provocations that undermine nuclear disarmament talks. The visit of the USS George Washington came after the United States sent a senior diplomat to North Korea last week in a last-ditch attempt to save a crumbling disarmament-for-aid-deal and stop Pyongyang from rebuilding its nuclear-arms plant. The carrier group was anchored just outside the southern port of Busan for an international fleet exhibit, South Korean navy officials said. It will come into port on Tuesday and leave on Friday. When the USS Ronald Reagan carrier group visited South Korea in July, the North's official media said the United States "was deliberately aggravating the situation." U.S. military officials said it was a routine visit. [Military balance]
• Korean Military Map Indicates East Sea as Sea of Japan
  Amid the recent whirlpool of controversy over Japan�s territorial claim over Dokdo, the South Korean Army is under fire for using a map that mistakenly indicates East Sea as Sea of Japan, MBC reported. The map, distributed by the Korea Army Mapping Center (KAMC), was based on the maps used by the U.S. National Imagery and Mapping Agency, which indicate East Sea as Sea of Japan. The map by KAMC was produced in 2005 in Korea and some 600 copies were distributed to military units, which have been using it for the last three years. The U.S. map also indicates Mt. Baekdu in North Korea as the Chinese "Chang Bai Shan," which was again copied by the Korean military map without correction. [US dominance]
• The odd couple
  Sep 25th 2008 From The Economist print edition Koreans want their international standing to match the south�s economic success. They may have to wait until the peninsula is unified, says Dominic Ziegler (interviewed here) AP AT THE heart of North-East Asia sits a failed state with the worst human-rights record on Earth. The regime maintains its grip by putting one in 20 of its population in military uniform. One in 40 has spent time in the gulag. Mobile phones and the internet are forbidden, except for the elite, and radio and television sets are made to tune only to government stations. Unauthorised travel within the country is banned, at least in principle. Food shortages are chronic, and a decade ago the regime�s malign neglect created a famine that killed between 600,000 and 1m people. The famine still casts a long shadow, and not just through malnutrition and stunted growth; recent studies of refugees have pieced together a picture of a population that, in wide swathes, remains traumatised�and there are fears that famine conditions might be returning. [Media]
• Roh Counsels Against Stress on Alliance with U.S.
  Former president Roh Moo-hyun on Wednesday counseled against betting everything on Korea�s alliance with the U.S. For the sake of peaceful unification of the two Korea�s "it will be good not to lay stress on the Seoul-Washington alliance as a way to deter North Korea," Roh said in a lecture to mark the first anniversary of the Oct. 4, 2007 Inter-Korean Summit Declaration. "If you try to show off Seoul-Washington-Tokyo relations of cooperation by dragging Japan (into the alliance), it will only cause uncomfortable relations with China and Russia as well as with North Korea," he added. Former president Roh Moo-hyun delivers a special lecture at an event to commemorate the first anniversary of the Oct. 4, 2007 Summit Declaration in Seoul on Wednesday. Turning to the contingency plans for North Korea dubbed Operation Plan 5027 and 5029, Roh said North Korea and China "probably both have misgivings about those plans." He pointed out that the plans did not materialize during his term "because we rejected the U.S. suggestions."
• North Korea Update: The Possibilities of a Re-Nuclearized and Leaderless North
  by Nicole Finnemann (nmf@keia.org)
• Nothing Succeeds Like Succession?
  By Scott Thomas Bruce September 30th, 2008 Scott Thomas Bruce, Director of US Operations at the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco which is affiliated with the USF Center for the Pacific Rim, writes, �Removing North Korea from the list of terror sponsoring nations no longer offers a way forward� The Bush Administration could send one or both of George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter to meet with Kim Jong Il and put together the icebreaker� It would also make the overture bipartisan in US presidential politics, thereby signaling the gravity with which the US views the situation in the DPRK. Incidentally, it would also force the DPRK leadership to produce Kim Jong Il or admit that he is in bad shape.� [Bizarre] [US NK policy] [Terrorism List]
• DMZ Forum Examines Road Ahead for Two Koreas
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter Some 200 Korea analysts from around the world gathered at the COEX conference hall in Seoul last week for the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) Peace Forum, an annual international conference. The occasion brought together some of the leading Korea scholars and historians who shared their perspectives on the region's past and what may lie in store for the two divided nations. A prominent Korea specialist, Robert Scalapino, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, offered in his keynote speech last Thursday a grim forecast for the reclusive North. In a speech titled ``Peace and Stability in Northeast Asia-Future Prospects," Scalapino observed, ``All indications are that North Korea is again headed toward a serious food crisis due to a combination of flawed policies, bad weather, and reduced external assistance."
• Bush, McCain and North Korea
  By Nicholas D. Kristof September 29, 2008, 6:59 pm If you go through the thread of comments on my Sunday column arguing that McCain would be a risky bet for president, you�ll see a number of conservatives who indignantly complain that I have it all wrong. They say that the Clinton approach to North Korea failed because North Korea cheated and secretly made nuclear weapons. That�s a widespread fallacy that is used to justify hawkish views, including McCain�s, so let�s clarify what happened. First, remember that there are two paths to nuclear weapons, uranium and plutonium. North Korea�s efforts have mainly been with plutonium. In the late 1980�s/early 1990�s, North Korea first extracted enough plutonium from its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon to make one or two nuclear weapons. That was in the administration of the first President Bush. Then during the early years of the Clinton administration, North Korea prepared to remove more cooling rods and could have made another couple of nuclear weapons. The result was the 1994 crisis in which McCain thought that war was inevitable, and indeed Clinton came very close to bombing Yongbyon. But at the end of the day, the U.S. and Pyongyang reached the Agreed Framework, in which North Korea froze its plutonium production under international inspection. Thus by all accounts, North Korea didn�t extract any plutonium during the eight Clinton years and didn�t make a single nuclear weapon. It is true that North Korea MAY HAVE cheated by trying to set up a second path toward nuclear weapons, involving enriching uranium. We know that North Korea imported some equipment that would have been used for enriching uranium, and when confronted in the fall of 2002, North Korea seemed to admit that it had something going on. But we don�t know if there was ever a formal program launched, and there�s zero evidence that a weapon was actually made. The intelligence community believes it wasn�t. So, yes, North Korea probably cheated on the agreement, but not in a serious way that produced a weapon (and the U.S. didn�t fully implement the agreement, either). But the George W. Bush administration abandoned the Agreed Framework, and North Korea then pulled out its plutonium fuel rods and made about six bombs. If there was a uranium program, it still hasn�t produced any weapons. So the upshot was that North Korea produced 1-2 weapons in the George H.W. Bush administration, 0 in the eight years of Clinton, and about 6 in the eight years of George W. Bush. That makes the Clinton policy of negotiation with North Korea look pretty successful, and the hard-line policies of Bush 43 horrific. So for us the question is: Do we pursue negotiations as Clinton did to avoid nuclear proliferation, and as Obama would like to do? Or do we purse confrontation as Bush did, catastrophically, continuing with the hard-line McCain policy? [HEU] [US NK Policy] [Admission] �
• � Short North Koreans . . . and Americans
  September 29, 2008, 7:12 am During the first presidential debate, Senator John McCain called North Korea a "repressive brutal regime," comparing life there to living in a prison camp. And then he summoned a bizarre statistic, saying that the average South Korean is three inches taller than the average North Korean. Mr. McCain is correct that there appears to be a growing gap in height between North and South Koreans, likely due to poor nutrition and impoverished living conditions. Studies of escapees from North Korea show that those born after the partitioning of the Korean Peninsula in the North were consistently about two inches shorter than their counterparts in the South, according to a 2004 report in Economics and Human Biology. While the conditions for North Koreans are troubling, Americans have a similar height gap to worry about, and it also appears to be due to a lower standard of living, poor health care and inadequate nutrition. Last summer, the journal Social Science Quarterly reported that Americans are, quite literally, falling short of Europeans. In 1880, Americans were the tallest people in the world. But by 2000, American men, at an average height of 5-feet-10.5-inches, ranked 9th, and women, at about 5-feet-5-inches, fell to 15th. Several Northern European countries rank the highest in height, with the Dutch coming in first, at just over 6 feet for the men and 5-feet-7-inches for the women.

• McCain Aide Urges to Strengthen Soft Power
  � Michael J. Green By Kang Hyun-kyung Staff Reporter South Korea will benefit from increasing its foreign aid and playing a more active role in the regional and international community, U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain's foreign policy advisor observed Thursday. In a speech at the National Assembly, Michael J. Green, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) based in Washington D.C., said Korea can also play a role in helping China improve its transparency. [China confrontation]
• UN Resolution Against N.Korea Still in Effect: FM
  Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan on Wednesday said, North Korea's restoration of its nuclear reprocessing facility means that it is returning to the days after its nuclear test in October 2006 and before the Feb. 13, 2007 agreement. "UN Security Council resolution 1718 against the North is still effective." Meeting reporters at the Korean Embassy in Washington, Yu said, "North Korea continues to restore the disabled nuclear facility at Yongbyon and to offend against the denuclearization process, posing a serious obstacle to six-party talks." Yu suggested that if North Korea puts the reprocessing plant back into operation, the currently dormant UNSC resolution will apply. The resolution, which was adopted on Oct. 14, 2006 right after North Korea's nuclear test, urges all UN member states to freeze North Korea�s financial assets related to development of weapons of mass destruction, ban exports of products with dual military and civilian use and luxury goods to the North, and ban North Korean officials involved in the development of WMDs. [Sanctions] [UNUS]
• The Coming Crisis
  by Victor Cha
  A confluence of forces leads one to believe that the North Korean regime will come under severe stress in the near future, and will respond to this by creating a new crisis. First, diplomacy related to the six-party talks has reached a potential tipping point. What I mean by this is that both good and bad scenarios coming out of the current six-party talks will invariably put stress on Pyongyang. The bad scenario is fairly straightforward: if Pyongyang balks at fulfilling its end of the agreement, this is likely to cause an Obama or McCain administration to implement tighter sanctions, reactivate UN Security Council Resolution 1718, and pursue other types of financial measures. The underlying rationale would be that after two decades of negotiating with North Korea, requiring unusual flexibility and demonstrations of political will by both the Clinton administration and the (second) Bush administration, Pyongyang would have shown its unwillingness to denuclearize. The fault for the failed negotiations would therefore lie at the feet of Pyongyang and no one else, which would compel regional partners to consider an alternate tougher course of action. [Inversion] [US NK policy]
• US House Approves Seoul's Preferential Arms Purchase
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday aimed at helping South Korea purchase American weapons systems cheaper and faster in order to strengthen the Korea-U.S. alliance, as well as increase interoperability between the two countries' militaries. The legislation calls for raising Seoul's status in the foreign military sales (FMS) program involving government-to-government sales of defense products. Under the bill, South Korea will be granted the same status as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and three FMS-favored nations ? Australia, Japan and New Zealand. [Military balance] [Arms sales]
• 230,000 Koreans Illegally Staying in United States
  By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter Approximately 230,000 undocumented Koreans were residing in the United States as of January 2007, according to a report ``Illegal Alien Resident Population�� by the U.S. Homeland Security. The number of illegal Koreans has decreased by some 20,000 from a year earlier, yet Korea was the 7th largest country with illegal aliens in America.
• Rights Groups Urge Countries to Establish Ties with NK
  International human rights groups such as the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights called for nations, which don�t have diplomatic relations with North Korea, to move to set up a diplomatic compound in Pyongyang so as to effectively "intervene" in matters of North Korean human rights and humanitarian issues, Yonhap reported Saturday.
• S. Korea Confirms Troop Pullout From Iraq by Year-End
  South Korea will pull all its troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, the Defense Ministry said Friday, dismissing recent reports that Seoul's new conservative government may request the National Assembly to approve another one-year extension in its efforts to improve ties with the United States
• Seoul, Washington 'Have no Plan' for Life After Kim Jong-il
  Newsweek magazine on Saturday said quoting North Korea experts that Washington and Seoul "have no real contingency plans if Pyongyang implodes." In the story headlined "The Plan Post-Kim: No Plan" Newsweek quotes Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Kookmin University, as saying, "The South Koreans don't want to touch it, and the U.S. takes its lead from the South."
• Korea, U.S. to Stage Huge Marine Landing Drill
  Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, is reportedly planning the largest-ever joint landing exercise in November involving some 10,000 South Korean and U.S. marine troops. An officer with the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command on Monday said on July 28, during his first visit to command of the Korean Marine Corps, Gen. Sharp ordered a U.S. marine regiment stationed in Okinawa to take part in the annual Hoguk exercise to be staged by the Korean military in early November. Two South Korean marine regiments and one U.S. marine company participated in the same exercise in 2007. If a U.S. marine regiment joins the Korean marines as Sharp has planned, the upcoming drill will be the first division-level joint landing exercise bringing some 10,000 troops from both countries together. A marine officer said, "I understand Gen. Sharp is pursuing the amphibious exercise in the belief that we need to demonstrate to North Korea that division-level combined forces are capable of conducting such a large-scale operation. Gen. Sharp said he will inspect the landing exercise himself." But the officer said how many U.S. marines and how much equipment will take part is still under discussion. "It's hard to say anything definite at the moment because there are a lot of things to take into consideration, including inter-Korean relations," he said. The Hoguk Exercise is a large scale field maneuver drill staged since 1996 under the supervision of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to enhance the capacity of corps-level operations and improve combined combat and operational capabilities. [Joint US military] [Dissension]
• Debate intensifies over revival of operational military plan
  Critics say plan�s implementation could violate S. Korea�s sovereignty or lead to war with N. Korea and China
  � Choi Hyung-sun, who has been displaced from Hwanghye Province in North Korea, along with his wife, adds the wish that he can one day meet his North Korean brothers and sisters at a fence bordering the demilitarized zone at Imjingak, Gyeonggi Province, on September 15. With Kim Jong-il�s health still in question, South Korea and the United States have revived discussions about OPLAN 5029, though there are concerns that its implementation could lead North Korea or China into war. The debate surrounding the resurrection of OPLAN 5029, a military contingency plan for sudden changes in North Korea, is resurfacing. � Some Grand National Party lawmakers and the conservative media are claiming that South Korea absolutely must prepare military measures in preparation for the collapse of the North Korean regime. Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee, too, told the National Assembly�s Defense Committee on September 11 that contingency plans were being developed, and that the relevant government ministries and agencies were closely cooperating. This shed light on the possibility the government would again begin to push OPLAN 5029. � There is strong criticism, however, that OPLAN 5029 is a dangerous idea that includes both arguments for a U.S.-led preemptive strike on North Korea and the occupation of North Korea. Critics say one must reexamine the reasons why the National Security Council suspended South Korea-U.S. talks on OPLAN 5029 in 2005, citing the violation of South Korean sovereignty and the possibility of provoking North Korea and China into a war on the Korean Peninsula. They say OPLAN 5029 is as dangerous now as it was then. [Sovereignty] [Legality] [Friction] �
• S. Korea, US Planning Massive Marine Exercise
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korea and the United States are considering holding a large-scale amphibious exercise using their Marines later this year to demonstrate their joint military capability, a military source said Sunday. The exact date and scale for the exercise have yet to be decided, but, if held, it is expected to test the allies' division-level landing capability, said the source. ``Preparatory teams from both the South Korean and U.S. Marine Corps have been consulting on the schedule, location and scale for the upcoming joint landing exercise, but nothing has been fixed yet,'' the source said on condition of anonymity. If held, the exercise is expected to take place early November as part of the annual ``Hoguk Exercise,'' he added. [Joint US military] [Dissension]
• USFK Chief Orders Largest-ever Marine Drill
  Gen. Walter Sharp, the commander of U.S. Forces Korea and the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), has ordered the combined forces of the two countries to conduct the largest-ever landing exercise involving the entire U.S. marine forces stationed in Japan later this year, Yonhap News reported quoting a military source. The top U.S. general in South Korea has already ordered a temporary deployment of the regiment-size 31st U.S. Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) based in Japan's Okinawa for the joint exercise, according to the source. Seoul, however, apparently remains lukewarm about what will be the largest amphibious exercise in history as it believes such a large-scale military drill could further chill its relations with communist North Korea, according to officials at the Defense Ministry. The U.S. general has the wartime command of all South Korean and U.S. forces stationed here. [Joint US military] [Sovereignty] [Dissension]
• 'Washington Doesn�t Want to Lose Kim Jong-il'
  By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter For the United States, which has described North Korea as an ``axis of evil,'' the alleged bad health of Kim Jong-il, the dictator who has fattened himself but starved his people, may be good news. However, Washington ironically does not want to lose the North Korean leader because of a possible power gap regarding the control of nuclear weapons, the New York Times reported Sunday.
• UNDP May Resume Operations in N.Korea Next Year
  The United Nations Development Programme could soon resume operations in North Korea. According to South Korean diplomatic sources at the UN headquarters in New York, the UNDP's five-step roadmap was approved by the agency's executive board at an informal meeting Wednesday. Sources say funding could resume early next year. Initial UNDP operations came to an abrupt halt in March 2007, amid rumors that Pyongyang was misusing funds. Arirang News
• S. Korea and U.S. restart discussion on contingency plans for N. Korea
  Possibility that joint military operation plan could be revived raises controversy over what some say are its inherent dangers With South Korea and the United States reportedly discussing military measures to deal with a sudden change in North Korea, there is concern that this is the rebirth of OPLAN 5029, discussion of which had been suspended following past controversy. � Initially, South Korea and the United States had formulated in 1997 a conceptual plan called CONPLAN 5029 as an allied blueprint to deal with sudden changes in North Korea. CONPLAN posited five kinds of sudden changes -- civil war, natural disasters, a mass exodus of refugees, the kidnapping of South Korean citizens and loss of control over weapons of mass destruction -- and outlined responses for each scenario. Seoul and Washington entered discussions to turn CONPLAN 5029, the basic scenario of its successor, OPLAN 5029, into an execution-use OPLAN, but in 2005, under the Roh Moo-hyun administration, Korea asked that the discussion be suspended due to concern the plan would violate South Korea�s national sovereignty. [Sovereignty]
• We May Miss Kim Jong-il (and Maybe Musharraf)
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: September 13, 2008 WASHINGTON � Last week, when the news filtered out of the black hole of North Korea that Kim Jong-il likely suffered a stroke in August, no one in the Bush administration rushed out to buy a get-well-soon card. This is, after all, a man President Bush has described as a "tyrant," a dictator who starves his own people, and, according to some Senators, a "pygmy" � the biggest insult for a guy who keeps a lot of elevator shoes in the presidential closet in Pyongyang.
  But whatever names he is called, there was a surprising ambivalence in official Washington about the news � more than a whiff of reluctance, in fact, to lose Mr. Kim at the helm just now. This was true especially among intelligence officials, who wake up every day worried about what happens when states implode, and whether there will be a free-for-all for their weapons.
• No change in McCain�s message
  [Editorial] The United States presidential election has begun in full now that the Republican National Convention has come to a close with Senator John McCain�s acceptance speech as the Republican candidate for president.
  Of particular concern would be his policy on North Korea. He made no mention of Pyongyang in his acceptance speech, but the Republican Party�s platform defines the North as a �maniacal� state and says it will not stop demanding of it that it disassemble its nuclear programs through �complete, verifiable, and irreversible� means. We have seen well enough over the past eight years, however, how that kind of approach to North Korea has failed. It led to lost opportunities for peace and the unparalleled situation we have in the North possessing nuclear weapons. Even the Bush administration eventually gave up on its earlier policies and turned to dialogue with the North, and it made some degree of progress in dismantling those nuclear weapons as a result. If the Republican Party were to now return to the approach of the past, the Korean Peninsula could again be sent to the netherland of confrontation and suffering. That is something we cannot accept. [US NK policy]
• What Biden can do for peace on the peninsula
  [Editorial] United States Democratic Party candidate for president Barak Obama has chosen fellow senator Joseph Biden as his running mate. In announcing his choice, Obama said Biden is someone who is ready for the presidency and is a �rare� candidate who represents change and experience. He said Biden will work with him to, he said, put America back on track.
  What is of interest to us in Korea is that Biden is knowledgeable about Korean issues like the North Korean nuclear issue and the U.S.-Korea alliance. He has consistently criticized the hard-line policies of the Bush administration towards Pyongyang and emphasizes the need for dialogue. At one point he considered visiting the North to promote a resolution to the nuclear issue. One has hope, therefore, that he will contribute to a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula. The nuclear issue is the biggest obstacle to peace on the peninsula, and its ultimate resolution is closely connected to improving U.S.-North Korean relations. Obama says he does not exclude the possibility of having direct dialogue with the leader of North Korea. We hope that together with Biden he will help to eradicate all that remains of the Cold War between North and South and presents a new policy towards the Korean Peninsula, one that offers U.S. support for peaceful coexistence.
• 40 years after capture, USS Pueblo crew reunites
  By WILSON RING The Associated Press Saturday, September 6, 2008; 2:09 PM JERICHO, Vt. -- Ralph McClintock expected only a three-week mission when he boarded the USS Pueblo in January 1968. Instead, he and his shipmates became pawns in a Cold War sideshow when North Korea captured the Navy spy ship and imprisoned its 82 crew members. Some still suffer the physical effects of torture or malnutrition they suffered in 11 months of captivity. [Espionage]

• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Assails U.S.-S. Korea Joint Military Exercises
  Pyongyang, August 20 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA Wednesday as regards the DPRK-targeted joint military exercises being staged by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet authorities: As already reported, the U.S. and the south Korean puppet authorities launched Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises in all areas of south Korea on August 18. The exercises they launched under the pretext of "coping with emergency on the Korean Peninsula" are a clear proof of the hostile policy toward the DPRK and the north-south confrontational policy pursued by the U.S. and the south Korean puppet authorities as they are war maneuvers targeted against the DPRK from A to Z. [Joint US military]
• Pyongyang Seeks Membership in International Lenders
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter North Korea asked the United States to fully support its joining international financial organizations during recent negotiations over a mechanism to verify the North's nuclear weapons program, a report said Monday. Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded private radio station, quoted an unidentified U.S. expert on North Korean affairs as saying that Pyongyang has asked Washington to help it become a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). [Sanctions]
• 'N. Korean Attack Will Lead to Reunification'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter If North Korea attacked South Korea, the communist state would be defeated and the two Koreas would be reunified eventually, the commander of the Eighth U.S. Army here said. ``There is no doubt, if the North Koreans decide to cause trouble, what the outcome will be. No doubt at all,'' Lt. Gen. Joseph Fil Jr. was quoted by the Stars and Stripes as saying. The remarks, made during an orientation Friday for U.S. Department of Defense Dependents Schools teachers new to South Korea, came ahead of the start of a large-scale computerized joint military exercise by South Korean and U.S. troops Monday. The five-day Ulchi Freedom Guardian is aimed at evaluating and improving interoperability between the two forces. South Korea leads this year's exercise, formerly known as Ulchi Focus Lens, for the first time to prepare for its takeover of wartime operational control of its troops from the U.S. military in 2012. To that end, the two sides are to run separate operational commands led by Gen. Kim Tae-young, chairman of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea. Sharp concurrently serves as chief of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command. About 56,000 South Korean troops and 10,000 American troops will take part in the command and control, war-fighting exercise, according to the JCS. [balance] [Threat] [Joint US military]
• Anti-U.S. beef campaign struck with 10 arrests
  August 14, 2008 Striking back against the recent series of anti-U.S. beef protests that nearly paralyzed the nation, police arrested one of the suspected leaders of the rallies yesterday. Police also nabbed nine people they say were responsible for posting on the Web the personal information of a group of business owners who filed a suit against a demonstration-organizing group. [Human rights]
• Vietnam's Model for North Korea
  Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Foreign Policy Fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes, �Our real carrots are not taking North Korea off terrorism and enemy watch lists; doing so provides little direct benefit to the reclusive regime. The carrots are aid, trade, investment and diplomatic contact. We need a strategy for how to offer these enticements to leaders in Pyongyang.� [Vietnam model] [US NK policy] [Partisan] [Inversion]
• U.S. Democrats Support Rights in N.Korea
  The U.S. Democratic Party stresses human rights in North Korea, denuclearization and the importance of the South Korea-U.S. alliance in a draft national platform to be adopted by a convention scheduled for Aug. 25 that will also nominate Barack Obama as its presidential candidate.
• Dangerous Islands: Japan, Korea, and the United States
  Alexis Dudden The United States government has landed itself in the middle of a major territorial dispute between Japan and Korea. On July 25, with astonishing lack of knowledge, an obscure branch of the American government called the U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) reversed fifty years of officially orchestrated avoidance concerning an ongoing battle between Japan and Korea. It decided that the United States would henceforth consider some tiny islands in the sea between them of �undesignated sovereignty.� What�s the problem? Why would our government�s neutrality about some barely inhabited islands roughly the size of Central Park that have been under effective Korean control for six decades lead to emergency mid-flight phone calls to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice as well as President George Bush�s subsequent personal reversal of the decision over specks of land most Americans have never heard of? The answer is straightforward. Although the story does not begin with the Bush administration, this administration has consistently acted so haphazardly that its officials often openly have no idea what they are doing, let alone that their actions might have dangerous consequences.
• U.S. to Sell Restricted Spy Aircraft to Korea
  The U.S. has notified the Korean government that it will sell it the Global Hawk high-altitude, long-endurance, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft after all. Government and military sources on Sunday said at the annual Security Policy Initiative in Washington in July, the U.S. government told Korea it will sell it the drone. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the U.S. declined several requests by the Korean government to sell the aircraft. But already in April, after the Lee Myung-bak administration was inaugurated, the U.S. informally notified Seoul there was a possibility it might sell the aircraft to Korea. Global Hawk is a strategic reconnaissance aircraft that can fly up to 3,500 to 4,000 km, stay in the sky for more than 36 hours, and identify a 30 cm object on the ground from 20 km above. Each aircraft costs US$45 million. Some dozen U.S. allies including Japan, Australia and Singapore have wanted to purchase the aircraft. But the U.S. has regularly declined. Overseas sales are prohibited under the Missile Technology Control Regime, a voluntary association of 33 countries, including Korea, that share the goal of non-proliferation of ballistic missiles and other unmanned delivery systems that could be used for chemical, biological and nuclear attacks. But according to sources, the U.S. has devised a new way not prohibited under the MTCR to sell the Global Hawk to Korea. � [Military balance] [Proliferation] [China confrontation]
• Lee, Bush Highlight Human Rights in N.Korea
  President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday highlighted human rights in North Korea when they "reaffirmed their commitment to improving the human rights situation" in the Stalinist country, a statement following their meeting said.
• Opportunities and Costs of the Alliance
  President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush met on Wednesday and agreed to advance the South Korea-U.S. alliance from the present scope of defending the Korean Peninsula to a relationship that contributes to global peace and prosperity.
• Lee�s relations with the U.S. border on a dangerous dependence
  [Editorial] � The third U.S.-Korea summit since the inauguration of President Lee Myung-bak was held in Seoul on August 6. The joint statement clearly looks like effort was made at avoiding controversy, surely because of the ordeal over American beef and since U.S. President George W. Bush has but a few months left in office. Nevertheless, the substance of the summit shows you that Korea�s dependence on the United States is becoming ever more serious. � Most notable is the Lee administration�s two-faced attitude about North Korea policy. The joint statement mentions "President Lee�s recent proposal to resume inter-Korean dialogue and his initiative to help improve economic conditions for the North Korean people in the context of continued progress on denuclearization and offer a path for the two Koreas to live side-by-side in harmony and prosperity, opening the way to their eventual unification." That is close to lying, because rather than pursuing a way of harmony and prosperity, President Lee has been turning back inter-Korean relations significantly by ignoring the October 4 Summit Declaration and the June 15 Joint Statement. The joint statement says President Bush wholly supports President Lee�s proposal to resume inter-Korean dialogue. It is a distortion made to look as if Lee has been pursuing a "future-oriented" North Korea policy and the United States supports it. Instead of obsessing with American support, we would hope the administration actually will put North Korea policy on the right path. [SK US policy] [SK US relations]
• Rocks of Contention: Dokdo/Liancourt/Takeshima
  By Mindy Kotler
  August 5th, 2008 Mindy Kotler, director of Asia Policy Point (http://www.jiaponline.org ), a Washington-based nonprofit, membership research center studying the US policy relationship in science, security, history, and global issues with Japan and East Asia, writes, �The U.S. alliances with both Japan and South Korea are important. However, the U.S. should not be asked to choose sides or to mediate. But neither should Washington continue its condescending attitude that this issue represents a mere emotional Asian distraction. These views are embedded in Japan�s and Korea�s politic. At some point a mere call for calm may not be enough.�
• U.S. to press Korea on boosting troop levels in Afghanistan at summit
  S. Korea likely to be resistant due to last year�s hostage crisis and protests against U.S. beef U.S. President George W. Bush will reportedly ask that Korea send troops and police to Afghanistan when he meets with President Lee Myung-bak today. � The Associated Press reported that Dennis Wilder, White House National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs, said Monday (local time) during an in-flight press conference held on Air Force One that Bush would convince President Lee to take on greater responsibility in dealing with the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
• The uproar over Bush�s visit
  [Column] The whole country is in a flurry over U.S. President George W. Bush�s visit to Korea. As I write this there are protests opposing his visit and gatherings welcoming him in downtown Seoul, and I�m told on the news that the police are on high alert. The police say they are going to fight back with liquid tear gas-laced water cannons and color guns if protests turn "illegally violent." � Police declarations of war against the public are annoyingly repetitive, and this time around as well it looks like they have defined people who participate in candlelight protests as potential terrorists. To them it is a dichotomy; everyone is either a citizen or a rioter. Citizens laughed out loud saying, "Uh, we are citizens!" when the police told those participating in the candlelight protests that they were "threatening citizens� safety." What citizens were in need of police protection? There is such a thing as pseudocyesis, imagined pregnancy, so maybe this is like imagined citizens?
• Afghanistan on agenda at Korea-U.S. Seoul summit
  August 06, 2008 U.S. President George W. Bush, left, his daughter Barbara, center, and his wife Laura Bush arrive at a military airport in Seongnam, south of Seoul, yesterday evening. By Kim Seong-ryong A top United States administration official yesterday urged the South Korean military to play a greater role around the world to promote democracy, mentioning a possible Korean deployment to Afghanistan. �
• Rival demonstrations greet Bush arrival
  August 06, 2008 On the first day of U.S. President George W. Bush�s two-day visit to Seoul, tens of thousands of people gathered in downtown Seoul yesterday were divided into two sides: supporters and opponents. About 2,000 protesters yesterday took part in a candlelight vigil against lifting the ban on U.S. beef near Cheonggye Plaza. During last night�s rally, organized by the People�s Conference Against Mad Cow Disease, protesters chanted, "Korea-U.S. beef negotiation is not valid." "We are always disappointed with Lee�s policy toward the United States," said an official of the main organizer. Earlier in the day, some 300 college students staged a beef protest around 1 p.m. at the same plaza, saying renegotiation of the beef import deal with the U.S. is needed. But the day did not belong to beef protesters alone. Some 15,000 members of 347 pro-U.S. groups across the country, including the New Right National Union, Korea Veterans Association, and Korea Freedom League held their own assembly from 6:00 p.m. at nearby Seoul City Hall Plaza.
• Interview with Ha-Joon Chang, Professor of Economics at Cambridge University, on Free Trade and the U.S.-Korea FTA.
  Interviewed by Christine Ahn | published August 1, 2008
  Your book makes clear that free trade agreements between wealthier developed countries and poorer developing countries cause great poverty and institutionalize global inequality. But what about free trade agreements between the most powerful countries, like the United States, and relatively developed nations like South Korea, are they any better?
  Yes, my view is that the free trade agreements between countries at similar levels of development tend to be beneficial because it provides bigger markets, greater competition, and so on. When you have free trade agreements between rich countries and poor countries, you have bad effects. But [free trade agreement] is completely wrong dominated by the fact that it basically stops economic development in its tracks. Once you open up to competition from the United States, Switzerland and so on, there's no way you can develop better industries that will bring you higher income. Now then the practical question in Korea's case is whether Korea is at a similar level of development with the United States. If that is the case, it might actually be beneficial, but what the people often don't recognize is Koreans are, in this sense, full of themselves. They think "We are almost, not quite, but almost as rich as the United States and other rich countries," but forget that their income levels are basically 1/3 of the U.S. level. Recently the dollar has been falling and so Koreans think they have become richer than they actually are in dollar terms, but if you look at all the indicators�the level of income, productivity and manufacturing�basically, Koreans are at about the 1/3 level of the countries like the U.S. and Switzerland. Given that gap, I very much doubt that this will be beneficial for Korea because although there might be some stimulation in terms of greater competition except in areas like automobiles, electronics, ship building where Korea already has international competitiveness, most industries would be wiped out. [Globalisation] [FTA] [Development]
• 'Intel spin' by US hardliners sparked NKorean crisis: book
  1 day ago c4 August
  WASHINGTON (AFP) � In circumstances echoing the Iraq war controversy, hardliners in US President George W. Bush's administration spun intelligence and triggered a nuclear crisis with North Korea, says a new book to be released this week. Intelligence on a North Korea effort to acquire components for uranium enrichment was politicized to depict the hardline communist state running a full-fledged production facility capable of developing a nuclear bomb, said the book by former senior CNN journalist Mike Chinoy. Now with the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy, Chinoy wrote "Meltdown: The inside story of the North Korean nuclear crisis" after gaining unprecedented access during his 14 trips to North Korea and conducting 200 interviews in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo and other Asian capitals. The book showed that US intelligence did discover in 2002-2003 a North Korea effort to acquire components that could be used for uranium enrichment but that it was only a procurement effort. There was no credible intelligence that North Koreans actually had a facility capable of making uranium based bombs. Yet, conservative hardliners bent on ending an "Agreed Framework" nuclear deal with North Korea forged under president Bill Clinton's administration seized on the issue to force a confrontation, the book said.
  t was widely reported then that the North Koreans admitted to Kelly they had an uranium program and this led the United States to take a series of retaliatory steps that led to a downward spiral in ties and Pyongyang restarting its nuclear program and testing the bomb in 2006. But Chinoy, who interviewed most of the members of Kelly's delegation, said he could not find any evidence that the North Koreans explicitly admitted having such a program. "It's interesting that the transcript remains classified but it appears that a North Korean official used much more ambiguous language and also tabled an offer to negotiate -- which Kelly rejected," he told AFP. [HEU] [Admission] [US NK policy]
• Truth commission reveals details of third U.S. bombing during Korean War
  Commission urges S. Korea to negotiate with U.S. gov�t for restitution and initiate memorial project � Members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission participate in a memorial ceremony for those who died in Sancheong, South Gyeongsang Province, on July 19 before their corpses are exhumed. On August 4, the commission revealed the findings of its investigation into a U.S. bombing raid on Gokgyegul Cave in Danyang, North Chungcheong Province, in which at least 167 civilians were murdered as they fled the cave. � The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Ahn Byung-ook, revealed Monday the truth behind a U.S. bombing raid on Gokgyegul Cave in Danyang that left 167 refugees dead, and recommended the government negotiate with the U.S. government for restitution and support a memorial project. [Korean War events]
• Bush Seeks Bigger Role for Korea in Afghanistan
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter U.S. President George W. Bush will ask his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak to contribute more to maintaining security in Afghanistan alongside with U.S. and other allied forces there during a summit here today, a senior aide to Bush said.
• Stephens Confirmed as New U.S. Envoy to Seoul
  Kathleen Stephens, the nominee for U.S. ambassador to Korea, answers questions at her confirmation hearing in the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations on April 9. The U.S. Senate on Friday finally approved the nomination of Kathleen Stephens as U.S. ambassador to Korea. She arrives in Seoul in late August or in September. But Stephens, who also has the Korean name Shim Eun-kyung, will not accompany Bush on his visit to Korea on Tuesday. The confirmation came after Senator Sam Brownback, who had blocked Stephens' nomination over concerns about how human rights were being addressed in six-nation nuclear negotiations with North Korea, ended his resistance last Thursday. In a statement, Brownback said, "At a hearing today of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill assured me that the U.S. will address North Korea's human rights abuses at the six-party talks. Because of this, I have decided to lift my objection to Ms. Stephens' nomination." [Manipulation]
• Bush to Arrive in Seoul Tuesday Amid Tight Security
  South Korea's Presidential Security Service (PSS) and police were put on maximum alert Monday, ahead of U.S. President George W. Bush's arrival in Seoul Tuesday for a brief two-day visit.
• Massive protest called for Bush visit to South Korea
  By Jack Kim Reuters Monday, August 4, 2008; 4:23 AM SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean activists said on Monday they planned a large candlelight rally to protest U.S. President George W. Bush's visit on Tuesday and demand the two countries scrap a widely criticized beef import deal
• IMPACT: Seoul probes civilian `massacres' by US
  By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Monday, August 4, 2008; 12:59 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korean investigators, matching once-secret documents to eyewitness accounts, are concluding that the U.S. military indiscriminately killed large groups of refugees and other civilians early in the Korean War. A half-century later, the Seoul government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has more than 200 such alleged wartime cases on its docket, based on hundreds of citizens' petitions recounting bombing and strafing runs on South Korean refugee gatherings and unsuspecting villages in 1950-51. Concluding its first investigations, the 2 1/2-year-old commission is urging the government to seek U.S. compensation for victims.
• Korean War�s Lost Chapter: South Korea Says U.S. Killed Hundreds of Civilians
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: August 3, 2008 WOLMI ISLAND, South Korea � When American troops stormed this island more than half a century ago, it was a hive of Communist trenches and pillboxes. Now it is a park where children play and retirees stroll along a tree-shaded esplanade. From a hilltop across a narrow channel, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, memorialized in bronze, appears to gaze down at the beaches of Inchon where his troops splashed ashore in September 1950, changing the course of the Korean War and making him a hero here. In the port below, rows of cars, gleaming in the sun, wait to be shipped around the world � testimony to South Korea�s industrial might and a reminder of which side has triumphed economically since the conflict ended 55 years ago. But inside a ragged tent at the entrance of the park, some aging South Koreans gather daily to draw attention to their side of the conflict, a story of carnage not mentioned in South Korea�s official histories or textbooks. "When the napalm hit our village, many people were still sleeping in their homes," said Lee Beom-ki, 76. "Those who survived the flames ran to the tidal flats. We were trying to show the American pilots that we were civilians. But they strafed us, women and children." [Korean War events]
• Eyes Off the Ball
  A reporter's account of U.S. missteps vis-a-vis North Korea's nuclear program.
  Reviewed by Glenn Kessler
  Sunday, August 3, 2008; Page BW04 MELTDOWN The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis By Mike Chinoy St. Martin's. 405 pp. $27.95
  When North Korea admitted (sic) in June that it had produced enough plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear bombs, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley suggested that the admission resulted from steady U.S. diplomatic pressure since the beginning of the Bush administration nearly eight years ago. Meltdown, a tour de force of reporting by former CNN Beijing correspondent Mike Chinoy, demonstrates that the White House version of events is as misleading as the propaganda crafted in Pyongyang. Chinoy shows that American policy toward North Korea often became incoherent and self-defeating as administration insiders fought desperately to gain the upper hand in internal debates. The North Koreans took advantage of this disarray to build their stockpile of plutonium, believed to total 37 or 38 kilograms, and even to test a nuclear device underground
  In one outstanding chapter, Chinoy provides a careful account of a crucial meeting in Pyongyang in 2002 at which U.S. officials confronted the North Koreans over their clandestine nuclear program. The two sides have given completely different versions of the encounter, and Chinoy sorts through the disagreements and misunderstandings to show how the United States may have missed a major opportunity. He notes that in the run-up to the meeting, hardliners in Washington placed restrictions on the U.S. delegation that virtually ensured a combative visit, even forbidding the American diplomats to host a meal or offer a toast to the North Koreans. The approved script required the U.S. side to accuse North Korea of secretly enriching uranium without offering any specific evidence. [US NK policy] [Admission] [Spin] [Media]
• Taking a Dip in The Online Stream
  Classical Music Makes A Play for Web Crowd By Anne Midgette Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 3, 2008; Page And plenty of organizations are exploring it, from Web channels like Medici.tv and Monteverdi.tv, which has also done a few live events, to institutions like the New York Philharmonic, whose concert from Pyongyang, North Korea, got about 25,000 live viewers on Medici.tv this winter. The Philharmonic invested about $20,000 in upgrading its media player for the Pyongyang broadcast; it is now hoping to get more for its money with other simulcast projects.
• How Korea Got Its Way Over Dokdo in the U.S.
  The U.S. decision to change official descriptions of Dokdo from "undesignated territory" to Korean dominion was a bold step that astounded even Korean government officials, pundits said Thursday. The Board on Geographical Names under the U.S. Geological Survey restored the entry for Doko to "South Korea" at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday. President Gorge W. Bush earlier told reporters he asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to review it and promised the database "will be restored where it was seven days ago." The Lee Myung-bak administration thus owes the U.S. another debt, considerably increasing its future diplomatic and physical burden.
  An important factor was Bush�s impending visit to Seoul next Tuesday.
• U.S. Reverend Arrives
  Pyongyang, July 31 (KCNA) -- U.S. Rev. Franklin Graham and his party arrived here by air today.
• Bush to walk careful line in South Korea visit
  By Jeremy Pelofsky Reuters Friday, August 1, 2008; 1:09 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush will likely have to walk a careful line when he visits South Korea next week -- pushing to rid the Korean peninsula of nuclear weapons while sidestepping several other tense fights. The election of a new South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, was supposed to mark a fresh start to U.S.-Korean ties after the strain over North Korea's nuclear program under past leaders, but Lee and Bush have had a rough start. Plans to end a ban on U.S. beef imports went awry after mass protests and the six-party nuclear talks have been complicated by South Korea's anger at the North for the death of a tourist who apparently walked into a restricted zone. Plus, Washington had to ease its way out of a dispute it waded into between South Korea and Japan over a cluster of islands both countries claim to own.
• U.S.: Takeshima ROK islets Outcry in Seoul prompts Washington backtrack on designation
  Yoshinari Kurose Yomiuri Shimbun Correspondent
  WASHINGTON--The U.S. Board of Geographic Names reversed its change of the sovereign status of the disputed Takeshima islets from "nondesignated sovereignty" to "South Korea" on its Web site in response to st The earlier change was expected to prompt South Koreans to stage large rallies during Bush's visit. Bush is believed to have made the move to calm Seoul's reaction by respecting its intentions ahead of his South Korean tour. [US SK Japan ]
• U.S. Board Marks Dokdo as Korean at Bush�s Orders
  � The Board on Geographic Names under the U.S. Geological Survey on Wednesday corrected the entry for Dokdo on its database from �undesignated sovereignty� to �South Korea,� ending a weeklong uproar in Korea. The BGN restored the description at around 5:30 p.m. under both the �country� and �first-order administrative division� categories, putting an end to anger over the new designation that had stirred Korea since the news broke last Friday. At 1 p.m. the same day, U.S. President George W. Bush in a special interview with Asian reporters at the White House said he was well aware of the issue. �I asked (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice) to review it, and the database will be restored where it was seven days ago,� he said. [US SK Japan ] �
• Is U.S. Dokdo change part of a bigger shift?
  Some experts see a pattern of moves favoring Japan July 31, 2008 � �A South Korean destroyer and other naval vessels participate yesterday in a joint defense drill off the Dokdo islets. The military exercise took place amid rising tensions between Japan and South Korea over sovereignty on the islets. The drill included P-3C reconnaissance planes and the Air Force�s newest fighter jet, the F-15K. Provided by the Kor The U.S. Board of Geographic Names� recent decision to label Dokdo with �undesignated sovereignty� has caused some South Koreans and government officials to feel betrayed. But this latest development may only be the tip of the iceberg. What lurks below could be a fundamental shift in Washington�s diplomacy in the Asia- Pacific region that could see the United States distancing itself from South Korea while beefing up its military alliance with Japan. Already there are signs that this is happening. �[US SK Japan ]

• U.S. Geographical Agency Reflected Japanese Position
  The U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency faithfully reflected Japan's claim to the Kuril islands by saying Tokyo was "in dispute with Russia over dominion" at the time it newly established the category of "undesignated sovereignty," which was then applied to Korea�s Dokdo, it has emerged. The NGA is the U.S. intelligence agency that gathers and analyzes topographic information around the world.
• U.S. Says Restoration of Dokdo Description Difficult
  The Korean Embassy in Washington D.C. requested the U.S. National Security Council and the State Department to restore the description of Dokdo as South Korean territory. But the federal U.S. Board of Geographical Names (BGN) has reportedly said it was impossible to reverse its recent decision to revise its description of the Dokdo islets as an area of "undesignated sovereignty" on its Web site from its previous listing as South Korean territory. An NSC official also said the BGN�s decision was made by technical experts, while no U.S. policymakers were involved.
• Gov�t to include Dokdo issue on Korea-U.S. summit agenda
  Anti-U.S. sentiment could increase if the summit does not produce favorable results for Korea
  After the U.S. Board on Geographic Names changed the way it classifies Dokdo, from its listing as Korean territory to "undesignated sovereignty," attention has turned to the ROK-U.S. summit between President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart George W. Bush, slated for August 6 as a diplomatic dispute could arise. � When the government became aware of the change on July 27, the Blue House seemed to be acting prudently, saying that the matter would not be included on the agenda. But on July 29, the Korean government�s position was that the issue should be discussed at the summit. Regarding this, a Blue House official said that there could be diplomatic repercussions if President Lee were to mention the issue officially, but the summit agenda would be decided based on public opinion on the issue. [Anti-Americanism]
• Dokdo Could Prove Another Hurdle to Better Ties With U.S.
  Seoul is worried of another hurdle to improved Korea-U.S. relations after the Board on Geographic Names under the U.S. Geological Survey revised its description of the Dokdo islets as an area of "undesignated sovereignty," hard on the heels of massive street protests here against the import of American beef. Seoul is particularly concerned that the development could blight U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Seoul scheduled for Aug. 5-6. A senior Foreign Ministry official on Monday put it succinctly. "The beef issue has subsided, but a completely new worry factor has taken its place," he said. When Bush arrives, President Lee Myung-bak will have no choice but to mention the Dokdo classification, given that Seoul has already pledged to make "every effort" to correct the description of Dokdo. Seoul believes ties with Washington depend to a great extent on Bush�s response. [Friction] [US SK Japan]
• U.S. did not inform S. Korea about change to Dokdo classification
  Critics characterize it as diplomatic defeat for S. Korea on the Dokdo issue
  � Foreign Ministry officials attend the first meeting of the Dokdo Taskforce, convened at the ministry on July 28. The United States did not inform South Korea about a recent change to the way it describes the Dokdo islets, classifying it as having "undesignated sovereignty," handing South Korea a diplomatic defeat. � When a U.S. federal naming agency�s change in its classification of the Dokdo islets from "South Korean territory" to "undesignated sovereignty," the United States government did not notify the government of South Korea. The U.S. government�s action was seen by many as "ignorance," but was also viewed as a crushing diplomatic defeat on the Dokdo issue, following a renewed Japanese move to strengthen its territorial claim to Dokdo by claiming the islets as its territory in an instruction manual for middle school teachers, even after a summit between President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda at which the two leaders agreed to move beyond their disputes over history. [Friction] [US SK Japan]
• U.S. position on Dokdo enters danger zone
  [Editorial] The greatest responsibility for the fact that Dokdo - land that is undeniably Korean - continues to be any sort of controversy lies with our own government. It has failed to keep Japan from its provocations and has been weak in its effort to expose the falsehood of Japan�s claims internationally. Even so, you have to wonder what the United States is truly up to lately since there is just no way it is unaware of the true nature of the Dokdo issue. [Friction] [US SK Japan]
• The South Korean Massacre at Taejon: New Evidence on US Responsibility and Coverup
  Bruce Cumings
  In July 2008 the world media heralded the arrest of �the world�s most wanted war criminal,� Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. He had been in hiding for thirteen years, ever since he was charged with genocide by the United Nations war crimes tribunal in The Hague for his role in the massacre of some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. These events were subsequently termed �Europe�s worst slaughter of civilians since World War II.� [1] Fifty-eight years earlier, in another distant July, the North Korean People�s Army bore down upon the city of Taejon, south of Seoul. Police authorities removed political prisoners from local jails, men and boys along with some women, massacred them, threw them into open pits, and dumped the earth back on them. Somewhere between 4,000 and 7,000 died, and their stories remained buried for half a century. American officers stood idly by while this slaughter went on, photographing it for their records, but doing nothing to stop it.
  Most of the time, however, no one pays attention, and in the worst instance, when awful crimes occur for which the U.S. bears a deep responsibility, they are covered up and buried, and one wonders if anyone cares�even when the truth finally comes to light. Neither of Mr. Hanley�s articles was picked up or covered by our paper of record, the New York Times (even though the Times had run a short version of the original Associated Press story on this massacre). [Korea War events] [Media]
• Summer of Terror: At least 100,000 said executed by Korean ally of US in 1950
  Charles J. Hanley & Jae-Soon Chang
  This is the first of a multi-part article on the South Korean massacres of 1950, the US direct and indirect involvement in those massacres, and the subsequent cover up of the events in South Korea and the United States. Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950. With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders (sic) pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. [Korean War events]
• KCNA Calls for Replacement of Armistice Agreement with Peace Agreement
  Pyongyang, July 26 (KCNA) -- 55 years have passed since the Armistice Agreement was signed in Korea. The Korean nation has been exposed to the constant danger of war due to the state of ceasefire that has lasted for more than half a century. The situation on the Korean Peninsula remains extremely tense but there is no legal and institutional mechanism to guarantee peace and security in the region. This is attributable to the fact that the AA which calls for providing a legal guarantee for the security of the peninsula had already lost its legal binding force due to the U.S. violations of it.
• North Korea and the Supernote Enigma
  Gregory Elich | April 14, 2008
  North Korea, it is often said, is a criminal state. One of the more persistent stories supporting that allegation is that the North Koreans are counterfeiting U.S. currency. Through repetition, the claim has taken on an aura of proven fact. This in turn has been cited as justification for everything from imposing punitive measures against North Korea to suggesting that the nation cannot be trusted as a partner in nuclear negotiations.
  The action against Banco Delta Asia deprived North Korea of a portion of its foreign trade. More importantly, it also served as a means of magnifying the effect of sanctions. By blacklisting Banco Delta Asia, the U.S. set off a chain reaction, and the campaign soon took on global significance
  The DPRK's international trade was being choked. Quite often, no pretense was even being made that the actions were related to illegal transactions. U.S. officials were openly pressing financial institutions to sever all economic relations with the DPRK.
  Russian Ambassador to South Korea Gleb Ivashentsov called for the U.S. to offer proof to back its accusation of counterfeiting. "The side that raises the suspicions should present evidence," he said. "Russia has not received any concrete evidence. There is rumor-level talk on the issue."30 Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao was equally skeptical, saying that his nation knew nothing of North Korean counterfeit currency flowing into China.31
  It appears that the Treasury Department's charges against Banco Delta Asia were motivated strictly by political considerations. Certainly the charges were found to have had no connection to reality. No doubt this is why U.S. officials failed to furnish any evidence to back their accusations. [Counterfeiting] [BDA] [Disinformation] [Evidence] [Toolkit]
• Milton Zaslow, 87; Played Major Role In U.S. Intelligence
  By Patricia Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, July 25, 2008; Page B06 Early in the Korean War, Milton Zaslow and three other cryptologists working in China for the Armed Forces Security Agency were reading thousands of messages sent over commercial telegraph when they began to notice a large number that said: "Father died. Come at once," or "Mother ill. Come home." They figured out that the Chinese army was recalling soldiers on leave to their units. Tracking the movements of four army divisions, Mr. Zaslow and his colleagues determined that the Chinese were preparing to enter North Korea. The discovery was important. The intervention of the Chinese in November 1950 greatly increased the war's intensity and scope. [Bizarre] [Espionage]
• �Stunningly Shameful':The Bush administration flip-flops on Iran.
  by Stephen F. Hayes
  07/28/2008, Volume 013, Issue 43 On January 23, 2008, during her keynote speech at the glitzy World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Condoleezza Rice made a surprisingly friendly gesture to the Iranian regime. She said, in this final year of the Bush administration, Iran and the United States could move towards a "new, more normal relationship."
  But, it's not just Iran.
  On October 9, 2006, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon. The next morning George W. Bush condemned this "provocative act" and warned against proliferation. "The transfer of nuclear weapons or material by North Korea to states or nonstate entities would be considered a grave threat to the United States and we would hold North Korea fully accountable." He rejected North Korean requests for direct meetings. "Obviously, I made the decision that bilateral negotiations wouldn't work, and the reason I made that decision is because they didn't." Three weeks later, chief U.S. negotiator Christopher Hill secretly met alone with his North Korean counterpart in China. Three months after that, they met again in Berlin. Eight months later Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear facility that had been constructed with North Korean assistance. Despite all of this--despite North Korean nuclear aid to one of the world's leading terrorist regimes and despite its subsequent failure to account for its nuclear programs--in June the Bush administration volunteered to lift sanctions on North Korea under the Trading with the Enemy Act and, over the objection of our close ally Japan, decided to remove North Korea from the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terror. It has been a dispiriting few weeks. [Neocon] [US NK policy] [Bilateral]
• 'N. Korea May Develop Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon System'
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter A top U.S. scientist warned American lawmakers of a possible catastrophic national security scenario: a possible development of Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapons by rogue states, including North Korea, and a potential detonation of such a device on American soil. William Graham, chairman of the U.S. government-sponsored ``Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States," told U.S. lawmakers that the Stalinist state has the required technologies to develop such weapons. [Bizarre] [Threat]
• N. Korea Has 8 Nuclear Warheads: Obama
  U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Wednesday called for active diplomacy to check nuclear proliferation, saying the Bush administration's lack of diplomacy resulted in North Korea developing eight nuclear warheads.
• 60 Years of the Republic: Troop Dispatch to Vietnam
  In spring 1964, South Korean ambassador to the U.S. Kim Chung-yul received special instructions from president Park Chung-hee through the South Korean ambassador to West Germany Choi Duk-shin, who was on a visit to Washington. Park told Kim to "stress the importance of defending South Vietnam to senior U.S. government officials and suggest to them that we dispatch troops to Vietnam." It was a very dangerous choice. At a time when the government was in crisis due to popular protests against the Korea-Japan talks to normalize diplomatic ties, Park was attempting to dispatch troops to South Vietnam, an idea even the U.S. was not greatly in favor of. Park wanted to send troops for two reasons: If South Vietnam was to become communist, he was certain this would pose a threat to the security of Southeast Asia and Korea as well; and he wanted to prevent the U.S. from attempting to pull U.S. forces from Korea to send to South Vietnam. As it happened, the dispatch of South Korean troops to Vietnam was initiated not by the U.S., but by the Korean government. [Imperialism] [Tribute] [Vietnam war]
• Korea Was Eager to Assist U.S. With Vietnam War
  Korea went out of its way to accommodate the U.S. during the Vietnam War, newly declassified documents reveal. They show that Seoul urged Washington to relocate a U.S. base in Japan to Korea's Jeju Island and anticipated an official request for troops by asking Washington in March 1965 whether it would be asked to send combat troops to the conflict. It also proposed building a base for U.S. nuclear submarines in Korea. [Imperialism] [Tribute] [Vietnam war]
• Documents Show Korea's Cool Vietnam Calculations
  � Diplomatic papers declassified Friday cast new light on Korea's involvement in the Vietnam War, showing a sometimes hard-headed country determined to get substantial security and economic benefits in return for sending troops into the ill-advised adventure. [Imperialism] [Tribute] [Vietnam war]
• U.S. presses S. Korea to assume greater cost-sharing burden
  Washington also hoping to divert funds to Pyeongtaek base expansion
  � A member of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea holds a one-person demonstration against the cost-sharing agreement for maintaining U.S. troops stationed in South Korea in front of the Foreign Ministry, Seoul on July 22. � South Korea and the United States held their first round of negotiations with high-level officials on July 21 in Washington to sign a special agreement on how to share the cost of maintaining U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. � During the day-long talks, the United States was believed to have demanded that South Korea increase its cost-sharing ratio to 50 percent, from the current 42 percent [Tribute]
• Washington Urges Seoul to Pay More for Troops
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korea and the United States have failed to narrow differences over how to share joint defense costs to maintain 28,000 U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula, a government official said Tuesday. [Tribute]
• U.S. and S. Korean Warmongers' Projected War Exercises Assailed
  Pyongyang, July 18 (KCNA) -- The south Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command officially announced that it would stage Ulji Freedom Guardian, the first puppet army-led south Korea-U.S. joint military exercises, from August 18 to 22 with at least 10 000 U.S. forces stationed abroad and in south Korea involved. A spokesman for the Korean National Peace Committee issued a statement Friday denouncing the projected saber-rattling. Branding the joint exercises as DPRK-targeted provocative war exercises that replaced the Ulji Focus Lens which the U.S. and the puppet warmongers staged on an annual basis from mid-1970s, the statement continued: This is an open declaration of confrontation with the DPRK and an outright challenge to the Koreans and the international community desirous of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
• Obama Tough on NK's Nuke Program
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took a tough stance on the North Korean nuclear issue in his campaign speech this week, warning the Stalinist state that if it doesn't verifiably abandon all its nuclear weapons, it would face ``strong and increasing sanctions." He also said that the United States must do its own part in the denuclearization effort by supporting the disarmament objective of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• Obama Talks Tough About N.Korea
  U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama ratcheted up the rhetoric about North Korea�s nuclear program on Wednesday. Wooing voters at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, Obama said both North Korea and Iran "have a history of support for terror. Both should face strong and increasing sanctions if they refuse to verifiably abandon their illicit nuclear programs." � � "By keeping our commitment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we'll be in a better position to rally international support to bring pressure to bear on nations like North Korea and Iran that violate it," Obama said. "Now, we worry most of all about a rogue state or nuclear scientist transferring the world's deadliest weapons to the world's most dangerous people." He vowed to "lead a global effort to secure all loose nuclear materials around the world during my first term as president." Obama was presumably preparing for potential counteroffensives from Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who is seen as the tougher candidate on such issues.
• U.S. military bills N. Korea 'potential threat,' calls for more info
  TOKYO July 15 The top commander of the U.S. military in Japan urged North Korea on Tuesday to disclose more information about its military capabilities and its purposes, describing the country as posing "a potential threat" to Northeast Asia. "North Korea continues to be a regime that is not very transparent in terms of their capabilities and their intentions," U.S. Forces Japan chief Lt. Gen. Edward Rice said at a press conference. [Threat] [Inversion] [Bizarre]
• Armistice but not yet peace �a view from DPRK
  Since the armistice agreement was concluded (27 July 1953) 55 years have been passed. For over a half century instable armistice mechanism was not shifted to the consolidated peace mechanism. The root cause of this abnormal situation is the systematic violation for the armistice agreement and hostile policy toward the DPRK of the U.S., the very a party of the Korean Armistice Agreement. The U. S. is continuing the maneuver to provoke the war against the DPRK instead of making effort to declare the termination of the war and to conclude the peace agreement in Korea. {NK US policy]
• Korea, U.S. Gear Up for Computer-led Drills
  South Korea and the U.S. will stage a joint military exercise, code-named "Ulchi-Freedom Guardian," from Aug. 18 until 22, with about 10,000 U.S. troops participating, Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command said Thursday. UFG is the new name of the military exercise previously known as Ulchi-Focus Lens (UFL), a largely computerized command and control exercise which mainly focuses on defending South Korea from a potential North Korean attack. Significantly, the South Korean Army will this time take charge of the exercise with assistance from the U.S. troops -- a preparation for the transfer of full control of Korean troops to Seoul in 2012. Some 5,000 U.S. troops stationed in Korea will be joined by about 5,000 from overseas bases. [Joint US military]
• U.S. Forces Side's Provocations Protested
  Panmunjom, July 10 (KCNA) -- Talks between a senior colonel of the DPRK military and a colonel of the U.S. military were held at Panmunjom on Thursday at the proposal made by the DPRK side on its own initiative. At the talks Senior Colonel Kwak Yong Hun of the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army lodged a strong protest with the U.S. forces side against such provocative acts as obstructing the performance of duties by the guard personnel of the DPRK side in the Panmunjom conference room area and aggravating the situation in the area perpetrated everyday and held it accountable for this.
  He went on to say: While paying lip-service to the improved DPRK-U.S. relations, the U.S. forces side is nowadays staging war exercises aimed at attacking the DPRK in the land, sea and air almost every day and arming the south Korean puppet forces with the latest war means and instigating them to the confrontation with the north. Timed to coincide with these moves, it is committing ceaseless provocations. [US joint military]
• Families tell of hidden Korean War bloodbath
  By JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writer S (07-06) 10:43 PDT DAEJEON, South Korea (AP) -- The young father, wanted and on the run, slipped back home one midnight to share a few fleeting minutes with his year-old daughter. But his joy was short-lived, as police burst in, kicked away the crying child and hauled him off. Jun Jae-hung, wanted for helping his leftist brother flee to North Korea, never returned after that night in 1949. Before even facing trial, he became one of tens of thousands of victims of hurried mass executions carried out in mid-1950 by South Korean authorities, bent on ridding the nation of communists in the early days of the Korean War. They feared that southern leftists might help the invading North Korean troops. [Korean War events] [Human rights]
• US wavered over S. Korean executions
  By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, Associated Press Writers Sun Jul 6, 1:42 PM ET SEOUL, South Korea - The American colonel, troubled by what he was hearing, tried to stall at first. But the declassified record shows he finally told his South Korean counterpart it "would be permitted" to machine-gun 3,500 political prisoners, to keep them from joining approaching enemy forces. ADVERTISEMENT In the early days of the Korean War, other American officers observed, photographed and confidentially reported on such wholesale executions by their South Korean ally, a secretive slaughter believed to have killed 100,000 or more leftists and supposed sympathizers, usually without charge or trial, in a few weeks in mid-1950. Extensive archival research by The Associated Press has found no indication Far East commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur took action to stem the summary mass killing, knowledge of which reached top levels of the Pentagon and State Department in Washington, where it was classified "secret" and filed away. [Korean War events] [Human rights]
• The Abduction Narrative of Charles Robert Jenkins
  By John Feffer | July 3, 2008 This essay originally appeared in Japan Focus. In the 1960s, a subculture of Americans became obsessed with alien abductions. Their ur-narrative revolved around the experience of Betty and Barney Hill, a sober, middle-aged, interracial couple who told of being taken from their car one night in 1961 and subjected to medical investigation by extraterrestrials with small bodies and large foreheads. They were not the type to fabulize simply to draw attention to themselves, so their story attracted interest beyond the usual UFO fans. Gradually others came forward with similar tales.
• US to Chart Steps Aganist N. Korea's Insurgency Tactics
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The U.S. and South Korean militaries are discussing ways of countering any Iraq-style insurgency (sic) tactics by North Korea in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula, the top U.S. military commander here said Saturday. In an interview with Stars and Stripes newspaper, Gen. Walter L. Sharp, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) expressed particular concern regarding makeshift bomb attacks, which have resulted in devastating U.S. casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. ``I do believe that North Korea is taking lessons out of Iraq, and they will change and adapt tactics," Sharp was quoted by the military newspaper as saying. Sharp is also in charge of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and the United Nations Command. ``I greatly worry about IEDs showing up in this theater.'' [Spin] [Inversion]
• North Korea No Longer an Enemy?
  Van Jackson | June 25, 2008 In Korea in early June, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced what could potentially be the greatest shift in U.S policy toward the Korean peninsula in the last 50 years. Though the Western media paid little attention, the proposed change in tour lengths of U.S. troops stationed in Korea from 12 months to 36 months has profound implications. According to current U.S. policy, the overwhelming majority of U.S. troops stationed in Korea are required to serve 12-month unaccompanied tours, meaning that military members are not permitted to bring their spouses or children with them during their assignment. This policy results from the U.S. designation of Korea as a war zone, a Cold War label that reflects the armistice that stopped open conflict with North Korea but never officially ended the Korean War. Although tripling the duration of military assignments to South Korea may at first seem like entrenching military forces against North Korea, it actually reflects a softening of the U.S. stance. Symbolically at least, the United States no longer considers itself at war with North Korea. [US NK policy] [Threat]
• Change Afoot for U.S. State Department's Ethnic Koreans
  The office of Korean affairs in the U.S. State Department, now under nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, who is assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, will soon be revamped. The office has recently succeeded in persuading North Korea to declare its nuclear stockpiles and blow up the cooling tower at the Yongbyon reactor. A diplomatic source in Washington on Monday said Sung Kim, the director of Korean affairs, will likely be appointed as a special envoy on North Korean affairs. Kim has led the U.S. government's working-level talks with North Korea by frequently visiting Pyongyang with Hill's full backing. He engaged in delicate bartering with North Korean officials on the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear reactor and the nuclear declaration, attracting public attention when he accepted 18,000 pages of nuclear-related documents from North Korea. And it was Kim, on Hill's behalf, who watched the demolition of the cooling tower on the spot.

• Bush�s cancelled visit reflects lack of trust in Lee government
  [Analysis] Gov�t has lost its way in U.S.-Korea relations, meaning that a number of major policy items have been put on hold President Lee Myung-bak came in to office emphasizing the importance of the "restoration" of the U.S.-Korea alliance and overall relationship, but his America diplomacy has completely lost its way. � A symbolic example would be the cancellation of a visit to Seoul by U.S. President George W. Bush that had been scheduled for early next month. A government official confirmed on June 25 that the decision was made because of the beef situation. One observer, a key figure in the previous government�s foreign policy team, said that President Bush�s cancellation "shows you that the White House�s lack of confidence in Lee Myung-bak�s government is serious." On June 23 the Washington Post said the White House does not have a lot of affection for Lee these days.
• The implications of Bush�s canceled visit
  [Editorial]. US. President George Bush has canceled his plan to visit Seoul after the Group of Eight summit to be held in Japan at the beginning of July. At this time, it is uncertain whether he will reschedule his visit for a later date. Though President Lee Myung-bak and President Bush will still hold a bilateral summit in Japan, the meaning of the talks is quite different. This is a rarity in the history of ties between Seoul and Washington. � It is not difficult to guess why Bush has not kept his promise to visit, a vow made during the Korea-U.S. summit in Washington in April. He must have concluded that his visit will aggravate anti-U.S. sentiment at a time when public opinion in Korea about the United States has taken a negative turn
• Bush drops plan to visit Seoul amid protests
  June 26, 2008 Confirming an announcement from Washington, the Blue House said yesterday that U.S. President George W. Bush will not be coming to Seoul next month, contrary to earlier speculation.
• KATCOM Sheds New Light on Wartime Control of Troops
  A picture of two KATCOM soldiers who were assigned to the Commonwealth Forces during the Korean War. Little is known about the squad called the Korean Augmentation Troops to Commonwealth Division, or KATCOM, Korean soldiers who were assigned to forces from the U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand during the Korean War. They were named to distinguish them from the Korean Augmentation Troops to the United States Army (KATUSA). Until now, KATUSA has received much of the spotlight, but virtually nothing was known about KATCOM. Former culture minister Kim Sung-jin, who served as an officer in the British troops during the Korean War, speaks highly of the role played by KATCOM. "KATCOM played a key role in fighting off the massive influx of Chinese soldiers thanks to its successful operations with the Commonwealth Division," he says. �
  This has given rise to an argument that wartime operational control of Korean troops was not in fact ceded to the U.S., which is to return it to Korea by 2012, but to the UN forces [Sovereignty] [Korean War events]
• Bush Won�t Visit Korea in July
  U.S. President George W. Bush will not visit Korea early next month, contrary to ample speculation in the press. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Tuesday that Bush will only visit Japan to attend the summit of the G8 in July but has no plans to visit Korea. Perino said Bush will meet with President Lee Myung-bak, who is invited to the G8 summit, in Japan. "But this trip will just be solely for the G8," she added. Perino denied rumors that recent protests in Korea against the import of American beef thwarted Bush�s plan to visit Korea .
• Stalin meant to lure U.S. into Korean War
  June 25, 2008 WASHINGTON - The Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had tried to draw the United States and China into the Korean War, according to a letter he wrote to the president of Czechoslovakia at the time, Klement Gottwald. The letter was brought to light by Kim Dong-il, a Korean history professor at Beijing University. In a paper that Kim wrote based on Stalin�s letters, he asserted that Washington�s massive aid to Western European countries after World War II under the Marshall Plan was beginning to destabilize many Eastern European countries. "Stalin needed to defuse this by diverting U.S. attention to the Korean War instead," Kim said. "Otherwise, Russia would have spent enormous amounts of money to aid Eastern European countries in order to compete against the United States." Stalin�s letter to Gottwald sharply contradicts the widespread belief that Stalin had vehemently opposed North Korea�s plans to wage war because he feared it would give the U.S. an excuse to gain a foothold on the Korean Peninsula. [Korean war cause] [Media] [Disinformation]
• Do candlelight protests hint at anti-American sentiments?
  [Analysis] Current expressions of anti-American sentiment differ greatly in form and function from those of the past
  Is there an anti-U.S. sentiment in the candlelight demonstrations? Yes, and no. Compared with the anti-U.S. sentiments found in protests of the past, there are significant differences in terms of function and appearance in the anti-American sentiment present at these protests. In the past, the country�s anti-American sentiment was based on ideology. Protesters demanded a withdrawal of U.S. forces from South Korea and opposed U.S.-led strategic initiatives. The anti-American sentiment evident in the current candlelight protests, however, is focused on livelihood concerns. People are complaining that the United States has forced South Korea to buy its beef and say that the South Korean government was too responsive to U.S. demands.
• N. Korean Leader Picked Among World�s 3 Worst Leaders
  A U.S. magazine has picked North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as one of the world's three worst leaders. Washington-based Foreign Policy cited Kim's efforts to buttress his destitute regime with funds raised by drug trafficking, banknote counterfeiting and missile technology sales. In a special report titled the "Failed States Index 2008," Foreign Policy also selected picked Myanmar's Than Shwe and Sudan's Omar Hassan al-Bashir. [Black]
• Karl Rove: New Rampart, Old Battles
  By Michael Abramowitz Monday, June 23, 2008; Page A13 He's been gone from the White House for nearly a year, but Karl Rove continues to provoke liberal ire and present a big bull's-eye on his back for congressional Democrats.
  A Promising Relationship Falters The White House made little secret of its delight with the election late last year of Lee Myung-bak as president of South Korea after tense relations with his predecessor Roh Moo- hyun. Lee made clear his desire to improve relations with Washington, get tough with North Korea and reach agreement on a new free trade deal. He was rewarded with a visit to Camp David in April, when Lee said Bush would be returning to South Korea later this year. But oh what a difference two months make: Lee's decision to allow the importation of U.S. beef, coupled with a general feeling that he has been too accommodating of the Bush administration, has helped send his approval ratings plummeting and provoked protests in Seoul. Last week, Lee fired eight of his top aides and publicly apologized for failing to grasp his people's fears about mad cow disease. The South Koreans have been renegotiating the beef deal with the United States. Left up in the air is the fate of Bush's visit to South Korea. The White House has never formally announced when and if it would take place, but it was widely assumed that Bush would stop there after the Group of Eight summit in Japan next month. Word is the South Koreans suggested that Bush might meet their president at scenic Jeju Island instead of Seoul, where the likelihood of mass protests is great. That idea reportedly did not go over well at the White House, which is not thrilled with Lee these days. Another possibility is for Bush to visit after he goes to the Olympics in Beijing in August. Or not to go at all. [SK US relations]
• Korea (1950), the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and 9/11: Deep Events in Recent American History
  Peter Dale Scott
  The unthinkable - that elements inside the state would conspire with criminals to kill innocent civilians - has become not only thinkable but commonplace in the last century. A seminal example was in French Algeria, where dissident elements of the French armed forces, resisting General de Gaulle's plans for Algerian independence, organized as the Secret Army Organization and bombed civilians indiscriminately, with targets including hospitals and schools. Critics have charged that the 1999 bombings of apartment buildings around Moscow, attributed to Chechen separatists, were in fact the work of the Russian secret service (FSB). In my book The Road to 9/11, I have argued that there has existed, at least since World War Two if not earlier, an analogous American deep state, also combining intelligence officials with elements from the drug-trafficking underworld.[6] I also pointed to recent decades of collaboration between the U.S. deep state and al-Qaeda, a terrorist underworld whose drug-trafficking activities have been played down in the 9/11 Commission Report and the mainstream U.S. media. The present article examines these propositions with respect to the Korean War, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and 9/11. [Korean War cause]
• Nuclear-Powered US Carrier to Visit S. Korea in October
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington is expected to make a port call in South Korea in October when an international fleet review is to be held in the southeastern port city of Busan, a report said Sunday. Quoting an unidentified military source in Washington, D.C., Yonhap News Agency said the aircraft carrier will be based in Japan from August. More than 40 warships from about 24 nations are expected to participate in the international fleet review marking the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the South Korean armed forces, said the source. South Korea hosted its first international fleet review in 1998. [Military balance]
• Bush�s Engagement Policy With N. Korea Is Working
  � Lakhvinder Singh � Xi Jinping, in his first visit as vice president of China to Pyongyang from June 17-19, is said to have strongly urged North Korea to resume stalled talks on nuclear disarmament as soon as possible. Irked by South Korea's new tough approach toward the North's nuclear program, North Korea has refused to join the six-party talks on one pretext or another for some time.
• North Korea philharmonic may play U.S.
  June 21, 2008 Washington is mulling a plan to let North Korea�s national philharmonic orchestra hold a concert in the United States in return for the New York Philharmonic�s historic February concert in Pyongyang, according to Lee Yong-jin, a senior official of the National Unification Advisory Council. Lee, who heads the Washington unit of the state-run South Korean agency that promotes inter-Korean reconciliation projects, has been leading efforts to arrange the concert. The North Korean mission to the United Nations gave the council the nod to go forward with the planning earlier this year.
• Obama Renews Attack on Korea-U.S. FTA
  The U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday renewed his attack on the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, which has yet to be ratified. In a speech he delivered in Flint, Michigan, Obama said the Korea-U.S. FTA is anything but a "smart deal." "I believe in free trade. It can save money for our consumers, generate business for U.S. exporters and expand global wealth. (But) unlike George Bush and (Obama�s Republican rival) John McCain, I do not think that any trade agreement is a good trade agreement."
• N. Korea's Abduction of U.S. Permanent Resident Fades From Official View
  By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, June 19, 2008; Page A13 Kim Dong-shik, a U.S. permanent resident and Christian missionary with family living in Illinois, was abducted in 2000 by North Korean agents in northeastern China and taken to North Korea for interrogation and imprisonment, according to testimony in South Korean courts. Kim, whose wife and two children are U.S. citizens, had raised the ire of the North Korean government by helping its citizens flee the repressive regime and by attempting to convert North Korean athletes who attended the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. � [Human rights]
• South Korea's Beef with America
  Christine Ahn
  | June 13, 2008 On June 10, one million South Koreans from all walks of life poured onto the streets of Seoul, the nation�s capital, to protest the newly elected President Lee Myung Bak�s deal with the United States to fully open Korean markets to U.S. beef. Despite widespread concerns over the safety of U.S. beef imports, Lee acted quickly to lift the partial ban on U.S. beef to pave the way for the passage of the U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement (FTA). Lee knew that there would be no FTA unless Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) got the green light for the U.S. beef industry to fully resume exports to South Korea, which banned U.S. beef in 2003 after the discovery of a cow with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Protests began six weeks ago by high schools students and housewives concerned about the safety of U.S. beef appearing on their plates. It soon evolved into a massive campaign to bring down the Lee government. Anger against the deal quickly spread throughout the country, and within 40 days, the number of protesters grew from thousands to one million. �In the beginning it was about the beef,� says 29-year-old Park Kyung Kun of Seoul, �but now it's about democracy. We want democracy back." To the rest of the world, South Korean protests over the safety of U.S. beef are portrayed as an expression of simmering anti-Americanism. Without a doubt, anti-American sentiments have historical roots. But Koreans also have a legitimate claim to fear the safety of U.S. beef.
• Facts Please
  by James Kelly and Victor Cha The following was written in response to Leon Sigal�s letter to the editor in the January/February 2008 issue of Foreign Affairs. There has been a remarkably consistent U.S. policy toward North Korea. �Peaceful resolution� through diplomatic means was President George W. Bush�s constant core policy to resolve North Korea�s decades long nuclear weapons effort. This policy was spelled out to allies and to North Korea. Granted, significant voices in the administration � persons who are still very vocal � made remarks that suggested that nothing less than regime change would suffice. But they were and are without support from the president nor have they any realistic alternative strategy. Then and now, these voices represented Washington expressions of indignation rather than policy. [US NK Policy] [Partisan]
• In the Driver's Seat
  Condoleezza Rice and the jettisoning of the Bush Doctrine.
  by Stephen F. Hayes 06/02/2008, Volume 013, Issue 36 Shortly before 10 A.M. on October 9, 2006, George W. Bush read a statement from the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House. He fixed his face to look resolute. The previous day, in spite of its many promises over many years to discontinue its nuclear program, North Korea had tested a nuclear weapon. "The United States condemns this provocative act," Bush declared. "Once again North Korea has defied the will of the international community, and the international community will respond." The American response came three weeks later, on October 31, when Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and the government's chief negotiator on North Korea's nuclear program, met privately in Beijing with Kim Gye Gwan, North Korea's deputy foreign minister. The meeting itself was a major concession. Although Hill's boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, had given him wide latitude for his negotiations she had not authorized a one-on-one meeting. The North Koreans had been pushing for bilateral negotiations with the United States since the beginning of the Bush administration. The president had repeatedly and categorically rejected any direct talks with the North Koreans [Bilateral] [US NK policy] [Dissension]
• Korea Experts Join Obama, McCain Camps
  Korea experts have been joining the camps of presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees Barack Obama and John McCain. Obama notably lacks experience in foreign and security affairs. But heavyweights in the area including former U.S. ambassadors to Korea have joined his camp to make up for this, Radio Free Asia reported. RFA said former U.S. ambassadors to Korea Donald Gregg, Stephen Bosworth, and Thomas Hubbard are involved in shaping Obama�s policies regarding the Korean Peninsula. His foreign policy strategies in Asia are being formulated by Jeffrey Bader, a former diplomat and director of the John L. Thornton China Center and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Obama is also assisted by Joel Wit, a former working-level official of the State Department during the U.S.-North Korea talks in Geneva in 1994. He is also being advised by Frank Jannuzi, an assistant to Joseph Biden, who chairs the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and by Gordon Flake, executive director of the Mansfield Foundation, who speaks fluent Korean. The McCain camp, for its part, has Richard Armitage, former deputy secretary of state, as the top official in charge of Korean issues. Michael Green, the Japan chair and a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who was senior director for Asian Affairs at the National Security Council for the Bush administration, has been deeply involved in drafting McCain's recent Asia policy outline for the Wall Street Journal Asia. He would likely be appointed as deputy secretary or higher level if McCain were to win the election. Randall Schriver, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Dan Blumenthal, a former Defense Department official and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, have also been involved in working out policies toward the Korean Peninsula for McCain.
• Korea, U.S. to Stage Massive Air Exercise
  Korea and the U.S. will stage a large-scale joint air exercise on June 16-20, mobilizing some 90 aircraft, including B-52 bombers, E-3 airborne early warning and control aircraft, F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, A-10 ground attack aircraft, and KC-135 refueling tankers. The exercise is unprecedented in scale. U.S. aircraft will fly to the Korean Peninsula from their bases in the Pacific, including Guam, Hawaii and Alaska, and the U.S. mainland. "The joint exercise, Max Thunder, will be held June 16-20, for the first time in the skies near the U.S. air base in Gunsan, North Jeolla Province," a U.S. Forces Korea official said Thursday. A U.S. military source said the exercise aims to "enhance combined combat capabilities of the Korean and U.S. air forces and increase defense capabilities in the Pacific region." The USFK is expected to open the exercise to the press next Tuesday. [Joint US military] [Dissension] �
• Upcoming U.S.-Korea summit could be affected by discontent over U.S. beef deal
  Blue House denies possibility of postponing summit, but risks anti-American protests
  The political situation that has arisen as a result of discontent over the U.S. beef agreement could have an affect on a visit to Korea by U.S. President George W. Bush scheduled for early July. � The Blue House has strongly denied that it is even considering the possibility that the upcoming U.S.-Korea summit will be postponed.
• Will North Korea Become US Ally?
  � Bruce Cumings The following is the gist of the keynote speech Bruce Cumings, professor of the University of Chicago, delivered Thursday in Seoul on the occasion of the 8th anniversary of the inter-Korean summit. ? ED.
  By Bruce Cumings
  Professor of University of Chicago The sharp changes in North Korea policy accomplished by Kim Dae Jung and the Clinton administration were immediately challenged by George W. Bush, within weeks of his inauguration in 2001. Seven years later, the Lee Myung Bak administration appears to think that a daunting rupture occurred between the ROK and the U.S., and that it was the fault of Kim Dae Jung and Roh Moo Hyun thus requiring the new administration to repair relations with Washington. The Bush administration seemed to think so, too, by inviting President Lee to the presidential retreat at Camp David?in total contrast to the disastrous reception Bush gave to Kim Dae Jung in March 2001. This negative tendency is almost always labeled "anti-Americanism," as if Koreans were upset about Americans in general, rather than Bush�s policies in particular. But when we examine the evidence, it is quite clearly anti-Bushism. remember being skeptical of the intelligence behind Bush administration claims in October 2002 that the North now had a second nuclear weapons program, using Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU). But when I showed up for a university conference on North Korea in Washington shortly after James Kelly returned from Pyongyang, a bipartisan assemblage of experts (many from the Clinton administration) assured everyone that the information was solid, and that an "intelligence community" consensus had emerged that the HEU program was most worrisome. Pyongyang, they said, had gotten on Pakistani arch-proliferator A. Q. Khan�s gravy train, buying and putting in motion a bunch of HEU centrifuges that could yield a uranium bomb. As it happened U.S. intelligence on the North�s HEU was no better on than it was Saddam Hussein�s WMDs, but it took five years to find that out. In the immediate aftermath of the February 13th, 2007 agreement between Washington and Pyonguag Joseph DeTrani, a longtime intelligence official, informed a Senate committee that intelligence agencies now pegged reports of the North�s HEU weapons program at only "the mid-confidence level," which is jargon for information that can be interpreted in various ways, or isn�t fully corroborated. Pyongyang had indeed purchased thousands of aluminum tubes: but it turned out that these tubes weren�t strong enough to use in the high-speed rotors necessary for centrifuges. Evidence of these modest purchases had been transformed by Washington analysts into "a significant production capability" in 2002; since that time, however, the U.S. had turned up no evidence of the "large-scale procurements" that would be necessary for an HEU bomb program. Other officials said the degree of the North�s progress toward an HEU program was unknown; they did import some centrifuges from Pakistan?a mere twenty of them, as it turned out, when thousands are needed for production purposes?but no one knew what had happened since: so now the intelligence "consensus" had turned into "the HEU riddle."
  It is more likely that Pyongyang hopes to play the U.S. off against China, much as it did Moscow and Beijing in the long years of the Cold War. [HEU] [US NK policy] [NK_US_China]
• Visit of DPRK's Taekwon-Do Demonstration Team to America
  Most of the delegations that visit the United States from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea visit for diplomatic purposes or technical exchanges in fields such as agriculture and medicine. Last October, one of the first cultural delegations visited the US: the DPRK's Taekwon-Do Demonstration Team. Taekwon-Do, which originated in Korea, is one of the most popular martial arts worldwide and in the United States. Although the DPRK Demonstration Team has performed in other countries, for many Americans, last year's tour was a rare opportunity to see this talented team in action, as described below.
  The North Korean team impressed experts and novices alike. Master George Vitale, who has visited over thirty countries around the world studying and promoting Taekwon-Do, confessed to me "I have been to dozens of Taekwon-Do demonstrations and [by this time], they bore me to death." But this one was different, he explained. "In tul after tul,[1] they were moving in perfect unison. I�d never seen anything like it." According to Vitale, their precision, synchronization and athleticism were so stunning that filmmakers in the LA audience jokingly offered the team jobs as stunt men on the spot. The team was warmly received every where they went. After performances, the audience swarmed the team members asking them to autograph whatever was available � programs, tee-shirts and even bits of pine board broken during the demonstration. They were greeted with bouquets of flowers in Los Angeles, and with a banner crowded with hand-written messages of welcome in San Francisco.
• North Korean National TaeKwonDo Demonstration Team.
  TaeKwonDo Times is pleased to announce, for the first time ever, the 2007 USA Goodwill Tour of the North Korean National TaeKwonDo Demonstration Team.
• An Anger in Korea Over More Than Beef
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: June 12, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea � When tens of thousands [sic] of South Koreans spilled into central Seoul on Tuesday in the country�s largest antigovernment protest in 20 years, the police built a barricade with shipping containers. They coated them with oil and filled them with sandbags so protesters could not climb or topple them to march on President Lee Myung-bak�s office a couple of blocks away.
  Faced with the wall, people pasted identical leaflets on it, their message dramatically summarizing Mr. Lee�s image and alienation from many of his people: �This is a new border for our country. From here starts the U.S. state of South Korea.�
  In the background, a female voice from a battery of loudspeakers led the crowd to chant: �Lee Myung-bak is Lee Wan-yong!� Lee Wan-yong is an infamous name every South Korean child knows. A royal court minister at the turn of the last century who helped Imperial Japan annex Korea as a colony, he is Korea�s No. 1 national traitor.
  The protests illuminate the shift in President Lee�s political fortunes. When he was elected last December, South Koreans hailed him as a long-awaited leader who could salvage their country�s alliance with the United States, which was strained under Mr. Lee�s left-leaning predecessor, Roh Moo-hyun.
  Only six months later, Mr. Lee finds Koreans vilifying him as something Mr. Roh famously said he would never become: �a Korean leader kowtowing to the Americans [Media] [Anti-Americanism] [Tribute]
• Biggest Beef Protests Yet Mark Democratic Anniversary
  The largest candlelight demonstrations yet against the import of U.S. beef brought hundreds of thousands of protesters to the streets in over 80 cities nationwide on Tuesday, the 21st anniversary of the June 10, 1987 pro-democracy movement. Some 80,000 people gathered in Seoul alone, a figure disputed by the organizers who claim there were in fact 500,000. Conservative groups also held their own rallies supporting the government in the Seoul Plaza in front of the City Hall. [FTA]
• Biggest protest since 1987 staged in Seoul
  Some participants calling for ouster of the president June 11, 2008 Hundreds of thousands of protesters rallied last night in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, to urge the government to renegotiate the deal to import U.S. beef. [NEWSIS] In the largest protest rally since 1987, demonstrators shouting slogans condemning the administration and holding signboards saying "Lee Myung-bak, Out" and "No mad cow to Korea" flooded the main streets of downtown Seoul last evening. [Anti-Americanism]
• DPRK Opposes All Forms of Terrorism and Any Support to It
  Pyongyang, June 10 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on June 10. The statement says: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK is authorized by its government to state as follows: Frequent terrorist acts being perpetrated in different parts of the world seriously threaten human lives, social stability and international peace and security. The international community is becoming increasingly vocal, expressing indignation at these acts and denouncing them and calling for closer cooperation among countries in the struggle against terrorism. The DPRK government has consistently maintained the stand to resolutely oppose all forms of terrorism and any support to it, guided by the man-centered Juche idea and the idea of its foreign policy-- independence, peace and friendship. It clarified that it would cooperate with Russia in the struggle against organized crimes and international terrorism in the July 19, 2000, DPRK-Russia Joint Declaration and the August 4, 2001, DPRK-Russia Moscow Declaration. It also declared that it would support and encourage international efforts to combat terrorism in the October 6, 2000, DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement and the October 12, 2000, DPRK-U.S. Joint Communique. The DPRK government repeatedly clarified its firm stand to oppose terrorism whenever there occurred such grave terrorist acts as bomb attacks on the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998, the September 11 incident in the U.S. in 2001, the bomb attack in Bali, Indonesia in October 2002 and the bomb explosion in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May 2003.
  It will take active part in the international efforts to prevent substance, equipment and technology to be used for the production of nukes and biochemical and radioactive weapons from finding their ways to the terrorists and the organizations that support them and faithfully fulfill its duty in the field of non-proliferation as it committed itself in the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 3, 2006 and agreements made at the six-party talks. Upon the authorization of the government, the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs clarifies that the DPRK will firmly maintain its consistent stand of opposing all forms of terrorism and any support to it and fulfill its responsibility and duty in the struggle against terrorism as a dignified member of the United Nations, in the future, too. � �
• US Welcomes NK Statement on Terrorism
  The United States Wednesday welcomed North Korea's commitment to anti-terrorism efforts but said the communist country still had more to do before being removed from a U.S. terrorism list. [Terrorism List] [Camouflage]
• Spy�s book rattles ideas of North
  June 10, 2008 North Korean Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il, left, talks to Lim Dong-won, then South Korea�s National Intelligence Service chief, center, during the inter-Korean summit on June 14, 2000 in Pyongyang. Then-President Kim Dae-jung of the South is on the right. [JoongAng Ilbo] Despite a half-century of animosity between his country and the United States, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il secretly asked Washington to keep U.S. troops in the South, a former intelligence head from the Kim Dae-jung administration era says in his memoir. Lim Dong-won served as unification minister twice, headed the National Intelligence Service and was the architect of the Kim administration�s "Sunshine Policy" aimed at engaging North Korea. He will publish his 742-page autobiography this week. Titled "Peace Maker," the memoir explores his secret visits to North Korea and negotiations to arrange the historic 2000 inter-Korean summit between the two Kims. The book will go on sale tomorrow; the Joong-Ang Ilbo obtained a copy Sunday. According to Lim, the inter-Korean summit took place in Pyongyang on June 14 for four hours. During the meeting, Kim Jong-il agreed with then-President Kim Dae-jung�s argument that U.S. forces should continue to be stationed on the peninsula even after the two Koreas� future unification. Then, Kim Jong-il revealed a secret to the South Korean visitors. "In early 1992, I sent [Workers� Party] Secretary Kim Yong-sun as a secret envoy to the U.S. Republican government," Kim Jong-il was quoted as saying. "I requested that U.S. troops should stay to play a role in preventing war between the two Koreas. Taking into account the dynamics of Northeast Asia, it is better for U.S. forces to stay on the Korean Peninsula to keep the peace." Kim Dae-jung then asked his North Korean counterpart why Pyongyang demands the withdrawal of the U.S. troops through its state media. "You should understand, because that is to appease the sentiments of our people," Kim Jong-il was quoted as saying. [NK US policy] [Anti-Americanism]
• One million people scheduled to march against U.S. beef
  The largest demonstration since protests began coincides with anniversary of June Struggle � A citizen lights a candle in front of a signboard at Seoul City Hall Plaza on June 9. The signboard says, "Meet at Seoul City Hall Plaza on June 10" for a candlelight protest march that is expected to draw one million people, according to the civic group organizing the event. � A one million person candlelight march in protest against the resumption of U.S. beef imports will be held in Seoul, Busan, Gwangju, Daegu, and other cities nationwide on June 10. The march is being organized by the People�s Countermeasure Council against the Full Resumption of Imports of U.S. Beef Endangered with Mad Cow Disease, which has been active in organizing other protests since the beef import agreement was signed in April.
• Police on High Alert Ahead of Massive Rallies
  Cars are bumper to bumper at the Gwanghwamun area in central Seoul Tuesday as 10 of 14 traffic lanes were closed with containers. A candlelight vigil is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the plaza in front of Seoul City Hall. / Yonhap Police Tuesday stand on high alert nationwide ahead of massive candlelight rallies opposing the government's resumption of U.S. beef imports. Organizers expect nearly 1 million people to take to the streets to join the rally that coincides with the 21st anniversary of the June 10 pro-democracy protests.
• We Have No Plan
  by Victor Cha Last week some South Korean Internet news sites reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had been assassinated outside of Pyongyang. The Unification Ministry quickly confirmed that the reports were false. Readers will remember about a little over a year ago the reports that Kim may have had heart surgery, and then prior to that, reports of another attempt on Kim's life. In each case, however, the reports cannot be confirmed, and everyone goes back to their regular routine. But what if one day a report turns out to be true? What would be the impact on the peninsula's stability? What would be the economic impact? Last week's rumor, for example, triggered massive selling of Asian currencies, as markets feared a potential and costly collapse of North Korea. Most important, is there a plan in place if something happens in North Korea tomorrow? The answer is no. In what would be the single most important contingency that could impact the South Korean economy and security for decades, there is no agreed upon plan for how to deal with a collapsing North Korea. Here is just a sample of the unanswered questions: Do parties in the region have an agreed upon definition of what constitutes state failure in the North? Who determines when to intervene? Should humanitarian intervention take place under a UN Security Council mandate or under U.S.-South Korea authority? Who is responsible for securing borders? Who is authorized to make contact with internal elements in a collapsing North Korea? Who is responsible for securing nuclear and missile sites? Who is responsible for neutralizing artillery? [Collapse] [US NK policy]
• U.S. Base Move 'to Cost More Than W8.9 Trillion'
  � Korea will have to pay more than W8.9 trillion to relocate U.S. bases, including those in Yongsan, Seoul, to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province (US$1=W1,024). [Tribute]
• Korea to Bear Lion's Share of USFK Move: Bell
  The commander of U.S. Forces Korea has said South Korea will pay the bulk of the costs for relocating USFK headquarters from Yongsan, Seoul to Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province, south of the capital. General Burwell Bell said Seoul agreed to pay US$7-8 billion out of the entire $10 billion for the relocation. "And already, in that physical process, South Korea has spent about $2 billion in an effort that's going to cost them around $10 billion. It's of the magnitude of the Guam move," Bell told the U.S. House Appropriation Committee on March 12. [Tribute]
• Report on U.N. Program Assails Whistle-Blower
  By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, June 8, 2008; Page A18 UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. official showed up at the U.S. mission to the United Nations in 2006 with an alarming story: The U.N. Development Program office he ran in North Korea had stashed thousands of dollars in counterfeit U.S. cash in a safe, diverted tens of millions more into the coffers of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and possibly supported North Korea's weapons programs. For the next year and half, Artjon "Tony" Shkurtaj, an Albanian national who served as the UNDP's operations manager in Pyongyang, guided U.S. officials on a tour of U.N. malfeasance in North Korea, furnishing internal U.N. documents and an insiders' analysis of how the global body violated its rules and helped North Korea obtain hard currency and sensitive high-tech equipment. His claims triggered investigations by U.S. officials, the United Nations and the U.S. Congress, and led to Shkurtaj's designation as a whistle-blower by the United Nations' ethics chief. Mark D. Wallace, the U.S. diplomat briefed by Shkurtaj, accused the UNDP of complicity in a scheme to divert millions of dollars worth of aid for the poor to Kim's personal treasure chest. Some of Shkurtaj's assertions have since been substantiated. But some of the most serious allegations -- that the UNDP knowingly channeled tens of million of dollars in funds to North Korea or that senior UNDP officials sought to cover up potentially illicit payments -- have been repudiated by congressional and U.N. investigators, who have found no evidence of significant diversion of U.N. funds.
  But the report also asserts that the United States repeatedly made allegations against the UNDP that were either inflated or unsubstantiated, including a claim that North Korea used UNDP funds to buy residences in Britain, Canada and France. The North Koreans told congressional investigators that they had used a U.N.-related account they controlled to conceal their own overseas investments. � � � [UNDP] [Disinformation] [Dissension]
• Beef Impasse Complicates Korea-US Alliance
  Protest Shifting to Anti-US and Anti-President Sentiments
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter The public backlash against U.S. beef import is showing little sign of letting up and may complicate President Lee Myung-bak's diplomatic strategy to foster a closer alliance with America. The protest is shifting from an initial focus on public health to broader anti-U.S. and anti-Lee Myung-bak sentiments, according to Bruce Klingner, a Korean specialist at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. One of the criticisms leveled at President Lee is that his administration did not use more research and public hearings before making a unilateral decision to open the Korean market to U.S. beef without conditions. Critics charge that the beef import deal was a hastily arranged ``gift'' from President Lee to U.S. President George W. Bush in an effort to advance his strategy to develop closer ties with Washington. [Anti-Americanism]
• Korea's Cited as Source of Sex Trafficking
  By Kang Shin-who Staff Reporter North Korea remains a source country for trafficking humans for forced labor and sexual exploitation, and South Korea also actively trades women and girls for sex in and out of the nation, according to a U.S. report. � [Manipulation]
• 8th US Army to Bolster Warfighting Roles
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The Eighth U.S. Army (EUSA) will bolster its war-fighting role and missions to help ensure the security on the Korean Peninsula, even after South Korea takes over wartime operational control of its troops in 2012, a defense ministry spokesman said Thursday. [Sovereignty] [Military balance] [Threat]
• DPRK blasts U.S. military exercises near MDL
  www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-04 15:43:29 Print PYONGYANG, June 4 (Xinhua) -- The military exercises by the United States in the area near the Military Demarcation Line was a deliberate and premeditated military provocation to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), an official DPRK newspaper said Wednesday. It was aimed at pushing the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war although there was a sign of positive development, the Rodong Sinmun daily said. To achieve detente on the peninsular and improve the bilateral ties between the DPRK and the United States, the priority was to set up mutual confidence, said the daily, urging Washington to stop the military buildup. According to reports of the paper, the United States and the South Korea held a joint military exercise recently, using advanced weapons such as F-16 and A-10 fighters, AH-64 helicopters and M-1 tanks. [Joint US military]
• Panmunjom visit
  North Korean soldier looks at General Walter L. Sharp (front), new commander of U.S. Forces Korea, during Sharp's visit to the border village of Panmunjom, the demilitarised zone separating the two Koreas, about 55 km (34 miles) north of Seoul on Wednesday. Sharp took over as the new commander of the American forces in Korea on Tuesday [US military dominance] [Sovereignty]
• N.Korea Given Failing Grade in Human Trafficking Report
  The U.S. has classified North Korea as a "tier three" country under the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protections Act again this year. Tier three is the lowest possible rank and refers to countries that fail to satisfy the minimum conditions required. The U.S. Department of State in the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report released Wednesday cites trafficking of North Korea refugees as one of the main examples [Manipulation] [Inversion] [Black] [Bizarre] [Victim] �
• U.S. envoy castigated for words on Koreans
  June 05, 2008 Around 150 representatives from 50 civic, religious and Internet groups hold an emergency meeting yesterday in front of Seoul City Hall to urge the renegotiation of the U.S. beef import pact. [NEWSIS] � Politicians yesterday demanded that U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow apologize for remarks about South Koreans� understanding of the science behind mad cow disease. Vershbow made his comments after the Korean Foreign Ministry requested on Tuesday that the United States stop shipments of beef cuts from cattle over 30 months old. The remarks quickly backfired. The Democratic Labor Party held a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy yesterday. Members said that Vershbow�s comments "fueled the public�s anger" over the possible resumption of U.S. beef imports. "Vershbow should tell Washington about the need to renegotiate the beef deal and must apologize for his insulting remarks," the party stated.
• Obama, McCain Differ on Korea Policy
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter Conservative President Lee Myung-bak must be prepared to play different chess games with either liberal Barack Obama or conservative John McCain as the two nominees have very contrasting visions regarding their policies on Korea. Their respective policy approaches as presidential nominees will likely change and evolve over time, but a comparison of the two suggests the course of South Korea-U.S. relations could take vastly different turns depending on who becomes the next occupant of the White House. In recent decades, Korea and the United States have had presidents whose political orientations were contrasting, often causing tension in the alliance. Liberal President Roh Moo-hyun was frequently at odds with conservative President George W. Bush. Kim Dae-jung enjoyed a ``relative honeymoon'' with the liberal Clinton administration although his North Korea policy was later partly undone by Bush's hawkish stance, describing North Korea as part of an axis of evil. In the 1970s, authoritarian Park Chung-hee was haunted by Jimmy Carter who took issue with Seoul's human rights record and threatened to withdraw American troops from Korea.
• North Korea Updates
  by Nicole Finnemann (nmf@keia.org)
  North Korea Officials Share Thoughts with KEI Staff: Recently, KEI President Jack Pritchard and newly appointed Director of Academic Affairs and Research Nicole Finnemann visited Pyongyang. His ninth and her first, the trip ran April 22�26, and had three primary goals: to meet with officials from the Foreign Ministry to discuss the current status of U.S.-DPRK bilateral relations as well as the Six Party process; to gain a better understanding of the prospects and process for foreign investment in the North (e.g., joint ventures); and to better gauge�through first-hand experience�life today both in and around Pyongyang. From Beijing to Pyongyang, back to Beijing, and then on to Seoul before returning to Washington, the trip followed closely that of the Olympic torch and included an unplanned observation of the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People�s Army, a national holiday in the DPRK. This article provides a summary of the highlights of the trip and some impressions.
  In addition to discussing Six Party-related issues, and as part of the goal to gain a better understanding of existing joint ventures between the DPRK government and outside bodies, the visitors traveled to Nampo, a port city roughly 30 minutes from the capital, to visit Pyeonghwa Motor Company (PMC), a joint venture between North and South Korea whereby all parts manufacturing is completed in the South and final assembly takes place in the North. The visitors were impressed by the future ambitions of the project in light of the labor-intensive manual assembly process. Officials there declared that their goal is to increase production to 10,000 units/year from what they claim is currently 3,000 (though other estimates indicate that PMC has yet to break the 1,000 mark for auto production in a single year). In talks with officials from the Ministry of Trade, however, such �great endeavors� were still exclusively available to countries that come to the table ready with offers in hand. Discussions of U.S companies� potential direct investment or joint-venture opportunities were quickly dismissed as a �waste of the DPRK�s time.� [JV] [Auto] [US NK relations]
• S. Korea�s new plan for U.S. beef rejected by U.S.
  Plan called for U.S. exporters to voluntarily limit exports of beef from cattle older than 30 months � Approximately 20,000 citizens and students rallied in front of the National Police Agency on June 3 to call on Uh Cheong-su, the NPA chief, to resign due to the brutal suppression of candlelight protests over the last few days. On June 3, the Korean government asked the United States to voluntarily limit exports of beef from cattle older than 30 months. The government may have a tough time getting Washington to do this, however, as the White House has already expressed concern about the plan. Meanwhile, the U.S. Ambassador to South Korea, Alexander Vershbow, urged Seoul to implement the beef import agreement as soon as possible. [FTA]
• McDonald�s Homepage Hacked
  By Kim Hyun-cheol Staff Reporter McDonald's is bearing the brunt of a public backlash ahead of the resumption of U.S. beef imports, with its Web site hacked. [FTA] [Anti-Americanism] [Boycott]
• N.Korean Meth 'Flooding Asia-Pacific'
  Methamphetamines made in North Korea are flooding the Asia-Pacific region including the Philippines, officials say. In an interview with Reuters last Friday, Dionisio Santiago, the director general of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, said an influx of methamphetamines from clandestine North Korean factories cut the street price of the drug by half, the news agency said. "In the last few months, we've noticed methamphetamine prices going down to as much as 3 million pesos (US$68,000) per kilo from a high of 6-8 million pesos," it quoted Santiago as saying. Santiago added that the country�s drug enforcement agency last Wednesday seized a Vietnam-registered ship that attempted to enter Subic Bay with 700 kg of what is believed to be North Korean methamphetamines worth US$100 million. �Based on our initial investigation, the Vietnam-registered boat which unloaded the methamphetamines shipment had made port calls in North Korea,� Santiago said. �We've been informed by our counterparts abroad that North Korea has become a steady source of methamphetamines in the Asia and Pacific region.� The Philippines, which had a reputation for being a leading producer and supplier of metamphetamines in the Asia-Pacific region for a long time, is now becoming a midpoint in the drug trade from other sources [Drugs] [Evidence] [Disinformation] [Toolkit]
• Panel partly clears UN group's North spending
  June 03, 2008 A leading United Nations agency accused by the United States of financial mismanagement in North Korea had no way of knowing how Pyongyang would use the money it spent there, a review panel found on Monday. The three-person external panel set up to examine the charges also contested the sums U.S. officials have said the United Nations Development Programme paid to North Korean entities, some of which Washington has said are linked to money laundering and arms trading concerns. Also in its 353-page report, the panel dismissed as ��without merit�� claims by a former UNDP contract employee in North Korea that he had been victimized by the UN for blowing the whistle on alleged abuses by the agency. [UNDP] [Toolkit] [Evidence] [Dissension]
• North Korea Didn�t Dupe U.N. Office, Report Says
  By NEIL MacFARQUHAR Published: June 3, 2008 UNITED NATIONS � American allegations that North Korea duped the United Nations Development Program by diverting aid money for its own needs are not supported by any evidence, according to a lengthy external review released Monday. There was no sign that millions of dollars were mismanaged, diverted elsewhere or unaccounted for, the report said, countering accusations made in early 2007 by the United States Mission to the United Nations. Although the report acknowledged that some information the panel had sought was unavailable, the review�s conclusion was that the money had been "used for the purposes of the projects." [UNDP] [Toolkit] [Evidence] [Disinformation] [Dissension]
• U.N. agency escapes major censure over N.Korea
  By Patrick Worsnip Reuters Monday, June 2, 2008; 5:45 PM UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A U.N. agency accused by the United States of financial mismanagement in North Korea escaped charges of major wrongdoing in a review made public on Monday, and its chief said this brought closure to the affair. An external panel examined allegations that the United Nations Development Program engaged in sloppy accounting, gave cash to North Korean bodies without proper documentation and hired staff hand-picked by the communist Pyongyang government. [UNDP] [Media] [Toolkit]
• UN program cleared of North Korea misdealing
  By JOHN HEILPRIN The Associated Press Monday, June 2, 2008; 8:10 PM UNITED NATIONS -- A panel of auditors said Monday it found no evidence that a U.N. anti-poverty program in North Korea knew of any counterfeiting, money laundering or other improper financial dealings linked to U.N. money. In response to the report, U.N. Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis told reporters he would consider and possibly recommend to his agency's executive board that it return to working in the communist-led country, from which the agency withdrew its operations in March 2007 [UNDP] [Toolkit]
• The Nemeth Report
  Download the full report (.pdf, 2.22 MB) Executive summaries (.pdf, 736 KB) In January 2007, UNDP faced allegations that its resources in the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (North Korea) may have been diverted to illicit purposes. Later that month, the UN Secretary-General requested that an audit of UNDP�s activities in North Korea be conducted by the UN�s external Board of Auditors. Published on 31 May 2007, the external audit did not put the controversy to rest, and shortly afterwards a new set of allegations emerged. In September 2007, after consultations with its Executive Board, UNDP announced that it was commissioning an External Independent Investigative Review Panel to get to the bottom of persistent allegations about its former operations in North Korea. The Panel was led by former Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos N�meth. The other members were Chander Mohan Vasudev, former Permanent Secretary of Public Expenditure in the Indian Ministry of Finance, and Mary Ann Wyrsch, a former UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees and former acting commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. [UNDP] [Evidence] [Toolkit] �
• Statement by External Independent Investigative Review Panel
  New York - The External Independent Investigative Review Panel, appointed by United Nations Development Programme Administrator, Kemal Dervis, to review the operations of the UNDP program in the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (DPRK), completed its work on May 31st and delivered the final Report of its review to the UNDP Administrator yesterday. In compliance with the Terms of Reference (TOR), the Panel also arranged for its report to be delivered to Members of the UNDP Executive Board, and to the Director of the UN Ethics Office. A copy was also delivered to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon�s office. Appointed in September 2007, the Panel began the detailed work on the various elements of its TOR in November. During the course of its work, the Panel has reviewed a large number of documents including financial records and conducted over 70 interviews with current and former staff members of UNDP, the UN, and others. The Panel has also benefitted from information provided by the Permanent Mission of the United States to the United Nations. (sic) [UNDP] [Evidence] [Toolkit]
• Kemal Dervis statement on Nemeth Report
  Now let me turn to today�s topic which is the Nemeth Report. The report on UNDP activities in the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea covering the period from 1999 � 2007. It�s a long report, for those of you who have seen it, a very comprehensive report, done by a very distinguished independent panel. I don�t expect anybody to have fully absorbed the full report yet. We read it in the evening yesterday and are still studying it very carefully. I�m going to read, which is not something I usually do, but I just want to be very careful because it�s the Panel�s report, it�s not our report. I think that is very important to stress. So I don�t really want to paraphrase them or interpret them in any way. Once we�ve studied the whole thing maybe we can do that with a lot of care. But I want to stress strongly that this is the Independent Panel�s report and their findings, the way they did their work and the way they wrote it. I don�t want to mix up our own views and our own work on follow up with that of the Panel as such. I�m going to be very careful on this point. I want to welcome the very thorough and exhaustive independent external review of UNDP�s activities in DPRK. I am pleased that this very important review is now concluded and that we finally have some closure on the allegations made against UNDP. � [UNDP] [Evidence] [Toolkit]
• Background and Overview of Allegations Against UNDP
  Photo: Gerald Bourke/WFP In January 2007, amidst allegations by the U.S. Mission to the UN (USUN) of irregularities in UNDP�s program in the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (North Korea), UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for an audit by the UN�s external Board of Auditors of UN agencies operating in the country. [UNDP] [Evidence] [Toolkit]
• Korea, US to Discuss 'Strategic Flexibility' of American Forces
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The defense chiefs of South Korea and the United States will hold talks on issues of mutual concern today in Seoul, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense said Monday. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived here Monday, after attending an annual security forum of Asian nations in Singapore. Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee also attended the forum. Gates is scheduled to officiate in the change-of-command ceremony for Gen. Walter Sharp, the new commander of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) after a breakfast meeting with Lee, ministry spokesperson Won Tae-je told reporters. Sharp will replace Gen. B. B. Bell, who is to retire June 9. This is the second visit to Seoul by the U.S. defense chief following his trip last October for the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), an annual Korea-U.S. defense ministerial meeting, said Won. High on the agenda for the Lee-Gates talks include the agreed transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean troops during wartime from the U.S. military to Korean commanders in 2012, the relocation of U.S. bases to south of the Han River, the potential deployment of U.S. troops to other regions, and defense cost-sharing for maintaining the USFK. [China confrontation] [US military dominance]
• Violent Protests Paralyze Downtown Seoul
  Violence marred the biggest candlelight vigils yet against opening the Korean market to U.S. beef over the weekend. Police estimate that over 40,000 people participated, while the organizers puts the number at 100,000. The main participants shifted from middle and high school students to university students, office workers, and housewives. There were many more university student bodies and leftwing organizations than during the rallies that took place over the previous week. Some protesters went violent, breaking windows of police buses while marching toward the Cheong Wa Dae. Police were also more aggressive, turning water cannon on the rioters to disperse them and deploying special operations squads. � [FTA] [Human rights]
• Foreign Ministry Spokesman Condemns U.S. for Slandering DPRK
  Pyongyang, May 31 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA Saturday as regards the fact that the U.S. State Department slandered the DPRK in the 2008 "advancing freedom and democracy report": The U.S. State Department, in the report published on May 27, took fault with 106 countries as it pleased. In this arrogant and self-justified document crafted by it according to its own domestic law, the U.S. let loose a spate of balderdash against the DPRK, terming it "closed" and "highly militarized society" and "dictatorship." The U.S. had the impudence to find fault with the supreme headquarters of the DPRK and slander the Korean-style socialist system centered on the popular masses at a time when the negotiations for the settlement of the nuclear issue and the improvement of the DPRK-U.S. relations are in full swing. This can not but be an intolerable provocation and a serious insult to the dialogue partner. Such behavior of the U.S. side leaves the DPRK skeptical about whether it has true willingness for "peaceful settlement of the nuclear issue" and the "improvement of U.S.-DPRK relations" it has advocated. The U.S. recent behavior did seriously hurt the DPRK, urging it to be more vigilant. The DPRK will closely follow the U.S. moves and will resolutely counter any attempt to slander and do harm to the Korean socialist system with the bolstered Songun policy. [Vituperation] [Dissension]
• USFK Strengthens Guard on Military Installations
  By T.D. Flack A banned South Korean student activist group might launch violent demonstrations against U.S. military installations in reaction to the government's decision Thursday to allow the imports of American beef, according to the U.S. Forces Korea. [FTA] [Anti-Americanism]
• North Korea questions US stance on nuclear issue
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 31, 2008 Filed at 6:15 a.m. ET SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea questioned Saturday U.S. willingness to settle an ongoing nuclear dispute after criticisms by Washington included in a report on global democracy. North Korea's official news agency said the country's Foreign Ministry blasted a recent State Department report that called North Korea a ''militarized society'' and ''dictatorship.'' Such criticism from the U.S. left North Korea ''skeptical about whether it has true willingness'' to peacefully settle the nuclear issue and improve bilateral relations, the Korean Central News Agency quoted the ministry as saying [Vituperation] [Dissension]
• Analysis: US terrorism list also a political tool
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 31, 2008 Filed at 9:13 a.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- North Korea has not been linked to a terrorist attack in more than two decades, but it is still on the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Now, it may be on the verge of its coveted goal of getting removed -- for reasons having little to do with terrorism. Meanwhile, Washington has what appears to be fresh evidence that Venezuela supported Colombian guerrillas that the U.S. considers terrorists. Yet the terrorism list does not include Venezuela, a major oil supplier to the United States. Nearly three decades after its inception, the state sponsors of terrorism list is not just about terrorism. It has become a diplomatic tool to win concessions from U.S. adversaries eager to end the stigma and sanctions that come with the designation. It may also be too blunt a tool to be used against strategically important countries, even if the terrorism link appears clear-cut. {Terrorism list] [Bizarre]
• Is 'Made in USA' Backlash Next?
  By Michael Ha Staff Reporter The ongoing protest against American beef may develop into an anti-``Made in the USA'' product campaign. ``Let's boycott U.S.-made products,'' read one posting Friday on a popular Korean Internet portal. ``It's not just the Korean government that's pushing this import deal on Korean consumers. The American government is in on it. Let's boycott U.S. products,'' it continued. Such postings urging a boycott appeared following the government's announcement of the official resumption of beef imports, Thursday. ``Let's begin a campaign to boycott U.S. products. Boycott Hollywood movies! Don't wear Nike! Don't drink Starbucks coffee and stop going to McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC,'' read another Internet post. U.S. companies with a business presence in Korea could suffer losses from the beef controversy if the campaign gains traction. [Boycott] [IM] [FTA]
• 'US Ready to Hit N. Korean Targets'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Forward-deployed U.S. bombers and fighter jets from air bases in Guam, Japan and South Korea are ready to deliver lethal hits to North Korean targets within 24 hours in the case of a conflict, the top U.S. commander here said Friday. In a press conference in Seoul, outgoing U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) commander General B. B. Bell said squadrons of advanced U.S. jets and bombers, called ``theater security packages (TSPs),'' have been deployed to the Asia-Pacific region on a rotation basis since 2004, particularly during North Korea's military trainings cycles, to deter North Korean aggression. He referred to the moves, while stressing the importance of the U.S. military's ``strategic flexibility'' scheme under which U.S. forces can be dispatched to other parts of the world where the United States faces conflict, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Bell is to retire early next week, ending his 39-year military career. Gen. Walter Sharp is to replace him. He served in South Korea for 28 months. [US military dominance] [Inversion]

• Abduction-terrorism link was test for N.K.: Armitage
  US-Japan abduction 2008-05-29 WASHINGTON, May 28 (Yonhap) -- The United States initially linked the Japanese abduction issue with designating North Korea a state-sponsor of terrorism to "test" Pyongyang on whether it will live up to its agreements, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said. In a presentation to a Pacific Forum in March, Armitage said it was he and James Kelly, North Korea policy coordinator at the time, who decided to make the link. The transcript of his lecture was made available recently on the Center for Strategic and International Studies Web site. "It was done with a feeling that this would be an excellent way to test North Korea," Armitage said. "And the test case was whether or not North Korea could be expected to accord the basic consideration to human rights, and I would say abductees' families deserve a basic consideration of human rights." The U.S. administration is getting ready to remove North Korea from its list of terrorism-sponsoring states as part of a political and economic incentives package in return for North Korea's denuclearization. But Japan, a member of the six-party forum negotiating the denuclearization process, insists that Pyongyang must explain and account for the Japanese nationals it abducted in the past. North Korea so far has refused to talk to Tokyo on the issue. South Korea, the U.S., China, and Russia are the other members of the six-party talks. In a summit with Japanese prime minister in September 2002, North Korea's top leader, Kim Jong-il, had acknowledged his government had kidnapped Japanese citizens to help train its spies to pose as Japanese. North Korea was named a state sponsor of terrorism in January 1988, soon after its agents blew up a South Korean passenger jet. The abduction issue was included for the first time in the U.S. State Department's annually released terrorism list in 2003 as an example of Pyongyang's terrorist acts. "This was not done thoughtlessly, it was not done wildly, it wasn't done on the spur of the moment," Armitage said. "If they (North Koreans) could not find it in themselves to live up as much as possible to their responsibilities on the abductees issue, how could we trust them to live up to an international agreement particularly given the previous agreements we had in 1994 that they didn't live up to?" he said, referring to a U.S.-North Korea nuclear deal. Under the 1994 deal known as the Geneva Agreed Framework, North Korea was supposed to freeze its nuclear activities. The accord fell apart when the U.S. accused Pyongyang in late 2002 of violating the deal by running a secret uranium enrichment program. [Abductees] [Camouflage] [US NK policy]
• Massive Protests Send Message to President Lee
  Over 10,000 people gathered in downtown Seoul to protest against the resumption U.S. beef imports on Thursday, marking a sixth day of demonstrations that blocked the roads of the capital. Civic groups organized a candlelight vigil at 7 p.m. in Seoul Plaza in front of City Hall that drew many university students, with the flags of major universities like Korea, Sungkyunkwan, and Ewha prominently visible in the crowd. [FTA]
• After Seoul lifts ban on U.S. beef, protesters erupt
  Opposition says the government declares ��war against the people�� May 30, 2008
  Following Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun��s announcement of the end of the ban on U.S. beef, mothers marched on downtown Seoul in protest. Some pushed their tots in strollers yesterday afternoon. An alliance of 1,700 civic groups planned a massive candlelight vigil near City Hall yesterday as public anger reached a new peak. [NEWSIS] Despite snowballing public anger and dire threats by opposition lawmakers, the Lee Myung-bak administration yesterday officially lifted its ban on imports of U.S. beef, allowing the meat to hit retail stores after an eight-month suspension. Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun also announced new quarantine restrictions that effectively open the Korean market to almost all types of the meat from the United States. Seoul and Washington agreed to the action on April 18. [FTA]
• Seoul Initiates Friendship Campaign for US Troops
  � By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The Ministry of National Defense kicked off a campaign Thursday to strengthen ties between South Korean and U.S. troops, a ministry spokesman said.
• Korea Moves Into U.S. Campaign Spotlight
  The South Korean government is on alert as the peninsula and its relations with America are emerging as hot topics between U.S. presidential hopefuls. They have lately brought up security and economic issues, chiefly the North Korean nuclear question and the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement in their campaigns
• U.S. Urges S.Korea to Join PSI
  The U.S. has officially asked South Korea to join the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), a loose coalition of countries committed to stopping the spread of so-called weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
• Hillary Says No to KORUS FTA
  � � By Kim Hyun-cheol Staff Reporter It was confirmed Wednesday that U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton had sent President George W. Bush a message saying she will not support a free trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, ahead of a similar letter sent by Democratic contender Barack Obama. [Protectionism] [FTA]
• South Korea Bids to Buy Second-Hand US Attack Choppers
  � A U.S. Apache attack helicopter By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter South Korea has expressed interest in purchasing renovated U.S. Apache attack helicopters, which will be available to international customers in the near future, a U.S. government official said Tuesday. � [Military balance] [Arms sales]
• U.S. beef rallies draw new generation of protesters
  Contrary to police claims, protesters say they are ordinary people who were not working with an outside leader � A citizen who was arrested during the march toward the Blue House over the weekend looks at the street through the iron bars of a police bus on May 26. Sixty-eight citizens were detained over the weekend after participating in street demonstrations against the South Korean government�s decision to resume imports of U.S. beef. Most of the 68 people, who were taken into custody following rallies held between the late evening of May 24 and the early morning of May 26, denied the police�s claims that they had participated in the demonstrations under the direction of a leader operating behind the scenes. Compared with the demonstrations of the past, when it was university students and members of civic groups who were detained en masse, the 68 people taken into custody recently are from different age groups and occupations. [Human rights] [Anti-Americanism] [FTA]
• McCain Breaks with Bush Over North Korea
  By Glenn Kessler
  Sen. John McCain broke today with President Bush's new policy on North Korea, co-authoring an opinion article with Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in which he called for a return to Bush's original demand of a complete, verifiable, irreversible disarmament of North Korea's nuclear programs. With the prodding of secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Bush -- who once labeled North Korea part of an "axis of evil" -- has greatly softened his position on North Korea in the past year in an effort to convince Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. But the shifts have greatly angered conservatives in the Republican Party. McCain's new stance, which is outlined in an opinion article in Tuesday's editions of the Asian Wall Street Journal, calls for a return to sanctions and other levers to prod North Korea. The administration has argued that the diplomatic engagement -- led by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill -- has convinced North Korea to begin dismantling its facilities and turn over 18,000 documents on its reactor at Yongbyon. But conservatives say those achievements have come only after large concessions by Bush, including returning millions of dollars tainted by illicit activities, and that a tougher approach is still needed. The Bush administration has also relented in its demand for a full accounting of North Korea's assistance to a reactor in Syria and its suspected experimentation of uranium enrichment, keeping the focus on seeking the return of weapons-grade plutonium. �[Partisan] [US NK policy]
• Obama Speaks Out Against Korea-U.S. FTA
  U.S. presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Thursday sent a letter to U.S. President George W. Bush urging him not to submit the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement for ratification by Congress.
• Fear, secrecy kept 1950 Korea mass killings hidden
  By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent Sun May 18, 1:26 PM ET SEOUL, South Korea - One journalist's bid to report mass murder in South Korea in 1950 was blocked by his British publisher. Another correspondent was denounced as a possibly treasonous fabricator when he did report it. In South Korea, down the generations, fear silenced those who knew.
  Fifty-eight years ago, at the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean authorities secretively executed, usually without legal process, tens of thousands of southern leftists and others rightly or wrongly identified as sympathizers. Today a government Truth and Reconciliation Commission is working to dig up the facts, and the remains of victims. How could such a bloodbath have been hidden from history?
  Scattered reports of the killings did emerge in 1950 � and some did not. British journalist James Cameron wrote about mass prisoner shootings in the South Korean port city of Busan � then spelled Pusan � for London's Picture Post magazine in the fall of 1950, but publisher Edward Hulton ordered the story removed at the last minute. Earlier, correspondent Alan Winnington reported on the shooting of thousands of prisoners at Daejeon in the British communist newspaper The Daily Worker, only to have his reporting denounced by the U.S. Embassy in London as an "atrocity fabrication." The British Cabinet then briefly considered laying treason charges against Winnington, historian Jon Halliday has written. [Korean War events] [human rights] [Disinformation]
• Farmers in Massive Protests Against FTA With U.S.
  Downtown Seoul saw massive demonstrations by farmers against the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement and import of U.S. beef on Thursday. Some 8,000 farmers from 42 groups nationwide including the Hanwoo Association gathered at 2 p.m. in Yeouido Park, near the National Assembly. These farmers came to Seoul from all corners of the country on over 200 buses. These buses parked randomly near the park, and caused extreme traffic jam around Yeouido. The participants sat in rows and shouted, "Do not pass the FTA bill" and "No U.S. Beef to Korea." [FTA] [Protectionism] � �
• Ambassador Vershbow�s rude behavior
  [Editorial] � U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow has again committed a diplomatic blunder. He telephoned United Democratic Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu on May 21 to ask Sohn why he is opposed to importing American beef from cows more than 30 months old, and tell him he is "disappointed" and express his displeasure with what he saw as causing "public anxiety" about American beef. A foreign ambassador certainly can convey his views to the leader of the opposition, or request his cooperation, but it is common sense that certain formalities be followed and that the substance be appropriate. If Korea�s ambassador to the United States telephoned the chairman of the U.S. opposition party in a similar manner, what would the American people think? [Arrogance]
• Obama Changes Tack on Terror Status for N.Korea
  U.S. Democratic presidential frontrunner Senator Barack Obama has recently indicated he no longer opposes the removal of North Korea from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Obama in January 2005 came out against the removal of the Stalinist nation from the list until it gives an account of the kidnapping and death in the North of the Rev. Kim Dong-shik in 2000. [Bilateral]
• U.S. Envoy Irks Opposition Leader
  A war of words erupted Wednesday following a telephone call from U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow to United Democratic Party Chairman Sohn Hak-kyu. On Tuesday, Sohn had met with President Lee Myung-bak and asked the president to renegotiate a deal on imports of U.S. beef. UDP spokeswoman Cha Young quoted Vershbow as telling Sohn in an unsolicited phone conversation on Wednesday morning he was "disappointed" that the party caused public "anxiety" about U.S. beef imports without presenting any scientific justification. Sohn said it was inappropriate for the American ambassador to talk to an opposition party leader this way over the phone. He told Vershbow he should have come to see him in person or written a letter.
• Remarks made during S. Korea-U.S. beef negotiations raise questions
  Timeline of negotiations provides clues about the political decision made in the final hours before agreement was reached � Approximately thirty thousand citizens and students participate in the 11th candlelight vigil protesting resumption of U.S. beef imports at Cheonggyecheon Plaza on May 17. � Public anger over the South Korean government�s decision to resume imports of U.S. beef is running sky-high after the Korean government was found to have made a series of grave errors in its negotiations with the United States. With the public describing the negotiations as "humiliating" and being like a "mad rush," most people believe the beef negotiations were settled as a "gift" given to the United States in exchange for President Lee Myung-bak�s U.S. visit last month. Until now, there has been no tangible evidence to prove that this was anything more than speculation. But if we thoroughly retrace the remarks made by the negotiators at the time, we can get a glimpse into why the talks ended unexpectedly and how the outcome was affected by a set of "invisible hands."
  Given the remarks made by Min leading up to the settlement of the deal, it is not difficult to imagine that a "political decision" was made between 6:00 p.m. on April 17 and 5:00 a.m. on April 18, which led to a breakthrough in negotiations and resolution of the beef agreement.
• AP IMPACT: Thousands killed in 1950 by US's Korean ally
  SLIDESHOW Previous Next This photograph by the U.S. Army, provided by the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Md., on Monday, May 5, 2008, is one of a series of declassified images depicting the summary execution of South Korean political prisoners by the South Korean military and police at Daejeon, South Korea, over several days in July 1950. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea is investigating this and similar mass killings in South Korea in 1950-51. A chief investigator estimates up to 7,000 were killed at Daejeon, and tens of thousands elsewhere. (AP Photo/National Archives, U.S. Army) (AP) By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Monday, May 19, 2008; 4:38 AM DAEJEON, South Korea -- Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950. With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial. The mass executions _ intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners _ were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were "the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War," said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings. Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million. That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is "very conservative," said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press. [Korean War events] [human rights]
• Shooter grew 'speechless' at 1950 Korea killings
  Former Daejeon prison guard Lee Joon-young speaks to a reporter during an interview with The Associated Press in Seoul, Wednesday, April 23, 2008. ``Even now I feel guilty'' about taking part in the summary execution of political prisoners in 1950, he said. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Korea is investigating the Daejeon and other mass killings in South Korea in 1950-51. A commission chief investigator estimates up to 7,000 were killed in Daejeon, and tens of thousands elsewhere. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man) (Lee Jin-man - AP)
  By JAE-SOON CHANG The Associated Press Sunday, May 18, 2008; 1:18 PM DAEJEON, South Korea -- The prison guard scanned the trench full of bodies, under orders to shoot anyone still alive, when he heard a cry from below that still echoes in his mind: "Mr. Chief! Please shoot me." The 25-year-old guard, Lee Joon-young, complied with a squeeze of his .45-caliber pistol's trigger, ending the suffering of one victim of the mass executions carried out by South Korean authorities in the early days of the Korean War. In just a few weeks in mid-1950, the military and police killed thousands of known leftists and suspected leftist sympathizers, as well as ordinary convicts and peasants wrongly caught up in anti-communist sweeps. South Korean leaders feared they might help invading troops from communist North Korea. [Korean War events]
• Reasons to renegotiate
  [Editorial] � � It has been confirmed that Seoul made yet another mistake in its negotiations with Washington on resumption of U.S. beef imports. Now, it seems that Korean people will be expected to eat animal parts classified as specified risk materials in the United States, including bones and nerves attached to the backbone and cervical vertebrae and a part of the tailbone. It is said that these parts are essential ingredients for tail soup, head meat and T-bone steak, which are Korean favorites. However, most of these parts have been prohibited from trading by the World Organization for Animal Health, or OIE, because they can cause mad cow disease. � The fact that the parts designated as specified risk materials by the U.S. Agriculture Department are different from those listed in the new import conditions was raised at the National Assembly on May 14, but the government can�t seem to offer a proper explanation for the discrepancy. The United States has reportedly put pressure on Korea to import these parts for a long time.
• Korea given NATO status for weapons sales
  May 17, 2008 WASHINGTON � The U.S. House passed legislation Thursday (U.S. Eastern Standard Time) that makes it easier for South Korea to purchase U.S. military arms and requires presidential certification that North Korea is not building nuclear weapons before the North is taken off the U.S. list of states that sponsor terrorism. [Military balance] [Proliferation] [Dissension]
• U.S. official expects Seoul to reassess its global role
  WASHINGTON, May 15, 2008 (Asia Pulse Data Source via COMTEX) -- South Korea will likely need time to think about expanding its global role and is expected to reassess what it needs to do in places like Afghanistan, a U.S. official said Wednesday. John Hill, principal director for East Asia at the Pentagon, emphasized the importance of trilateral security cooperation among South Korea, the U.S. and Japan and said the time might finally have come to set up the three-nation mechanism. [Imperialism] [Tribute]
• S.Korea, U.S., Japan in Fresh Nuclear Meeting
  Kim Sook, South Korea's nuclear envoy, talks to the media upon his arrival from Beijing at the Incheon International Airport in Incheon on Thursday. The top nuclear envoys from South Korea, the United States and Japan were preparing to meet next week to try resolving a deadlock in disarmament talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons programs, the South's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. /AP
  � The chief negotiators from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan will hold talks in Washington on Sunday and Monday to discuss how to verify North Korea's declaration of nuclear programs and stockpiles. This will be the first time for the three to meet since Korea-U.S.-Japan Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) was suspended in 2003, right after the Roh Moo-hyun administration was inaugurated. Observers speculate that the talks might revive trilateral dialogue, considering that the talks are being held at a time when a new conservative administration in Seoul is more friendly to such a structure.
• Gov�t Says Sorry for Cattle-Feed Translation Gaffe
  Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-kwan on Monday apologized for a mistranslation of the U.S. Federal Register which, amid widespread panic over beef imports from the U.S., has been read in some quarters as deliberate muddying of waters. "We regret that we have caused unnecessary misunderstanding and concern," Lee said after Seoul wrongly translated cattle feed rules in the bilateral beef deal as carried in the official gazette so they looked more stringent than they actually are. [FTA]
• S. Korea works out new USFK cost-sharing proposal
  New plan would involve more non-cash payments to support USFK presence
  � A U.S. military armoured vehicle takes its passengers to Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province, for target practice on February 24. The soldiers on board the vehicle, a unit from Alaska, were in South Korea for a joint military drill. � The South Korean government was believed to have mapped out a proposal for sharing the cost of stationing U.S. troops here by drastically increasing its contribution of needed goods, instead of money. The new proposal was devised after the two leaders of South Korea and the United States agreed to revise its agreement on support for the U.S. Forces Korea during their summit on April 19. � On May 12, a South Korean government official said, "Out of the South Korean government�s cost-sharing budget, we are aggressively considering providing needed goods for military construction costs, which are currently paid in cash, to improve the fund�s transparency." [Tribute]
• Why North Koreans Need Us
  Jay Lefkowitz, Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea
  Op-Ed The New York Sun May 5, 2008 For a country renowned for its reclusive nature, North Korea has a way of staying in the news. Recently, headlines were dominated by news of Pyongyang's assistance to Syria in building a nuclear facility that the Israelis have now destroyed. And last week began with news that a North Korean solider had stepped across the heavily militarized zone separating North and South Korea and requested asylum.
  Given the threat to America and our allies posed by North Korea's nuclear ambitions, why is it that Congress and President Bush have continued to make human rights in North Korea a focus? The answer is that helping North Koreans achieve freedom is not only a policy consistent with our moral values as a nation � it is also a pragmatic security necessity. As Mr. Bush stated in his second inaugural address, "We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." [Human rights] [Manipulation] [Dissension] [Regime change]
• Rumormongers Facing Prosecution
  Prosecutors and police have embarked on an investigation of groundless rumors loosely connected to the U.S. beef health scare that have been spread via the Internet and text messages. An emergency meeting at the Supreme Prosecutors� Office on Tuesday afternoon discussed putting the criminal investigation department in charge of the matter. An official who participated in the meeting said prosecutors and police are still trying to understand the issues and are reviewing judicial aspects of punishment since "these false rumors have gone overboard." The prosecution is checking whether Article 47 of the telecommunication law can be applied to the rumormongers. Article 47 stipulates that anyone who communicates groundless rumors with the intent of harming the public interest is liable to up to five years in prison or a fine of up to W50 million (US1$=W1,015). That could apply to such messages as "Americans do not eat U.S. beef." Prosecutors are also considering prosecuting those who spread messages such as, "President Lee Myung-bak sold the Dokdo Islets to Japan," for libel. Warnings that middle and high school students will go on strike and hold nationwide demonstrations on May 17 could be punished on the grounds that they interfere with the smooth running of official business. [human rights] [Pro-Americanism]
• Law enforcement officials pledge to prosecute people for �mad cow horror stories�
  Gov�t appears threatened by spread of information via the Internet and increased number of candlelight protests � Students hold a candlelight vigil to protest the resumption of U.S. beef imports in front of the National Assembly, Yeouido, Seoul, on May 6. The national prosecution and police say they are going to criminally prosecute people involved in spreading so-called "mad cow horror stories" (gwangubyeong goedam) on the Internet, in addition to prosecuting the organizers of candlelight protests against imports of American beef. [human rights] [FTA]
• Beef Backlash Challenges Lee's Reforms
  Stone-faced Senior Presidential Secretary for Political Affairs Park Jae-wan, second from left, listens at a trilateral meeting of Cheong Wa Dae, the governing Grand National Party and the government held at the National Assembly, Sunday, to discuss dealing with the backlash against U.S. beef imports. / Yonhap By Michael Ha Staff Reporter As the public backlash over U.S. beef continues to grow, President Lee Myung-bak is facing a potential political crisis that could spell trouble for his reform drive and possibly trigger an economic dispute between Korea and the United States. Analysts say the growing public furor over the issue could also hurt President Lee's efforts to build a stronger Korea-U.S. alliance and may fuel new anti-Americanism
• Paying (diplomatic) tribute
  [Editorial] � Seoul abandoned its quarantine sovereignty over U.S. beef ahead of summit talks between the two nations and is now considering the possibility of sending agents who will train policemen to Afghanistan. It seems that Korea has entered into a tributary relationship with the United States following the April 19 summit. [Tribute] [US dominance]
• Bush 'Concerned' About N.Korean Human Rights
  N.Korean Refugees Film Strikes Chord at U.S. Screening U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday expressed renewed concern about the grave human rights situation in North Korea. "We believe it is every person's basic right to live in freedom and dignity," he said on the occasion of North Korea Freedom Week, an event organized by several human rights and political organizations. "The United States stands with the North Korean people in their call for freedom." Bush said. He vowed to "continue to support the North Korean people as they strive to achieve the rights and freedoms to which they are entitled as human beings. We look forward to the moment when we can celebrate the blessings of liberty with the North Korean people." [Manipulation]
• U.S. Extends N.Korea Human Rights Act
  The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Wednesday passed an amendment extending the North Korea Human Rights Act, a law that helps North Korean refugees settle in the U.S., until 2012. The act originally expires at the end of September. The amendment was co-authored by seven congressmen, including Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a ranking Republican on the committee, and urges the government to help North Korean refugees settle in the U.S. The amendment also urges the government to make permanent the current temporary post of special envoy on North Korean human rights. Arguing that only 37 North Korean refugees had settled in the U.S. from 2004 to 2007, the congressmen urged the administration to try to win the cooperation of the governments of third countries where North Korean refugees are staying to help them settle in the U.S. [Manipulation] [Refugee reception]
• In agreement on U.S. beef, S. Korea forfeited right to ban imports
  Gov�t rejects civic groups� request to make text of agreement public
  � Citizens and students protest the agreement on U.S. beef imports on the plaza near the Cheonggye Stream in central Seoul on May 2. Criticism of the government�s decision to open local markets to imports of U.S. beef has grown due to new information that the government gave up an important set of preconditions in order to push the deal through before the South Korea-U.S. summit last month. Experts are now pointing out that concessions made by the government in the course of its negotiations with Washington have caused South Korea to forfeit rights granted under international law, namely, that a government can impose a ban on imports if it finds that there is a significant risk to the public health, such as that posed by mad cow disease.
• U.S. Beef Imports Fuel Online Scaremongering
  The impending resumption of imports of U.S. beef has spawned a proliferation of rumors on the Internet about the perils of mad cow disease, amplifying confusion and fears among consumers. This was not helped by the airing of an edition of "PD Diary", the famous MBC current affairs program, on Tuesday, which claimed that 94 percent of Koreans have genes that make them more susceptible than Americans or Britons to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which is the human variant of mad cow disease, and this physical trait makes Koreans two to three times more likely than Americans or Britons to contract the disease
• 'US Ready to Work With N. Korea'
  U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow said the United States ``will meet its commitments" to remove North Korea from its list of state sponsors of terrorism if the communist regime meets its commitments to denuclearization.
• Senator Ties Envoy Appointment to NK Human Rights
  WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. senator who refused to endorse Washington's designated envoy to South Korea said Thursday he will continue to oppose the nominee's confirmation until the administration addresses North Korea's human rights issues. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) told Yonhap he would withhold his support "until we can get some human rights movement taking place in the six-party talks, or some clear commitments to deal with the human rights issues which are not being addressed."
• Lee-Bush Summit Lays Groundwork for Solid Alliance
  � Minister Yu Myung-hwan The following is an exclusive contribution by Foreign Affairs-Trade Minister Yu Myung-hwan to The Korea Times to assess the result of the summit between Presidents Lee Myungbak and George W. Bush. By Yu Myung-hwan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Earlier this month, President Lee Myung-bak traveled to the United States. Needless to say, this trip was very meaningful in terms of the symbolism of the trip itself and the substantive issues discussed between the two leaders. It was his first overseas trip as well as his first summit with President Bush.
• N.Korean Refugees Film Strikes Chord at U.S. Screening
  � On Monday afternoon, a film depicting the misery and challenges faced by North Korean refugees was screened for an audience at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. "Crossing" was shown as part of North Korea Freedom Week, a series of events organized by the North Korea Freedom Coalition (NKFC), a union of American groups concerned with human rights in North Korea. [Manipulation]

• N.Korea Freedom Week Kicks Off in Washington
  Apr.28,2008 07:07 KST � North Korea Freedom Week, sponsored by the North Korea Freedom Coalition, a coalition of American civic groups, kicked off in Washington on Saturday.
• New U.S. Envoy�s Appointment Stalled Over N.Korea
  U.S. Senator Sam Brownback on Wednesday afternoon said the appointment of the nominee for U.S. ambassador to Korea, Kathleen Stephens, was deferred in the plenary session of the Congress, citing the State Department�s unsatisfactory response to the North Korea�s human rights violations. Presenting a satellite image of North Korea�s No.22 Heoryong prison camp on Google Earth, the Republican senator said there is 3,300-volt electric fence around the camp, and people are being beaten and killed inside.
• U.S. Foolish Attempt to Attain World Domination through Banking Facilities
  Pyongyang, April 24 (KCNA) -- The United States is used to put sanction and pressure on the countries which get on its nerves through financial facilities. �@Recently, it decided to take a step of financial sanction against major banks, enterprises and individuals of Iran. �@Its purpose is to make Iran change her politics through the intensified political and economic pressure. �@It glaringly shows that the financial facilities are being used as the main pressure lever in the U.S. attempt to realize the strategy of world domination. �@As already known, the U.S. has pursued as its main foreign policy to spread "democracy" to the other countries while keeping the politics of supremacy by "strength" since the end of the Cold War. �@The real intention of the U.S. is to force the given countries to open economic and banking organs under the cloak of "freedom" and "democracy" and thus dominate them politically and economically in the long run. �@For this purpose, it came out with "Washington Consensus". [Financial sanctions]
• McCain Hits Obama on Diplomacy Over North Korea
  By REUTERS Published: April 24, 2008 Filed at 8:00 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph CHICAGO (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain challenged Democrat Barack Obama's approach to diplomacy on Thursday, saying U.S. charges that North Korea gave nuclear assistance to Syria showed the folly of unconditional talks with foreign adversaries. McCain said U.S. disclosures that North Korea helped Syria build a secret nuclear reactor destroyed by Israel last year cast a new light on Obama's willingness to meet unconditionally with a leader like North Korea's Kim Jong-il.
• US Advised to Adopt Sunshine Policy Toward China
  Kim Warns on Emerging Nationalism in China
  By Kang Shin-who, Michael Ha Staff Reporters CAMBRIDGE, Mass. ? Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung said Wednesday that the United States should add a dose of ``sunshine'' in dealing with China. Speaking at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, The Nobel Peace Prize laureate advised the United States to reduce possible military pressure on China to help calm down its emerging nationalism and foster democracy in the Communist nation. [China confrontation]
• U.S.-ROK Civil Society Ties: Dynamics and Prospects in a Post-Alliance World
  By Scott Snyder
  April 24th, 2008 International Relations program of The Asia Foundation and Pacific Forum CSIS, writes, �the existence or absence of a security alliance between the United States and South Korea would probably not have a decisive impact on civil society interactions across all spheres; the end of the alliance (and more specifically the U.S. military presence in Korea) would actually remove a concern shared by South Korean NGOs working to bring greater transparency and accountability to the U.S.-ROK military relationship."
• Panels Assess Prospects on Korea Peace Day
  One scholar says the United States needs to adopt an approach that allows North and South Korea to normalize relations quickly. Margaretta Soehendro North Korean people are not robots. They're real people.According to one of six panelists who spoke at a Korea Peace Day Conference on the UCLA campus, the interests of the U.S. military establishment and defense contractors have played a role in the continued tension between the United States and North Korea. Among these interests is the desire to keep troops stationed in Asia and to maintain the defense budget in the post-Cold War era. [US NK policy]
• Korea Won�t Send More Soldiers to Afghanistan
  The government has told the U.S. it will not send military troops to Afghanistan again but may send police personnel, the Foreign Ministry said Wednesday, responding to a request from Washington for forces to provide training and maintain public order in the war-torn country.
• Paying (diplomatic) tribute
  [Editorial]
  Seoul abandoned its quarantine sovereignty over U.S. beef ahead of summit talks between the two nations and is now considering the possibility of sending agents who will train policemen to Afghanistan. It seems that Korea has entered into a tributary relationship with the United States following the April 19 summit. � The government pledged not to dispatch soldiers to Afghanistan after last year�s hostage crisis, but, according to the government, agents who will train local policemen are different from soldiers. However, the situation is not so simple. Washington has actually demanded that Seoul dispatch troops to the Middle East nation. At a recent U.S. Congress hearing, Kathleen Stephens, the U.S. ambassador-designate to Seoul, said that she would discuss the possibility of dispatching Korean troops with the administration of President Lee Myung-bak.
  Considering the gap in strength between Korea and the United States, Korea will inevitably have to follow the unilateral strategies for supremacy of the suzerain state. There will be almost no gains for Korea in exchange for various risks and enormous costs. This kind of situation will certainly conflict with efforts to establish a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
• Controversy erupts over plan to send police to Afghanistan
  South Korea's plans to continue contributions to the U.S.-led efforts to stabilize post-war Afghanistan have come under public scrutiny again following last week's summit between President Lee Myung-bak and his counterpart George W. Bush.
• S.Korea Likely to Send Police to Afghanistan
  Cheong Wa Dae has tentatively decided to send dozens of police personnel to Afghanistan to train Afghan police troops at the request of the U.S., it was learned on Tuesday. The South Korean police officers will reportedly train students at the Afghan police academy, but not carry out policing activities there. [Imperialism] [US dominance]
• U.S. general suggested halting cut in troops
  April 23, 2008 WASHINGTON ��� The idea not to cut the number of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula actually came from Gen. Burwell Bell, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, according to a senior Korean government official. According to an agreement signed by Korea��s previous administration, the United States had been scheduled to cut its military presence to 25,000 by the end of this year from 37,000 in 2004. However, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that the number of troops would not be reduced any further during the Korea-U.S. presidential summit in Camp David, Maryland, this week. Bush also announced that Washington would upgrade Korea��s status in the foreign military sales plan, giving Seoul the same level of access to U.S. weapons and military technology as other allies such as Japan. Bell also strongly supported that plan, the source said. [US SK relations] [US military dominance]
• Bridges Built of Books
  Edward Reed
  Korea Representative The Asia Foundation On one of my visits to North Korea as representative of The Asia Foundation I sat in on an English-language class at Pyongyang University of Foreign Studies, the premier institution for training the North�s future diplomats and heads of state trading companies. The class was taught by a British teacher sponsored by the U.K. British Council. I was surprised to observe that the topic of discussion in this advanced class was the U.S. banking system. The dialogue so expertly enacted by the students was between a banker and a small-businessman seeking a loan. We learned from the president of the University that this was an example of their new content-based approach to teaching English which focuses heavily on science and technology and economics. The teachers, all Korean except the British volunteer, developed their own curricula drawing heavily, we were told, on books donated to the University by The Asia Foundation. When we visited the faculty library where the English-language books are shelved I found that almost the whole collection consisted of Asia Foundation-donated books and many of them were worn on the edges from apparent intensive thumbing. [Education] [Opening] [NK attitude US]
• The Alliance's New Momentum,
  by Victor Cha
  The danger of any summit meeting between heads of state is one of inflated expectations. From the view of the summit planners, the buildup to the meeting and the curtain-raisers in the media usually set unrealistically high expectations for the results of the visit, which are impossible to meet even in the best of circumstances. The result is that critics depict the meeting outcome as a "failure." U.S. President George W. Bush's hosting of Lee Myung-bak at Camp David is one of those rare occasions where the results lived up to the hype. The meeting is important because it has set not only the course for a new momentum in the alliance for Bush's remaining months in office, but also a good foundation for his successor. The White House decision to offer Camp David to President Lee (the first time for a South Korean president) was a clear and early signal of the desire to establish a personal chemistry in the alliance that had long been missing. The commonalities were clear: two former businessmen, Christian and conservative, one an ex-mayor and one an ex-governor.[US SK relations]
• Lee, Bush Agree to Forge '21st Century Alliance'
  President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush walk arm in arm to meet journalists after their summit at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David on Saturday morning. President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President George W. Bush, meeting at Camp David on Saturday, agreed to declare a 21st century strategic alliance during Bush's return visit to South Korea in July. Lee said he "agreed to develop our alliance into an alliance based on freedom and democracy, human rights and the principle of market economy -- otherwise known as the 21st century strategic alliance, something that will contribute to global peace and security as well."
• SPARK - Solidarity for Peace and Reunification of Korea
  SPARK is working to replace the unequal Korea-U.S. relationship with a relationship based on equality.
• USSTRATCOM is the main threat to peace in the Korean Peninsula
  2008.4.12 Ko Young-dae Key note speech by Mr.Ko Young-dae, SPARK co-representative in Global Network conference held in Omaha, Nebraska on April 12, 2008. After the September 11 incident, by the Bush administration's decision, the USSTRATCOM began to develop a close relationship with the Korean Peninsula. On December 31, 2001, Bush submitted the Nuclear Posture Review, which defined Russia, China, and the so-called "rogue states"?North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya?as potential targets of pre-emptive nuclear strikes. Moreover, North Korea and Iraq, unlike the other three nations, were singled out as "chronic military concerns." Since Iraq is under US occupation, only North Korea remains as a "chronic military concern." [US NK policy]
• Korea Agrees to Open Beef Market to U.S.
  Korea and the U.S. concluded beef talks last Friday. Accordingly, lean meat, bones, intestines of beef cattle, oxtails, sausages, smoked beef and processed beef products will be imported from the U.S. virtually without any restrictions from as early as May. That finally settles the issue of Korea opening its market for more American beef imports, which the U.S. has set forth as a condition for ratifying the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, some four years after mad cow disease or BSE broke out in America.
• S. Korea-U.S. summit strengthened bilateral ties, but at what cost to S. Korea?
  While U.S. was able to secure concrete gains, S. Korea likely to see more intangible results [Analysis] � President Lee Myung-bak sits in the driver�s seat at Camp David on April 18 (EDT), while U.S. President George Bush waves to the press. � Following two days of summit talks between South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart George Bush, the South Korean government�s estimation is that Lee�s first talks with the U.S. leader since his inauguration in February helped to strengthen the bilateral alliance between the two countries. � Compared with five years ago, when then President Roh Moo-hyun was at odds with Bush on the North Korean nuclear issue, the weekend summit talks at Camp David were held amid a more amicable mood.
• Hasty agreement and heavy concessions
  [Editorial] � Seoul and Washington came to a hasty agreement on imports of U.S. beef, one day before the summit between President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart George Bush, and the domestic beef market is feeling the effects. Immediately after the government announced that it would resume imports of U.S. beef seemingly without limitations, cattle prices dropped significantly. In light of this, it has been said that pork prices will be affected as well. Once imports of U.S. beef resume in May, the fallout is certain to be even more significant. Livestock farmers which have already suffered from feed and oil price hikes will have to worry about their survival.
• Lee, Bush Pledge No Hostility Toward NK
  President Lee Myung-bak, left, speaks as U.S. President George W. Bush listens during a press availability at Camp David, Md., Saturday. / Korea Times President to Hold Summit With Fukuda Today After Wrapping Up US Visit By Kim Yon-se, Michael Ha Korea Times Correspondent, Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak has embarked on the second leg of his first official overseas trip following a meeting with President George W. Bush at his Maryland presidential retreat Camp David. President Lee, now visiting Japan, is scheduled to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on today to discuss major bilateral issues. In a press conference following the summit Saturday night (KST), the two leaders agreed to maintain the current U.S. troop level in South Korea; not to condone nuclear-armed North Korea; push the FTA ratification; and enable visa-free travel to the U.S. by South Koreans this year. [Disinformation] [SK NK policy] [US NK policy]
• Kitchen Diplomacy
  Hot Sauce to Nuclear Talks: A Restaurateur's Odd Career As Envoy to the Axis of Evil
  By Peter Carlson Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 9, 2008; Page C01 HACKENSACK, N. J. Waiting for the North Korean ambassador to show up for dinner, Bobby Egan, who is the world's only barbecue chef/self-appointed unofficial American ambassador to rogue nations, launches into an impassioned monologue on why he, Bobby Egan, is a better diplomat than America's real diplomats.

• Global Coalition For Korean War Reconciliation
  GLOBAL COALITION FOR KOREAN WAR RECONCILIATION, is an independent, nongovernmental, global coalition made up of concerned citizens and organizations dedicated to fostering reconciliation of the Korean War through remembrance and recognition of the sacrifices made by all veterans of the war.
  Our Mission
  We hope to foster transnational reconciliation of the Korean War and peacebuilding on the Korean Peninsula to bring about an eventual replacement of the Korean War Armistice with a peace treaty.
• Ending the Korean War�Together
  Commentary by Hannah Kim
  What music can do to stop us for a moment�and drop our weapons� It was profoundly breathtaking to hear Arirang beautifully orchestrated by Maestro Maazel in Pyongyang. In those final moments of the NY Philharmonic�s performance, 250 million worldwide viewers and I were spellbound, and emphatically bonded by our communal human emotions. And in the context of such heightened connectedness, I believe the time has never been better to finally bring the Forgotten War to an end�this time, together, and without weapons.

• Korea-U.S. FTA Unlikely to Pass U.S. Congress This Year
  The prospects of the Korea-U.S. free trade are getting murkier, as a series of controversies on U.S. FTAs have become an issue in the U.S. Democratic presidential nomination process.
• N.K. claims U.S. plans to arm Taiwan with nukes
  North Korea Monday denounced the U.S. for having shipped ballistic missile parts to Taiwan, dismissing Washington's claim that the shipment was made mistakenly. The U.S. Defense Department announced on March 26 that the U.S. mistakenly shipped to Taiwan four electrical fuses used for intercontinental ballistic missiles, but has since recovered them. "It is not a mistake," Rodong Shinmun, the organ of the North's ruling Korean Workers' Party, said in a commentary. The newspaper claimed Washington, by sending the parts, intends to arm Taiwan with nuclear weapons so as to contain China.
• Warm welcome awaits Lee in the U.S.
  April 08, 2008 During his seven-day visit to the United States and Japan next week, President Lee Myung-bak will ride a golf cart with U.S. President George W. Bush, the Blue House announced yesterday. Lee is scheduled to arrive in New York on April 15 to begin his first presidential trip abroad, presidential spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said. The summit at Camp David with Bush is scheduled to begin on April 18. Lee will fly to Camp David by helicopter for the two-day summit. Lee and his wife, Kim Yoon-ok, will be greeted by Bush and U.S. First Lady Laura Bush, the Blue House said.
• Korean Bases of Concern
  Jae-Jung Suh | April 2, 2008 Last month the New York Philharmonic grabbed the world�s attention by performing Dvorak�s New World Symphony in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. The Philharmonic may well have chosen Dvorak�s piece as an overture for a new world of peace. With negotiations over security issues in Northeast Asia making some progress, the United States and North Korea have been inching closer. Before and after this music diplomacy, however, a different kind of new world was being rehearsed around the Korean peninsula: the Pentagon�s brave new world of lily pads and rapid deployment forces. This latest military transformation involves turning Cold War-vintage heavy armored forces into high-tech, agile, rapidly deployable fighting forces for the 21st century. The military is being restructured into modular units that can be put together in innumerable combinations, like Lego blocks. U.S. bases overseas are being realigned to maximize the efficiency of the transformed, restructured forces. In early March, U.S. forces held military exercises in Korea to test the existing plan and to facilitate the process of realigning the military bases and restructuring the military deployment. [Joint US military] [China confrontation]
• N.K.'s counterfeit U.S. bills still showing up: Treasury
  WASHINGTON, April 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's counterfeit American dollars continue to surface, and the U.S. Secret Service has an ongoing investigation into the case, the U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey said Tuesday. Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Levey said the Treasury is working closely with the Secret Service on the matter to counteract North Korea. [Sanctions] [Dissension] [toolkit]
• Trip to North Korea Brings Insight on Weapons Program
  By Lien Hoang PUBLISHED APRIL 1, 2008 Flipping through photo slides from his recent trip abroad, Joel Wit reminisced like a tourist, but lectured like an academic. Wit, a research fellow in Columbia�s Weatherhead East Asian Institute�s Center for Korean Research, discussed his Feb. 12-16 trip to North Korea at an event titled �Journey to Yongbyon: Inside North Korea�s Nuclear Weapons Program,� held Monday in the International Affairs Building. �What I�m going to do is combine a little bit of travel log ... with a bit of substance,� said Wit, a former state official involved in North Korea�s ongoing nuclear disarmament. In addition to the usual sightseer�s photos of cultural landmarks and landscapes, Wit shared pictures from inside the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, including a shot of himself as he donned protective gear. As a nongovernment researcher, Wit met with North Korean state officials and nuclear scientists to work toward nuclear disablement.
• New York Times on north Korea: All the news that fits the doctrine (even if it has to be altered to do so)
  By Stephen Gowans
  At a confirmation hearing on March 26, Kim Tae-young, south Korea�s head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, mused openly about a preventive strike on north Korea�s nuclear weapons. The north reacted by calling Kim�s threat what it was ��little short of a declaration of war against the DPRK�. The south, warned the north, �should bear in mind that once the more powerful preemptive strike of our own mode be launched, it will not merely plunge everything into flames but reduce it to ashes.� [Disinformation]
• S. Korea 5th largest weapons buyer, U.S. main supplier
  � � � � South Korea was again the fifth largest buyer of conventional weapons between 2003 and 2007, the same ranking as in 1998-2002, according to data released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). � � The United States was the dominant supplier, accounting for 77 percent of South Korea's arms purchase for 2003-2007, up from 70 percent for 1998-2002. [Military balance] [Arms sales]
• '34 Percent of Army Cadets Regard US as Main Enemy'
  By Kim Yon-se Staff Reporter A poll shows that 34 percent of first-year army cadets called the United States the main enemy of South Korea, a former superintendent of the Korea Military Academy (KMA) said. Kim Choong-bae, president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, disclosed a past survey of 250 KMA entrants to single out "the country's main enemy'' while serving as the military academy's superintendent in 2004.
  Kim was quoted by a newspaper as saying, "While the majority ? or 34 percent ? picked the U.S., 33 percent said they regarded North Korea as the main enemy.'' {SK attitude NK] [SK attitude US]

• Rice says rejecting N.K. bilateral was wise
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said rejecting pressure to talk bilaterally with North Korea on nuclear issues was one of the tough decisions for the George W. Bush administration. In an interview published in the Friday edition of the Washington Times, she expressed U.S. concerns about North Korea's proliferation but said it can be better addressed through the existing multilateral forum. "I do think that the first several years of the administration, the president was making some extremely difficult decisions, frankly, that... flew in the face of common wisdom of the foreign policy elite about a number of issues," said Rice. � Standing strongly against Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups, and supporting Israel were tough decisions that were paying off, the secretary said. � "We were under, if you remember, enormous pressure in 2002, 2003, 2004 -- 'You ought to talk to the North Koreans, you ought to have a bilateral dialogue with the North Koreans, the only way you are going to get the North Koreans to move is engagement,'" Rice said. � But the president rejected it and created the six-party talks involving South and North Korea, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, she noted. [Bilateral] [US NK policy] [Pressure]
• Rice Extols Strong Seoul-Washington Ties
  U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday vigorously reaffirmed the strong relationship between the U.S. and South Korea and praised South Korea's robust democracy and economy.
• N.Korea Differences Threaten S.Korea-U.S. Ties - Poll
  Some 30 percent of Korean Americans think that different views held by South Korea and the U.S. on North Korea are the biggest problem threatening the South Korea-U.S. alliance, a poll has found. The U.S. foreign policy think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies surveyed 446 Korean Americans in 22 U.S. states last year with the support of the Korea Foundation. The CSIS announced the results of the survey at the Hyatt Hotel in Seoul on Wednesday. �
• Seoul to Back UN Resolution on N.Korea
  The South Korean government has decided to vote for a resolution on human rights in North Korea to be adopted by the UN Human Rights Council this week, it emerged on Tuesday. South Korea has so far boycotted or abstained from all UN votes on North Korea including the General Assembly, except for 2006, when the North conducted a nuclear test. The decision confirms expectations that the new government in Seoul is taking a harder line with the North.� �
• Chosun Ilbo�s Border Film Screened at U.S. State Dept
  � � U.S. State Department officials on Monday watched a segment of "On The Border", a documentary on North Korean refugees produced by the Chosun Ilbo as part of its global cross-media program. The film was shown at the request of the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration and watched by some dozen officials involved in the North Korean refugee issue �
• Summit, NK nuke on top of agenda
  Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said Tuesday that he will discuss various ways of resuming six-way talks on the North Korean nuclear issue when he meets with his U.S. � counterpart Condoleezza Rice this week.
• USFK to Receive Armored Humvees
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) will get an undisclosed number of up-to-date armored Humvees in July, a U.S. military newspaper said Monday. USFK Commander Gen. B. B. Bell told a congressional hearing March 11 that he was concerned about his command's lack of up-armored vehicles and had asked the U.S. Army to expedite their delivery. [Military balance]
• Criminality Part of North Korea's Survival Strategy
  Lack of legitimate ways to generate revenue only increases dependence on illicit activities
  Leonid Petrov (Leonid7 Published 2008-03-25 04:05 (KST) It has been two years since the acquittal of the captain and three officers of a North Korean drug-running cargo ship, Pong Su, by the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia. After the three years of investigation and four months of trial, this decision caused a sensation that continues to cause debates about the DPRK government's involvement in illicit activities across the globe. The dominating view that the North Korean state supports illicit activities on the international stage had been consistently expressed in the testimonies provided by one Australian (Adrian Buzo) and two United States-based (Balbina Hwang and Joe Bermudez) experts on North Korea. They and many other commentators had little doubt that DPRK top leadership was behind the incident.
  Nevertheless, the jury of seven women and six men finally decided to believe the captain, Song Man-sun, political officer Choi Dong-song, chief mate Ri Man-jin and chief engineer Ri Ju-chon and found them not guilty, releasing them from nearly three years of custody on March 6, 2006. [Drugs] [Toolkit] [Evidence]
• DJ plans U.S. lecture tour for April
  March 24, 2008 Former President Kim Dae-jung will visit the United States for 10 days in mid-April to give lectures on ways to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and secure peace on the Korean Peninsula, an aide to Kim said yesterday.
• Former President Kim to Visit Portland, Boston
  � By Kim Sue-young Staff Reporter Former President and Nobel Peace Laureate Kim Dae-jung will leave Seoul April 15 to visit Portland, Oregon in the United States, for ``Kim Dae-jung Day,'' April 18. He will have speaking engagements on democracy, human rights and peace on the Korean Peninsula at the University of Portland, spokesman Choi Kyung-hwan said Sunday. The former leader is also scheduled to visit Boston, Massachusetts on April 22 to meet professors and students in universities in the city.
  He is also expected to speak on the important role of the United States in maintaining peace and stability in Northeast Asia.
• USFK to Introduce Mine-Resistant Vehicles
  The U.S. Forces Korea will likely introduce up-to-date Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles designed to survive mine explosions or attacks. According to the Stars and Stripes, the newspaper for the U.S. military, USFK Commander Gen. Burwell Bell expressed concern about the USFK's shortage of the up-armored vehicles at a hearing in the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on March 11. At the hearing, he also said that he had asked the U.S. Army to supply the USFK with armored vehicles, including MRAPs, as soon as possible. MRAP is a new type of armored fighting vehicle. It was designed to survive so-called improvised explosive device attacks and ambushes, as many U.S. military personnel and vehicles, including Humvees, had fallen victim to mines and other such attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since they were introduced first to Iraq and Afghanistan, MRAPs have reportedly survived more than 2,000 mine and explosive attacks. [military balance]
• US Senators' Aides in NK Amid Nuke Impasse: Report
  A group of aides to U.S. senators are in North Korea to arrange for Korean residents in the United States to visit their separated family members in the isolated communist state, a news report said Thursday. The visit was arranged by the U.S. Senate Committee on Armed Services, the Washington-based Voice of America reported. During their three-day trip that began Tuesday, the officials were also expected to discuss security issues with Pyongyang officials and the resumption of the excavation of remains believed to belong to U.S. soldiers killed during the 1950-53 Korean War, the radio said.
• Acoustic Atmospherics
  Erich & Miranda Weingartner, Canada Lutheran, April/May 2008
  [Erich Weingartner is editor of CanKor. Miranda Weingartner is communications coordinator of the Nautilus Institute. The father-daughter team co-authors a monthly column called "The Justice Agenda". This pre-publication exclusive will appear in the April-May edition of The Canada Lutheran. --CanKor.] An unprecedented contingent of 80 Western journalists accompanied 106 members of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra to the city of Pyongyang, capital of North Korea. The entourage of musicians, orchestra staff, TV production crews, donors and journalists numbered more than 400-the largest American delegation to visit this relic of the Cold War since the Korean War ended in a stalemate 55 years ago.
• Music Diplomacy Opens Window of Opportunity: The New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang
  By Edward Reed
  Edward Reed is The Asia Foundation�s Korea Representative. The next best thing to being in the music hall in Pyongyang for the performance by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was watching the performance with the hard-nosed members of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents Club in downtown Seoul, a little over one hundred miles to the south. After watching the live broadcast of the performance with the correspondents and other interested observers based in Seoul, I participated in a polite but sharp debate with Brian (B.R.) Myers, an analyst of North Korea�s official propaganda machine and keen observer of North Korean political culture. According to one perspective, the admirable but na�ve expectations that music would soften the hearts of the North Korean people toward Americans, opening their eyes to a world beyond the tightly controlled one in which they live, will be dashed on the impermeable propaganda wall.
  Western classical and popular music, as well as some South Korean music, is widely known and appreciated; North Korea produces first-rate classical musicians and the best are trained in Russia and Europe.
• Child composer's work performed during NY Philharmonic's visit to North Korea
  Mar 1, 2008 NEW YORK � When 12-year-old Farah Taslima started composing in the third grade, she never dreamed her music would someday be performed by the New York Philharmonic. Even if she had, she never could have imagined it would happen in North Korea. Four members of the orchestra and four North Korean musicians performed Taslima's piece Wednesday, a day after the 106 members of the Philharmonic performed a historic concert broadcast to the world. On Saturday morning, Farah, her sister and their parents sat in their Manhattan home talking about an congratulatory e-mail from Jon Deak, a Philharmonic double bass player who runs the orchestra's teaching program for child composers. Her little piece, "Serenity Unleashed," was "a big hit" in Pyongyang, he wrote.
• N.Y. Phil Concert might be key to North Korea diplomacy
  By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times BEIJING -- The success of last week's concert in Pyongyang by the New York Philharmonic raises the prospect that the United States might start normalizing relations with North Korea, possibly taking the first formal steps before the end of the Bush presidency. Although the musicians and their entourage flew out Wednesday, more Americans than at any time in the recent past have been visiting a country dubbed by President Bush as part of an "axis of evil."
• Seven N. Korean asylum seekers arrive in U.S.: report
  A group of seven North Korean defectors, who had been under U.N. protection in China, have arrived in the United States, a U.S. government-funded radio station said Saturday. � The defectors were among the 17 North Koreans in the custody of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Beijing, the Voice of America said. The other 10 are still in Beijing, it said.
• How Famine Changed N. Korea
  By Kay Seok Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page A17 SEOUL -- Today in Pyongyang, the New York Philharmonic, the most prominent U.S. cultural institution ever to visit North Korea, performs live on state TV and radio. Many observers have cautiously dubbed this a prelude to a thaw between Washington and Pyongyang. But for North Koreans, a very real thaw, unseen by the musicians, has been transforming life for years. A famine that killed a million people in the 1990s has driven fundamental societal changes in North Korea. As people struggled to survive, they were forced to defy many restrictions imposed by the state, which has consequently lost much of its control. Before the famine, North Korea could plausibly be called a hermit kingdom. Citizens had no source of information but state media and were banned from traveling outside their immediate area of residency, except for family weddings and funerals. The state intelligence agency tightly monitored people. Most important, the state dominated food distribution, control that kept people subservient and immobile for fear of losing their only access to sustenance. Things changed in the early 1990s. After decades of government mismanagement of the agricultural sector and years of natural disasters came the collapse of the Soviet Union and, with it, an abrupt end to barter trade. North Korea's chronic food shortage grew into a full-fledged famine. At least 1 million of the state's then-20 million citizens starved to death while waiting for rations to resume. [Disinformation] [Victim]
• A Ticking Clock on N. Korea
  By David Ignatius Sunday, March 23, 2008; Page B07 For many months, Bush administration officials have been imagining a valedictory conclusion to their long-running negotiations with North Korea: Pyongyang would make a "complete and correct declaration" about its nuclear program, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would travel to North Korea to celebrate normalization of relations with a former member of the "axis of evil." But the North Korea breakthrough isn't happening, and administration officials know they are running out of time before President Bush leaves office. The New York Philharmonic has come and gone from its Feb. 26 concert in Pyongyang -- without Rice there to add a nimble-fingered piano accompaniment, as some analysts had predicted. An agreement remains tantalizingly close: The North Koreans are disabling their reactor at Yongbyon, which was a key part of the denuclearization agreement announced last October. And there are hopes that if Pyongyang will finally deliver the promised nuclear declaration, then negotiations can move to a final (and even more difficult) phase of bargaining over destruction of North Korea's handful of nuclear weapons and an estimated 30 to 40 kilograms of plutonium.
  What is blocking this breakthrough is North Korea's refusal to explain its nuclear relationship with Syria.
  U.S. officials have begun to confirm publicly that they have hard intelligence about North Korean proliferation. Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in Feb. 7 testimony to the House intelligence committee: "While Pyongyang denies a program for uranium enrichment and also denies its proliferation activities, we know North Korea continues to engage in both." [Dissension] [HEU] [Evidence]
• U.S. Accused of Deliberately Straining Situation on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, March 21 (KCNA) -- The Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises staged by the U.S. and the south Korean warlike forces recently were provocative maneuvers aimed at deliberately screwing up tension on the Korean Peninsula to drive the situation there to a crisis on the eve of the outbreak of war, says Rodong Sinmun Friday in a signed article. After the end of the Cold War the U.S. took measures to partially cut down their troops in some regions of the world. But it has put spurs to the moves to round off the preparations for another Korean war by ceaselessly beefing up its aggression forces in and around the peninsula, the article says, and goes on:
• Jacoby: Pyongyang overture
  Jeff Jacoby Published: March 3, 2008
  The big news in the music world last week was the New York Philharmonic's visit to North Korea, the first time an American orchestra has appeared in Kim Jong Il's Stalinist dictatorship. Under music director Lorin Maazel, the philharmonic performed Wagner's prelude to Act III of "Lohengrin," Dvorak's "New World" Symphony, Gershwin's "American in Paris," and, as a closer, the Korean folk song "Arirang." While Kim did not attend the performance, nearly everyone in the hand-picked audience of apparatchiks was wearing lapel pins depicting his face or that of his father, Kim Il Sung, who founded the tyrannical regime in 1948.
• Ovation in Pyongyang is music to US ears
  By Anna Fifield in Pyongyang
  Published: February 26 2008 17:22 | Last updated: February 26 2008 17:22 The final strains of �Arirang�, the heart-rending Korean folk song about separation, had not even ended when the thumping applause started filling the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre on Tuesday night. Middle-aged men with purple-tinted glasses and women in traditional dress, visiting South Korean sponsors and Manhattan matrons in fur, they all leapt to their feet to celebrate the New York Philharmonic�s emotionally charged debut performance in Pyongyang.
• USFK Chief Calls for Upgrade of Alliance
  U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Burwell Bell on Tuesday said it was "time for Washington to reexamine its Defense Treaty with Seoul." The U.S. should "look beyond the narrow scope of the DMZ threat (from North Korea) and solidify the alliance as a pillar of stability and cooperation that will be an example for all the nations of Northeast Asia and the world." Bell made the remarks in a hearing at the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. � [Imperialism] [US military dominance]
• Lee to Visit Washington, Tokyo Next Month
  President Lee Myung-bak will visit the U.S. from April 15 to 19, and on his way back home stop off Japan from April 20 to 21, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday. After inauguration last month, Lee chose Washington and Tokyo as his first overseas destinations to strengthen the Seoul-Washington-Tokyo tripartite alliance.
• KEEP summer program
  KEEP provides an opportunity to learn about the movements for democracy, liberation, and self-determination in Korea. Participants learn about the history and context of the struggles for social and economic justice, as well as the broad-based movement for peaceful unification � issues not widely discussed among Koreans in America or in United States educational institutions. Through such exposure, KEEP seeks to build solidarity with communities on both sides of the Pacific and create a better understanding of the relationships that bind Korea and the United States together
• Letter from North Korea --Ray of Hope?
  Posted March 12, 2008 | 10:17 AM (EST)
  North Korea is a country with whom we've technically been at war since 1950. It's a country that lost close to a million people to famine in the late 1990s. A country that prohibits its populace from contact with the outside world. International TV, travel, cell phones and the Internet are denied them. It's critically short of food, energy, and most of the trappings of modern life
  Toward the end of the 48-hour Philharmonic trip, I learned about a new university being built in North Korea -- the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (PUST). Under construction for seven years, it is scheduled to open in September. PUST President Chin Kyung Kim, Ben Rosen, Vice President David Kim Now, there are a number of universities in North Korea already, so what makes this one special? In the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, let me count the ways. Private university: Until now, all education has been state-sponsored. By contrast, PUST has raised about $35 million, all from outside the country. Most of the money comes from Korean Christian groups - churches, foundations and individuals -- in South Korea and Korean expat communities, including the United States. The first private university in north Korea. English language: Courses will be taught in English. Textbooks will be in English. Another pair of firsts.
  Benjamin M. Rosen was originally an electrical engineer, later a securities analyst, later a venture capitalist, former chairman of Caltech, former chairman of Compaq Computer, board member of Caltech, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York Philharmonic, Columbia Business School and NYC Global Partners. [Opening] [Training] [EWA]
• Asian blunders
  Leon V. Sigal
  From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008 To the Editor: Defending the indefensible is an occupational hazard for even thoughtful former officials in Washington these days, but Victor Cha's "Winning Asia" (November/December 2007) goes too far. Instead of lauding President George W. Bush's admirable turnaround on North Korea last summer, he would have readers believe that the administration's North Korea policy was right all along. Many of Cha's claims are at war with the facts. Even worse, they obscure the main lesson that Washington has yet to absorb from the experience: that a policy of pure pressure is more likely to provoke nuclear arming than prevent proliferation. [US NK policy] [Bilateral] [Pressure] [Partisan]
• Pyongyang Blues
  Victor Cha and James Kelly
  From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2008 To the Editor: Leon Sigal's letter "Asian Blunders" ("Letters to the Editor," January/February 2008) misses the reality of what has been a remarkably consistent U.S. policy toward North Korea during George W. Bush's two terms as president: use diplomacy to seek a "peaceful resolution" to the North's decades-long nuclear weapons program. Some figures either in or close to the administration have made remarks suggesting that nothing less than regime change would suffice, but they were and are without support from the president. [US NK policy] [Bilateral] [Pressure] [Partisan]
• 'Zero Proliferation of N. Korean Missile Technology'
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The top American general in South Korea said Tuesday that North Korea practically stopped exporting missile technology since 2005, according to the Yonhap News Agency Thursday. The agency, which obtained transcripts of the remarks Gen. B. B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) made during a Senate hearing, reported that Bell said North Korea was believed to be fully observing resolution 1718 of the U.N. Security Council, aimed at suspending all activities related to the North's ballistic missile programs. The commander, however, expressed concern over Pyongyang's advanced missile capabilities, it said. Bell's comments were in stark contrast to those of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney's the same day, which criticized Pyongyang for proliferating its ballistic missile technology to ``rogue regimes'' such as Iran and Syria. ``On the Korean Peninsula, we all want to see the six-party talks conclude in the complete, verifiable dismantling of Kim Jong-il's nuclear weapons,'' said Cheney. ``Yet the fact remains that North Korea today is developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland with a nuclear warhead. North Korea also possess a large force of missiles that threaten America's closest allies in Asia and our forces deployed in the region.'' He claimed North Korea has been assisting with Iran's effort to build up missile forces and capabilities. ``Syria is receiving assistance from North Korea in building up its missile forces and Iran has used Syria for years as a transit point to build up military capabilities,'' said Cheney. North Korea's missile development has been a constant cause of concern, as has its pursuit of nuclear weapons. In 2006, the communist regime test-fired several missiles, including a long-range Taepodong-2 believed to be capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii with a light payload. gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr [Disinformation] [Dissension] [Proliferation]
• Hardliners Target D�tente with North Korea
  Suzy Kim and John Feffer
  The Bush administration�s approach to North Korea was once quite consistent with its overall foreign policy. There was name calling, a preference for regime change and an emphasis on military solutions. Unsurprisingly, the relationship between the United States and North Korea, like so many other tense stand-offs, deteriorated over the last seven years. The U.S. accused the third member of the �axis of evil� of money-laundering, missile sales and a secret program for the production of nuclear material. For its part, North Korea responded tit for tat at the rhetorical level. In October 2006, it upped the ante by exploding a nuclear device. If the United States were not tied up in other military conflicts � and eyeing Iran � a war in Northeast Asia might have been higher on the administration�s to-do list.
  This is a revised and expanded version of an article that appeared in Foreign Policy In Focus on February 11, 2008. Posted at Japan Focus on March 8, 2008. [US NK Policy] [Partisan]
• The New York Philharmonic in North Korea. A New Page in US-DPRK Relations?
  Karin J. Lee
  The New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed in North Korea on February 25 to much international attention -- and controversy. When news of an invitation from the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (DPRK, the official name of North Korea) surfaced last fall, it ignited a storm of North Korea-bashing as well as hope in some quarters for a breakthrough in DPRK-US relations modeled on the ping pong diplomacy that jump-started US-China relations earlier. The media coverage of the event recapitulated the regime change vs. engagement debates argued in the security realm. After examining the background to the events in Pyongyang, this article assesses Western responses to the proposed visit and its potential significance for the US-North Korea relationship.
• Migration Experiences of North Korean Refugees: Survey Evidence from China
  Yoonok Chang, Stephan Haggard, and Marcus Noland
  Abstract Chronic food shortages, political repression, and poverty have driven tens of thousands of North Koreans into China. This paper reports results from a large-scale survey of this population. The survey provides insight not only into the material circumstances of the refugees but also into their psychological state and aspirations. One key finding is that many North Korean refugees suffer severe psychological stress akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This distress is caused in part by experiences in China. However, we demonstrate that it is also a result of the long shadow cast by the North Korean famine and abuses suffered at the hands of the North Korean political regime. These traumas, in turn, affect the ability of the refugees to hold jobs in China and accumulate resources for on-migration to third countries. Most of the refugees want to permanently resettle in South Korea, though
• North Korea Extends Its Freedom Overture
  By Katharine H.S. Moon
  March 20th, 2008 Katharine H.S. Moon, Professor in the Department of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate Fellow at the Asia Society in New York, writes, �The US government has kept a long arm's distance from the musical overtures between Pyongyang and the Philharmonic, but it also has missed a unique opportunity to assert one of the best examples of its "soft power" not only to North Korea but to the rest of the world.� [Softpower]
• One in Five NK Defectors in China Want to Settle in US: Report
  Nearly one in five North Korean defectors hopes to settle in the United States, a U.S.-based radio station reported Wednesday, citing a recent survey by a U.S. human rights group. In a survey conducted by the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a Washington-based non-profit human rights group, 238 out of 1,248 North Korea defectors in China selected the U.S. as their preferred final destination, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.
• Top U.S. Expert on North Korea Steps Down
  By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
  Published: August 26, 2003 A top State Department expert on North Korea who advocated a policy of incentives as well as penalties to persuade the nation to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons has resigned, officials said today. Jack Pritchard, the special envoy for negotiations with North Korea, is departing at a critical moment, days before six-nation talks begin in China to pressure North Korea to drop its efforts to reprocess spent fuel rods for weapons. He was criticized last week by a senator for being out of sync with the administration's policy. [Dissension] [US NK policy]
• Forging a Common Approach on Policy toward North Korea
  Economic and Humanitarian Issues
  David C. Kang
  The election of Lee Myung-bak as South Korea�s next president heralds new opportunities for U.S.-ROK cooperation toward the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (DPRK). This essay is intended to provide a general context for exploring how and in what manner the United States and South Korea might better coordinate their approaches toward North Korea, and is intended more as a thought-provoking exercise than any definitive guide to the next five years. This essay will make two general arguments. First, contrary to some expectations, it is unlikely that Lee will immediately back away from engagement with the North.1 Campaign rhetoric aside, Lee�s policy proposals appear to be broadly consistent with an approach that links economic engagement and security factors and continues South Korea�s attempt to open North Korea to the outside world. The South Korean public appears to continue to support some type of engagement, and while Lee will have considerable leeway in crafting his administration�s policies toward the North, electoral pressures will likely continue to affect his decision-making. Second, the pace of economic and humanitarian relations with North Korea will largely depend on progress with the denuclearization of North Korea.
• Inter-Korean Relations in the Absence of a U.S.-ROK Alliance
  By David C. Kang
  March 11^th , 2008 David C. Kang, Professor in the Government department and Adjunct Professor at the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College, writes, �Evidence suggests that even without the U.S.-ROK military alliance instability and change on the Korean peninsula would be less dramatic than some observers have predicted. The absence of an alliance might under certain circumstances, such as continued progress in the six-party talks, have relatively little impact. Under other circumstances, such as increased tension between the United States and China over regional issues, the absence of the alliance might be more consequential.�
• S. Korea to 'restore' relations with U.S.
  � � � � South Korea's new government on Tuesday laid out a foreign policy blueprint revolving around plans to "restore" its alliance with the United States and pursue an aggressive energy diplomacy.
• Lee Stresses Closer Military Ties With US
  By Kim Yon-se Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak said Wednesday underlined the need to further strengthen the military alliance between South Korea and the United States.
• North Korea keeps up appearances
  WHITEWASH: Snow blankets Pyongyang on Feb. 26, the day the New York Philharmonic performed in the city. Pyongyang put on a show too, trying to convince visitors of its prosperity. A delegation traveling with the New York Philharmonic saw an impressive Pyongyang. But the lights went out afterward. By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer March 10, 2008 PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA -- With our noses pressed to the windows of the bus, we could see festive garlands of lights twinkling along the main road as though it were Christmas. The soaring monuments to the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung were illuminated by floodlights, giving this city's skyline a warm glow. We arrived at our hotel, where cellphones were available for rent from a counter in the lobby. Journalists were directed to a filing center with broadband Internet access. Over the course of 48 hours touring with the New York Philharmonic, a delegation of 300 musicians, journalists and orchestra benefactors was whisked between our overheated hotel and theaters and banquet halls. We were feted with multi-course dinners of salmon, crab gratin, lamb and pheasant. Our breakfast buffet was decorated with ice sculptures and included foods meant to cater to American palates. OK, some of it was a little weird, like the banana and tomato sandwich. But the overall impression was that the North Koreans were trying hard to please and had the means to do so. Even if you were a cynical journalist, it was hard not to be impressed. Wrong. Within hours after our plane left, the lights went out [Media]
• The music of liberation
  What Zappa did for the Prague Spring, the New York Philharmonic could emulate in North Korea
  Ian Buruma
  The Guardian, Saturday March 8 2008 This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday March 08 2008 on p32 of the Comment & debate section. It was last updated at 00:02 on March 08 2008. North Korea is one of the world's most oppressive and closed dictatorships. It is perhaps the last living example of pure totalitarianism - control of the state over every aspect of human life. Is such a place the right venue for a western orchestra? Can one imagine the New York Philharmonic, which performed to great acclaim in Pyongyang, entertaining Stalin or Hitler? All totalitarian systems have one thing in common: by crushing all forms of political expression except adulation of the regime, they make everything political. There is no such thing in North Korea as non-political sports or culture. So there is no question that the invitation to the New York Philharmonic was meant to burnish the prestige of a regime, ruled by the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, whose standing is so low - even in neighbouring China - that it needs all the burnishing it can get. � [Bizarre]
• Carrier Nimitz Is Small US Island
  A U.S. Navy crew gestures on the deck of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz CVN 68 during joint military exercises in South Korea's East Sea, Monday. The aircraft carrier is participating in the joint drills with South Korea, dubbed by Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. / AP-Yonhap By Tami Overby AMCHAM President ABOARD AIRCARFT CARRIER USS NIMITZ ? The writer joined 19 Koreans on an unusual trip aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz Wednesday. The diverse group included Kim Il-Joo, president of the Korean Leadership Academy; Cho Se-Hyun, president of the Health Promotion Center of Gangnam Cha Hospital; and a variety of others. The 20 of us met and traveled by bus to Osan Airbase, where the participants received an orientation and safety briefing. The participants were a bit worried about the weather since they heard the group the day before, including U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, had been turned back because of poor weather. But the participants were fortunate and the pilots gave a ``thumbs up'' and they began to suit up with helmets and a safety vests that inflate in the very unlikely event of landing on water. They were then loaded onto a C-2A Greyhound, which is a twin propeller cargo aircraft used to deliver passengers, supplies and mail to and from the aircraft carrier.
  The sheer size of the carrier is impressive as it is over 23-stories high and carries over 5,000 sailors. [US military]
• Remains of ND Korean War Soldier Found
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: March 7, 2008 Filed at 8:37 p.m. ET WAHPETON, N.D. (AP) -- More than a half-century after Pvt. Joseph Meyer Jr. disappeared while fighting in the Korean War, the Army has told his family his remains will be coming home.
• Small Scanner Picks Out North Korean 'Super Dollar'
  A small counterfeit bill detector designed for retail use that can sniff out the "super dollar," a convincing yet bogus $100 bill allegedly produced in North Korea.
  PC World Friday, March 7, 2008; 12:19 AM An U.S. company has introduced a small counterfeit bill detector designed for retail use that can sniff out the "super dollar," a convincing yet bogus US$100 bill allegedly produced in North Korea. At five inches wide, three inches tall and six inches long, the D500 Super Dollar Authenticator is diminutive enough for retailers to place beside cash registers, said Carlos-Andres Gonzalez, a vice president of sales for AccuBanker USA. The D500 is one of many fake currency detectors on the market from different vendors. The U.S. Treasury department has warned that counterfeiting operations are increasing since lesser-skilled criminals can make better fakes with today's PCs and digital printers. [Counterfeiting] [Disinformation]
• Korea Faces Fresh Call to Pay More for USFK Upkeep
  Washington wants Seoul to shoulder a greater share of the upkeep of the U.S. Forces Korea. U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow said Wednesday his government is stretched by the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "The U.S. would like Korea to share the level of support up to 50 percent in terms of non-personnel stationing costs," he said. That refers to all costs for keeping U.S. forces here other than labor costs. Vershbow told the Korea Defense Daily, a newspaper published by the Defense Ministry, Seoul's new administration could reach an agreement "for a longer term, instead of having to negotiate every year or a year and a half." [Tribute]
• Spokesman of Foreign Ministry Lambastes Joint Military Exercises
  Pyongyang, March 3 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry gave the following answer to the question put by KCNA on Monday as regards the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises launched by the U.S. and south Korea: The U.S. and the south Korean bellicose forces started the above-said military exercises throughout south Korea on March 2 despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, thus rendering the situation on the Korean Peninsula to an extreme pitch of tension.
• The Search for a Common Strategic Vision:Charting the Future of the US-ROK Security Partnership, By The US-ROK Strategic Forum
  March 5^th , 2008 his Report is the product of a multiyear, bipartisan, bi-national �strategic dialogue� to candidly discuss the strengths and address the weaknesses in the U.S.-ROK alliance, place them in a regional and global context and look ahead to identify ways to ensure its future success. It concludes, �The US-ROK partnership should be reaffirmed � but it should also be modernized and redefined� In this Report, we chart a path of strategic cooperation between the United States and South Korea for this new era.�
• N. Korea ratchets up criticism of S. Korea-U.S. military drill
  War games are blocking resolution to nuclear issue and progress in six-party talks, North says North Korea is ratcheting up its criticism of South Korea and the United States for staging their latest round of joint military exercises, which began on Sunday. [Joint US military]
• 'Regime' Changed
  By Al Kamen Wednesday, March 5, 2008; Page A19 The annual State Department human rights reports on conditions in various countries often spark internal tussling over tone and nuance. The battles generally pit folks in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), who tend to be hard-line human rights advocates, against the regional bureau diplomats, who tend to be more, well, diplomatic. This is especially true when it comes to places such as nuclear North Korea, run by the somewhat offbeat Kim Jong Il, where Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is hoping endless six-way negotiations will get the North Koreans to stop their nuclear program. So on Friday, Glyn Davies, the principal deputy assistant secretary in the East Asia bureau, sent an e-mail to Erica Barks-Ruggles, a deputy assistant secretary in the DRL bureau, regarding some changes in the introductory language of a report on North Korea. "Erica," he wrote, "I know you are under the NSC [National Security Council] gun," apparently to get the report done so the NSC can review it, "but hope given the Secretary's priority on the Six-Party Talks, we can sacrifice a few adjectives for the cause. "Many thanks. Glyn." And the changes? Eliminated words are in brackets, and additions are in italics: "The [repressive] North Korean government[regime] continued to control almost all aspects of citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricting freedom of movement and workers' rights. Reports of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, and arbitrary detention, including of political prisoners, continue to emerge [from the isolated country]. Some forcibly repatriated refugees were said to have undergone severe punishment and possibly torture. Reports of public executions continued to surface[were on the rise]." As Hemingway might have written: For Whom the Kowtows? [Spin] [Vituperation]
• Korea-U.S. Joint Military Exercise Begins
  South Korean and U.S. forces on Sunday began Key Resolve, an annual joint military exercise that practices the rapid deployment of U.S. troop reinforcements to Korea in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula. Until 2007 the exercise had been called "Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration of Forces" (RSOI). This year's exercise will be conducted throughout the southern part of Korea until Friday. Foal Eagle, a joint field maneuver drill, will also be conducted during the same period. During Key Resolve, U.S. troop reinforcements will deploy from the U.S. mainland and Pacific bases in Hawaii and Guam to mock battlefields in Korea, and South Korean and U.S. forces will conduct joint operations in preparation for war on the Korean Peninsula. About 6,000 U.S. troop reinforcements from overseas will join 12,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea in the exercise. In addition, 9,000 U.S. troops will be on standby aboard ships at sea. The total number of U.S. troops participating in this year's exercise is similar to that of previous years. Also participating in this year's exercise are the USS Ohio, a U.S. Navy nuclear-propelled submarine which carries 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the 93,000-ton USS Nimitz, a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered supercarrier. North Korea has denounced the joint military exercise as a "war game aimed at a northward invasion." [Joint US military]
• N.K. steps up condemnation of military drill
  North Korean news media have stepped up their offensive on a joint military drill involving South Korea and the United States that started early this week, calling it a "frantic war move." � The North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station, monitored here, said on Monday the joint military exercises, codenamed "Key Resolve", are "aimed at the rapid deployment of the U.S. [Joint US military]
• U.S. Projected Deployment of New Type Missiles in S. Korea Slammed
  Pyongyang, March 2 (KCNA) -- The United States is contemplating deploying new type Patriot Missiles in south Korea under the pretext of "missile threat" from the DPRK. This comes under fire by a signed commentary of Minju Joson Sunday. The U.S. is massively beefing up and deploying different type sophisticated war hardware in south Korea under the pretext of "a missile threat" from the DPRK. By doing so it seeks to retain its military control over south Korea, the commentary says, and goes on: What merits a more serious attention is that the U.S. is working hard to plug south Korea into the building of a U.S.-Japan missile shield led by the former. [Joint US military] [Missile defence]
• Projected Joint Military Exercises under Fire
  Pyongyang, March 1 (KCNA) -- The United States is set to stage Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military exercises together with the south Korean forces throughout south Korea from March 2 to 7. Minju Joson Saturday observes in a signed commentary carried in this regard: The joint military exercises are very dangerous war maneuvers targeted against the DPRK as they are aimed at promptly hurling huge U.S. reinforcements and equipment into the Korean front in case of "contingency" on the Korean Peninsula and invading the DPRK through a large-scale coordinated operation of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces and the south Korean forces, the commentary says, and goes on: What should not be overlooked is that the "Striker" unit is expected to participate in the above-said exercises.
• N. Korea Selling Fake Cigarettes: Report
  North Korea may have switched from narcotics trafficking to selling counterfeit cigarettes to earn valuable foreign currency, a report by the U.S. State Department said Friday. The annual report on international narcotics transactions said large quantities of counterfeit brand-name cigarettes that were likely made in North Korea are in circulation. It said such proliferation can only be attributable to North Korean authorities not clamping down on criminal activities within their own borders or Pyongyang playing a role in production. The report said that if the latter is the case, it could represent a policy shift away from the narcotics trade, which has drawn intense criticism from abroad, to a less "risky" way to make money. Most of North Korea's foreign currency is earned by selling raw materials and agricultural and fisheries products, and limited trading in light industrial products with South Korea and China. The latest findings by the State Department said there have been no documented cases of North Korea supporting illegal drugs since one of its ships was caught by Australian law enforcement in 2003 while transporting heroin. However, it cited cases allegedly involving the movement and sale of North Korean counterfeit cigarettes up to last year. (Yonhap) � [Drugs] [Toolkit] [Evidence]
• Release of the 2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
  David T. Johnson, Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Release of the 2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report Washington, DC February 29, 2008
  QUESTION: Yes, thank you. With respect to North Korea, it seems to me that according to this report the drug trafficking at the state level has sharply dropped, but at the same time you take more of the counterfeit cigarette trafficking. And do you have any specific concern on North Korea�s drug trafficking and (inaudible) of cigarette trafficking? At the same time, I would like to ask your -- you mentioned that China and North Korea tried to discourage (inaudible) law enforcement efforts. And could you comment on that? ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: I�m not sure what your last question is. Could you -- QUESTION: Last question is both China and North Korea tried to discourage drug trafficking through law enforcement efforts and information campaigns on both sides of the border, this according to the report? ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: I�m still not quite understanding you. QUESTION: Yes, could you comment on that? ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: Yeah, I -- QUESTION: (Inaudible) discouraging of -- ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: Let me start with the first two, and one of my colleagues is going to hand me the report so I can read what you�re referring to. I�m just not quite hearing you. It�s my hearing; it�s not what you�re saying.
  On anything having to do with North Korea, because of the nature of the society, it is difficult for us to accurately assess. So what we�re telling you on the drug trafficking issue is what we�ve been able to observe and infer based on what happens offshore. And while several years ago, we observed and inferred from significant seizures that there was drug trafficking going on, we have not observed that in the recent past. It does not mean that it's not happening; it just means that based on the observations that we have been able to make -- not in North Korea because we're not there -- that we don't see continuing evidence. Absence of evidence is not anything more than absence of evidence. So that's the �
  On the counterfeiting issue, is just making -- memorializing what has been made clear in the past by Treasury and other authorities in the United States. There's not a new story there, if you will, today.
  QUESTION: Excuse me. Do you believe North Korea still involved in money laundering?
  ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: Well, we don't have evidence that it -- that this has gone away. We're telling you what we were able to observe over the course of the past year. And so this is a restatement of what has already been released and what you already know about the North Korean activities in the past. This report covers the calendar year 2007.
  QUESTION: (Inaudible), but according to this report, just released, North Korea -- still they continue to be engaging in counterfeiting and other illegal activities through a number of front companies. And if that's true, what is the U.S. response?
  ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: I'm looking for what you're quoting here, I'm sorry.
  QUESTION: Page 293, money laundering, the section on North Korea.
  ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: Can I have the other one? Let's do another question. I'll come back to you.
  QUESTION: Okay, thank you. (He does not come back to the question TB)

  QUESTION: Mr. Johnson, you said Afghanistan in the last year produced 92 percent of the world opium. What�s your -- what�s the strategy toward Afghanistan in order to eradicate the poppy�s cultivation while a lot of farmers, they complain there is no international market for their agriculture products and they cannot live on -- except poppy�s cultivation. And another question, Mr. Karzai said that in those areas that is under Afghanistan Government control, there is no poppy�s cultivation. The poppy�s cultivation is high in those areas that�s under the NATO forces� control. What do you make of that? ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: Under the? QUESTION: The NATO forces. ASSISTANT SECRETARY JOHNSON: I disagree with that statement [Drugs] [Counterfeiting] [Evidence]

• Volume I: Drug and Chemical Control
  2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
  The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) is an annual report by the Department of State to Congress prepared in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act. It describes the efforts of key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in Calendar Year 2007.
• Volume II: Money Laundering and Financial Crimes
  2008 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
  The International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) is an annual report by the Department of State to Congress prepared in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act. It describes the efforts of key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in Calendar Year 2007.
• Spotlight March 2008
  Newsletter from US embassy, Wellington
• George H. W. Bush to Visit Seoul in March
  Former U.S. president George H. W. Bush Former U.S. president George H. W. Bush, President George W. Bush's father, will reportedly visit Seoul and meet with President Lee Myung-bak in mid-March. A diplomatic source on Thursday said, "Former president Bush will visit Korea on March 11-13 at the invitation of Poongsan Group chairman Ryu Jin, with whom he maintains a close relationship. During his stay, Bush will pay a courtesy call on President Lee, give a lecture under the sponsorship of the Korea Foundation and attend some events, including a ceremony celebrating Poongsan Group's founding anniversary and an event for children of mixed heritage." Some observers speculate that the senior Bush may visit Pyongyang as a special envoy of the younger Bush to find a breakthrough in the deadlocked North Korean nuclear issue. The former president was mentioned as a possible special envoy to the North in September 2006, immediately before the North conducted a nuclear test.
• U.S. expects changes in military here
  March 01, 2008 WASHINGTON �� The Pentagon expects changes in U.S. forces in South Korea as it works with the new government in Seoul, the head of the American Joint Chiefs of Staff said Thursday. Adm. Michael Mullen, JCS chairman, said the United States is ��very engaged�� with the government of Lee Myung-bak, sworn in on Monday. ��We are changing how we are looking at things militarily out there from a standpoint of our forces,�� he said at a Pentagon town hall meeting. ��And my expectation is there will be changes that occur because this new government stands up in terms of our relationship,�� he said, adding that Gen. Burwell Bell, head of U.S. Forces Korea, ��has spent an awful lot of time engaged there.��
• A Major Event in a Strangely Minor Key
  Chang W. Lee/The New York Times By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: March 2, 2008 OF the many mental images that linger from 48 hours in Pyongyang, this one came hours before the New York Philharmonic ended its most unusual tour last week.
  In a gleaming theater called the Moranbong, dozens of sober-suited North Koreans - certainly specially selected for the audience - sat in rows watching a Mendelssohn Octet performance with four Philharmonic members and four local musicians. They stared ahead impassively. But in the back row, off to the side, one young man pored over a miniature score. It was one of the few moments on the trip when someone other than the state orchestra musicians playing in a special rehearsal with Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic music director, seemed genuinely interested in the music. Of course, it was difficult to guess what people in that closed country were thinking. The stringent controls on movement, imposed by a phalanx of government minders, made it impossible to speak to ordinary North Koreans. They probably would not have said much anyway to citizens of a country long demonized by the authorities. [sic] [Bizarre]
• WITNESS: In Pyongyang, a tale of two concerts
  WITNESS: In Pyongyang, a tale of two concerts By Jon Herskovitz Reuters Saturday, March 1, 2008; 7:40 PM Jon Herskovitz has been chief correspondent for Reuters in South Korea for three years. He has served as an Asian affairs correspondent for Reuters based in New York and as a reporter in Tokyo, and ran the Dallas bureau before heading to Korea. He has travelled to parts of the North three times but made his first trip to Pyongyang when he joined media covering the New York Philharmonic orchestra's unprecedented concert in the North Korean capital last week. PYONGYANG (Reuters) - In one concert hall, North Korea's elite opened their arms for the warmest embrace yet to people from their mortal enemy. In another, children sternly avoided eye contact with visiting Americans. [Bizarre]
• USS Nimitz,
  The USS Nimitz, a U.S. Navy nuclear-powered supercarrier, arrives at the pier of the Korean Naval Operations Command in Busan on Thursday. [photo]
• USFK Show of Military Might Questioned
  Public attention has been drawn to why the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command and the U.S. Forces Korea are showing off U.S. battle vessels, including a nuclear-powered submarine and a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and parts of a joint military exercise to the media. The vessels are in Korea for Key Resolve/Foal Eagle, an annual combined/joint military exercise to be conducted from Sunday to March 7. About nine different parts of the military exercise will be open to the media this year. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, only three to five parts were revealed to the public each year. On Thursday the CFC invited the media to have a look at the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, currently at anchor at the pier of the Korean Naval Operations Command in Busan. With its crew of 5,600, the 97,000-ton, 332m-long supercarrier, which was commissioned in 1971, is sometimes called a "floating city." It carries a total of 85 aircraft, including FA-18 fighter jets. The CFC will also unveil to the media some operational parts of the annual joint military exercise, such as a live fire drill, a field maneuver drill, an emergency rescue drill, and a pontoon bridge-laying drill, which will be conducted in Seoul, and Munsan and Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province next week. Last weekend the CFC invited journalists to a live fire drill by Stryker Brigade Combat teams, which had rushed to Korea from Alaska. On Tuesday afternoon, the 18,750-ton USS Ohio, a U.S. Navy nuclear-propelled submarine which carries Tomahawk cruise missiles, was shown to local journalists for the first time. Earlier that morning, a 46,000-ton maritime prepositioning ship of the U.S. Marines was unveiled to the media at Jinhae Port in South Gyeongsang Province. A source said, "The Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations prevented the USFK from unveiling past combined/joint military exercises to the public for fear that it would irritate North Korea. With a conservative government being inaugurated in Seoul, the USFK is now unveiling more military exercises and equipment to the public." Some observers suspect that the U.S. is making a show of force to North Korea. [US Joint military] �
• Bush Wants no Personal Ties With Kim Jong-il
  U.S. President George W. Bush pauses as he takes questions from reporters during a news conference at the White House in Washington on Thursday. /AP U.S. President George W. Bush on Thursday said he has no intention to form personal ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. At a press conference at the White House, Bush stressed the need to build personal relationships with a new Russian president who will be elected in upcoming polls. But he said that establishing personal ties with the North Korean leader is impossible. "I learned that it's important to establish personal relations with leaders even though you may not agree with them -- certain leaders. I'm not going to have a personal relationship with Kim Jong-il, and our relationships are such that that's impossible." Meanwhile, Bush called Raul Castro's replacement of his elder brother Fidel as Cuban leader "nothing more than an extension of what his brother did."
• NY Phil in Seoul after landmark Pyongyang concert
  � The New York Philharmonic was in Seoul Wednesday after its unprecedented two-day visit to North Korea. � The plane carrying about 260 people, including orchestra members, supporting staff and journalists from across the world, arrived at Incheon airport in the afternoon. � The oldest U.S. orchestra received an emotional standing ovation from the North Korean and foreign audience when it finished its historic concert in Pyongyang Tuesday night with "Arirang," a Korean folk song which is popular in both Koreas. The concert was broadcast live across North Korea and elsewhere in the world.
• U.S., S.Korea Military Drills Test Overture to North
  By REUTERS Published: February 29, 2008 Filed at 2:07 a.m. ET Skip to next paragraph SEOUL (Reuters) - A first test of the goodwill generated in North Korea by the unprecedented concert of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang comes this weekend when the United States and South Korea hold joint military drills. North Korea regularly denounces the annual exercises as a prelude to invasion and nuclear war and analysts doubt the reclusive state will change its tune despite this week's concert which was aimed at warning ties between foes of more than 60 years. "What I would not expect under any circumstance is a softening in the anti-American propaganda," said Brian Myers, a specialist in the North's propaganda who teaches at Dongseo University in the southern city of Busan. � [Double standards] �
• In N. Korea, Eccentricity Well Off the Scale
  Nothing Seems Too Big When the Kims, Father and Son, Celebrate Themselves
  By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, February 29, 2008; Page A14 PYONGYANG, North Korea -- In closed communist dictatorships, land-use planning often edges toward the far side of eccentricity. In Albania under Enver Hoxha, the countryside was pimpled with more than 700,000 concrete bunkers. Built to ward off invaders, most became outhouses. In Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu, a historic quarter of old Bucharest was bulldozed to build a Parisian-style boulevard, an artificial river and a 13-story neo-Stalinist palace that was used for, well, nothing. Before Ceausescu could move in, he was overthrown, lined up against a wall and shot. Here in North Korea, with a father-and-son dictatorship ruling the roost, eccentricity in land planning has gone unchecked for 60 years. It has gone to the far side, and beyond. Kim Il Sung, who founded North Korea in 1948, built stupendously large structures to honor himself. So has his son, Kim Jong Il, who took over when his father died in 1994. [Media] [Bizarre]

• NY Philharmonic in Pyongyang
  On February 26, 2008, the New York Philharmonic gave the first-ever performance by an American orchestra in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The concert was the centerpiece of a 48-hour visit that included master classes and a rehearsal open to music students.
• North Korea: Terrorism List Removal?
  By the Congressional Research Service January 30th, 2008
  Larry Niksch, Specialist in Asian Affairs at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, and Raphael Perl, Specialist in International Affairs at the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service, writes, �A second potential policy response might be to proceed with removing North Korea from either the terrorism list or the Trading with the Enemy Act in reciprocity for North Korea allowing completion of the disablement of the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, but hold back on removing North Korea from the other until North Korea fulfills its obligation for a declaration of its nuclear programs.� [Agreement070213] [Renege]
• Panels Assess Prospects on Korea Peace Day
  One scholar says the United States needs to adopt an approach that allows North and South Korea to normalize relations quickly.
  Margaretta Soehendro
  According to one of six panelists who spoke at a Korea Peace Day Conference on the UCLA campus, the interests of the U.S. military establishment and defense contractors have played a role in the continued tension between the United States and North Korea. Among these interests is the desire to keep troops stationed in Asia and to maintain the defense budget in the post-Cold War era.
  But regarding North Korea, the United States is only concerned with the nuclear issue; therefore, Hart-Landsberg argued, North Korea feeds the fear since it appears to be the only way to get the United States' interest. In spite of agreements made in 1994 and 2005, he said, the United States did not follow through with economic aid and North Korea restarted nuclear programs to try to bring it back to the negotiation table. "It's this kind of continual lack of engagement�in fact, deliberate determination to not negotiate�that led the North to eventually fire missiles in July 2006 and explode a nuclear weapon in 2006," he said. [US NK policy] [Partisan] [Bilateral]
• U.S. war exercises in south Korea
  Dear friends in Asia and the Pacific, We are sending this letter in connection with the U.S. war exercises to be held in south Korea. The United States is planning to stage large-scale war exercises under the changed codename Key Resolve and Foal Eagle with south Korea forces from March 2 to 7 with tens of thousands of troops and modern war hardware involved. Even nuclear-powered carrier ?Nimits? is expected to participate in these war maneuvers.
  The projected joint military war exercise of the U.S. runs counter to the six-party talks. Through the adventurous nuclear test war exercise they intend to pose a serious menace to the DPRK and spoil the atmosphere for dialogue.
  Leveling a gun at dialogue partner while talking about ?the dialogue? and ?the improved relations? is an act contrary to common sense and diplomatic practice.
• Philharmonic Concert Seen as 'Half Success' for Kim Jong-il
  What did North Korean leader Kim Jong-il gain from the New York Philharmonic's concert in Pyongyang? Why didn't he attend the performance as expected? Pundits said that the orchestra's performance was a "half success" for Kim. Kim Sung-han, a professor at Korea University, said, "The performance gave us the impression that North Korea is a 'normal country' where cultural activities are possible." Kim Keun-sik, a professor of North Korean Studies at Kyungnam University, said, "Attracting worldwide attention, the orchestra conveyed a message calling for the normalization of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and North Korea."
• Pyongyang performance could lead to increase in cultural exchange
  N. Korea invites Eric Clapton to Pyongyang, would accept invitation for its orchestra to perform on American soil Following the New York Philharmonic Orchestra�s performance in Pyongyang on Tuesday, North Korea invited world-renowned guitarist Eric Clapton to present a concert in its capital city. These and other recent efforts by North Korea to engage in cultural diplomacy have attracted the attention of the international community, as it waits to see whether this form of exchange will lead to improved diplomatic relations that could help to overcome the current slow-down in the denuclearization process.
• NY Phil in Seoul after landmark Pyongyang concert
  � The New York Philharmonic was in Seoul Wednesday after its unprecedented two-day visit to North Korea. � The plane carrying about 260 people, including orchestra members, supporting staff and journalists from across the world, arrived at Incheon airport in the afternoon. � The oldest U.S. orchestra received an emotional standing ovation from the North Korean and foreign audience when it finished its historic concert in Pyongyang Tuesday night with "Arirang," a Korean folk song which is popular in both Koreas. The concert was broadcast live across North Korea and elsewhere in the world. � � � Earlier on Wednesday, the orchestra performed with North Korea's State Symphony Orchestra at Pyongyang's Moranbong Theater under the direction of the U.S. orchestra's music director Lorin Maazel. The joint performance was off-limits to foreign journalists. � Four members each from the two orchestras also performed chamber music, including F. Mendelssohn's String Octet and a piece written by an American girl in honor of North Korean children, in a cultural program that preceded the joint concert. � The composer is 12-year-old Sarah Taslima, a Bangladeshi-born American who is taught music by a member of the New York orchestra. � The Americans gave master classes to North Korean college students and also musical instruments, CDs and books.
• Concert: Pyongyang cheers, Washington cool
  February 28, 2008 The historic concert this week of the New York Philharmonic orchestra in Pyongyang received a mixed reaction yesterday. In Washington, the White House played down the event as ��a concert, not a diplomatic coup.�� Meanwhile in Pyongyang, North Korea��s state-run news agency praised the event. ��The world-renowned Philharmonic with a long history displayed exquisite and refined execution and high representation under chief conductor Lorin Maazel,�� the North��s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported late Tuesday after the 90-minute concert. The report was in sharp contrast to the North Korean media��s routine blasts against the United States, which it often depicts as an ��imperialist aggressor�� while calling Americans ��war mongrels.�� The audience of 1,500 North Koreans received the performance effusively, giving the orchestra a long standing ovation afterward. Several in the audience were seen recording the event with camcorders and digital cameras. However, the much-heralded event was met with a more reserved response from the White House, which said the communist country��s human rights abuses and nuclear weapons remain big concerns.
• New York Philharmonic Leaves
  Pyongyang, February 27 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic left here today. While staying here the Philharmonic watched a performance given by members of the art group of the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace and some of its members had a joint recital together with musicians of the State Symphony Orchestra of the DPRK. Meanwhile, foreign guests who had come here in connection with the Philharmonic's performance visited the Grand People's Study House, Pyongyang Metro and other places.
• U.S. Honors S. Korean Soldier Killed in Afghanistan
  The U.S. forces in Korea on Wednesday held a memorial service for a South Korean service member killed a year ago while working on a U.S.-led peacekeeping campaign in Afghanistan.
• Mendelssohn for Two Parts (of the World)
  By DANIEL J. WAKIN
  Published: February 28, 2008 PYONGYANG, North Korea � With international attention focused on the New York Philharmonic�s music making here, it was time on Wednesday for the North Koreans to show what they could do with Mendelssohn, Wagner and Tchaikovsky.
  Four Philharmonic string players joined four North Korean musicians for a performance of the Mendelssohn Octet, and Lorin Maazel, the orchestra�s music director, led the State Symphony Orchestra of the Democratic People�s Republic of Korea (North Korea�s official name) in a brief rehearsal and run-through of the prelude to "Die Meistersinger" and the fantasy-overture "Romeo and Juliet." It was billed as a morning of informal coaching, but the North Korean musicians, who had clearly rehearsed to within an inch of their lives, left the Philharmonic delegation stunned by their ability. "They were fantastic," Mr. Maazel said as he walked off the stage. "They are a marvelous group, very professional, very together, very focused." He said the North Koreans were playing from orchestral parts marked by him, and they seemed to have mastered his directions. "I was just totally blown away," he said. �
• The Philharmonic in Pyongyang
  [Photos]
• Catching a Streamed-In Philharmonic Live From North Korea
  Michael Nagle for The New York Times In Flushing, Queens, Lawrence Wu, left, and Kevin Kim watched the concert on the Web.
  By ANTHONY TOMMASINI Published: February 27, 2008 It would of course have been fascinating to attend the New York Philharmonic�s concert on Tuesday night at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater in North Korea. Daniel J. Wakin, a reporter for The New York Times, was there to cover this breakthrough event, the first performance by an American orchestra in that totalitarian country. Related North Koreans Welcome Symphonic Diplomacy (February 27, 2008) Yet, in a way, the potential (if any) of this concert to thaw the icy relations between North Korea and the United States may have come through even better in the live relay that I watched at home on my desktop computer. The performance was streamed at 4 a.m. Eastern time on Tuesday on the PBS-WNET Web site. (A broadcast in conventional fashion was scheduled for Tuesday night at 8 in the New York area as part of the "Great Performances" series on WNET, and showings on other PBS stations will follow later in the week.)
• From North Korea, Discordant Messages
  Reaction to Philharmonic's Performance Underscores Contradictions in Pyongyang's Stances By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Thursday, February 28, 2008; Page A11 PYONGYANG, North Korea, Feb. 27 -- It felt historic inside the concert hall. American musicians got goose bumps and wept when North Koreans leapt to their feet to cheer.
  But will the first-of-its-kind performance of the New York Philharmonic here this week help unlock this hermit state? Signals are maddeningly mixed. North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il, did not attend the concert Tuesday evening, but he did allow it to be broadcast live on state television and radio. Tuesday's evening news on state television did cover the visit of the U.S. orchestra, but only after six tedious reports on such events as an undated tour by Kim of a wire factory, children viewing Kim's drawings and fish swimming in an aquarium. [Victim] [Isolation]
• U.S. Anthem Gets Orchestral Airing in Pyongyang
  North Korean audience give a standing ovation to the New York Philharmonic orchestra led by musical director Lorin Maazel (C) after their inaugural performance in the North Korea capital, Pyongyang on Tuesday./AFP The Star-Spangled Banner got its first airing in history in central Pyongyang on Tuesday evening when the New York Philharmonic held a landmark concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater in the North Korean capital.
• U.S. Nuclear Submarine Docks in Busan
  A U.S. Navy guided-missile submarine has arrived in Busan for a visit. The USS Ohio is now docked at the pier of the South Korean Naval Operations Command in the southern port city. Capt. Andrew Hale, the sub's commanding officer, appeared confident on Tuesday afternoon when he spoke to Korean and foreign journalists who were invited onboard the giant vessel. It measures 170 m long with a beam of 12.8 m. The Ohio (SSGN 726) arrived in Busan last Wednesday to participate in Exercise Key Resolve/Foal Eagle, an annual combined/joint exercise involving forces from both the U.S. and South Korea, which will begin in early March. It was the first time this submarine, which has formidable attack capabilities based on 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, has ever visited the Korean Peninsula � [Joint US military]
• Music and diplomacy are just the ticket in N. Korea
  Buoyed by hope for increased cultural exchange, New York Philharmonic performs in Pyongyang Aired worldwide at 6 p.m. yesterday, the New York Philharmonic�s performance in Pyongyang began with North Korea�s national anthem. It was slightly slow and sounded grandiose. The next song was the national anthem of the United States. Also played were George Gershwin�s "An American in Paris," Antonin Dvorak�s "New World" symphony and Richard Wagner�s "Lohengrin." � It was quite a sensation for the U.S. national anthem to have been played for the first time on North Korean soil since the two fought against one another in the 1950-53 Korean War. It was even more incredible that it was not played as an encore, but as part of the regular program. This is meaningful in that the event could play a role in easing tensions in the region, just as was the case decades ago when U.S. musicians performed in China and Russia.
• The music of reconciliation
  [Editorial] � Prior to the historic performance of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on February 26, some members of the international community remarked that the performance would showcase music�s power to bring people together, some said that it was like a kind of cultural global warming and others said that it was like an invasion of U.S. music into the reclusive kingdom.
• New York Philharmonic Performs in Pyongyang
  Pyongyang, February 26 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic on a visit to the DPRK performed at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre Tuesday. Appreciating the performance were Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, Kang Nung Su, minister of Culture, Mun Jae Chol, acting chairman of the Korean Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Pak Kwan O, chairman of the Pyongyang City People's Committee, Song Sok Hwan, vice-minister of Culture and chairman of the Korean Association for Art Exchange, Kim Yon Gyu, chief of the State Symphony Orchestra, and working people in the city. Among the audience were diplomatic envoys of different countries and representatives of international organizations here and foreign guests and overseas Koreans. Put on the stage were the DPRK's Patriotic Song, the U.S. national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner, WAGNER's Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, DVORAK's Symphony No. 9, From the New World, GERSHWIN's An American in Paris, BIZET's Farandole from L'Arlesienne, BERNSTEIN's Candide Overture and orchestra Arirang. The world-renowned Philharmonic with a long history showed exquisite and refined execution and high representation under Chief Conductor Lorin Maazel.
• Philharmonic Stirs Emotions in North Korea
  By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: February 27, 2008 PYONGYANG, North Korea � As the New York Philharmonic played the opening notes of "Arirang," a beloved Korean folk song, a murmur rippled through the audience. Many in the audience perched forward in their seats.
  The piccolo played a long, plaintive melody. Cymbals crashed, harp runs flew up, the violins soared. And tears began forming in the eyes of the staid audience, row upon row of men in dark suits, women in colorful high-waisted dresses called hanbok and all of them wearing pins with the likeness of Kim Il-sung, the nation�s founder. And right there, the Philharmonic had them. The full-throated performance of a piece deeply resonant for both North and South Koreans ended the historic concert in this isolated nation on Tuesday in triumph. On Wednesday, North Korea�s main state-controlled daily newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, gave a brief account of the concert, with a picture of the orchestra, on an inside page. Of Lorin Maazel, the Philharmonic�s music director, it said, "His performance was very sophisticated and sensitive." The audience applauded for more than five minutes, and orchestra members, some of them crying, waved. People in the seats cheered and waved back, reluctant to let the visitors leave. �
  The trip has been suffused with political importance since North Korea�s invitation came to light last year.
• In North Korea, Breaking a Barrier With Sound
  N.Y. Philharmonic's Landmark Concert Opens 'a Little Door' By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, February 27, 2008; Page A01 PYONGYANG, North Korea, Feb. 27 -- Symphonic diplomacy won bravos and standing ovations here Tuesday night, as the New York Philharmonic performed a concert without precedent in this shuttered Stalinist state that has long considered the United States to be its prime enemy.
  Swinging from a rollicking rendition of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris" to a moving interpretation of Korea's beloved folk anthem "Arirang," the concert delighted a mostly male, standing-room-only audience of North Koreans. Nearly all of them were wearing lapel pins bearing the face of their leader, Kim Jong Il, or of his late father, Kim Il Sung, who created this heavily armed communist nation.
• NY Philharmonic in Pyongyang - CNN video
  CNN's Christiane Amanpour takes a final look at the New York Philharmonic's landmark concert in North Korea's capital
• NY Phil's concert sets stage for cultural diplomacy
  By Kwon Yeong-seok PYONGYANG, Feb. 26 (Yonhap) -- An ensemble of U.S. musicians and a North Korean audience waved to each other Tuesday night at the end of a milestone concert in Pyongyang, an emotional scene that may herald a thaw in frozen Pyongyang-Washington ties. As the New York Philharmonic played Arirang, the most popular Korean folk song, at the end of its 90-minute performance here, the nearly 1,500 North Koreans who packed the concert hall appeared to be deeply moved. They gave a minutes-long standing ovation after the concert and stayed in the hall, beaming smiles and waving hands to the musicians, who waved back from the stage.
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il did not show up at the concert, televised live throughout North Korea and internationally, although Yang Hyong-sup, vice president of the Supreme People's Assembly, was sitting in the front row.
• N.K. acrobats to perform in U.S.
  SEOUL, Feb. 22 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's top circus and magic team are pushing for its first-ever performance in the United States this year in line with Pyongyang's growing appetite for cultural diplomacy, an executive of a North Korea-led multinational investment firm said Friday. "I understand the Pyongyang Acrobatic Troupe will start a world tour, including visits to the United States, Europe and South Korea, this year," Bae Kyong-hwan, vice president of the Hong Kong-based Daepung Investment Group, told Yonhap News Agency.
• Music Director Lorin Maazel
  Music Director Lorin Maazel is surrounded by North Korean officials and media as he and the New York Philharmonic orchestra arrive at Pyongyang airport for a two day visit to North Korea on Monday. /AP [photo]
• New York Philharmonic Arrives in Pyongyang
  � The New York Philharmonic arrived in North Korea on Monday. A chartered Asiana Airlines jet carrying 280 people, including the 105-member ensemble (seven of whom are Korean-American), orchestra executives, supporting staff and journalists, departed Beijing and landed at Pyongyang Sunan International Airport at 4 p.m. CNN broadcast the arrival in Pyongyang live around the world. The musicians toured the city in two groups before attending a dinner reception hosted by the (North) Korean Association for Art Exchange at the Yanggakdo Hotel, where they are staying, at 8 p.m. The ensemble is being accompanied by journalists from around 50 media companies, including the Chosun Ilbo, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, ABC, FoxNews, CBS and CNN. Prior to the orchestra's arrival, the North Korean regime removed some anti-American propaganda banners and posters from downtown Pyongyang. The orchestra will stay in Pyongyang for 48 hours. On Tuesday it will perform before an audience of 1,500 at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater under the baton of music director Lorin Maazel. The ensemble will play the Prelude to Act III of Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin," Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, in E Minor "From the New World," and George Gershwin's "An American in Paris." The concert will be broadcast live on North Korea's state-run TV and radio. If there is an encore request from the audience, the orchestra will perform, without a conductor, "Overture to Candide" by Leonard Bernstein, its late music director. That will be followed by a performance of the Korean folk song "Arirang." The Philharmonic is scheduled to leave Pyongyang on Wednesday afternoon and arrive at Incheon International Airport around 2:30 p.m. the same day.
• New York Philharmonic Arrives
  Pyongyang, February 25 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic arrived here today. It was met at the airport by Vice-Minister of Culture Song Sok Hwan who is chairman of the Korean Association for Art Exchange, and others.
• Banquet Given for New York Philharmonic
  Pyongyang, February 25 (KCNA) -- The DPRK Ministry of Culture and the Korean Association for Art Exchange gave a banquet in honor of the visiting New York Philharmonic at the People's Palace of Culture Monday. Present there on invitation were members of the philharmonic led by its President Zarin Mehta. On hand were Minister of Culture Kang Nung Su, Acting Chairman of the Korean Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries Mun Jae Chol, Vice-Minister of Culture Song Sok Hwan who is chairman of the Korean Association for Art Exchange and other officials concerned. Speeches were made there. On the same day the members of the philharmonic appreciated a performance given by artistes in Pyongyang at the Mansudae Art Theatre.
• KCNA on U.S. Dangerous Moves for Arms Race in Space
  Pyongyang, February 25 (KCNA) -- The U.S. launched a missile to shoot down a spy satellite in the Northern Pacific on Feb. 20 defying the protest and denunciation from the international community. This was done in the form of a general exercise staged by warships equipped with the specially improved interceptor missiles and the commanding system controlled by radars and computers under the U.S. Strategic Command, according to foreign press reports. Foreign observers commented that it was a test for actual battle aimed at establishing a missile defense system (MD) as it marked an important occasion in rounding off a phase for developing the MD and flatly refuted the U.S. assertion about the reason behind its shooting down of the satellite.
• Lee Prioritizes US Relations
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter President Lee Myung-bak said his foreign policy would be based on a strengthened relationship with the United States and energy diplomacy for finding resources. ``We will work to develop and further strengthen traditional friendly relations with the United States into a future-oriented partnership,'' Lee said in an inaugural address Monday. ``Based on the deep mutual trust that exists between the two peoples, we will also strengthen our strategic alliance with the United States.''
• North Korea Welcomes New York Philharmonic
  By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: February 26, 2008 PYONGYANG, North Korea � Projected on a scrim, the gently falling "snow" speckled the precisely twirling figures at the Mansudae Art Theater in a dance depiction of Korean Communists� guerrilla action against the Japanese. At the climax, a nighttime scene of downtown Pyongyang materialized, with warm lights glowing in the high-rise buildings.
  Outside, in real Pyongyang, where electricity is often scarce, most buildings were dark. Malnutrition persists in the countryside. Yet North Korea presented a lavish welcome on Monday to its latest visiting delegation, the New York Philharmonic: a gala performance of traditional music and dance, and an endless banquet with quail eggs, roast mutton and pheasant-ball soup.
  They came bearing bows and basses rather than the arms and armor Americans carried the last time this large a contingent set foot in the North Korean capital. The brass will issue fanfares, not orders. �
• In Visit, Cellist�s Quest for Lost Chord to His Youth
  By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: February 26, 2008 PYONGYANG, North Korea � For much of his 60 years, Valentin Hirsu has thought of those three Korean boys in his class.
• The N.Y. Philharmonic in North Korea: Symbology and the Music
  By Anne Midgette
  Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, February 26, 2008; Page C04 Today, the New York Philharmonic is playing a concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is an unprecedented event, and the media are making sure that the world knows it. In the weeks since the impending concert was announced in December, we have been treated to the spectacle of music pundits enjoying a chance to sound off on politics, with indignant authority, strong opinions and very little actual knowledge.
  On one side of the debate are those who aver that the New York Philharmonic should not be dignifying the Kim Jong Il administration with its presence. The other side maintains that this North Korea performance, which will be broadcast nationally on North Korean television and in this country by PBS, is an act of cultural diplomacy, proving that music is a universal language with the ability to spread peace and harmony (think Leonard Bernstein going to Moscow with the Philharmonic in 1959). The problem with this argument is that it partakes of the idea that we, the noble West, are going to bring the good things of classical music to the benighted North Koreans. This attitude is all too familiar in classical music in general: It is the same well-meaning approach that gives so many outreach programs their tinge of benevolent didacticism, the tone of a conductor speaking cheerfully on a podium to educate his or her audience.
  � And another problem with this argument is that, like many opinions, it is not informed by facts. For there is evidence that North Korea does actually have a considerable music life. "In the State Symphony of North Korea, they do Tchaikovsky from memory," says Suzannah Clarke, a British opera singer who has performed frequently in North Korea. She adds, "The Philharmonic could probably learn a thing or two."
  The students also do not fulfill anyone's expectations of politically guarded wards of the state. "They have a completely normal experience," Stringer says. "Once they're in the walls of the school, politics disappear. There is no breathing down our necks from the North Korean officials." He describes the students as generally more open, easygoing and funny than their South Korean counterparts.
• New York Philharmonic Sets Off for Pyongyang
  The New York Philharmonic Orchestra leaves Beijing for the North Korean capital Pyongyang on Monday for an unprecedented concert there Tuesday. The orchestra�s executive director, Zarin Mehta, said he had heard that North Korea was removing some of the anti-American propaganda lining the streets of the capital. He was quoted as saying the U.S. and North Korean flags would stand side-by-side on stage at East Pyongyang's Grand Theater. Mehta stressed that the concert is not for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il but for North Korean people, saying, "We didn't want to go in and do a closed little concert and drive out."
• Uni. Ministry Approves Guest List for NY Philharmonic
  � South Korea has approved its list of guests attending the New York Philharmonic concert in North Korea this coming Tuesday. Seoul's Unification Ministry says it has allowed a total of 101 people to attend the U.S. orchestra's first-ever performance in the communist state. [Human rights] �
• USFK Chief Worried About 'Conventional Threat' from N.Korea
  In an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Saturday, Gen. Burwell B. Bell, commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, said, "First and foremost, I'm worried... about the conventional threat that the North Korean military poses to South Korea." [Bizarre] �
• New York Philharmonic to Perform in Pyongyang
  Pyongyang, February 23 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic will give its performance in Pyongyang on February 26, Juche 97 (2008). The philharmonic, founded in 1842, is one of the "three world-famous philharmonics" along with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic. It was the first in the world to perform Dvorak's symphony No. 9 "From the New World" in 1893. It has become renowned around the globe, appearing in many cities on five continents. It plays varied musical pieces of different times from music preceding the Vienna classical music to modern music. It performs some 180 concerts a year. The philharmonic with Lorin Maazel as Music Director will give its 14 558th concert in Pyongyang.
• N.Y. Philharmonic Primed to Perform For North Koreans
  Closed Country to Broadcast Concert on State Television By Blaine Harden Washington Post Foreign Service Monday, February 25, 2008; Page A08 BEIJING, Feb. 25 -- Orchestral diplomacy premiers this week in North Korea, as the New York Philharmonic flies into the capital, Pyongyang, for a controversial concert in a Stalinist state that human rights groups call the world's largest prison camp. The 130-member orchestra is scheduled to arrive Monday and perform Tuesday night before an audience of high-ranking North Korean officials. Eighty journalists will accompany the musicians to a country that is almost always closed to the outside world. The performance is scheduled to be broadcast live on North Korean state television. For North Koreans, watching an American orchestra perform in their own country will be unprecedented -- and politically dissonant. State-controlled media have demonized the United States since the Korean War [Media]
• Korea, US to Boost Roles of Combined Marine Forces
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The South Korean and U.S. Marine Corps will enhance their combined operational capability in case of war on the Korean Peninsula, military sources said Friday. To that end, the two sides agreed to upgrade the current Combined Marine Forces Command (CMFC) to the Combined Marine Forces Component Command (CMCC), a source said. [Joint US military] [Military balance]
• New York Philharmonic to Visit Pyongyang
  Pyongyang, February 22 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic will soon visit Pyongyang at the invitation of the DPRK Ministry of Culture and the Korean Association for Art Exchange. It will give its performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre during the visit. �
• East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, Venue for Performance of New York Philharmonic
  Pyongyang, February 22 (KCNA) -- The New York Philharmonic, which will shortly visit the DPRK, will give its performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre located on a bank of the River Taedong flowing through Pyongyang. The theatre, which underwent a formative and artistic renovation last year to meet the requirements of the new century, has all necessary facilities as an edifice of culture. The grand columns of formative beauty, the mural depicting the splendorous Ulrim Falls and other fascinating decorations of the central hall add grace to the theatre. Chandeliers shining brightly in various colors, sculptures of the women's instrumental ensemble and the dance "Snow Falls" and various decorative patterns of balconies and walls on the second and third floors lead the viewers deep into the artistic world. Perfect are the harp-shaped walls of the seating hall, the stage and latest sound facilities. Now the threatre is fully prepared for the successful performance of the New York Philharmonic. Sound reflection boards have been newly manufactured and installed so as to ensure the reverberation effect of the symphonic music on the highest level. And the theatre has been furnished with music stands, chairs for players, the lighting and other facilities to suite the features of the performance of symphony orchestra. Zarin Mehta, president and executive director of the New York Philharmonic, looked round the renovated East Pyongyang Grand Theatre in January and expressed his thanks to the Korean Association for Art Exchange for its utmost efforts.
• North Korea: Economic Sanctions and U.S. Department of Treasury Actions, 1955-September 2007
  This paper aims to present a clear discussion of the history of U.S. and UN actions against the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), the official name of North Korea, in order to place current and future measures in context. A brief review of phases in US economic policy toward the DPRK is followed by longer sections tracking the major changes in U.S. and UN sanctions against North Korea over the past six decades. Next, a summary of the measures taken by other relevant governments, particularly following the July 5, 2006 missile test and October 9, 2006 nuclear test and the UN Resolutions adopted in response. The paper concludes with a summary of U.S. sanctions against North Korea from 2000-June 2007, and a time-line listing major events in U.S.-DPRK relations and the imposition and relaxing of U.S. sanctions. [Sanctions]
• NCNK Newsletter
  New York Philharmonic visit
• Understanding New Political Realities in Seoul: Working toward a Common Approach to Strengthen U.S.-Korean Relations
  NEW BOOK from the Mansfield Foundation Understanding New Political Realities in Seoul: Working toward a Common Approach to Strengthen U.S.-Korean Relations The new administration of President Lee Myung-bak takes over the reins in Seoul in a climate in which there appears to have been some reevaluation of the U.S.-ROK relationship by the South Korea body politic. Perhaps due to the North Korea nuclear test, the controversy surrounding China�s historical claims on the ancient kingdom of Kokuryo, and the stark relief in which the alliance was placed by the negotiations on the transfer of wartime operational control, a sizable majority of South Korean voters clearly indicated their preference for an improvement in U.S.-Korean relations in Korea�s December 2007 elections. As this is the political base to which President Lee Myung-bak will be beholden, the current transition in Seoul likely represents a new political reality. In order to better understand this new reality, the Mansfield Foundation, with support of the Korea Foundation, commissioned five papers from leading American scholars on how the U.S. and South Korea might forge a common approach on economic and humanitarian issues, denuclearization, a Northeast Asia peace and security mechanism; trade and economic relations; and the U.S.-ROK military alliance. These papers, including the introduction, recommendations and chapter summaries in Korean, were published as a book in March 2008.
• Kim Jong-il 'Could Meet New York Philharmonic'
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il could meet musicians with the New York Philharmonic when they perform in Pyongyang on Feb. 26, sources speculate. A North Korea expert in the U.S. on Thursday said the stalemate in nuclear talks between North Korea and the U.S. has robbed the upcoming concert of some of its political luster, but it�s likely that as a gesture of encouragement for orchestra members who have flown all the way to Pyongyang, "Kim will show up in the final moment of the concert or attend a dinner reception to be held at the Yanggakdo Hotel after the concert."
• NY Philharmonic gears up for N. Korea performance
  Ping-pong diplomacy could lead to relaxed tensions and performance by N. Korea�s Nat�l Philharmonic in the UK � As the New York Philharmonic Orchestra prepares for its first-ever performance in Pyongyang on February 26, it appears likely that North Korea�s National Philharmonic Orchestra will perform in Britain in September. Amid recent disagreements about the denuclearization of North Korea, the international community is hoping that music will pave the way for a relaxation of relations between the North and the Western world
• Diplomatic flurry surrounds Philharmonic concert
  February 22, 2008 Tuesday��s historic concert of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra scheduled in Pyongyang promises to be both a diplomatic and cultural event. William James Perry, a former U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, and Donald Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to Korea, are expected to visit North Korea to attend the concert and urge the North��s regime to step up efforts to end its nuclear program. The concert will be broadcast live nationwide in both South and North Korea. Some have speculated that the North��s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-il, may make an appearance and that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will go to the event after attending South Korea��s presidential inauguration ceremony on Feb. 25. According to sources in the Foreign Ministry and Unification Ministry, Perry and Gregg are scheduled to visit Pyongyang to attend the concert next week with an entourage of hundreds. They might meet Kim Gye-gwan, North Korea��s chief negotiator in the six-party talks intended to disable its nuclear program. Evans Revere, president of The Korea Society and a former U.S. State Department official, is expected to accompany the group. The officials will attend the presidential inauguration ceremony for Lee Myung-bak, then cross the demilitarized zone and the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas to reach Pyongyang, a highly unusual action that required approval by North Korea��s government. ��This is involving a couple of hundred people. The preparations are extensive, and the aftermath will be extensive,�� Gregg said in an interview with Bloomberg News in Washington. ��I call it a 16-inch broadside of soft power fired by the Philharmonic.�� The concert will be broadcast live from 6 to 7:30 p.m. A crew of more than 80 from MBC, the South Korean television station that will broadcast the event, are expected to leave for the North tomorrow, according to an MBC official.
• N.K. News Media Report on NY Phil Concert
  Just four days before New York Philharmonic is scheduled to hold a historic concert in North Korea, the communist country's state-controlled media broke silence and reported it for the first time Friday. The world-renowned orchestra's Tuesday concert in Pyongyang is part of its Asian tour which also brings it to Beijing and Seoul.
• US Diplomat to Help NK Concert
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter An American diplomat will go to North Korea to assist the New York Philharmonic concert slated for Feb. 26 in Pyongyang, according to a report. The U.S.-funded media Voice of America (VOA) said the U.S. Department of State will temporarily dispatch an official to support the orchestra. ``The purpose of sending a diplomat to North Korea is solely to assist the New York Philharmonic performance, and the diplomat will return home when the concert is finished,'' a U.S. government official was quoted as saying. The New York Philharmonic concert is to take place at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater at 6 p.m. and is the first-ever performance in North Korea by a U.S. orchestra.
• DPRK-U.S. Working Contact Made
  Pyongyang, February 2 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the U.S. Department of State visited Pyongyang from January 31 through February 2. Issues of concern in implementing the October 3 agreement made at the six-party talks were discussed at the DPRK-U.S. working contact during its visit. The discussion took place in an earnest and practical atmosphere.
• Projected U.S.-S. Korea Joint Military Exercises under Fire
  Pyongyang, February 8 (KCNA) -- The United States and the south Korean bellicose forces are planning to stage "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle" joint military exercises throughout south Korea from March 2 to 7. In this regard a spokesman for the Korean National Peace Committee made public a statement on Feb. 6. The statement branded this plan as a grave military provocation against the DPRK and an extremely dangerous criminal move as it is driving to confrontation and brink of war the situation of the Korean Peninsula going toward independent reunification, peace and prosperity. [Joint US military]
• German Newspaper Dismisses U.S. "Talk about North Korea's Counterfeiting" as Plot
  Pyongyang, February 15 (KCNA) -- The Feb. 9 issue of the German newspaper Frankfurlter Allgemeine carried an article disclosing the unreasonable attitude of the U.S. spreading the "rumor about counterfeiting" by the DPRK, according to a press report. The newspaper said that a "defector from north Korea" whom the U.S. cited as a leading testifier to the above-said counterfeiting case is a swindler and, worse still, he is reported to be missing. According to the well informed investigation source, the above-mentioned rumor is nothing but a farce orchestrated by politicians who have nothing to do with the DPRK, it said, adding that the economic and judicial circles of Europe brand the CIA as the prime mover who faked up the story about "north Korea's counterfeiting" as that institution massively forged the currency of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War era. The rumor spread by the present U.S. administration is chiefly aimed at bringing the DPRK to its knees through economic blockade, it stressed.
• U.S. Nuclear Submarine Arrives in Busan for Drill
  A U.S. nuclear-powered submarine arrived in the southeastern port city of Busan Wednesday for a weeklong South Korea-U.S. exercise set to begin here early next month, the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) said in a press release. It is the first trip to South Korea by the USS Ohio since the former Trident-class vessel underwent a near two-year conversion until late 2005 to become a nuclear-powered, guided-missile, or SSGN-class submarine, enabling the ship to carry 154 conventional cruise missiles instead of 24 Trident missiles. The vessel was commissioned in November 1981. [Joint military]
• New York Philharmonic in Asia: Touring Shanghai
  By Daniel J. Wakin February 20, 2008, 9:56 pm Tags: classical music, New York Philharmonic in Asia The New York Philharmonic has been burrowing its way deeper into the Chinese world on its Asian tour, which started in Taiwan on Feb. 11, moved to Hong Kong last weekend and is now in Shanghai. Concerts have been full, and enthusiasm fairly high, which is not unusual when the orchestra plays outside of its home field at Lincoln Center. I joined it in Shanghai on Wednesday. Touring is always tough, especially in remote lands. The mishaps have not been grave, but needling nonetheless. Lorin Maazel�s plane from Hong Kong was late yesterday, and he needed a police escort to get him to the Shanghai Grand Theater for Wednesday evening�s performance.
  There is another concert tonight, and Friday it is on to Beijing. That brings them only closer to the main event, the one that brings a different sort of jitters from performance anxiety. It is a visit to North Korea.
• NY concert to be broadcast to all North Korea
  Reuters Tuesday, February 19, 2008; 1:05 PM NEW YORK (Reuters) - A concert by the New York Philharmonic in North Korea next week that officials say could break cultural boundaries and draw the two countries closer will be broadcast throughout the reclusive Communist state. The concert, to be held in Pyongyang on February 26, will be the centerpiece of a two-day visit and broadcast live by Korean Central Television, the orchestra said on Tuesday. It will also be broadcast internationally. "A wide distribution of the concert within the country has been a central element of our agreement to perform in Pyongyang from the start," Zarin Mehta, president and executive director of the orchestra, said in a statement. The concert will include George Gershwin's "An American in Paris" and Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 9 "From The New World." Both the U.S. and North Korean national anthems will also be played by the United States' oldest symphony orchestra.
• New York Philharmonic�s Pyongyang Gig on Live TV
  The North Korean government has agreed to a live broadcast of the New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang on Feb. 26, the New York Times reported Tuesday. An official from the North Korean Mission to the UN in New York recently sent confirmation to the orchestra by e-mail, the daily reported.
• Passport Wrangles Cast U.S. Visa Waiver into Limbo
  The National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee on Tuesday failed to pass a revision to the passport law aimed at introducing electronic passports, casting Korea�s perpetual ambition to join the U.S. visa waiver program into limbo again. It is unclear whether the revision can be approved by an extra house session this month.
• Hardliners Target D�tente with North Korea
  Suzy Kim and John Feffer | February 11, 2008
  Editor: Emily Schwartz Greco Foreign Policy In Focus www.fpif.org The Bush administration�s approach to North Korea was once quite consistent with its overall foreign policy. There was name-calling, a preference for regime change, and an emphasis on military solutions. Not surprisingly, then, the relationship between the United States and North Korea, like so many other tense stand-offs, deteriorated over the last seven years. The United States accused the third member of the �axis of evil� of money-laundering, missile sales, and a secret program for the production of nuclear material. For its part, North Korea responded tit for tat at the rhetorical level. And, in October 2006, it upped the ante by exploding a nuclear device. If the United States were not tied up in other military conflicts, and eyeing Iran to boot, a war in Northeast Asia might have been higher on the administration�s to-do list. [US NK Policy]
• Kim Jong-il Named 'World's Worst Dictator'
  The Washington Post�s weekend magazine Parade ranked North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as the world's worst dictator on Sunday. Parade releases a list of the 10 worst dictators in the world every year. This year the magazine put Kim in the top spot, up one notch from last year. "Kim Jong-il runs the most isolated, repressive regime in the world. His harsh system includes detainment of roughly 200,000 citizens in labor camps, and the capture, torture and imprisonment of those who try to flee to China," the magazine said. Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir followed Kim to rank as the world's second worst dictator on Parade's list. [Manipulation]
• Concert in North Korea to Be Broadcast Live
  By DANIEL J. WAKIN Published: February 19, 2008 The North Korean government has agreed to a live national broadcast of the New York Philharmonic�s concert in Pyongyang next week, the orchestra said on Monday � an unheard-of event in that isolated country. �
  The concert takes place in Pyongyang on Tuesday at 6 p.m., which is 4 a.m. on Tuesday in New York. Channel 13, WNET, will show it on tape on Tuesday evening in the New York area, and it will be available two days later to other PBS stations. It will also be shown around the world.
• McCain Has Harsh Words for N.Korean Regime
  � The likely Republican presidential candidate, U.S. Senator John McCain, has called North Korea "the most horrible regime probably on earth." In an interview with Pajamas Media, a site operated by American journalists and bloggers, McCain said, this is the regime "that has got hundreds of thousands of people in the gulag. They�re terrible." He added, "So the regime offends me, just in their terrible mistreatment and abuse of their own people." McCain, a Vietnam War veteran, has maintained a consistently hardline stance on North Korea, but this was his clearest statement yet why. Asked if he would remove North Korea from a list of state sponsors of terrorism, as the Bush administration is expected to do if the North abandons its nuclear program, McCain said, "I would not. I didn�t believe in the [1994] KEDO agreement that president [Bill] Clinton made," which promised North Korea peaceful use of nuclear energy, "and I don�t believe in this one."
• U.S. Gov't Urged to Upgrade Korea's Arms Buyer Status
  A U.S. congressman has submitted a bill to the House of Representatives to upgrade South Korea to the level of NATO+3 member states in the U.S. Foreign Military Sales program (FMS). If Korea is granted the status, it will be able to purchase a wider variety of state-of-the-art military equipment from the U.S. The U.S. grants different kinds of FMS status to each country in exporting weapons and military technology.
• Will Lee Join US Missile Defense Program?
  [Analysis] Can pragmatic diplomacy and missile defense participation coexist? Cheong Wook Sik (cnpk) Published 2008-01-30 04:19 (KST) This article is only lightly edited. In South Korea, the Missile Defense (MD) issue is becoming controversial again. This controversy rests on two things. One is that the incoming government is suspected of leaning toward joining the United States-led MD program. It is based on a Jan. 8 report by the Defense Ministry to the Presidential Transition Committee, which included the MD issue. The other is the news that the Korean Navy is considering arming Aegis warships such as the Sejong the Great with the US-made anti-ballistic missiles called SM-6s. The SM-6 missiles can intercept North Korea's ballistic missiles. The MD system is designed to intercept enemy ballistic missiles with other missiles or lasers. MD is recognized as the main thrust of the US's supremacy in the 21st century. The US currently has the most powerful offensive military force, and if the US can defend itself against missile attacks from the opposing power, its military hegemony will be strengthened. At the same time, it will be easier for the US to carry out preemptive strikes.
  Because of that, those countries that the US officially regards as rationale for MD, such as North Korea and Iran, as well China, Russia, and other countries that are potentially competing with the US oppose the US-led MD program. [Missile defense] [China confrontation]
• Lantos Praised as 'Champion of Our Common Humanity'
  Gallery Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) was elected in 1980 and served as chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Lantos was a survivor of the holocaust and was known as a champion of human rights. He died of cancer on Feb. 11, 2008. By Elizabeth Williamson Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 15, 2008; Page A03 Congressional colleagues, family members and compatriots in his many causes bid the late Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) a hero's farewell yesterday, lauding him, in the words of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, as "a champion of our common humanity."
  His death drew sympathy from around the world, even from leaders with whom he disagreed. In its letter, North Korea used the words "with authority" to signal that its condolences came directly from leader Kim Jong Il.
• Defending America
  John Bolton
  Book World ((Threshold Editions)) Former. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and Author, 'Surrender Is Not An Option' Wednesday, January 30, 2008; 12:00 PM Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton will be online Wednesday, Jan. 30, at Noon ET to discuss his book, Surrender Is Not An Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad, which is reviewed in Book World. A transcript follows. Bolton was appointed by President Bush as ambassador to the U.N. He was nominated for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for playing a major role in exposing Iran's secret plans to develop nuclear weapons. He is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
  New York City: Mr. Ambassador: Are our carrots big enough with North Korea? It seems this on again off again willingness to "sorta" work with the U.S. and her neighbors is a game. Is there a move that we can make to end this game, or will a non-nuclear, non-threatening N.Korea only come about through internal strife, and then regime change? John Bolton: I do not believe that North Korea will voluntarily give up its nuclear weapons capability, no matter how many carrots we provide. This is a fundamental flaw in the Administration's current approach, which I try to explain at greater length in my book. Today, I think it is critical that Congress and the public insist on public disclosure by our government about the extent of North Korea's involvement in the Syrian nuclear facility destroyed by Israel on September 6, 2007. I think the facts about this matter would demonstrate, yet again, that North Korea is playing a shell game.
• Kim Jong-il to Attend NY Philharmonic Concert
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is expected to attend a concert by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in Pyongyang on Feb. 26, according to Radio Free Asia Tuesday. The orchestra won an agreement from the North to play the U.S. anthem at the Pyongyang concert. RFA said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could use that moment to visit North Korea to seek a breakthrough in deadlocked six-nation nuclear talks, attending the concert along with the North Korean leader.
  The U.S. top diplomat is scheduled to attend the inauguration ceremony of South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak on Feb. 25 before flying to Japan and China. But a change in the itinerary is possible, the broadcaster predicted. Rice will be accompanied by the U.S. top envoy to the six-party talks Christopher Hill. RFA quoted a diplomatic source in Washington as saying the North had announced Kim�s plan to watch the concert, expecting a �corresponding� U.S. top official to come. However, many in Washington say if Rice�s visit produces no meaningful results, the Bush administration will have another problem on its hands and will have to take a tougher line with the North, which is some 45 days behind on a deadline to declare all its nuclear programs and stockpiles.
• N.Korea Sings New Song of International Relations
  New tones of engagement with the international community are emerging from North Korea�s official and quasi-official media. Articles stress North Korea �in the world", "international economic relations", and �the need to respect rules in international relations." Improvements in the hermit country�s external relations are being touted as nothing short of "epoch-making." North Korea experts read this as laying the psychological groundwork either for improving relations with the U.S. or for economic development through attracting massive foreign investment. [FDI]
• Russia Sidelined in U.S. Campaign
  By Miriam Elder Staff Writer Monday, January 28, 2008. Issue 3829. Page 1. NEW YORK -- With the U.S. economic downturn, the war in Iraq and the threat of looming conflict with Iran, it is little wonder that candidates in the heated U.S. presidential primaries spare few words for Russia. While the leading candidates differ on how to deal with a resurgent Russia, they all take a much harder line on the country than the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Yet only two of them -- Republican hopeful John McCain and Democratic contender Hillary Clinton -- have mentioned Russia while addressing an electorate that cares more about the sinking stock market and forging a coherent policy in Iraq. And their remarks have not always been strong on nuance. "I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw three letters -- a K, a G and a B," McCain said in a December interview with The Boston Herald. Upon first meeting Putin, Bush said he stared into the Russian leader's eyes and "got a sense of his soul."
  Addressing voters in Iowa in February 2007, McCain referred to Putin as "President Putin of Germany." "I was in a conference in Germany over the weekend, and President Putin of Germany gave one of the old Cold War-style speeches," McCain said in the speech, a video of which is posted on YouTube.
  The Arizona senator has long been one of the most critical voices on Russia, repeatedly calling for the country's ouster from the Group of Eight over human rights concerns. McCain renewed that call in a recent opinion piece in The Financial Times, writing: "[W]e in the West must pursue cooperation with Moscow where we can. But too many believe that we can define an agenda of cooperation that is divorced from the nature of the Russian regime and its actions against its own citizens." McCain, like his three main Republican competitors, supports Bush's plans to deploy elements of a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. "If I'm in the Kremlin, he's not my No. 1 candidate," Andrew Kuchins, head of the Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of McCain. McCain is joined in the Republican race by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
  Romney, whose foreign policy team is being led by longtime diplomat Mitchell Reiss, an expert on nuclear issues and North Korea, also supports plans for missile defense and is critical of events inside Russia. But he has urged greater U.S.-Russian cooperation, particularly on nuclear issues.
• High-profile defector granted right to leave
  January 29, 2008 Ending a five-year fight, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a high-profile North Korean defector can have a passport to travel overseas, despite the Foreign Ministry�s efforts to keep him here. Upholding a lower court�s ruling, the nation�s highest court said yesterday that Kim Tok-hong�s right to freely travel outside South Korea should not be limited just because he is a high-profile defector. The Foreign Ministry has said it could not guarantee Kim�s safety if he left the country. In addition, the Roh Moo-hyun administration has made many efforts to placate North Korea. Kim, a fierce critic of his homeland, sought to get a passport in 2003, when he was invited to come to the United States by human rights groups. With the ruling, a Foreign Ministry official said yesterday the ministry will issue him a passport as soon as he applies. Kim defected to the South in February 1997. At the time, Kim had been president of North Korea�s Yogwang General Trading Company and deputy chief of the office of documents of the Central Committee of the Workers Party. [Manipulation] [Friction]
• Pyongyang launches a cultural wave
  January 29, 2008 While dragging its feet again on its pledge to denuclearize, North Korea is expanding its cultural outreach to the West. The move is drawing a mixed response from North Korea watchers. Some hail it as a prelude to a long-awaited opening of the isolated nation, recalling China�s �ping-pong diplomacy� that served as a catalyst for a thaw in its relations with the United States in the 1970s. Others, however, caution against expecting too much, citing the communist nation�s track record of using arts for propaganda. Regardless, Pyongyang looks set to provide a rare chance for Europeans to see its elite orchestra perform. The North�s State Symphony Orchestra is scheduled to hold performances in London and Middlesbrough in September in what would be its largest-ever shows abroad, according to Radio Free Asia. The concerts will be telecast live, added the U.S.-government funded station. The orchestra is said to have been nurtured by the North�s all-powerful leader Kim Jong-il, reportedly a big fan of film, music and other arts. In the North�s latest cultural diplomatic activity, five North Korean movies were screened over the weekend in San Diego, California during the first inter-Korean film festival organized by a university in the United States. North Korean authorities selected the films. Pyongyang�s No. 2 two diplomat in the North�s United Nations mission, Kim Myong-gil, attended the event after receiving U.S. government approval. Members of North Korea�s UN mission are required to stay within a small radius of New York and need Washington�s approval for trips outside the city. The film festival came two weeks after a North Korean movie, titled �Schoolgirl�s Diary,� was screened in Paris. It marked the first-ever commercial distribution of a North Korean movie in the West. [Media]
• Obama Has Misgivings About Korea-U.S. FTA
  � � � U.S. Senator Barack Obama, currently the strongest contender for the Democrat presidential nomination, has expressed reservations about the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. Obama, congratulating South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak on his election on Feb. 11, said the Korea-U.S. FTA does not meet the "standard" of reciprocity. Obama added he has �no illusions" about North Korea. He said the Korea-U.S. alliance �has been adrift in recent years.� They were the clearest statements yet of Obama�s views on Korea-related matters. "The U.S.-ROK alliance has been a remarkably strong and successful one. Forged in blood during the Korean War more than a half-century ago, the alliance has sustained itself through the crucible of the cold war and remains central to U.S. security policy in East Asia,� Obama told Lee according to congressional records. "Nonetheless, I do not think it is an overstatement to say that the U.S.-Korea relationship has been adrift in recent years." He blamed North Korea.
• Hill Heading to Northeast Asia
  The U.S. top envoy to six-nation talks on North Korea�s nuclear program, Christopher Hill, will begin a tour to Northeast Asian countries including South Korea on Feb. 19. His visit comes ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice�s trip to the region. Rice is to attend the inauguration of South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak on Fe. 25.�
• Japanese woman to sponsor NY Philharmonic�s N. Korea visit
  Through music, Ceschina hopes to contribute to cultural diplomacy and bring peace � � � � A Japanese woman who resides in Italy is playing an important role in the New York Philharmonic Orchestra�s performance in Pyongyang, slated for February 26. The performance in the North Korean capital is considered a major cultural event, and could make a significant contribution to the improvement of ties between the United States and North Korea. Yoko Nagae Ceschina, 75, a Japanese millionaire who been a resident of Italy for the past 45 years, volunteered to sponsor the world-famous orchestra�s performance in Pyongyang. Ceschina said, �I don�t know much about politics, but hope that music can make peace,� when North Korea invited the orchestra to perform in its capital city in September, according to Japan�s Mainichi Shimbun. South Korea�s Asiana Airlines and the MBC broadcasting company will pay for the cost of round-trip airfare for the orchestra and its staff, as well as the cost of television relay broadcasts, while Ceschina will underwrite the remaining expenses, amounting to tens of millions of yen. �
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is a self-avowed fan of classical music who once said, �My first love is music.� Ceschina says that if she were to meet him, she would say: �I heard that you like music. My first love is music too. The main players in this performance are the U.S. and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. However, by sponsoring the performance, I just want to give a good impression as a Japanese person.� [Tribute]
• Editorial Questions, Not Just on Iraq
  Published: February 17, 2008 How the next president plans to handle the disastrous Iraq war is the most important foreign policy question of this year�s campaign. But it is not the only foreign policy question that voters need answered. Skip to next paragraph The Board Blog Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers. Go to The Board � President Bush�s mismanagement reaches far beyond Iraq. He has torn up international treaties, bullied and alienated old friends, and enabled old and new enemies. Before Americans choose a president they will need to know how he or she plans to rebuild America�s military strength and its moral standing and address a host of difficult challenges around the world. Here is our list of questions. It is by no means comprehensive.
  NORTH KOREA Since Mr. Bush took office, Pyongyang has tested a nuclear device and produced enough fuel for 10 or more nuclear weapons. Now a deal to dismantle its nuclear program appears to have stalled. Would the candidates continue those negotiations, offer additional incentives to speed up denuclearization or look for new ways to pressure Pyongyang?

• Army Chief Receives US Medal
  Park Heung-ryul By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter Army Chief of Staff Gen. Park Heung-ryul was conferred the Legion of Merit, the top U.S. military decoration awarded to foreign military and political personnel, by U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., the South Korean Army said Sunday. The U.S. military honored Park's contributions to enhancing the military alliance between South Korea and the United States, it said in a news release.
• U.S. resolutions to congratulate president-elect
  Both the House and Senate of the U.S. Congress are seeking resolutions reaffirming the country's bilateral alliance with South Korea and congratulating President-elect Lee Myung-bak. Reps. Diane Watson (D-California) and Edward Royce (R-California) co-authored a resolution submitted Friday, recognizing the bilateral relations built through parliamentary and civilian exchanges and deep cultural and personal ties. The resolution also cites the contributions of Korean-Americans and strong trade relations, an official at Royce's office said. A similar resolution is expected to be submitted at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led by committee chairman Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Delaware).
• NK Calls for Peace Treaty With US
  North Korea on Saturday called for an official end to the Korean War through a peace treaty with the United States, and demanded that the U.S. drop its hard-line stance toward the communist state. "In order to ease military tension and secure a peace regime on the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. should move toward a peace treaty at an earlier date," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North's powerful Workers' Party, said in a commentary.
• Going Live From Pyongyang
  By THE NEW YORK TIMES Published: January 26, 2008 The New York Philharmonic�s concert in North Korea, to take place on Feb. 26 at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, will be broadcast live internationally. The broadcast will be produced by the New York Philharmonic and EuroArts Music International, in co-production with the Munhwa Broadcasting Company of South Korea and ARTE France, and in cooperation with the European Broadcasting Union. Details of the broadcast in the United States are to be announced later. The concert, to be conducted by Lorin Maazel, above, the orchestra�s music director, will include the national anthems of North Korea and the United States; the Prelude to Act III of Wagner�s �Lohengrin�; Dvorak�s Symphony No. 9, �From the New World�; and Gershwin�s �American in Paris.�
  The concert, and the Philharmonic�s visit, have aroused controversy, with some contending that they offer legitimacy to North Korea�s government. [Imperialism]
• Bolton's Anti-DPRK Remarks under Fire
  Pyongyang, January 22 (KCNA) -- Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the UN, in his article contributed to the "Wall Street Journal" let loose a spate of reckless remarks. He claimed that the U.S. should pull out of the dealing with north Korea and opt for a high-handed policy as the presentation of its report on nuclear declaration is delayed. He also blustered that the U.S. should plug south Korea into the PSI and build a triangular cooperation mechanism involving the U.S., Japan and south Korea to pressurize north Korea and it should not be de-listed as a "sponsor of terrorism" under any circumstances. Minju Joson Tuesday in a signed commentary assailing his utterances observes that it cannot but disclose Bolton�fs wicked intention to torpedo the process for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It goes on: As far as some problems that cropped up at the second phase for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are concerned, they surfaced because the countries participating in the six-party talks failed to keep pace with the measures taken by the DPRK to implement the agreement and the speed at which it has pushed ahead with them in all respects. The process for the denuclearization of the peninsula is under special circumstances as it can make progress only when the six parties honestly fulfill their commitments on the principle of "action for action." Herein lies the reason why the DPRK asserts that the observance of the principle of simultaneous action is vital to advancing the above-said process. The U.S. committed itself to cross the DPRK off the list of "sponsors of terrorism" and stop the application of the "Trading with the Enemy Act" against it until the end of last year according to the Oct. 3 agreement adopted at the six-way talks but the U.S. has been hesitating to do so. It is quite self-evident that the DPRK cannot unilaterally implement its commitments under this situation. If the U.S. is truly willing to advance the process for the denuclearization of the peninsula, it should simply honor its commitments. The call made by U.S. conservative hardliners for building the above-mentioned mechanism, misinterpreting the truth about the situation, cannot be construed otherwise than an artifice to achieve their sinister aim.
• Senators Criticize U.N. Program in North Korea, but Question Set of Accusations
  By WARREN HOGE Published: January 25, 2008 WASHINGTON � A Senate subcommittee criticized the United Nations Development Program in North Korea on Thursday, accusing it of lax management and poor accountability. But the panel raised serious questions over accusations by the United States Mission to the United Nations that the agency had squandered millions of dollars there.
  But much of the hearing on Thursday focused on charges made last year by Mark D. Wallace, an ambassador at the United States mission to the United Nations, in briefings for members of Congress, news outlets, the State Department and nations that finance the development program. Mr. Wallace said then that $2.8 million of program funds had been sent to North Korean missions abroad for the purchase of buildings in Britain, France and Canada; that $2.7 million had been paid to a North Korean financial agent responsible for sales of missiles and arms; and that more than $7 million had been transferred to a North Korean committee it worked with. Mr. Wallace compared the program to the scandal-ridden oil-for-food program in Iraq and suggested that the United Nations money might have ended up financing the North Korean nuclear program. The subcommittee staff report on Thursday said that in fact the $2.8 million sent abroad to buy real estate was actually North Korean, not United Nations, money, and that the amount of money sent to the company suspected of financing arms was $52,000, not $2.7 million.
  At the hearing the chairman, Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, pressed Mr. Wallace repeatedly to say whether, with what he knew now, he could still make the same charges he had made last year. Mr. Wallace said that he did not know the specific amounts of money involved because of the difficulty of tracking transactions in North Korea, and added that they could be even higher than he had estimated. In an interview outside the hearing room, Mr. Levin expressed frustration at the answer. �I gave him a chance on at least three occasions to acknowledge that some of the points that he made back in May were inaccurate at the time, perhaps based on information that he interpreted, but that nonetheless, he could not make those statements now,� Mr. Levin said. �That doesn�t mean he lied,� Mr. Levin added. �It does mean that he said things at the time that he now knows are not accurate.� [UNDP] [Disinformation]
• In North Korea, 2002 All Over Again By Mike Nizza
  July 16, 2007, 9:30 am
  Tags: foreign affairs, north korea, nuclear weapons, united nations Not content with simply popping champagne bottles in the hours after today�s United Nations confirmation that North Korea had shut down its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, The Economist published a column that evoked the Gipper for a sober warning: [Media][Bizarre]
• Bush Welcomes Lee Envoy at White House
  U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday welcomed South Korean president-elect Lee Myung-bak�s special envoy at the White House. Rep. Chung Mong-joon is the first such envoy to the U.S. in five years, and his welcome stood in marked contrast to the treatment of a special envoy from then president-elect Roh Moo-hyun in 2003. Around noon, Bush entered the office of U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. All smiles, Bush sat in the chair offered by Hadley to face Rep. Chung. After offering congratulations on Lee�s election, Bush expressed hope the new president will visit the U.S. at his earliest convenience
• U.S. Report Finds N.Korean Abuses Of U.N. Agency
  By REUTERS Published: January 23, 2008 Filed at 8:59 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea used the bank accounts of a U.N. agency for deceptive cash transfers, among a wide range of abuses of that organization's presence in the communist state, a U.S. Senate panel reported on Wednesday. The United Nations Development Program deviated from its standard practices in the way it hired local North Koreans and paid their salaries, but was not complicit in -- or aware of -- the host government's improper financial transactions, said the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. The United States had accused UNDP of sloppy accounting, handing over cash to North Korean bodies without proper documentation and hiring staff hand-picked by the communist Pyongyang government. The UNDP issued a statement saying that none of the major allegations of financial wrongdoing had been substantiated. [UNDP] [Toolkit]
• NY Philharmonic to Be Seen Globally
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 23, 2008 Filed at 10:25 p.m. ET NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Philharmonic's concert in North Korea next month is to be broadcast live worldwide, the orchestra announced Wednesday. The Feb. 26 concert in the nation's capital is to be conducted by the orchestra's music director, Lorin Maazel, in the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre. The program will include the national anthems of both North Korea and the United States; the Prelude to Act III of Wagner's ''Lohengrin''; Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, ''From the New World,'' and Gershwin's ''An American in Paris.'' The telecast is to be produced by the New York Philharmonic, EuroArts Music International, ARTE France and South Korea's Munhwa Broadcasting Company. The European Broadcasting Union will also join the effort.
• Report: N. Korea Exploited U.N. Account
  By Colum Lynch
  Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 24, 2008; Page A16 UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 23 -- In the months after President Bush's 2002 speech branding Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil," North Korean officials channeled at least $2.7 million through a bank account normally used to process United Nations development projects because of fears that the United States would block its ability to transfer money outside the country, according to a Senate subcommittee report.
  But UNDP insisted that Wednesday's report "contains nothing" to substantiate persistent allegations that it transferred tens of millions of dollars to North Korea or that its funds were diverted to a clandestine North Korean nuclear or missile program. "We are gratified that the staff report contains no suggestion that these allegations can be substantiated," said UNDP spokesman David Morrison. [UNDP] [Toolkit] [Evidence] [Legality]
• UNDP tops global accountability ranking
  UNDP received top ranking on the 2007 Global Accountability Report launched in London on 4 December by One World Trust, a leading expert in the field of global governance and accountability. UNDP is among 30 of the world's leading organizations from intergovernmental, non-governmental, and corporate sectors assessed by One World Trust according to four widely-accepted dimensions of accountability: transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms.
• UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM: A CASE STUDY OF NORTH KOREA
  United States Senate PERMANENT SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
• UNDP statement on Senate investigation into UNDP operations in DPRK
  UNDP welcomed the recent investigation by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (the �Subcommittee�) into its former operations in North Korea. UNDP voluntarily cooperated with the inquiry, including by making its personnel and documents available for review by the investigators. UNDP�s extensive cooperation is acknowledged in the report. The Subcommittee initiated the inquiry in June 2007, in the wake of persistent allegations concerning UNDP�s operations in North Korea. A 31 May External Audit had found that, because of constraints imposed by the North Korean authorities, UNDP and other UN agencies did not operate in North Korea according to the same standards and practices they used elsewhere worldwide. The same audit found, however, contrary to allegations that UNDP spending totaled hundreds of millions of dollars, that UNDP ran a modest program of less than $3 million per year, and had in place a full range of monitoring mechanisms to verify its spending. New allegations surfaced shortly afterward, including detailed charges that UNDP had underreported its funding levels, and engaged in illicit transactions with entities tied to the North Korean armaments program, and that a significant amount of UNDP funding had been diverted by the North Korean government. The Subcommittee initiated its investigation shortly afterward.
  Nearly seven month later, after extensive interviews with UNDP staff, as well as a Subcommittee field to visit UNDP headquarters to verify the financial control systems UNDP had in place in North Korea, UNDP emphasizes that the Subcommittee�s report contains nothing to substantiate persistent allegations that:
  � UNDP transferred tens of millions of dollars to the North Korean government, as had been alleged; � UNDP money was used to fund North Korean purchases of real estate, or were diverted to its nuclear or missile programs; � UNDP dealt in significant amounts of cash, which could be diverted or embezzled in defiance of financial controls; � UNDP ignored UN controls on prohibited vendors and dealt directly with entities barred by these processes. [UNDP] [Toolkit] [Evidence]
• Response to allegations about tampering with DPRK evidence
  17 December 2007 A 26 November 2007 story by George Russell on the Fox News website (www.foxnews.com), citing an anonymous blog entry that included a series of photographs, suggested that UNDP personnel in Beijing might be tampering with documents related to UNDP�s former operations in DPRK. This is entirely untrue. The documents in question have recently been removed from DPRK in sealed diplomatic pouches. The pouches will remain sealed until opened in the presence of the investigating bodies. The authenticity of the photos on the website cited by Fox News is therefore subject to question. [UNDP] [Disinformation] [Media]
• Lee Envoy Sets Off on Fence-Mending Trip to U.S.
  President-elect Lee Myung-bak�s special envoy Chung Mong-joon left for the U.S. on Monday, where he is to meet government officials, lawmakers and experts in Korean affairs. On Thursday, he flies to New York and meet financial figures. Chung will meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, and Republican senators Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. A meeting with President George W., Bush has not been scheduled. The special envoy will also meet officials of Washington think tanks and Korea experts. The Grand National Party lawmaker said he would deliver to the U.S. Lee�s �strong will to restore Korea-U.S. ties, which have suffered far more than the public would think.� [Sovereignty]
• North Korea Seems to Meet U.S. Criteria on Terror Listing
  By REUTERS Published: January 22, 2008 Filed at 1:53 p.m. ET Skip to next paragraph WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea appears to have met the legal criteria to be taken off the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list although its removal depends on progress on denuclearization agreements, a U.S. official said on Tuesday. "It appears that North Korea has complied with those criteria," Dell Dailey, the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, told a group of reporters. As part of a broader multilateral agreement under which North Korea would abandon its nuclear weapons and programs, the United States has held out the possibility of removing Pyongyang from the U.S. state sponsors of terrorism list which imposes sanctions on the impoverished, communist state. However, this is contingent on North Korea meeting U.S. legal criteria and keeping its denuclearization commitments, including providing a complete declaration of its nuclear programs. North Korea missed a December 31 deadline to do this and Washington is trying to get it to follow through. Dailey said resolving the matter of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea during the 1970s and 1980s did not appear to be an obstacle to taking Pyongyang off the terrorism blacklist. Japan has sought a full accounting of their fate. "We think that even with that on the table that they still comply with the ... delisting criteria," he said. [Terrorism list]
• Rice Slams US Envoy's NKorea Criticism
  By FOSTER KLUG The Associated Press Tuesday, January 22, 2008; 11:04 AM WASHINGTON -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday sharply rebuked a fellow member of the Bush administration who criticized international negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program. Rice said that Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy on North Korean human rights, "doesn't know what's going on in the six-party talks, and he certainly has no say on what American policy will be in the six-party talks." Lefkowitz said Thursday that the North is not serious about disarming and probably still will have its nuclear weapons when the next U.S. president takes over in January 2009, despite four years of nuclear disarmament talks by the United States, the Koreas, Japan, China and Russia. The Bush administration has been working to distance itself from the rare public criticism of administration policy by a government official. The comments come at a time when the nuclear talks have reached an impasse, and the North has missed a promised deadline and increased its hostile rhetoric. Rice told reporters on her way to Germany for talks on Iran's nuclear program she doubted that those involved in the talks would even recognize Lefkowitz's name. North Korea, however, has responded strongly in the past to critical U.S. comments, and Lefkowitz has been a frequent and harsh critic of the North's treatment of its citizens. [Dissension] [Manipulation]
• Aegis Ships 'to Be Equipped With New Intercept Missiles'
  The Defense Ministry apparently plans to equip the Navy's 7,600-ton-class Aegis vessels, including a King Sejong-class destroyer, with the newest-type American-made SM-6 missiles to intercept North Korean ballistic missiles [Military balance]
• Incoming administration may consider joining U.S. missile defense program
  Defense Ministry and transition team advocate caution, consideration of inter-Korean relations The Ministry of National Defense briefed the presidential transition team on the U.S.-led missile defense system and sources predict that the government will consider joining the global network. On January 8, the Defense Ministry briefed the transition team on defense reform, the transfer of wartime operational control, the status of U.N. peace-keeping forces and other issues, according to comments made by a ministry official on January 20. The official added that the missile defense system was also discussed, and Lee Dong-kwan, the spokesman of the transition team, confirmed this. [Missile defense]
• Seoul Downplays US Envoy�s Criticism of NK Policy
  The government Friday downplayed a senior U.S. envoy�s criticism of Seoul�s kid-glove policy towards North Korea. Jay Lefkowitz, President George W. Bush�s human rights envoy, Thursday accused South Korea and China of being excessively lenient to the recalcitrant communist nation. �Because the Chinese and South Korean governments have been unwilling to apply significant pressure on Pyongyang, recent talks have, in actuality, become a bilateral negotiation between the U.S. and North Korea � he said in a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. [Bilateral] [Pressure]
• US Says There Is Unanimity on N. Korea
  By FOSTER KLUG The Associated Press Friday, January 18, 2008; 2:26 PM WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration on Friday distanced itself from one of its own officials who criticized U.S. efforts to deal with North Korea's nuclear programs. The State Department and White House sought to portray a unified front in supporting six-nation nuclear talks that have reached an impasse, with the North missing promised deadlines and increasing its hostile rhetoric. The U.S. administration was responding to blunt criticism of the disarmament talks Thursday by Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush's special envoy on North Korean human rights. Lefkowitz said the North is not serious about disarming and will likely "remain in its present nuclear status" after Bush leaves office in January 2009, despite four years of nuclear disarmament efforts by the U.S., the Koreas, Japan, China and Russia. "Let me make it very clear: He is the envoy for issues related to human rights in North Korea," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters Friday. "He is not, however, somebody who speaks authoritatively about the six-party talks. His comments certainly don't represent the views of the administration." [Dissension]
• Freedom House report names North Korea one of worst in political, civil freedoms
  WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea remains one of the eight countries rated lowest in civil and political freedoms, with Asia overall suffering setbacks in 2007, according to an annual report released Wednesday by a Washington-based nonprofit organization. The report by Freedom House, titled "Freedom in the World 2008: Global Freedom in Retreat," categorized South Korea as a "free" country, with the highest rating of 1 in political rights and 2 in civil liberties. The report surveyed 193 countries, 90 of which were rated "free" and represent 46 percent of the global population. Sixty countries were labeled "partly free" and the remaining 43 were labeled "not free." Of those rated "not free," North Korea was designated one of the eight worst, along with Cuba, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Libya, Sudan, Burma and Somalia. North Korea received the lowest rating of 7 in both political rights and civil liberties. Arch Puddington, director of research at the Freedom House, said there was a glimmer of modest improvement in North Korea, however. North Korea's increasing economic relations with South Korea and China have enabled its people to access videos, music and other cultural outlets, he said at a press conference releasing the report. Such relations have also given North Koreans opportunities to meet and talk with people outside of the country, he said.
• Looking Back and Looking Forward: North Korea, Northeast Asia and the ROK-U.S. Alliance
  By Hyeong Jung Park January 15th, 2008 Hyeong Jung Park, CNAPS Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, writes, �Whether it is successful or not, the denuclearization process will give birth to a new reality both on the Korean peninsula and in Northeast Asia, and the challenges for both countries will be how to maintain convergent understandings and cooperative relations along the road to the future.�
• U.S. soldier accused of attempted rape gets reduced sentence deferred
  Another U.S. soldier previously accused of having collaborated is acquitted An American soldier accused of trying to rape a South Korean female police officer in Seoul�s Chungdam neighborhood in April of last year was handed a light sentence by the Seoul High Court. Another U.S. soldier, who was sentenced to a three-year jail term on charges of collaborating in the attempted rape, was acquitted by the same appeals court. Sgt. Anthony Basel, 24, was arrested last April on charges of trying to rape the off-duty police officer at a public restroom in Seoul. Pfc. Marc Feldmann, 22, was arrested for having allegedly collaborated with Basel. On January 15, the court reduced Basel�s prison term of three years and six months to one year and six months, but suspended the term for three years. Feldmann, who was sentenced to three years in prison, was acquitted. In handing down its ruling, the court said: �There is no evidence that Feldmann either participated in the crime or collaborated with Basel because the witness�s testimony, that he was inside the public restroom, wasn�t consistent with the progression of events on the night in question.�
  Regarding Basel, the court seemed to have been swayed by a previous diagnosis of post-traumatic stress syndrome following Basel�s tour of duty in the Iraq War. �[Basel] has some mental difficulties and is heavily dependant on alcohol, cigarettes and illegal drugs,� the court said, adding that he was overly drunk around the time of the attempted rape. [Bizarre]
• 'Trust-Building Between US and North Korea Necessary'
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter Park Geun-hye, the former chairwoman of the main opposition Grand National Party (GNP), will meet Chinese President Hu Jintao in Beijing today to deliver a letter from President-elect Lee Myung-bak, according to Lee's transition team Wednesday
• Kevin G. Hall�s Counterfeit Journalism
  Joshua Stanton January 14, 2008 Kevin G. Hall is a reporter for McClatchey News Service, formerly known as Knight-Ridder, which for many years has been the Dr. Pepper of the wire services. Hall breathlessly reports that he has concluded a �10-month� investigation on �four continents� that has called into question whether North Korea counterfeited U.S. currency. DPRK Forum links to this eight-paragraph one-pager. After reading it, I thought Hall must be holding back his best stuff, so I kept looking. A few clicks later, I found this more detailed version, and if that�s all there is, I pronounce Kevin G. Hall the single least competent American journalist whose work I have ever read, a man who owes McClatchey ten months of back wages.[Counterfeiting] [Bizarre]
• Declassified Vietnam War Dossier Silences Suspicions
  Korean president Park Chung-hee in the later 1960s proposed a regional defense body with Japan and Taiwan to combat the spread of communism, newly declassified documents reveal. The dossier related to the Vietnam War made public on Friday also shatters persistent myths by showing that Korean soldiers who fought in the war were paid the same as their Thai and Filipino counterparts, and that the money did go to the soldiers and was not used by the state to boost Korea�s economic development, as some have charged.
  The newly released documents show that during the nine years until 1973 the Korean military served in Vietnam, overseas service compensation paid by the U.S. government to Korean troops there totaled more than US$235 million, with 82 percent of that money or around $195 million remitted to Korea. The service compensation was regularly paid to the Korean troops in Vietnam as agreed between the U.S. and Korean governments, the documents show. That should silence suspicions that the U.S. in fact paid far less than agreed to, and that the troop deployment stipend was diverted into Korea�s economic development. The dossier shows the amount of compensation per day for a brigadier general was US$7, for field officers between $5.50 and $6.50, for company officers $4-5, for sergeants $2-2.50 and for privates $1.35-1.80.
• Vietnam Vet Commits Public Suicide
  A Vietnam War veteran who had been suffering from after effects of Agent Orange, committed suicide by drinking a bottle of weed-killer while holding a one-man demonstration in front of the National Assembly on Wednesday. The 59 year-old man, who was identified by his surname, Ye, was sent to the Vietnam War in September of 1965. From October 25 until his death, he held a one-man rally in front of presidential residence Cheong Wa Dae and the National Assembly, requesting that patients suffering from exposure to defoliants be recognized as national meritorious persons. At around 4 a.m. on Wednesday, when he was blocked by police when he tried to enter the National Assembly, he consumed the poison.
  �We contributed to the reconstruction of Korea by sending home dollars,� he said.
• Documents Show Korea's Cool Vietnam Calculations
  Updated Aug.26,2005
  Diplomatic papers declassified Friday cast new light on Korea's involvement in the Vietnam War, showing a sometimes hard-headed country determined to get substantial security and economic benefits in return for sending troops into the ill-advised adventure. From the early days of his administration, president Park Chung-hee pushed the dispatch of Korean troops to Vietnam to get U.S. aid and simultaneously bring economic growth and greater security. The dossier shows Korean authorities anticipating a formal request for combat troops from the U.S. well in advance. A Cheong Wa Dae report dated Jan. 6, 1965 is particularly revealing of the hairy calculations involved. Political affairs secretary Yang Dal-seung said in the report titled "Issues to be considered about sending troops to Vietnam" that the U.S. request after a visit by president Park to Germany seemed intended as a test of Korea's loyalty to Washington
• Korea Was Eager to Assist U.S. With Vietnam War
  Updated Aug.26,2005
  Korea went out of its way to accommodate the U.S. during the Vietnam War, newly declassified documents reveal. They show that Seoul urged Washington to relocate a U.S. base in Japan to Korea's Jeju Island and anticipated an official request for troops by asking Washington in March 1965 whether it would be asked to send combat troops to the conflict. It also proposed building a base for U.S. nuclear submarines in Korea.
• Lee Lauds US Servicemen in Korea
  President-elect Lee Myung-bak, right, shakes hands with U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. B. B. Bell after receiving a trophy depicting a Korean and American soldier for his contribution to the bilateral relations at the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command headquarters in central Seoul, Tuesday. / Joint Press Corps By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter President-elect Lee Myung-bak Tuesday stressed the importance in the role of U.S. troops stationed on the Korean Peninsula as a stabilizing force in Northeast Asia, as well as a deterrent against North Korea. [Sovereignty]
• Lee Calls for U.S. Dialogue with N.Korean Military
  President-elect Lee Myung-bak has reportedly asked the U.S. to engage in dialogue with the North Korean military leadership to assuage fears of regime collapse in the Stalinist country. In a meeting with chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill last Thursday, the president elect said, "Our people don't support the idea of giving lavish aid to the North, nor do they want to irritate it too much, I believe."
• Woman Appointed New U.S. Ambassador to Seoul
  Kathleen Stephens, senior U.S. State Department adviser for East Asia and Pacific affairs, has been appointed the first female ambassador to South Korea. /Yonhap A woman who as a member of the Peace Corps in the 1970s taught South Korean students English will arrive in Seoul as new U.S. ambassador this summer. Kathleen Stephens, former senior deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, has been appointed the next U.S. ambassador, diplomatic sources in Washington said last Thursday.
• Lee Puts US Above N. Korea in Relations
  By Kim Yon-se Staff Reporter President-elect Lee Myung-bak made it clear Monday that he values ties with the United States above those with North Korea in diplomatic policy. But he said he is willing to hold summit talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il anytime in Seoul, if such a meeting will contribute to the denuclearization of the North and inter-Korean relations. [Sovereignty]
• Largest-ever development of [US] armed forces since the Second World War
  Letter from Korean Committee for Solidarity with the World People; Korean Societies for Friendship with the Asia Pacific People; Korea-Asia Pacific Exchange
  Dear friends in the Asia Pacific, We are sending this letter in connection with the recent report of the New York Times on the U.S. military moves. Recently the U.S. Defense Department confirmed the plan for the largest-ever development of armed forces since the Second World War, the keynote of which calls for relocating one third of the U.S. forces by 2011.
• Seoul to Join US-Led NK Ship Interdiction Initiative
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter The presidential power transition committee is considering whether Korea should join the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, according to committee members Friday. A transition team official said that the committee began mulling over the participation in the PSI, aimed at interdicting ships suspected of carrying material that could be used for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). [PSI]
• Foreign Policy Wish List
  by Victor Cha
  I know that Christmas is over, but moderates and conservatives in Korea must still be aglow with festive and warm feelings knowing that there will be a new government in Seoul next month. President-elect Lee Myung-bak�s strong showing in the December elections have made headlines in newspapers and websites around the world. The day of the election, in fact, speaking with various reporters and editors in the U.S., Asia, and Europe I got a sense that all were aware of the president-elect�s strength in business and economy, and therefore readily expected positive changes in this arena.
• Foreign Ministry urges participation in Proliferation Security Initiative
  Defense Ministry objection and N. Korean threat could block acceptance by incoming administration
  The South Korean government has urged the incoming administration of Presdient-elect Lee Myung-bak to consider joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative. Seoul�s refusal to participate in the PSI has caused trouble with Washington in the past, a conflict which intensified during the North Korean nuclear crisis. The issue is expected to stir controversy again, as the North has threatened that a war will sweep the Korean Peninsula if the South joins the PSI. Seoul�s National Defense Ministry also objects to joining the initiative. [PSI]
• Seoul to Join US-Led NK Ship Interdiction Initiative
  By Yoon Won-sup Staff Reporter The presidential power transition committee is considering whether Korea should join the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, according to committee members Friday. A transition team official said that the committee began mulling over the participation in the PSI, aimed at interdicting ships suspected of carrying material that could be used for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He said on condition of anonymity, ``Because full participation can affect inter-Korean relations, the transition team is making careful consideration. We will not be able to make a quick decision on it.'' [PSI]
• 2 defectors discredited; told of fake $100 bills made by North Korea
  McClatchy Newspapers Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.10.2008
  SEOUL, South Korea � A North Korean defector who claims to have helped the Kim Jong Il regime make fake U.S. currency has gone into hiding amid charges that he fabricated stories for money. A second high-ranking defector who claimed he was in on the decision in Pyongyang to print bogus U.S. $100 bills admits that he never saw it being done. If there are defectors with ironclad accounts to corroborate the Bush administration's assertions that North Korea is printing counterfeit U.S. $100 bills, they can't be found, even with vigorous effort. [Counterfeiting] [Defector reports] [Evidence]
• Counterfeiting evidence against N. Korea dubious
  Kevin G. Hall McClatchy Newspapers Jan. 10, 2008 12:00 AM WASHINGTON - Two years ago, as he was ratcheting up a campaign to isolate and cripple North Korea's dictatorship financially, President Bush accused the communist regime there of printing phony U.S. currency. "When someone is counterfeiting our money, we want them to stop doing that. We are aggressively saying to the North Koreans just that - don't counterfeit our money," Bush said on Jan. 26, 2006. However, a 10-month McClatchy Newspapers investigation on three continents has found that the evidence to support Bush's charges against North Korea is uncertain at best and that the claims of the North Korean defectors cited in news accounts are dubious and perhaps bogus [Counterfeiting] [Evidence] [Toolkit] [Defector reports]
• Troop Control Transfer Must Consider Peace and Unification
  President-elect Lee Myung-bak�s Transition Committee said the new government should carefully reconsider the transfer of wartime operational control of Korean troops from U.S. forces, which is slated for Apr. 17, 2012. In other words, it feels there is a need to renegotiate the terms and date of the transfer with the U.S. government after considering the North Korean nuclear standoff, security situation on the Korean peninsula and our military capabilities. The Defense Ministry said it would study whether the timing of troop control transfer should be adjusted. According to the agreement between Korea and the U.S., between 2010 and 2011, both sides will verify the ability of the Korean military to independently handle wartime operational control of its troops and complete final supplementary measures by around March 2012. The following month, Korea and the U.S. will form separate command organizations and will cooperate both during peacetime and war through a newly created entity. [Sovereignty]
• Hill in Busy Round of Diplomacy in Korea
  Chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Christopher Hill, currently on a visit to South Korea, was busy all day Wednesday with six rounds of publicized meetings alone. Since his arrival in Seoul on Tuesday, Hill has been meeting politicians as well as diplomats in charge of the North Korean nuclear issue.
• U.S. defense officials to visit Seoul, address OPCON transfer
  U.S. officials, intent on transferring wartime operational control of South Korean forces to Seoul in 2012, will travel to South Korea next week to meet President-elect Lee Myung-bak's transition team, sources here said Wednesday. David Sedney, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, will lead the delegation that will be in Seoul from Monday, the sources told Yonhap. The schedule in Seoul is still being worked out, "but the focus will clearly be on the meeting with the transition team," one of the sources said. [Sovereignty]
• U.S. counterfeiting charges against N. Korea based on shaky evidence
  By Kevin G. Hall | McClatchy Newspapers Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008
  WASHINGTON � Two years ago, as he was ratcheting up a campaign to isolate and cripple North Korea's dictatorship financially, President Bush accused the communist regime there of printing phony U.S. currency. "When someone is counterfeiting our money, we want them to stop doing that. We are aggressively saying to the North Koreans just that � don't counterfeit our money," Bush said on Jan. 26, 2006.
  However, a 10-month McClatchy investigation on three continents has found that the evidence to support Bush's charges against North Korea is uncertain at best and that the claims of the North Korean defectors cited in news accounts are dubious and perhaps bogus. One key law enforcement agency, the Swiss federal criminal police, has publicly questioned whether North Korea is even capable of producing "supernotes," counterfeit $100 bills that are nearly perfect except for some practically invisible additions. [Counterfeiting] [Toolkit] [Evidence] [BDA]
• Seoul Could Seek Delay of Troop Control Transfer
  Seoul is minded to ask the United States to delay the transfer of wartime operational control of Korean troops, slated for Apr. 17, 2012, until a later year. It remains to be seen whether the request has a chance of finding a hearing. After a briefing from the Defense Ministry on Tuesday, president-elect Lee Myung-bak's Transition Committee said the new government should reconsider the transfer of troop control after consultations with the U.S., given security threats from the North Korean nuclear problem and the South�s limited defense capabilities [Sovereignty]
• US Takes Average 24 Days to Process Arms Exports to Korea
  WASHINGTON _ It took the U.S. government an average of 24 days to process arms exports to South Korea in 2006, according to a recent watchdog agency report. The Asian nation accounted for 4 percent of arms sales concluded in that year, the same report said. [Arms sales][Military balance]
• Hill to arrive today for North talks
  January 08, 2008 As the stalemate over North Korea�s declaration of its nuclear programs continues, Christopher Hill is scheduled to visit Seoul today for three days of meetings, a Foreign Ministry official said yesterday. �Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Hill will visit from Jan. 8 to 10 and meet with chief envoy Chun Young-woo and other officials,� Cho Hee-yong, the ministry�s spokesman, said.
• President-elect Lee meets with U.S. experts on East Asia
  N. Korean nuclear issue, South Korea-U.S. alliance and N. Korea�s human rights situation were discussed
  South Korea�s President-elect Lee Myung-bak met with a group of current and former U.S. officials, including former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry and former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in Seoul on January 4 to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue, the South Korea-U.S. alliance and North Korea�s human rights record.
• U.S. Criminal Smear Campaign against DPRK Disclosed
  Pyongyang, January 2 (KCNA) -- The criminal smear propaganda campaign persistently conducted by the U.S. is a mean method it has constantly used to invade and topple other countries and put them under its control, says Rodong Sinmun Wednesday in a signed article. The U.S. has long used broadcasting as a means for invading other countries and realizing its ambition to dominate the world, the article notes, and goes on: The U.S. vicious psychological offensive to spread corrupt bourgeois ideology and culture and way of life in other countries and destabilize them has become all the more pronounced as the days go by.
• Lee Myung-bak Victory: Good News All Around
  by Ralph A. Cossa
  The landslide victory of conservative Grand National Party (GNP) presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak is good news for the Republic of Korea, for the United States, for the ROK-U.S. alliance, and, if responded to wisely and appropriately, for the DPRK (Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea or North Korea) as well.
• You're Pro-American -- Get Out of Here!
  , by Kang Chun-suk Many parents will have gloated over a press report yesterday morning saying the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, which has been bullying and frightening all schools and parents of the nation, had a rough time before the presidential Transition Committee, suffering a profound grilling because it had served the ideological policies of the Roh Moo-hyun government only too well until a few days earlier.
  In any case, it was also during the Transition Committee period five years ago that I was embarrassed when a foreign ambassador asked me, "Is it true that the president elect told a Chinese government leader who called on him, 'Although it is all but an established practice for the Korean president to visit the U.S. first upon his inauguration, I wish the day would come when he opts for China?'" As it happens, I�d still be interested to know if that was true. In deed, the Roh administration was far from anti-American. It dispatched troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, increased its share of the upkeep cost of the U.S. Forces Korea, consented to the reduction of the USFK, and concluded the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement [US SK relations] {Pro-Americanism]
• Escalating arms race in Northeast Asia
  Column] Sohn Yong-u, Secretary General, Democratic Pacific Union of Korea We are at a time when we need to worry about a Northeast Asian arms race and not just about North Korea�s nuclear programs. This is because the North Korean nuclear crisis exacerbates the security dilemma, and that leads to an expanded arms race. The cold realism of international politics in response makes the security dilemma worse. Let�s look at the arms race of the four powers of Northeast Asia. Years ago the American security strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski came up with a grand Eurasian strategy for the United States in the 21st century that he wanted to see include managing and staying on top of European integration, keeping Muslim anti-Americanism under control, keeping a rising China in check and controlling the natural resources of Central Asia [Military balance]
• U.S. and Tokyo welcome conservative to power
  Expectations high for renewed cooperation and improved bilateral relations
  WASHINGTON & TOKYO - Both Washington and Tokyo welcomed South Korea�s new conservative administration and expressed the expectation that their relations with Seoul will be strengthened in terms of the North Korean nuclear issue. The U.S. administration of George W. Bush celebrated the appearance of a conservative government in Korea. At a regular briefing on December 19 (local time), U.S. State Department spokesperson Tom Casey said, �We have a long history of cooperation and friendship with South Korea, and we fully expect that will continue. With this new government, certainly we�ve got a number of important issues on our bilateral agenda, including our mutual cooperation at the six-party talks.�
• Lee to Meet US Envoy Over N. Korean Nukes
  President-elect Lee Myung-bak is scheduled to meet chief U.S. nuclear envoy, Christopher Hill, probably next Thursday for talks on the stalled international effort to denuclearize North Korea, transition team officials said Thursday.
• President-Elect to Meet USFK Chief Next Week
  By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter President-elect Lee Myung-bak plans to meet with U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. B. B. Bell early next week to discuss ways of enhancing combined defense readiness, officials of Lee's power transition team said Thursday. The meeting comes amid high hopes for a strengthened alliance between Seoul and Washington following the landslide victory of conservative Lee, who campaigned on a pledge to cement ties with the United States, in the Dec. 19 election.
• Reject Iraq troop dispatch extension
  [Editorial] One item on the agenda that appears without fail on the main floor of the National Assembly towards the end of each of the last few years has been bills to extend the time Korean troops are in Iraq. Around October, the president �informs� the country that they will be there longer, and then the National Assembly procrastinates until right before the year is out before building it up with a bunch of other bills and suddenly voting to approve all of them at the same time. This year the government is going so far as to renege on its promise that the mission would be over by now. It has no regard for what the Korean people think. At this point it feels futile to argue about what�s wrong with having troops in Iraq. Government officials say that the significance of keeping them there is that it maintains ties with a certain number of allies to the United States there. In other words, it is about helping the United States save face, since most countries have withdrawn or are withdrawing their troops. What have we gained from this? Nothing at all. All we have is the vague hope that it will help in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis [Dilemma] [Tribute]
• Prospects for U.S.-ROK Relations under a Lee Myung Bak Administration
  Gordon Flake
  Executive Director,The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation With President-elect Lee Myung Bak enjoying the greatest margin of victory of any President in the modern democratic era in South Korea, much of the reporting still tends to focus on broad and ill-fitting labels such as "progressive" and "conservative." In truth President-elect Lee ran a campaign based upon a moderate platform that was focused far more on the question of basic competency than upon any particular ideology. This election was notable in part for the relatively minor role that traditionally important issues such as inter-Korean relations and the U.S.-ROK alliance played in the debate and apparently in the voter's decision.
• Rodong Sinmun on Grave Consequences of Imperialists' High-Handed and Hegemonic Policy
  Pyongyang, December 29 (KCNA) -- The imperialists' high-handed practices and policy aimed at dominating the world greatly disappointed the world progressives aspiring after independence and peace and seriously affected the development of the international relations this year, observes Rodong Sinmun Saturday in a signed article. Clashes, disputes and military conflicts persisted in different parts of the world including Northeast Asia and Mideast and the situation remained tense this year due to the imperialists' policy of aggression to put the world under their control, the article says, and goes on: In January, the world heard the U.S. president's order to dispatch more U.S. troops to Iraq. Since then the U.S. bellicose forces have blustered that they would not rule out even a military option to discourage Iran from pursuing the "nuclear weapons program", vociferating about the "nuclear threat" from Iran all the year round. They have pushed forward the policy of stifling the DPRK while massively reinforcing their aggression troops in and around the Korean Peninsula
• Introduction of US Spy Planes Hits Snag
  Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle By Jung Sung-ki Staff Reporter The government plan to purchase Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from the United States is expected to hit a snag as the National Assembly cut almost all the budget proposed for the project in late December. [Military balance]
• Chief of KPA General Staff on Tense Situation on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, December 23 (KCNA) -- The situation of the Korean Peninsula still remains tense owing to the U.S. invariable war moves, said General of the Korean People's Army Kim Kyok Sik, chief of the KPA General Staff, in his report at the national meeting held here Sunday to celebrate the 16th anniversary of Kim Jong Il's assumption of office as supreme commander of the KPA. All the facts, he said, show that the U.S. is talking about "dialogue" and "negotiation" but it is actually scheming to "destabilize" the DPRK's system by all vicious means and methods while resorting to the moves to invade the DPRK. He further said: We are paying deep attention to the fact that the U.S. mobilizes Japan and other satellite forces to persistently pursue the hostile policy toward the DPRK. If the hostile forces refuse to stop the large-scale war exercises and huge arms buildup, we will resolutely counter such actions with more powerful means.
• S.Korea Extends Troop Deployment in Iraq
  By HYUNG-JIN KIM The Associated Press Friday, December 28, 2007; 4:36 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea's parliament voted Friday to extend the country's troop deployment in Iraq for another year, a move supporters said was crucial to maintaining good relations with the United States. [Tribute]
• Korea 5th Biggest Buyer of U.S. Weapons
  Korea is found to have been the fifth biggest buyer of U.S.-made arms between 1999 and 2006. A report by the U.S. Congressional Research Service shows Korea purchased US$5.6 billion worth of U.S. weaponry in that period. Topping the list was Saudi Arabia having bought more than $13 billion worth of U.S. arms followed by Taiwan, Egypt and Israel in that order. [Arms sales] [Military balance] [Proliferation]
• North Korea Calls for End to �Hostile� U.S. Policies
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: January 2, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea � An editorial in North Korea�s three major state-run newspapers urged the United States on Tuesday to abandon its �hostile� policies and proposed closer economic ties with South Korea under its president-elect, Lee Myung-bak. But the message made no mention of the Dec. 31 deadline the country had missed to declare all its nuclear activities: weapons, facilities and fissile material. The New Year�s editorial is a customary vehicle for the country�s leader, Kim Jong-il, to set out his policy priorities. �An end should be put to the U.S. policy hostile toward North Korea,� the editorial said, reiterating Pyongyang�s justification for building nuclear weapons and detonating one in October 2006. �The source of war should be removed and lasting peace be ensured.� Analysts and policy makers scrutinized the message for clues to Mr. Kim�s thinking. Some said it suggested that despite Washington�s demands, North Korea had no immediate plans to clarify whether it had pursued a clandestine program to enrich uranium for atomic weapons, besides its already known program of building bombs with plutonium. North Korea insists that it will not give up what it terms its self-defense nuclear program until the United States has taken measures to end Pyongyang�s international isolation and guarantee its security. It wants the United States to provide aid, remove it from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism and open diplomatic relations. [Agreement070213] [Media]
• North Korea Replies to Bush With an Offer and a Condition
  By HELENE COOPER Published: December 15, 2007 WASHINGTON � Responding to a recent letter from President Bush, North Korea agreed on Friday to follow through on its pledge to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, provided the United States reciprocates by normalizing relations between the countries. President Bush said Friday that his initial letter, which was delivered by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill to the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, on Dec. 5, achieved its purpose. �I got his attention with a letter and he can get my attention by fully disclosing his programs, including any plutonium he may have processed and converted some of that into whatever he�s used it for. We just need to know,� Mr. Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden after a cabinet meeting. �As well, he can get our attention by fully disclosing his proliferation activities.�
  A White House official said that Mr. Kim�s response was delivered to State Department officials through an intermediary, North Korea�s representative to the United Nations. The official said that the reply contained a pledge that the North would follow through on its promise as long as the United States held to its end of the bargain.

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