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

2011

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

• NK-US relations 2010
• NK-US relations 2009
• NK-US relations 2008
• 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

• State Department picks new senior official on Korea: source
  A career diplomat with expertise in trade, economy and East Asia will be installed in a key U.S. State Department post dealing with Korean affairs, a department source said Thursday. "James P. Zumwalt, now the deputy chief of mission to the U.S. Embassy in Japan, will work as deputy assistant secretary at the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific affairs starting on Jan. 3," the source said, requesting anonymity. Edward Kagan, director of the Office of Korean Affairs, has been serving as acting deputy assistant secretary in charge of the region since Joe Donovan left the position in the summer to work at the National Defense University. "Kagan will return to the Office of Korean Affairs," the source said.
• N. Korea’s new textbook won’t criticize America
  Stewart Lone By Sunny Lee BEIJING — A new North Korean English textbook is devoid of criticism of America, according to a person who was recently in the country and reviewed the textbook, which is set to be published in 2012. North Korea’s state media often describes the United States in various negative terms such as “imperialist,” “blood enemy,” and “disturber of world peace.” But “the new North Korean textbook includes no hostile references to America,” said Stewart Lone, an Englishman and professor of East Asian history in Australia, who regularly visits North Korea to teach English at two elite middle schools. [Education] [Internet] [Opening]
• The Death of General Secretary Kim Jong Il
  Korea Policy Institute | December 19, 2011 On Saturday, December 17, 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, 69 years old, passed away while traveling on a train to a field visit. According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), North Korea's official international news organ, Kim suffered a fatal heart attack. A period of national mourning has been declared, and the official funeral is set for December 28. Although his death was sudden, speculation around Kim Jong Il's mortality in international media commentary has dogged the North Korean leader since he suffered an apparent stroke in 2008. Within North Korea, succession plans for Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, believed to be in his late 20s, have been in place for at least the past three years. For the past two years, Kim Jong Un accompanied his father to all major official gatherings, including a visit to China last year where he is said to have received the support of the government there. Despite conjecture that Kim Jong Il's passing will lead to political instability, what is clear is that the succession plan has strong internal and Chinese sanction. [KJI_death]
• Looking Towards 2012 at the Korea Policy Institute<
  Christine Ahn | December 16, 2011 Dear KPI Supporters: On behalf of the entire Korea Policy Institute (KPI) community, I want to thank you for your past support, which has helped KPI become a trusted source on breaking issues related to US-Korea relations. Recently, I ran into Walden Bello, a leading intellectual and now a Congressional representative in the Philippines, and he said, "Keep up the good work. You and KPI are my authority on Korea issues." It's a tremendous honor to know how important a resource KPI has become.
• A Dark Cloud From a Death In Pyongyang
  By JAMES SIMMS and TOM ORLIK Ding dong, the Dear Leader is dead. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il's 17-year reign wasn't great for North Korea, which shifted from industrial decline to economic abjection on his watch, or for the world, which lived with the threat of nuclear catastrophe from his aggressive brinkmanship. But his death might not be good news either. The heir apparent, youngest son Kim Jong Eun, is in his late 20s and almost completely untested. His support from the military and the security apparatus is uncertain. That is in contrast to his father, who had two decades to build up his power base. North Korea's heir apparent, Kim Jong Eun, is in his late 20s and almost completely untested. His support from the military and the security apparatus is uncertain—in sharp contrast to his father, who had two decades to build up his power base. .The base case is a continuation of the status quo, with Pyongyang continuing to leverage foreign aid through its nuclear program. The main risk is that inexperience, and Kim Jong Eun's desire to consolidate his power base at home by acting tough abroad, will result in a disastrous foreign-policy misstep. As recently as November 2010, missile attacks on a South Korean island brought the temperature on the peninsula to a boiling point. A similar move by Kim Jong Eun would have disastrous consequences. ..A collapse of the regime could be worse. A flood of refugees into China, South Korea and Japan would have serious costs. An uncoordinated scramble by China and the U.S. to secure nuclear material could have global consequences. [Collapse] [Agency][[KJI_death] [Kim Jong Un]
• US still cautious about new NK leadership
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The U.S. government said Wednesday that the funeral of the late North Korean leader was obviously an "emotional moment" for North Koreans and expressed a cautious view on the future leadership. "It was obviously, you know, an emotional moment for North Korea," State Department spokesman Mark Toner told an informal press briefing, when asked about Kim Jong-il's funeral. On a question about whether the U.S. views Kim's third son, Jong-un, as Pyongyang's new leader, he was cautious. "They've issued some statements about the future leadership of the country. That has provided some clarity, but you know, I think we will wait and see in coming days and weeks what else emerges," he said. [US NK policy]
• The Cruelty of Kim
  Forced breeding, torture, starvation, rape, execution: This is what it’s like to be a political prisoner in North Korea. BY BLAINE HARDEN | DECEMBER 20, 2011 For all his infamy, Kim Jong Il got a free pass from the West for his most important legacy: state-sanctioned cruelty. Now, as his callow third son maneuvers (or is maneuvered by generals) to take over the world's most shuttered state, it is worth reflecting on the staggering breadth of human rights abuses in North Korea, how they were used for so long to keep the lid on the North Korean people, and why many Westerners paid so little attention to what the Dear Leader was getting away with. Part of the reason Kim's cruelty was often overlooked was the deceptive power of the images that found their way out of North Korea. On TV and in the newspapers, Kim looked too silly to be a world-class monster. On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart often played him for laughs -- big glasses, puffy hair, zippered jumpsuits. Kim was indeed risible, given enough distance from North Korea and enough ignorance of how he governed. But it was his nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that most effectively kept his government's grotesque human rights record out of the popular imagination, especially in the United States. Thanks to missile launches and nuclear tests, Kim endlessly made sure North Korea seemed really, really scary. And it worked. Neighboring states and the U.S. government became obsessed with containing his primitive nuclear devices and the missiles that might one day deliver them to Seoul, Tokyo, or San Francisco. [Personalisation] [KJI_death]
• North Korea is a tough target for US intelligence agencies
  Posted on Monday, December 26, 2011Modified Tuesday, December 27, 2011 Ken Dilanian WASHINGTON — Robert Egan has a pretty good feel for how desperate the CIA is for scraps of information about North Korea. Egan has served barbecue to North Korean diplomats at his restaurant in Hackensack, N.J., for 15 years, and he has visited Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, several times. He also has fed details about his customers to U.S. authorities, even plucking stray hairs off their suits so American officials could trace the DNA. Not surprisingly, he has found FBI surveillance equipment hidden in his office. [Intelligence]
• In N. Korea, an opening to build connections
  Wednesday, December 28, 11:41 AM Regarding the Dec. 26 news story “In N. Korea, signs of smooth transfer of power”: With the leadership transition underway in North Korea, the United States would do well to signal a new beginning with that country. I just returned from a visit there on a mission with the Fuller Center for Housing. We plan to build houses for workers at a tree farm. The friendliness that our work team experienced in the village we visited became all the more memorable because we saw the residents’ spartan living conditions (not enough food, heating fuel and other necessities). At a large market in Pyongyang, we were surrounded by many ordinary North Koreans. Seeing their faces made us hope that our two countries will never be at war again. Our policies of heightening fear seem to have brought only increased danger and defensive behavior. Might this be the time to work toward the normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea, just as we have normalized relations with China and Vietnam?
  Earl Martin, Harrisonburg
  ? In his article pegged to the ascension of Kim Jong Eun in North Korea [“Too much power for young hands?” Style, Dec. 24], Marc Fisher, quoting authorities ranging from neuroscientists to developmental psychologists to the Book of Ecclesiastes, argued that the performance of “rulers who came to power before age 30” has been “less than impressive.” Mr. Fisher’s argument was highly selective. History provides several examples of rulers who came to power before age 30 whose reigns have been considered quite impressive: Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Peter the Great of Russia, Frederick the Great of Prussia and Elizabeth I and Elizabeth II of England were all in their 20s. Victoria became queen of England at 18. Mr. Fisher and the neuroscientists and developmental psychologists he quoted might ponder these facts before making categorical judgments. Martin B. Nass, Silver Spring [Kim Jong Un] [Engagement]
• What Obama should tell China as transition unfolds in North Korea
  Michael Auslin | Fox News December 19, 2011 Article Highlights •Pyongyang has proved its willingness to use force to send messages and keep its adversaries off-balance Tweet This •Dramatic instability in NKorea could result in Beijing deciding to intervene using pretext of border stability Tweet This •NKorea’s new leaders should be offered opportunity to normalize their relations with the rest of the world With the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, the long-awaited power transition in North Korea is now fully underway. For years now, Asian and Western governments have gamed out the possibilities of a post-Kim Korea. From fears of a complete implosion or civil war to feeble hopes for a North Korean glasnost, the very lack of knowledge about Pyongyang’s inner circle, governing procedures, and level of government stability frustrated any attempt to come up with a widely-accepted prediction and course of action on the part of the United States and its allies. Kim’s death will likely prove not to be an immediate turning point for the Korean peninsula, and foreign policy hands will undoubtedly call for restraint on the part of Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo while the transition unfolds. Yet all three governments should maintain pressure on the North to open up and should not be lulled into making concessions simply because a new head of state will soon emerge. [KJI_death] [Takeover] [US NK policy]
• Korea at the crossroads: Peace or confrontation?
  By Dorothy Ogle Posted: 12/25/2011 01:00:00 AM MST The incomplete and distorted reporting about North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is not fair to him, the people of North and South Korea who long for peace and reconciliation, or to the American people. Instead of talking about Kim's eating with silver chopsticks while the people of North Korea are starving, we need to be reminded that in 1995, the year after Kim Jong Il came to power, North Korea suffered a massive natural disaster that wiped out cropland, schools, homes, and infrastructure on a scale comparable to Katrina. They have never been able to recover because they have had floods and drought almost every year since then. After last year's harsh winter, heavy rainfall and subsequent floods in October 2011 damaged about 134,000 hectares of agricultural land leaving many children in North Korean countryside severely malnourished, with little chance of survival without access to proper nutrition and medical treatment. [US NK policy]
• Kim’s Death Good for U.S. Military?
  December 23, 2011 By Alexander von RosenbachinShare.7 The passing of Kim Jong-il could give the U.S. the excuse it needs to bolster its Pacific presence – without China objecting. The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has plunged the Asia-Pacific into a period of uncertainty and risk. Having just extricated itself from Iraq, the U.S. military would undoubtedly be troubled by the prospect of being dragged into a conflict on the Korean Peninsula. However, assuming the nightmare scenarios of full-scale war or North Korea’s total collapse can be avoided, the opportunity to cultivate key relationships with Japan and South Korea may be a silver lining for U.S. strategic planners. With the Iraq war now over and the timeline set for withdrawal from Afghanistan, Washington is looking for ways to reassert its presence in the Asia-Pacific without being seen as antagonising or encircling China. At the same time, the Chinese are starting to more aggressively pursue their claim to regional hegemony. As a result, Beijing has been highly critical of U.S. efforts to become more active in China’s backyard. Amidst tensions in the South China Sea earlier this year, for example, the U.S. attempted to bolster naval ties with Vietnam and the Philippines. In response, China publically chastised Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and bluntly warned Washington to stay out of the dispute. However, instability inside North Korea may mitigate Chinese concerns – or at least mute criticism – about new measures to strengthen U.S. military co-operation with Japan and South Korea. If greater U.S. involvement is seen as a response to regional insecurity rather than as a cause, Beijing may find the pill easier to swallow. [China confrontation] [Bizarre] [KJI_death]
• Impounded Patriot missiles were legit to S. Korea: official
  Compiled from news reports HELSINKI - A shipment of 69 surface-to-air missiles impounded by Finnish authorities was a legitimate delivery from Germany to South Korea, a German official said Thursday. The announcement came after Finnish authorities seized the Patriot missiles and 160 tons of explosives on a British-registered cargo ship and detained two Ukrainian crew members on suspicion of violating weapons export laws. Police said the missiles didn't have the right transit documents and the explosive picric acid wasn't properly stored on the M/S Thor Liberty, which docked in Kotka, southern Finland, on Dec. 15. A spokesman for Germany's Defense Ministry said the missiles were an official shipment that was fully declared and had all necessary clearings from German authorities. ``Those patriot guided missiles are from the Bundeswehr's stocks and have been shipped to South Korea,'' according to an intergovernmental treaty, he said, declining to be named in line with government policy. [Arms sales] [Double standards]
• Not just in North Korea, political dynasties thrive across the globe
  By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, December 24, 6:29 PM NEW DELHI — If North Korea’s new leader is looking for advice on how to carry on his family’s dynasty, he could turn to Rahul Gandhi, who is on a quest to become the fourth generation of his family to rule India. Or to Joseph Kabila, who is celebrating his questionable re-election to the Congolese presidency he inherited from his father. Or to former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of the country’s first president. North Korea’s preparations to transfer power to a third generation of the Kim family, following the recent death of Kim Jong Il, is by no means an anomaly: In both democracies and dictatorships, political dynasties abound across the world. While former President George W. Bush — the son of a president and the grandson of a senator — was never dubbed “the Great Successor,” and Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto — who followed in her assassinated father’s footsteps — was never said to have been “born of heaven,” just like Kim Jong Un they ended up in the family business of running a country. While some dictators pass on power to their children as a veritable inheritance, dynasties exert a powerful pull in democracies as well. The identity of a party might be deeply linked to a family. A familiar name might give a political scion an edge on the ballot, further strengthened by the family’s established political and fundraising machines. Sometimes the heir is a puppet, a brand name needed to rally the public, while backroom power brokers pull the levers. Or a nation in mourning over the death of its leader might turn to the grieving child for comfort and continuity. [Succession]
• [Column] Managing Instability on the Korean Peninsula
  By Donald Gross The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il gives rise to an urgent security issue in U.S.-China relations. Peace and stability in Northeast Asia now depend in large part on the ability of Washington, Seoul, and Beijing to diplomatically manage this crisis and prevent it from triggering a military conflict on the Korean peninsula. [Takeover] [KJI_death]
• AP opens North Korea news bureau, but celebration will wait
  North Korean soldiers bring flowers to pay respects to Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang. | AP Photo/Korean Central News Agency via Korea News Curtis Tate McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON — The Associated Press was ready to formally dedicate a new bureau in North Korea's capital this week, giving AP the first permanent bureau operated by a Western news organization in the reclusive country. When Kathleen Carroll, AP's executive editor, and Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive, were en route to Pyongyang from Beijing early Monday, big news broke. A wailing state television anchor announced to the world that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was dead of a heart attack. Upon arriving in the capital, Carroll and Curley were told by their hosts that it wouldn't be a good time to celebrate the new bureau. They had to turn around. "Obviously, the big news in their country got in the way," Carroll said. With the party canceled, the bureau staff got right to work covering the story.
• Armed to the teeth: Mystery around North Korea’s new leader presents strategic challenge
  By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, December 23, 8:47 PM SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s newly minted leader presents the U.S. and its allies with a strategic challenge: how to deal with an inexperienced young man who sits on a nuclear arms program, a stash of chemical weapons and the world’s fourth-largest army. Kim Jong Un is poised to become the world’s youngest commander in chief. With virtually no track record, he will be learning on the job. From a military perspective, that makes him a huge wild card. At the tender age of 27, give or take a year or two, Kim Jong Un is poised to become the world’s youngest commander in chief. Kim Jong Un presents the U.S. and its allies with an even more unknown character than his recently deceased father - and the strategic challenge of dealing with an inexperienced twenty-something who sits on a nuclear arms program, a stash of chemical weapons and the world’s fourth-largest army. .While the transition could offer an opportunity for positive change, this week’s announcement of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il’s death immediately set off alarms in situation rooms from Seoul to Washington. Troops around the region are on heightened alert. [Inversion] [Context] [Media]
• Amid mass mourning in North Korea for Kim Jong Il, support for new leader grows
  By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, December 23, 8:31 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — Towns and villages across North Korea set up mourning centers in a stepped-up show of public grief Friday over the death of leader Kim Jong Il, but attention and allegiances clearly began shifting to his young, untested son and heir. Scenes of dramatic mass mourning have been a daily occurrence in Pyongyang since Kim’s death was announced on Monday. Thousands of North Koreans — including his son Kim Jong Un and other top officials — have poured into a funeral palace in the capital to view his body or bow before his portrait. ( APTN / Associated Press ) - A group of North Koreans take part in an organized (sic) display of mourning, in front of a portrait of Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, North Korea, the day after his death was announced, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2011. .By Friday, mourning stations had also been established in provincial, city and county seats, and at institutions and enterprises across the country. “The sorrow at the loss of our leader is tremendous. But we would not stay in grief only,” Sok Kil Nam, a 24-year-old worker at the Chollima Steel Complex in the city of Nampho, told The Associated Press. He added: “As long as we have great comrade Kim Jong Un, the cause of the respected General Kim Jong Il will go on, so we continue working, not leaving our work sites.” North Korea’s official media have been quick to feature the younger Kim in coverage of the mourning — a strong indication that the country’s leadership is behind installing the 20-something son as Kim Jong Il’s successor and the public face of the nation. North Korean television showed hours of footage Friday of weeping citizens, and state media reported that small children stood in the bitter cold and wailed over Kim Jong Il’s death “at the top of their voices” as they held fairy tale books that Kim had given them. Officials in Seoul and Washington, after initial jitters over possible instability, are calling the transition so far a smooth one. There have been no outward signs of unrest on the streets or unusual troop movements along the borders. [KJI_death] [Grief] [Media]
• North Korea - A New Era?
  Stuart Witchell Senior Managing Director 23 December 2011 stuart.witchell@fticonsulting.com The death of Kim Jong-il draws to a close the rein of one of the world's most notorious dictators. Often portrayed as a cognac-loving movie obsessed caricature, the so-called Dear Leader also oversaw the transition of North Korea into a nuclear-armed state while his population starved. The end of Kim's rule was thought previously to be a potential landmark event triggering uncertainty for the region. But FTI believes that there will be no major changes in the near term, with both regional neighbours and leading world powers focused rather on preserving stability in the Communist state, as the new leader seeks to secure his status and credibility. North Korea's isolation from the international community means that few know the actual situation in the country though, so while both world powers and businesses in Northeast Asia seek potential opportunities for further engagement, they should also prepare their contingency plans. [Agency][KJI_death]
• North Koreans will 'die from malnutrition within months'
  US postponement of food aid decision after death of Kim Jong-il is related to denuclearisation talks, experts claim Tania Branigan in Beijing and agencies guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011 18.56 GMT Article history North Koreans mourn the death of Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang. Aid groups warn that the country is short of a month's supply of food for the year. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images Humanitarian groups fear that the death of Kim Jong-il could worsen North Korea's dire food situation, after the US postponed a decision on potential aid. The country has relied on foreign supplies since the devastating famine of the mid-90s killed hundreds of thousands of people. But the World Food Programme (WFP) and NGOs have warned that the situation is particularly bleak this year. [Aid weapon] [Renege]
• The Director as Dictator: The Legacy of Kim Jong Il
  by JOHN FEFFER Kim Jong Il was only the second leader that North Korea ever knew. He ruled in the shadow of his father, Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea. The son had none of the charisma of the father, and none of the credentials either. Kim Il Sung fought as a guerrilla against the Japanese colonizers. His battles may not have been particularly impressive – and certainly not as impressive as North Korean propaganda has made out – but he at least could point to a revolutionary record. With no battlefield experience, Kim Jong Il even felt the need to fabricate his birthplace in order to suggest an authentic revolutionary past. Official North Korean history put his place of birth as the legendary Mt. Paektu in the northern part of North Korea, when in fact he’d been born in Russia. [KJI_death]
• After Kim Jong-il
  Christopher Hill 2011-12-20 DATELINE – In one sense, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il changes everything. It is by no means clear, for example, that Kim’s coddled youngest son, Kim Jong-un – now hailed as the “Great Successor,” but singularly unprepared to lead – will ultimately succeed his father in anything but name. Working in Kim Jong-un’s favor is his striking resemblance to his grandfather, Kim Il-song, who, strangely, held a certain charisma for North Koreans. Looks aside, Kim III will need a lot of help; in the meantime, we can expect further consolidation by the Korean People’s Army of its leadership of the country. Even more than in the past, we must expect the unexpected in North Korea. Above all, the West must work closely with China. In that sense, nothing has changed. [US NK policy] [KJI_death]
• North Korea dubs young Kim ‘outstanding leader;’ US, South Korea say handover smooth so far
  View Photo Gallery — ?Residents of the isolated nation are in deep mourning following the death of their “Dear Leader,” who had ruled the country since the death of his father in 1994. By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, December 22, 9:09 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — The handover of power in North Korea to Kim Jong Il’s young son appeared to be going smoothly Thursday, with official media calling him the “outstanding leader” and no outward unrest in the capital or troop movements along its borders. Foreign governments have focused intense scrutiny on North Korea since Kim’s death was announced Monday because of concerns over his untested heir’s rise in a country with a nuclear program, 1.2-million strong military and a history deep animosity toward its neighbors. [KJI_death] [Inversion]
• Kim Jong Il’s death stirs genuine emotions
  View Photo Gallery — ?Residents of the isolated nation are in deep mourning following the death of their “Dear Leader,” who had ruled the country since the death of his father in 1994. By Philip Kennicott, Published: December 20 It may seem perverse, even obscene, that there are people weeping in the streets over the death of North Korean strongman Kim Jong Il. From our perspective, the only rational explanation is that the tears are forced, a compulsory show of emotion for the cameras and, ultimately, the watchful eye of big brother. Maybe some of them are fake, but I have little doubt that many are real and spontaneous. Russians wept when Stalin died, and mass hysteria is a powerful thing. All of England seemed to go to pieces when Princess Diana died. Some of that emotion was a natural response to the sad loss of a widely admired woman. But much of it was self-feeding, tears prompted by tears, emotion amplified and reinforced by the media. Many people enjoy crying in public, feeling emotions in concert with large crowds of people. [KJI_death]
• KCNA Cites Party Organs before National Defense Commission
  Geoffrey | Tuesday, December 20th, 2011 | No Comments » In KCNA’s piece on Kim Jong Il’s passing, we note that in both the Korean and English versions, the order in which institutions are cited are as follows: “The WPK Central Committee and Central Military Commission, DPRK National Defence Commission, Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and Cabinet released a notice on Saturday informing the WPK members, servicepersons and all other people of his passing away.” (KCNA December 19, 2011) We wonder if this is something interesting indicating the role the NDC might play in this new political landscape. The National Defense Commission was Kim Jong Il’s institution of choice for managing the country. As most institutions did not communicate much with each other (stove-piping of bureaucracies), the NDC was central to decision-making. The NDC was never fully formalized and even until our last few trips to North Korea, it still seemed to lack a large bureaucracy supporting it. It is also often misunderstood as a military body, even though its membership is comprised of party and military elements.Kim Jong Eun is not on the NDC, while many of North Korea’s big names are (e.g. Jang Sung Taek). It will be interesting to see what happens to the NDC over time. [KJI_death]
• Pentagon Closely Monitors N.Korea After Kim's Death
  The U.S. Defense Department is closely watching events on the Korean Peninsula after the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has been touch with South Korean military officials in the hours after Kim's death. Pentagon officials say the U.S. has not detected unusual military movements by the North Koreans. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is in his home state of California and was on the phone with the South Korean defense minister Monday, as both sides watched events over the border closely. Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters the U.S. defense chief and his South Korean counterpart pledged to keep each other informed of events in the coming days. [KJI_death][Inversion] [Takeover]
• Power vacuum in nuclear-armed NK sparks concern
  By Kang Hyun-kyung Theft or the trafficking of nuclear material has become a source of concern in the post-Kim Jong-il era as neighboring countries and the United States are wary of possible problems in the nuclear-armed country. The fresh concern comes as experts share the view that anything could happen in the North. Analysts, including Bruce Bennett, didn’t rule out the possibility of riots or revolt in the impoverished nation if the transfer of power doesn’t go smoothly, although they say chances of these remain relatively low at the moment. Bennett, a research leader at the RAND Corporations Strategy, Force Planning and Counter-proliferation based in Santa Monica, told The Korea Times that “instability in the North is quite possible.” [KJI_death] [Collapse] [Inversion]
• North Korea’s Tears: A Blend of Cult, Culture and Coercion
  By CHOE SANG-HUN and NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: December 20, 2011 SEOUL, South Korea — Among countless mourners at a public square in North Korea, the kneeling middle-aged man in an off-white windbreaker stands out. The state broadcaster’s camera zooms in as he wails, rocking back and forth with clenched fists, his grief punctuated by the white puffs of his breath visible in the cold of the capital, Pyongyang. [KJI_death] [Media] [Grief]
• Kim Jong Il
  Gilbert Rozman Monday, December 19, 2011 FPRI Senior Fellow, Gilbert Rozman, comments on the death of Kim Jong Il, future developments in North Korea and the implications for the region and U.S. foreign policy. [ 4MB mp3 file] [KJI_death]
• Clinton hopes for 'peaceful' transition in N. Korea
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her first formal response to the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, said Monday that Washington wants to improve relations with the communist nation. The secretary said that her talks here with Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba focused on the "evolving situation" on the Korean Peninsula following the reports that Kim died from a heart attack over the weekend. "We both share a common interest in a peaceful and stable transition in North Korea, as well as in ensuring regional peace and stability," Clinton said at a joint press conference. "We reiterate our hope for improved relations with the people of North Korea and remain deeply concerned about their well-being." [KJI_death] [Spin] [Inversion]
• N.Korea 'to Suspend Uranium Enrichment for Food'
  North Korea will announce the suspension of its uranium enrichment in return for U.S. food aid in a few days, AP reported Sunday. The news agency also cited sources as saying North Korea will suspend nuclear and ballistic missile testing and re-admit International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, who were expelled in 2009. These plans are likely to be announced Thursday, when North Korean and U.S. officials meet in Beijing. The aid is expected to take the form of 20,000 tons of nutritional biscuits and vitamins per month rather than rice or flour. If North Korea shows it is serious about suspending its nuclear program, six-party denuclearization talks could resume as early as February or March next year. [Aid weapon] [Uranium]
• [Editorial] Say “No” to US’s demand for more share of USFK stationing costs
  Following the sixth Trilateral Dialogue in Northeast Asia a few days ago, a participant reportedly said, "It's looking like we'll end up having to pay more if we want to keep the South Korea-United States alliance going." This dialogue, a "Track 1.5 project" combining the government and private sector, apparently saw US participants stating that they would have to make large cuts in their defense spending because of a financial deficit, and that South Korea and Japan would have to make up the difference. [Tribute]
• Kim Jong Il’s Death Suggests Continuity Plus Opportunity to Engage
  By Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel December 19. 2011 Peter Hayes, Scott Bruce, and David von Hippel of the Nautilus Institute, write, “Ironically, Kim Jong Il’s death may make Korea the land of the morning calm for at least a year, during which political transitions will also occur in China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, and the United States... Unless Kim Jong Un throws the nuclear strategy out the window and starts again, the outlines of the engagement agenda are already clear—send the North Koreans energy and food aid to meet both short-term humanitarian and medium/long-term development needs, help them build a safe small light water reactor, and bring them into an international enrichment consortium that would lead them to reveal the sum total of their enrichment program." [KJI_death] [Inversion] [US NK policy]
• Unification Ministry Staff Get CIA Training
  Unification Ministry staff were given two intelligence analysis training sessions by the U.S.' Central Intelligence Agency this year. According to the Unification Ministry, around a dozen members of its staff were trained by the CIA in April and November to learn to analyze intelligence from socialist countries. A ministry official said, "The CIA taught them techniques on which hypotheses to pick and which ones to throw out, but we did not see any major differences from the methods we use. It was an introductory session rather than a training program." A government official said the CIA early this year offered to demonstrate the analysis techniques and the ministry felt it "could improve the skills of staff." The official added the U.S. did not demand anything in return but it was a one-off session rather than a regular program. [Intelligence]
• US, NK agree on 240,000 tons of food assistance: sources
  The United States agreed to provide up to 240,000 tons of food aid to North Korea in recent talks held in Beijing, diplomatic sources in Seoul said Saturday, noting the agreement could help ensure progress at a fresh round of nuclear negotiations scheduled for later this month. The sides, the sources said, "reached the agreement based on North Korea's pledge to implement initial measures of denuclearization that include a suspension of its uranium enrichment program." The meeting between U.S. special envoy on North Korean human rights Robert King and Ri Kun, director-general for North American affairs at North Korea's foreign ministry, was held for two days from Thursday. [Aid weapon]
• U.S., North Korea resume talks on food aid
  By William Wan, Published: December 16 U.S. officials have resumed talking to North Korea about providing food aid to the impoverished country, proposing that it accept nutrition-rich items — such as Plumpy Nut peanut paste — that are considered less likely to be diverted to the North Korean elite. In lieu of foods like rice and beans that in the past have ended up in the bowls of North Korea’s military, U.S. officials say they want to send vitamin supplements, high-protein biscuits and Plumpy Nut, a high-energy paste that has been widely given to malnourished children in Africa. [Aid weapon]
• US in no hurry for food aid announcement: State Dept.
  The United States will not rush to make a decision on either food aid for North Korea or further high-level talks, officials said Thursday amid expectations of progress in efforts to start full-scale nuclear negotiations. Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights, started discussions Wednesday in Beijing with North Korean officials over the possibility of food aid, which Washington formally describes as "nutritional assistance." [Aid weapon]
• Hamhung Workshop Successfully Completed
  November 09, 2011 | PYONGYANG, DPRK EWC's fall workshop with the Kim Il Sung Socialist Youth League was held in the industrial city of Hamhung from November 5th through the 9th, 2011. [Training]
• US-DPRK Beach Volleyball Friendly in South Hwanghae
  August 23, 2011 | NAMPHO, DPRK A friendship beach volleyball game was held between American university students and the Pyongyang-based Korean People's Army volleyball team on a public beach outside Nampho city, DPRK. [Interaction]
• More U.S.-N.Korea Talks on the Cards
  U.S. and North Korean officials may meet for a third round of high-level talks this month to discuss conditions for the resumption of six-party nuclear disarmament talks. They have apparently been in contact through North Korea's UN mission in New York and narrowed differences about the prerequisites for the third round
• U.S., North Korea weigh resumption of food aid
  By William Wan U.S. officials have arrived in Beijing to meet with North Korean leaders about whether and how to resume food aid to the isolated and impoverished country, according to State Department officials. Robert King, the U.S. special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, and the deputy assistant administrator of USAID, Jon Brause, are expected to hold talks Thursday with Ri Gun, North Korea’s director general of American affairs. Those talks are expected to focus on monitoring measures that would ensure that any food aid would go to the North Korean public and not diverted to the military or ruling elite in the authoritarian government, according to a State Department official. [Aid weapon]
• 'Regional distrust hurting efforts to disarm NK'
  By Kim Young-jin Regional players including China and the United States must work harder to coordinate policy on North Korea’s growing nuclear program, experts warned Monday, saying failure to do so could pose a major threat to the global non-proliferation regime. The call for better coordination emerged from a forum during which leading non-proliferation advocates in the Asia Pacific Region jointly urged the international community to “get serious” about disarmament. [Spin] [Double standards]
• [Editorial] Don't rush to join additional US sanctions on Iran
  The South Korean government is hinting that it will join in an additional set of US measures for economic retaliation against Iran. Once observers began predicting that the US Congress would pass legislation this week for powerful sanctions against Iran, Seoul chimed in by announcing its own plans for additional sanctions. Sanctions against Iran, which supplies close to 10% of South Korea's imported crude oil, could have a crippling effect on our economy and national security. If Seoul has any concern for our minimal dignity as a sovereign state and the security of our citizens, it must not rush to take part in the additional sanctions. [Tribute]
• Korea to join sanctions against Iran
  Oil imports likely to be suspended By Park Si-soo Korea is expected to cooperate with the United States and other Western countries in imposing new sanctions on Iran, which is accused of pursuing a nuclear weapons program. The government is reportedly considering joining the international action by reducing or suspending crude oil imports from the Middle Eastern country. Other sanctions are likely to include banning Korean firms from importing Iranian petrochemical products, according to reports. [Tribute]
• US lawmakers ratchet up pressure on NK
  U.S. lawmakers will step up efforts this week to put more pressure on North Korea through legislation calling for the repatriation of Korean War prisoners and toughening sanctions for its alleged proliferation activities, congressional officials said Sunday. On Tuesday, the U.S. House of Representatives will put to a floor vote a resolution calling for the release of American and South Korean prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian abductees still in North Korea after the 1950-53 conflict. The House Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific unanimously approved the resolution late last month. Amid bipartisan support, House leaders decided to put the resolution to a floor vote without a markup in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, added the officials. The entire House also plans to vote on a bill imposing tougher sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Syria, which are all accused of being involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Reform and Modernization Act will amend the existing Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act by expanding the range of proliferation sanctions and the activities subject to sanctions. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also expands sanctions applicable to certain foreigners and places restrictions on nuclear cooperation with countries aiding proliferation by the three states. Ros-Lehtinen's office confirmed that the bill will be discussed on the House floor this week, but it did not specify the date. (Washington=Yonhap) [Sanctions] [Hardliners]
• Korea-U.S. Stuck Over Nuclear Reprocessing
  Korean and U.S. officials have apparently been unable to reach an agreement on key issues in a fourth round of talks to revise the bilateral nuclear energy pact. Park Ro-byug, the Korean envoy for the talks, and Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, discussed whether South Korea should be allowed to reprocess its own spent nuclear fuel rods. [Nuclear fuel cycle] [Sovereignty]
• 'NK leader vows not to make trouble'
  By Kim Young-jin North Korea has pledged to China to not “make trouble” next year during a time of regional flux, according to U.S. experts, citing conversations with Beijing officials. Pyongyang watchers Robert Carlin and John Lewis said the arrangement emerged from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s trip to China last May which decreased chances for further provocations and underscored a rapidly growing reliance on his giant benefactor. “In the arrangements _ formal and informal _ that emerged from (Kim’s trip), Pyongyang agreed not to ‘make trouble’ in the short term, presumably meaning no deliberate military provocations, no third nuclear test and no launch of another ballistic missile,” the experts said in an opinion piece published by the Los Angeles Times.
• North Korea's new course
  It's courting Beijing now; normalizing ties with the U.S. is no longer a priority.
  December 8, 2011 The legacy of the late North Korean leader Kim Il Sung's decision in the early 1990s to pursue a strategic partnership with the United States has run its course. In its place, the focus of Pyongyang's policies has decisively shifted to Beijing. However wary the North Koreans may be of their neighbor, the fact is that from Pyongyang's viewpoint, the Chinese have delivered and the United States did not. [NK US policy] [China NK] [Spin] [US NK negotiations]
• New U.S. Point Man on N.Korea Visits Seoul
  The newly appointed, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, Glyn Davies, arrived in Seoul on Wednesday to discuss the prospects of a new round of negotiations with Pyongyang on ways to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Davies, who succeeds Stephen Bosworth, met with South Korea's top nuclear envoy Lim Sung-nam on Thursday morning to assess the North's nuclear situation. This follows the recent dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington in Geneva in October. While the South, the U.S. and Japan are all demanding that the North abandon all of its nuclear activities before returning to the six-party talks, the regime recently revealed its progress in terms of developing enriched uranium for light-water nuclear reactors. After wrapping up his five-day trip to Seoul, the U.S. envoy will travel to Japan and China to continue talks on regional security in Northeast Asia. [Preconditions]
• Seoul Faces Tough Balancing Act Over Iran
  Robert Einhorn, a U.S. State Department advisor for non-proliferation and arms control, visited Korea on Monday. He told reporters the U.S. hopes all of its allies participate in additional sanctions against Iran, which is under suspicion of developing nuclear weapons. It is rare for a high-ranking U.S. official to speak publicly about a sensitive issue following a meeting with Korean government officials. The U.S. apparently asked Korea to halt imports of liquefied natural gas and petrochemical products from Iran. [Tribute] [Iran] [Sanctions]
• Is S.Korean navy finally backed into a corner on the Jeju Base project?
  By Matthew Hoey, International Outreach Coordinator, Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island This week South Korean navy officials acknowledged, though partly, that the layout of the Jeju naval base is not appropriate to facilitate a truly mixed-use port in line with their stated pitch to residents. For those unfamiliar with the situation, the navy promised that a naval base would result in a tourism boom for the modest fishing and farming village of Gangjeong by bringing cruise ships loaded with tourists clutching fists full of Korean won. [Bases]
• Senior House member calls for tougher sanctions on N. Korea
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The leader of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday urged other members of Congress to back her efforts to toughen sanctions on North Korea, saying its long-range missile program poses severe threats. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) characterized the communist nation as a "legendary proliferator." "We have known for years that North Korea has pursued the development of nuclear weapons. New reports that North Korea is producing long-range ballistic missiles which can be mounted on vehicles show that the threat is becoming even more severe," she said in a statement. “And as the North Korea threat grows, so do other threats. North Korea is a legendary proliferator, and you can be certain that the regime will not keep its technological advances to itself, but share with the likes of Iran and Syria," she said. [Sanctions] [MISCOM] [Logic] [Double standards]
• US urges Korea to increase pressure on Iran
  Robert Einhorn, U.S. special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, gestures during a press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Monday, during which he asked Korea to increase pressure on Iran for its alleged nuclear weapons program. / Yonhap By Kim Young-jin The United States wants Korea to heap pressure on Iran over its suspected nuclear weapons program, a visiting U.S. official said Monday, adding to speculation that Seoul could soon join in on stepped-up sanctions over the alleged activities. The remarks from Robert Einhorn, the U.S. State Department's special adviser for nonproliferation and arms control, came after Washington and other Western countries bolstered punitive measures after an International Atomic Energy Agency report accused Tehran of pursuing nuclear weapons. [Tribute]
• North Korea releases video of well-stocked ‘meat shop’
  By Elizabeth Flock In an attempt to discount reports of a food shortage in the country, North Korean state media has put out a new video that shows a well-stocked meat shop in the capital of Pyongyang and takes viewers on a tour of the city’s modern fish tanks. A meat shop worker helps a customer pick out a product from a wide array of choices. (YouTube) “And the latest in North Korea's bucket o'’propaganda,” the Global Post wrote of the video [Media]
• U.S. Wants to Maintain Limits on S.Korean Missiles
  Washington opposes the revision of guidelines that restrict South Korea's missile range to less than 300 km. Officials from the two countries discussed the issue at the Defense Ministry on Thursday but failed to narrow their differences. They agreed to meet again early next year. A diplomatic source in Seoul said although South Korea has been seeking to extend the missile range through various channels including the Defense Ministry since earlier this year, "no progress has been made yet." [Sovereignty] [US dominance] [Missiles]
• U.S. Officials Flock to Seoul Over Foreign Policy
  Three groups of senior U.S. officials are visiting Seoul this week to discuss foreign policy issues. Robert Einhorn, a State Department advisor for non-proliferation and arms control who deals mainly with sanctions on North Korea and Iran, is arriving Monday. He is expected to urge Seoul to join sanctions against Iran, a diplomatic source said. The U.S. wants South Korea to suspend oil imports from Iran over claims that the country, Washington’s current bête noire, is developing nuclear weapons. Glyn Davies, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, arrives Wednesday for talks with chief South Korean nuclear negotiator Lim Sung-nam. Davies will be accompanied by chief U.S. nuclear negotiator Clifford Hart. This will be the first visit by the U.S.’ new North Korea policy team after the previous top negotiator, Sung Kim, became ambassador to Seoul. [Tribute]
• Judges’ KORUS FTA debate could lead to renegotiations
  Some judges against the railroaded FTA agreement say it the ISD clause infringes on judicial sovereignty By Yeo Hyeon-ho, Senior Staff Writer An ongoing debate by judges questioning the railroading of the SouthKorea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) appear to have strengthened calls for renegotiation. The ongoing controversy surrounding the situation could lead to increased calls for countermeasures. The railroading, signing by the president, and revelation of its specific contents and a tangible manifestation of its impact is expected to lead to increased highlighting of the problems it brings in each area. [FTA]
• Burma in Quandary Over Military Ties with N.Korea
  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left) and pro-democracy opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi talk prior to dinner at the U.S. Chief of Mission Residence in Rangoon, Myanmar on Thursday. /AFP-Yonhap Burma is under pressure to jettison its cozy relationship with North Korea after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanded assurances during a historic visit to the Southeast Asian country. Clinton met her Burmese counterpart U Maung Lwin and visited Burmese President Thein Sein in the new administrative capital of Naypyidaw on Thursday. It was the first visit to the country by a U.S. secretary of state since 1962. She urged the Burmese junta to end "illicit" ties with North Korea if relations with America are to improve. In a press briefing on Wednesday, a senior State Department official said Burma’s ties with North Korea would be high on the agenda during Clinton's visit. The U.S. is concerned chiefly about missiles and missile parts when it comes to the North Korea-Burma relations and Clinton would seek a detailed discussion about it, the official added. Burma severed diplomatic ties with North Korea after North Korean terrorists attempted to assassinate visiting South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan in Rangoon in 1983, but the current junta established amiable relations with its fellow isolated dictatorship, including allegedly exchanging missile technologies and conventional arms, and formally restored ties in 2007. French daily Le Monde reported in October that Burma and North Korea have long exchanged weapons and food. There are also claims that North Korea attempted to transfer nuclear technology to Burma after its nuclear test in October 2006. If Burma yields to U.S. pressure, North Korea stands to lose an important ally in Southeast Asia.
• Clinton urges Myanmar to cut military ties with NK
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed Myanmar Thursday to live up to its promise to end military cooperation with North Korea. After meeting with President Thein Sein in the Myanmar capital of Nay Pyi Taw, Clinton said he presented a "comprehensive vision of reform, reconciliation and economic development" for his nation, including nonproliferation commitments regarding North Korea, the release of political prisoners and fair bi-elections.
• 'Massive troop deployment needed in NK collapse'
  North Korean university students walk to a construction site in Pyongyang in this recent photograph taken by an American visitor. The North has mobilized students as part of a massive campaign to spruce up the capital ahead of celebrations next year to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il-sung. / Yonhap By Kim Young-jin Up to some 410,000 soldiers would be required to secure North Korea if it were to collapse even under benign circumstances, raising the need for multilateral planning to avoid disastrous clashes or miscalculations, a security expert said this week. Jennifer Lind, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, said between and 267,000 and 409,500 troops would be needed to stabilize the impoverished country and its nuclear weapons in the case of its collapse, provided it occurs under peaceful conditions. At a forum at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Lind said the numbers would climb even higher if a collapse occurred during wartime or if an insurgency developed. In this light, her study showed that “even a very benign assumption produces extremely demanding force requirements.” [Takeover]
• U.S. Asks Korea to Join Sanctions Against Iran
  High-ranking U.S. State Department officials have visited Korea recently to ask Seoul to step up sanctions against Iran, which is believed to be developing nuclear weapons. The U.S. apparently wants Seoul to halt imports of Iranian petrochemical products and crude oil. [Iran] [Tribute] [Sanctions]

• Let North Korea Save Face
  November 26, 2011 By Nah Liang Tuangin Share.8 Kim Jong-il’s regime seems to respond better to the carrot than the stick. The United States and others could try walking in Kim’s shoes as they look to reduce tensions. U.S. and South Korean officials looking for a way out of the many years of stalemate and tension on the Korean Peninsula might do well to look at the situation from North Korea’s perspective. If they are able to do so, they may be able to find new ways to reduce tensions and bring about a less tense security situation. History suggests a possible path to doing so. When standing in Kim Jong-il’s shoes, a vastly different security landscape – one riddled with problems – becomes evident. Certainly, Kim doesn’t see himself as an evil rouge state leader, but rather as the legitimate head of North Korea, striving for regime survival in the best interests of the nation and against all the odds. From his and his generals’ standpoint, to adopt a placid policy stance and refrain from action against perceived antagonism, as in the case of the Yeonpyeong shelling incident last year, where South Korea allegedly fired into disputed North Korean waters, would be to hasten the regime’s demise by appearing weak. A face saving solution must therefore be offered to Pyongyang, one that could result in a peaceful resolution of the current standoff. [US NK policy] [Inversion] [Objectives]
• N.Korean State Fume at Seoul-Washington FTA
  North Korea has mobilized all state-run organs to denounce the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement. According to data a security agency submitted to Grand National Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun on Sunday, the North Korean state media have slammed the deal as a "pro-American flunkey agreement" and a "shameful treaty that will lead to national ruin." [FTA]
• U.S. Official Spells Out Steps for N.Korea Overture
  A senior U.S. diplomat visiting South Korea says Washington's new outreach to Burma does not mean it is ready to do the same for North Korea. Last week, President Barack Obama announced that he will soon dispatch Secretary of State Hilary Clinton to the southeast Asian country. In Seoul, U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman spoke to reporters on the steps Pyongyang must take for a similar diplomatic outreach. Sherman says Burma has taken enough steps toward opening its political system to warrant a visit by Clinton. Those include freeing some political prisoners, loosening media controls and holding talks with pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy political party. [US global strategy] [China confrontation] [Myanmar]
• Ruling party railroads US trade pact
  The ruling party-controlled National Assembly approved the long-pending free trade agreement with the United States during a chaotic session Tuesday, after an opposition lawmaker set off tear gas in an attempt to block the passage. The approval paved the way for the landmark deal to take effect on Jan. 1 as planned. Lawmakers of the ruling Grand National Party put the accord to a vote despite strong protests from their opposition counterparts, and passed it in a 151-7 vote with 12 abstentions. [FTA]
• “Missile Negotiations with North Korea: A Strategy for the Future,” a USKI Special Report
  While public attention has been focused on restarting denuclearization talks with North Korea, an important component of any renewed dialogue with Pyongyang will be controlling its ballistic missile program. That effort has been moving gradually but steadily ahead since the North ended its unilateral test moratorium in 2006 with the further development of threatening technologies, as well as the deployment of new models. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently highlighted the dangers posed by this effort during his January trip to Asia. He stated, “With the North Koreans’ continuing development of nuclear weapons and their development of intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea is becoming a direct threat to the United States, and we have to take that into account.” growing nuclear weapons stockpile and increasingly capable delivery systems will pose a serious danger to the region, and eventually perhaps even to the United States. In short, if the Six Party Talks resume, a high priority for the United States will be to also start negotiations that cover missiles. [US NK Negotiations] [Missiles]
• Korea Must Watch Growing Tensions Between U.S. and China
  The U.S. has started pressuring China by using its regional neighbors as leverage. On one hand, Washington has sided with ASEAN in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea, and on the other hand it has left Beijing out in pushing ahead with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral free trade agreement that aims to further liberalize the economies of 12 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the U.S. Apparently realizing that a face-to-face confrontation would be too costly, the U.S. is avoiding a blatant clash with Beijing. When ASEAN proposed a peaceful resolution to the South China Sea dispute at the East Asia Summit in Bali, Indonesia on Saturday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attempted to draw the line by saying it needs to be resolved between the countries involved and should not be handled at a multilateral forum. In other words, China does not want the U.S. to meddle. [SK China] [Sandwich]
• More Rumors About Korea-U.S. Tiff Over Arms Development
  The Korean military and arms makers firms are worried about rumors that U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating the Korean defense industry. Now there are reports that the U.S. suspects Korea of stealing technologies for the Navy's Aegis system and some weapons components. "Rumors are circulating that U.S. agencies have launched an investigation under the project name 'Blue Lantern' because they suspect that some Korean-made weapons components such as Aegis radar systems and electronic warfare equipment are imitations," a military source said Sunday. "Nothing's been confirmed yet." [IPR] [Arms sales] [Friction]
• Koreans Prefer U.S. to China
  A recent Gallup poll shows that Koreans support the leadership of the United States on the global stage more than that of China, which is rising as a superpower to compete with the U.S. The poll was conducted on people in nine East Asia Summit countries including six ASEAN member nations. Some 57 percent of Koreans responded that they support Washington's global role, up 2 percent from last year, while 30 percent said they support Beijing. [Image] [Public opinion]
• South Korea: destroying the lives of the Haenyo ‘sea women’
  Rebecca Johnson, 18 November 2011 A naval base being built on Jeju Island threatens to destroy the livelihoods of the iconic women shellfish divers and raise levels of rape and prostitution in the surrounding villages. On her return from Jeju, Rebecca Johnson says international action is needed to stop the military construction The traditional fishing grounds of a famous community of South Korean women shellfish divers, known as Haenyo ( sea women) are scheduled to be blown up today by military explosives. The government has ordered this desecration at Gangjeong Village, Jeju Island, in order to build a naval base to deploy US-made Aegis destroyers equipped with missile defence interceptors. If the base construction is not halted, the Haenyo will lose an area of outstanding natural beauty and a livelihood that has been passed down through generations of women, where mothers train their daughters to dive deeper and longer than ordinary people, gathering abalone and other shellfish for food and export. [Bases] [China confrontation]
• Top US official to visit Seoul Tuesday
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- Wendy R. Sherman, a top U.S. State Department official, will visit South Korea next week to discuss alliance issues, the department announced Friday. The under secretary for political affairs plans to meet with a range of senior officials on Tuesday to "explore how to expand the depth and breadth of our alliance," the department said in a press release. "The visit will help maintain the positive momentum in the relationship" following President Lee Myung-bak's state visit to Washington last month, it added. Sherman is also scheduled to visit Japan and China during her first Asia trip, slated for Nov. 20-23, since she took up the post in September, according to the department.
• U.S. Worries About Growing Korean Arms Exports
  Rumors were circulating recently in the Korean military and defense industry that U.S. intelligence agencies are investigating Korea's weapons production and exports. "The rumors said that CIA and FBI agents have arrived and are investigating the Defense Acquisition Program Administration and defense firms to find out whether Korea has developed and exported weapons based on stolen U.S. military technologies," a government official said Thursday. "But our own probe into these rumors found no investigation of DAPA or defense firms by any U.S. agencies." The rumors began circulating after an unusual joint Korea-U.S. investigation in September of suspicions that Korea illegally disassembled the Tiger Eye, a key component of the cutting-edge U.S.-made F-15K fighter jet equipment for low-altitude night penetration attacks. [Arms sales] [Friction]
• U.S. has never agreed to detrimental FTA revision: study
  The DP has rejected the GNP’s pledge to belatedly revise ISD, setting the stage for a GNP railroad » Grand National Party Chairman Hong Joon-pyo and Democratic Party Chairman Shon Hak-kyu. By Jung Eun-joo An examination of past free trade agreements ratified by the United States showed there have been no post-ratification amendments detrimental to the United States. According to an examination of the website of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on Thursday, the U.S. has established FTAs with 17 countries and amended two of these, the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in August 2008 and the U.S.-Israel FTA in December 2009. In the former case, it amended regulations on textile place of origin to make them more stringent, granting duty benefits only for textiles and garments made with Central American thread. The agreement was amended to protect and foster the U.S.’s own textile industry [FTA]
• [Interview] Matthew Hoey continues campaign against Jeju naval base
  Hoey says, ‘Protecting Jeju Island is like standing up for a bullied child’ By Kim Min-ji, Intern Matthew Hoey has been advocating for the protesters against the construction of a naval base on Jeju Island. He is the outreach coordinator for the Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island. He flew to South Korea for the second time for a four-week stay. On his way to Jeju Island, he took some time to share his stories with Hankyoreh. His eyes were full of compassion for the people of Jeju, which he called “the most idyllic place on the planet.” He left South Korea on Nov. 15.
  Firstly, there are the national, regional and international security implications. Located within less than 400miles from China, the naval base will undermine China’s national security. Many world-renowned experts and missile defense analysts say that this base is completely ineffective at addressing the truth for the security issues between the North Korea and South Korea. It will only build up tensions between Korea and China, creating more problems than it will solve. Different from the South Korean government’s faulty claim, Gangjeong naval base will become a temporary military base for the US. In the event of US-China military confrontation, it’s going to draw a security threat to South Korea. [Bases] [Jeju] [China confrontation]
• No need for revising SOFA with Korea: Lippert
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States is not considering a revision of the legal guidelines on the status of its 28,000 troops in Korea, the nominee to become a top U.S. defense official said Thursday, despite a renewed call for it in Korea. Mark W. Lippert, nominee for assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs, said in a Senate confirmation hearing that Washington wants continued flexibility in implementing the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) rather than a revision itself.
• US to open new military base in S Korea
  (People's Daily)17:15, November 15, 2011 Edited and translated by Yao Chun, People's Daily Online Beijing, Nov.15 (People's Daily Online) --The South Korean military will start to build a military base for the U.S. military on Bailing Island in the sea area west of the peninsula, South Korea's defense ministry on Nov. 14. The military base will be completed in 2013, and South Korea's defense ministry declined to discuss the scale of the base, what it will be used for as well as its construction background. According to Yonhap News Agency of South Korea the new base can accommodate more than 160 soldiers — equal to the scale of a U.S. squadron. After the artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island happened in November last year, South Korea has constantly strengthened the defense on five islands of the West Sea, including Yeonpyeong Island and Bailing Island, and established the defense headquarters of West Islands in June 2011. [Buildup][Bases] [Client]
• The Militarization of Paradise
  By John Feffer, November 11, 2011 Originally published in Inter Press Service The South Korean government has been campaigning to have its southern island of Jeju recognised as one of the seven new wonders of nature. A favourite honeymoon spot in Asia and an official "island of peace", Jeju already boasts several UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites. There's an extinct volcano at the island's centre, miles and miles of exquisite coastline, extraordinary lava formations on land and coral formations at sea, and…a huge naval base currently under construction. [Bases]
• Should We Engage North Korea?
  By Shiran Shen, November 10, 2011 North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (left) confers with Chinese leader Hu JintaoNorth Korea is a perennial security concern to the international community. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is the only state to have ever withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The North claimed in February 2005 to have manufactured nuclear weapons, and the following year it conducted its first nuclear test, asserting de facto membership in the nuclear club. In April 2009, Pyongyang overtly defied a UN Security Council resolution and undertook a failed attempt at a long-range missile launch, which was followed by its second nuclear detonation a month later. Based on U.S. estimates, the second test had an explosive yield greater than the first nuclear test of October 2006. In late 2010, satellite data indicated that North Korea possessed a uranium enrichment facility, and now a third nuclear test is potentially in the offing. [Engagement] [US NK policy]
• Police criticized for excessive crackdown on KORUS FTA demonstration
  Police reportedly aimed water cannons directly at citizens during a peaceful protest By Kim Seon-sik Groups opposed to the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) criticized the police Monday for their use of water cannon to suppress demonstrations against the KORUS FTA led by civic organizations. Officials from National People’s Movement and Human Rights Joint Meetings claimed one participant in the protest was hit with the water cannon by the police and passed out with her eardrum ruptured. They urged the police authorities to find and punish those responsible and immediately apologize for its excessive use of force. “I was sent to the hospital after being struck with water cannon. Doctors told me my eardrum was ruptured from being pressured with enormous force,” said Park Hee-jin, representative of the Korean Youth Solidarity. “The police blasted powerful water cannon directly aiming in short distance at the citizens. They are supposed to protect people, but they chose to harm us, instead.” “The rallies were proceeding peacefully but disrupted abruptly with the use of water cannons. I was also hit with the shots and fell to the ground,” said Korean Alliance of the Progressive Movements Chairwoman Lee Gwang-sil. The two groups said they plan to bring legal charges against those in the police accountable for the damage during the protest. (Translated by Kang Jin-kyu, Intern) [FTA] [Human rights]
• [Editorial] A questionable New7Wonders celebration on Jeju
  » Participants in a celebratory event of Jeju Island’s “New7Wonders of Nature” designation cheer at Jeju Art Center, Nov. 12. (Newsis News) Jeju Island has erupted in celebration after being selected one of the “New7Wonders of Nature” by the Swiss non-profit foundation New7Wonders. The natural beauty of Jeju was already famous even without such an event, but it is good to see it receiving more global attention and earning selection as a natural wonder. We also hope this helps with the island’s development. But there are a lot of aspects that detract from the celebratory mood. Just like the Peruvians in Cuzco, government employees in Jeju were assigned 500 calls a day per person to vote for Jeju night and day, and a campaign was held to raise coins from elementary school students. As a result, there was reported a total of well over 100 million votes cast for Jeju from the island alone, with some 20 billion won ($17.8 million) spent in telephone calls. The purported aim of the effort is to preserve the heritage of humanity, but this suspect event has been carried out by a group that has disclosed little about its profit and expenditure structure and is shunned by organizations like UNESCO. Is there any value in putting this much manpower, time, and money into it, even going so far as to establish a promotional committee at the national level? And how are we to explain the way so much energy is going into an event with the major goal of protecting natural wonders when the government is feigning ignorance about a naval base construction effort that is destructive to the natural environment of Gangjeong Village on Jeju Island? [Bases] [Manipulation]
• American constraints on the US-South Korea alliance
  November 8th, 2011 Author: Robert E. Kelly, PNU President Lee Myung-bak’s October trip to the US represents an ostensible high point in the US-ROK alliance. But there are cracks in the relationship, primarily on the American side. Despite Lee’s speech before Congress, Americans know little about Korea compared to allies like Canada, Britain, or Israel. Americans usually see Korea’s geopolitics through the prism of North Korea and the ‘axis of evil’. The Tea Party movement especially takes a rigidly ideological and neoconservative view of South Korea as the ‘frontline of freedom,’ yet Sarah Palin notoriously needed to be taught why there are two Koreas. But ideological commitment is not in-depth public knowledge or cultural interest. [US SK alliance]
• S. Korea to build barracks for US troops on border
  South Korea's military plans to build a barracks on a front-line island in the Yellow Sea near North Korea to house U.S. troops in case of emergency or military drills, a government source said Sunday, as the allies beef up their guard to thwart potential attacks by the North. The South's military will start building the new barracks, which can accommodate some 160 soldiers, from next year on Baengnyeong Island and construction will be completed by 2013, the source said on the condition of anonymity. [Buildup] [NLL] [US NK policy] [Capture]
• 'Pyongyang could use nukes to avert uprising'
  By Kim Young-jin The North Korean regime could resort to a nuclear attack on South Korea despite the nuclear umbrella provided by the United States if instability were to grip Pyongyang, a defense expert warned Thursday. It is widely believed that that the North has been deterred from waging such an attack by the prospect of nuclear retaliation by Washington. But Bruce Bennett, a senior analyst at RAND Corporation, a U.S.-based think tank, says that could change if North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is confronted with a serious internal challenge. “If he is facing overthrow…Kim Jong-il might decide to go to war in order to divert the rebels who might take him down otherwise,” Bennett said at a roundtable discussion organized by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “If that’s the case, he might feel compelled to use these weapons.” [Bizarre]
• War Games: Playing With Fire in Korea
  by CONN HALLINAN Why is the Obama Administration creating obstacles and throwing cold water on talks with North Korea, and why is it binding itself to right-wing South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, whose politics just took a shellacking in the recent race for mayor of Seoul? The answer seems to be a convergence of U.S. concerns over the growing power of China, a desperate battle by American arms manufacturers to fend off military budget cuts, and a fantasy by President Lee of a uniting the Korean Peninsula under the banner of the South. [US NK policy] [China confrontation] [Takeover]
• New US envoy arrives in Seoul
  U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, right, with his wife and two daughters, waves to reporters as he arrives at Incheon International Airport, Thursday. / Yonhap By Kim Young-jin Sung Kim, the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea, vowed Thursday to do his utmost to bolster the already-tight alliance, as he arrived to begin his posting. Kim, the first Korean-American to serve in the role, touched down at Incheon International Airport in the late afternoon and headed to Seoul where he was expected to hand in his credentials to the South Korean government. "It is truly an honor for me to return to the country of my birth to represent the United States," Kim told reporters upon arriving. "The relationship between our two countries is one of the most precious and important partnerships we have anywhere. I look forward very much to sharing my experience with Korean friends as we work together to advance our relations." His arrival has been highly anticipated here given he is the first Korean-American to take the post since the allies forged diplomatic ties 129 years ago. He replaces Kathleen Stephens after her three-year stint. Kim, formerly the U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea’s denuclearization, said the best way to deal with Pyongyang was continued coordination between Washington and Seoul. "And as the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, I obviously will be working very hard to help coordinate our approaches to North Korea," he said. Kim was born in South Korea but moved to the United States in the 1970s where he later became a citizen. In Washington, he focused much of his attention on the bilateral alliance and became the envoy to the six-party talks on Pyongyang’s denuclearization. His wife is Korean and he is fluent in the language. His appointment has been met largely with pride in the South, though some have raised the possibility that he could get caught between the interests of his country and expectations from the people of his birth country. Kim, who arrived with his wife and two daughters, has downplayed such concerns, saying he is totally committed to continuing the alliance that is experiencing a heyday under the leadership of Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama. His arrival came after a drawn-out confirmation process. He initially had a confirmation hearing on July 21, but Jon Kyl (R-AZ), an assistant minority leader in the Senate, and others reportedly blocked the proceedings for a time in a show of displeasure over the North Korea policy of the Obama administration. [Diaspora]
• New commander of US 7th fleet says he worries most about North Korea, not so much about China
  By Associated Press, Published: November 9 HONG KONG — A senior U.S. Navy commander said Wednesday he worries much more about North Korea than about other Asian countries, including rising military power China. Vice Adm. Scott Swift, who took over as commander of the 7th Fleet in September, said that while the U.S. military has an “open and robust” relationship with China, he spends a lot of time thinking about North Korea because of its “unpredictability.” “Insight to what their thoughts may be is very limited. It’s a closed society,” Swift said. That’s “a concern to me because I could not guess where any decision may be going with respect to North Korea,” said Swift, who said he wanted good relationships with his counterparts in Asia so that he could anticipate what they might do instead of react to them. [Threat] ]Bizarre]
• Save Jeju Island
  The South Korean Government is currently constructing a naval base on Jeju Island, officially named the “Island of World Peace.” The base will be one of the largest in the world and is located just under 300 miles from the Chinese mainland. It will be home to both United States and South Korean warships. Including 20 large destroyers, two aircraft carriers, two nuclear submarines, the Aegis ballistic missile defense system and 6,000 soldiers. At this moment many activists and even the democratically elected mayor are in prison for rejecting this dangerous and illegal military project. [Bases] [China confrontation]
• Protests against Jeju naval base
  Al Jazeera video [Bases] [China confrontation]
• Not Bad Options for the Six Party Talks
  By Roger Cavazos November 9, 2011 Roger Cavazos, a Nautilus Institute Associate, provides a brief overview North Korean diplomatic activities during the past few months. He concludes that the DPRK's recent moves to establish international rail and educational links and sudden changes in the positions of some key Six Party Talk leaders holds promise of changes in the DPRK. "The DPRK seems substantively different and might be ready to take some steps on its own. The DPRK will continue to have a high degree of centralized control, but there are strong, likely irreversible trends to decentralize some of that power. If no one reaches back towards those who are reaching out (e.g [the DPRK] in education) or those who are taking a risk by welcoming in limited outside forces (e.g. [the DPRK] re-establishing train lines) we will likely lose many opportunities for a long time." [US NK policy][Overtures]
• East Asia expert Scalapino dies at 92
  By Philip Iglauer Robert Anthony Scalapino, Berkeley University professor and East Asia expert, died on Nov. 1, in Oakland, Calif. of complications from a respiratory infection. He was 92. As a leading expert on East Asia, including Korea and Japan, Sacalpino advised three U.S. presidents on foreign policy relating to Asia. Scalapino published some 553 articles and 39 books or monographs on Korea, China, Japan and Taiwan as well as on Asian politics and U.S. Asian policy. He received the Woodrow Wilson Award in 1972 by the American Political Science Association for the two-volume “Communism in Korea” he wrote with Korean scholar Lee Chong-sik. Scalapino also received the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit, Heung-in Medal from the Korean government.
• No optimism on NK nukes
  By Andrei Lankov Is the North Korean nuclear problem solvable? If by a solution we mean the oft-repeated demand for North Korea’s ‘verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,’ then the answer appears to be no. The North has no intention of surrendering its nukes, and this stubbornness is based on quite realistic assumptions about North Korea’s domestic and foreign policy situation. North Korea needs nukes as a deterrent against a foreign attack and as a tool for blackmail diplomacy. Both tasks are vital for the regime’s survival, and North Korean nukes are decisively not for sale. [US NK policy] [Cliché]
• Up to 400,000 Troops Required if N.Korea Folds
  Two leading U.S. experts claim that up to 400,000 troops would be required to stabilize North Korea if the regime collapsed. Bruce Bennett, an analyst from leading U.S. think tank the RAND Corporation, and Dartmouth College scholar Jennifer Lind published their study in the fall issue of the renowned academic journal "International Security." They said that if the collapse were to occur after a war on the peninsula, the number of military personnel needed would grow, adding that neighboring countries would have to perform military missions to help stabilize North Korea as a response. Arirang News / Nov. 04, 2011 11:07 KST [Takeover] [Agency]
• The Security Challenges of North Korean Collapse: A Conversation with Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Lind
  By 38 North This fall, International Security (October 2011) published Bruce Bennett and Jennifer Lind’s article about the collapse of North Korea. [Takeover]
• Ratification of KORUS FTA postponed
  Anti-KORUS FTA rally: Police shoot water cannon at protesters against the ratification of Korea-U.S. FTA as they try to enter the National Assembly building in Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Heung-soo By Chung Min-uck The passage of the long-pending Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) at the National Assembly was postponed Thursday after a scheduled plenary session was cancelled when the opposition showed no signs of backing down from its position. The next parliamentary session is scheduled for Nov. 10. [FTA]
• US to pay $5.7 mil. to NK to resume recovery of war dead
  By Park Si-soo The United States plans to pay $5.7 million to North Korea to resume its long-stalled recovery of the remains of U.S soldiers killed and lost during the 1950-53 Korean War, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported Thursday. The operations in North Korean territory were halted in 2005 amid soured Washington-Pyongyang relations. But the two reached an agreement to resume the work in a meeting in Thailand last month, signaling a warming in the bilateral relationship.
  The spokesman said that the United States would not pay North Korea for the remains but that there would be “associated expenses” such as labor, fuel, food and security. [MIA] [US NK negotiations] [Easing]
• S. Korea, US to conduct exercise on deterrence
  South Korea and the United States will carry out a joint exercise next week on shaping deterrence strategies to counter North Korean threats, the defense ministry here said Friday. The two allies will hold a tabletop exercise (TTX), organized by their Extended Deterrence Policy Committee (EDPC), at the U.S. Strategic Command from next Tuesday to Wednesday. Lim Kwan-bin, South Korean deputy minister for policy, and Michael Schiffer, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, will be on hand for the exercise, as well as Bradley Roberts, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy. [US joint military] [Buildup]
• U.S. Suspects Korea of Stealing Weapons Technology
  Korean and U.S. military officers earlier this year investigated suspicions by the U.S. government that Korea illegally disassembled F-15K fighter jet equipment for low-altitude night penetration attacks. An official with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration on Monday said the chief of the U.S. Defense Technology Security Administration raised suspicions in a meeting with a senior DAPA official in early June that Korea illegally disassembled Tiger Eye, a key component of the cutting-edge U.S.-made fighter jets. The U.S. suspects this was done to steal the technology, since Korea is an aspiring player in the global arms market. [Friction] [Arms sales] [IPR] [Technology] [Client]
• Why Obama continues to back Lee’s NK policy
  By Sunny Lee BEIJING — Just like any two close friends, South Korea and the United States have had their share of differences, including over North Korea. Actually North Korea has been a major source of splits in their friendship, despite the fact that this is a key area where the two are supposed to work even more closely. In 1994, for example, the Bill Clinton administration considered pre-emptive air-strikes on North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear site, without telling South Korea first. Seoul, not Washington, would have been the immediate target for massive retaliation, if the provoked North chose to seek revenge. It made then President Kim Young-sam (1993-1998) indignant. Late President Kim Dae-jung (1998-2003) was a prime “mismatch” with his U.S. counterpart George Bush, for their entirely different philosophies on North Korea. Kim’s unsuccessful bid in their Washington summit in 2001 to persuade Bush to adopt a policy of engagement and reconciliation with North Korea, known as the “Sunshine Policy,” met Bush’s cold shoulder. Bush’s unflatteringly addressing Kim as “this man” during their official press conference is still remembered to this day. [US NK policy] [Capture] [Friction]
• A Message from the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
  My first trip to South Korea as U.S. Secretary of Defense comes at a time when our two nations are making clear to the world that our alliance is strong and thriving. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama welcomed President Lee Myung-bak on a state visit, underscoring South Korea's emergence as a key global partner. During the visit, I had the opportunity to welcome Lee and Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin to the Pentagon for discussions about our security partnership, which has been a great force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. With this visit to Seoul, I look forward to continuing these discussions and seeking new ways to deepen and adapt our defense cooperation to meet new challenges. The U.S.-South Korea alliance remains firmly rooted in a bilateral commitment to provide mutual security A Message from the U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta My first trip to South Korea as U.S. Secretary of Defense comes at a time when our two nations are making clear to the world that our alliance is strong and thriving. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama welcomed President Lee Myung-bak on a state visit, underscoring South Korea's emergence as a key global partner. During the visit, I had the opportunity to welcome Lee and Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin to the Pentagon for discussions about our security partnership, which has been a great force for peace, stability, and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region. With this visit to Seoul, I look forward to continuing these discussions and seeking new ways to deepen and adapt our defense cooperation to meet new challenges. The U.S.-South Korea alliance remains firmly rooted in a bilateral commitment to provide mutual security [US SK alliance]
• Pentagon chief Panetta doubts diplomacy will persuade North Korea to surrender nuclear weapons
  By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, October 27, 8:12 PM SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed doubt Thursday that diplomacy will persuade North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons and he raised the prospect of stalemate leading to “escalation and confrontation.” After daylong meetings with South Korea’s government leaders, Panetta told reporters he was concerned by North Korea’s pattern of deliberately shifting from periods of modest accommodation with the West to episodes of violent aggression, perhaps with no real intention of giving up its nuclear ambitions. Panetta on Wednesday called North Korea a “serious threat” and told U.S. troops that the Pentagon will strengthen its presence in this region to guard against North Korean provocations. .Asked whether he thinks a renewed effort by the Obama administration to explore a possible new round of international negotiations with North Korea will work, Panetta was blunt. “We’re not sure where those talks are headed at this point,” he said, referring to discussions held this week in Geneva by American and North Korean diplomats. The talks yielded suggestions of progress but no apparent breakthrough. “For that reason, I guess the word ‘skepticism’ would be in order,” he said. The Pentagon chief said he believes, nonetheless, that efforts at a diplomatic solution must go on. “On the one hand, we have to engage,” he said. “We have to try to seek the hope that ultimately they’ll do the right thing and join the international family of nations. ... But I think we always have to be cautious that at the same time, they’re going to continue to develop their nuclear capability.” [US NK policy] [Inversion] [Threat]

• Time for a grand bargain in Northeast Asia
  By Walter C. Clemens Jr. | 24 October 2011
  ?As North Korean and US diplomats begin talks in Geneva, some circumstances suggest the North may be open to a comprehensive "grand bargain" that resolves a host of conflicts among the countries of the region.
  ?North Korea has given conflicting signals about its intentions and price for a deal, but a package involving economic and political incentives may overcome Pyongyang's determination to be a full member of the nuclear weapons club.
  ?To work for all parties, an agreement would likely need to include not just nuclear issues but a peace treaty to end the Korean War and a resolution of the disputed offshore border between the North and South. [US NK Negotiations] [Peace treaty]
• U.S., N.Korea Make 'Some Progress' in Geneva Talks
  U.S.-North Korea talks in Geneva made some progress, but many issues remain to be resolved, according to the U.S. special representative for North Korea Stephen Bosworth. Bosworth was speaking Tuesday after a second day of talks with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan. "I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but as I said we have made some progress, but we have issues still to resolve and we will work hard to do that." [US NK negotiation]
• Seoul, US cautiously move on 6-party talks
  By Kim Young-jin South Korean officials Wednesday remained mum on high-level talks between North Korea and the United States on how to resume nuclear disarmament negotiations but said the communist state had shown seriousness in a recent flurry of diplomacy. A Seoul official said the government was waiting for a full briefing from Washington before making any comment. But he added on condition of anonymity that in two rounds of contact between the Koreas, running in conjunction with the U.S.-North talks, Pyongyang had been “quite serious.”
• Panetta says US will boost presence against N. Korea, a ‘serious threat’
  By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, October 26, 11:02 AM SEOUL, South Korea — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Wednesday called North Korea a “serious threat” and told U.S. troops that the Pentagon will strengthen its presence in this region to guard against North Korean provocations. Panetta met with top U.S. commanders here. In an opinion piece published by a Korean newspaper before he arrived in Seoul, he wrote that the U.S. will continue to cooperate with South Korea as a bulwark against potential North Korean aggression, “and stand prepared to defeat” the North if it should attack. ( Korea Pool / Associated Press ) - U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta delivers a speech to U.S. military soldiers at Yongsan U.S. military base in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2011. Panetta visited U.S. military base to encourage the U.S. troops. .“It is important to send this signal because North Korea remains a serious threat,” he wrote. The U.S. has 28,500 troops stationed here — holdovers from the Korean War that ended in 1953 with a truce but no peace treaty. Panetta’s characterization of the North as a serious threat was a bit less forceful than earlier in the week, when he called the North Koreans “reckless.” That was before U.S. and North Korean diplomats completed talks in Geneva about resuming full-blown negotiations over the future of North Korea’s nuclear program. Both sides said they had narrowed their differences, but no date was set for follow-up talks. Throughout Panetta’s Asia tour, which began Saturday in Indonesia and included a stop in Tokyo, he has repeated one central message: Coming budget cuts will not compel the U.S. to pull back its military presence in the Asia-Pacific region. [Buildup] [Threat] [US global strategy]
• Dick Cheney vs. Condi Rice, the book version
  By Glenn Kessler (Evan Vucci — Associated Press) Just as the movie “Citizen Kane” brilliantly demonstrated how people can have different memories of the same event, the tradition of post-administration memoirs provides readers with the same opportunity. Both Dick Cheney’s “In My Time” and Condoleezza Rice’s upcoming “No Higher Honor” cover much of the same ground, but deal with similar events in different ways. Two examples below. Debate over North Korea Both Rice and Cheney dwell at length on the debate in 2008 over whether to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, with Rice arguing that it was necessary to keep diplomacy going and Cheney saying it would reward bad behavior. {US NK policy]
• Korea-US Trade Agreement: The Hidden History
  Tim Shorrock* | October 22, 2011 [Originally published on October 12, 2011 on TimShorrock.com] The U.S. Congress last week gave final approval to a South Korean-U.S. trade agreement (KORUS) despite strong opposition from the labor movement and a handful of organizations on the political left. The pact was approved along with treaties with Panama and Columbia — but those agreements pale against KORUS, which is the largest trade deal passed since NAFTA was signed by President Clinton in 1994. It so enthralled South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, a former top executive with Hyundai and the country's most conservative leader in a decade, that he proclaimed the beginning of a new "economic alliance" during his visit to Washington. An excited President Obama told Korean reporters it was a "win accord" that will create jobs, expand opportunity "and give benefits to both countries." Yadda yadda yadda - we've heard it all before. In fact, KORUS represents a major victory for U.S. multinational corporations, banks and financial institutions, which have lobbied intensively for the pact for more than half a decade. It's also a major setback for Korean and American unions. Both (with the exception of the U.S. United Auto Workers) saw that KORUS, like NAFTA, was above and beyond an investment agreement designed to improve conditions and decrease risk for foreign capital while doing nothing to improve labor rights (dismal in both South Korea and the United States, as recognized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) or lift the general conditions of workers and consumers in either country. Now that the AFL-CIO has failed to convince a Democratic president and Senate to oppose it, it remains to be seen if South Korea's labor-led opposition can muster the strength to defeat the treaty in Seoul. We shall see. Over the next fews days we'll be hearing a lot about the potential impact of the Korean agreement on U.S. employment, some of it exaggerated, some of it downright mendacious. At the same time, the opposition to KORUS from elements of the so-called left was — with few exceptions — based on shrill, dogmatic nationalism and filled with terrible caricatures of Korea, North and South. While "leftist" talk show hosts such as MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan spewed falsehoods about the introduction of North Korean "slaves" into global trade, he and other opponents of the agreement portrayed South Korean workers as enemies of America who are out to steal our jobs. You'd never know from their literature that South Korean workers too opposed KORUS, for many of the same reasons as their American counterparts. That absence of solidarity from the discussion is a very sad commentary on the U.S. left. [FTA]
• Of Bases and Budgets
  Christine Ahn* and Hyun Lee* | October 21, 2011 [Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus, October 6, 2011] At 4 am on September 24, an intoxicated U.S. soldier based at Camp Casey in South Korea broke into the dorm of a high school student, threatened her with a weapon and repeatedly sexually assaulted her. Due to the extraterritoriality of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the South Korean and U.S. governments, Seoul must issue an arrest warrant to the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) to transfer the soldier to face Korea's criminal system. This tragic incident presents a critical opportunity to question why, after 66 years, 28,500 U.S. troops still remain on 87 bases and installations on the Korean peninsula and whose security they are safeguarding. The same questions are being raised in Okinawa and Guam, islands in the Asia Pacific with large U.S. bases. [Bases]
• US defense chief calls North Korea ‘reckless,’ criticizes China military secretiveness
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Associated Press, Updated: Monday, October 24, 11:02 AM YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan — U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Monday lashed out at North Korea for “reckless and provocative” acts and criticized China for a secretive expansion of its military power. Panetta, who arrived at this U.S. air base on the second leg of a weeklong Asia tour, spoke out about North Korea and China in an opinion piece published Monday by Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper before his arrival. 1 .He wrote that Washington and Tokyo share common challenges in the Asia-Pacific. “These include North Korea, which continues to engage in reckless and provocative behavior and is developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, which pose a threat not just to Japan but to the entire region,” he wrote. At a question-and-answer session with U.S. and Japanese troops at Yokota, Panetta said that despite coming budget cuts there will be no reduction in U.S. forces in Asia and the Pacific. On the contrary, he said, the Obama administration intends to “strengthen our position” in the region. Panetta’s strong language comes as U.S. and North Korean officials gather in Geneva for talks that Washington says are aimed at determining whether Pyongyang is serious about returning to nuclear disarmament talks. Japan also worries about North Korea and is one of five countries that have jointly tried to persuade the North Koreans to cap and reverse their nuclear arms program. The other four are the U.S., China, Russia and South Korea. Panetta also criticized China. “China is rapidly modernizing its military,” he wrote in Monday’s opinion piece, “but with a troubling lack of transparency, coupled with increasingly assertive activity in the East and South China Seas.” He wrote that Japan and the U.S. would work together to “encourage China to play a responsible role in the international community.” [US global strategy] [Threat] [China confrontation] [Double standards]
• What exactly are US interests in North Korea?
  October 21st, 2011 Author: Stephen Costello In March this year, US Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry chaired a hearing on US policy toward North Korea. After testimony from government and NGO witnesses, Kerry observed, ‘Based on [widely differing testimonials], I get the sense that we are misinterpreting what our interests are, vis-à-vis [North Korea] and how they view us. And if we are, how useful are six party talks?’ Kerry remains alone among US policy leaders in questioning official descriptions of US interests on Korea. [US NK policy]
• Breaking the Cycle of North Korea Provocations
  U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Presiding: Senator John Kerry Date: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 Time: 10:00 AM Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building PANEL ONE The Honorable Kurt Campbell Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Department of State Washington, DC Download Testimony The Honorable Stephen Bosworth Special Representative for North Korea Policy Department of State Washington, DC Download Testimony PANEL TWO Mr. L. Gordon Flake Executive Director The Mansfeild Foundation Washington, DC Download Testimony Dr. Marcus Noland Deputy Director Peterson Institute for International Economics Washington, DC Download Testimony Mr. Robert Carlin Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University Stanford, CA [US NK policy]
  • Senator John Kerry Opening Statement for “Breaking the Cycle of North Korean Provocations”
    
  • Opening Statement of Senator Richard G. Lugar
    
  • Dr. Kurt M. Campbell Assistant Secretary of State Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs
    
  • Stephen W. Bosworth Special Representative for North Korea Policy
    
  • L. Gordon Flake Executive Director The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation
    
  • Marcus Noland Deputy Director Peterson Institute for International Economics
    
  • Testimony of Robert Carlin
    
• US-N. Korea talks due today
  By Park Si-soo Top nuclear envoys from North Korea and the United States will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, today to discuss the resumption of the long-stalled six-party talks aimed at ending the North’s nuclear program. This is the second high-level dialogue between the two countries in three months amid growing signs that the two sides will soon find a breakthrough in the standoff so multilateral nuclear disarmament talks can reopen in the near future. North Korea walked away from the talks, which also include South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, in 2009 over international sanctions for its nuclear and long-range missile tests. Kim Gye-kwan, the North’s chief nuclear envoy, arrived in Geneva Saturday night (local time) via Beijing. His counterpart Steve Bosworth arrived there Sunday with his successor Glyn Davies. Davies is currently U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). [US NK negotiations]
• US-North Korea talks over nuclear weapons gearing up in Geneva
  By Associated Press, Updated: Sunday, October 23, 2:55 PM GENEVA — U.S. diplomats arrived in Geneva on Sunday for talks with North Korean officials about Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program, the second direct encounter between the two sides in less than three months. American officials say the “exploratory” meeting is aimed at keeping North Korea engaged in discussions but a step short of formal negotiations. [US NK negotiations]
• [Op-Ed] The KORUS FTA’s problem of American exceptionalism
  By Nam Hee-seob, Patent Attorney President Lee Myung-bak’s recent visit to the United States set a new political record. Prior to the South Korea-U.S. summit meeting, U.S. Congress passed the implementation bill for the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA) with unprecedented speed. But does President Lee know that the KORUS FTA has no force in the United States whatsoever? Article 102 of the implementation bill recently passed by Congress makes it clear that U.S. law comes first in cases where the KORUS FTA comes into conflict with the former. It also prevents any individual from asserting his or her rights in a U.S. court of law based on the KORUS FTA. It also prevents legal action from taken even when the agreement is violated by the U.S. federal government, state governments or governmental institutions. What kind of law is this? An FTA is a promise between two countries, but hasn’t the U.S. effectively proclaimed it to be more than a meaningless scrap of paper as far as its own territory is concerned? In contrast, South Korea’s KORUS FTA ratification bill, if passed by the National Assembly, will give the agreement the same force as South Korean domestic law [FTA] [US dominance]
• NK to hold onto nukes after Gadhafi fall
  By Kim Young-jin As the world reacted to the death of ousted Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, the North Korean people on Friday were predictably deprived of the news, with state media making no mention of the grisly demise of one of leader Kim Jong-il’s shrinking list of fellow dictators. But experts said that for the Pyongyang leadership, the bloody images of the fallen colonel no doubt gave fresh reason to hold on even tighter to its nuclear weapons and drag out diplomatic disarmament proceedings to stave off a similar event on its own soil. The regime had already said publically that Gadhafi’s decision to denuclearize had opened the door for the NATO airstrikes that emboldened the now-celebrating Libyan rebels. [Deterrence] [Renege] [[US NK negotiations]
• Pentagon says it has deal for new searches for US dead in North Korea from Korean War
  By Associated Press, Published: October 21 WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says it has agreed with North Korea to resume — after a six-year break — the search for remains of U.S. servicemen unaccounted for from the Korean War. The deal was made Thursday after three days of negotiations in Bangkok. The U.S. and North Korea began working together on the recovery of U.S. war remains in 1996. But in 2005 the Bush administration called a halt, saying it was concerned for the safety of the U.S. teams in North Korea. The Korean war ended with an armistice in 1953. The new searches are part of a broader U.S. effort to improve relations with North Korea. Next week it plans to hold what the State Department calls exploratory talks with the North on its nuclear weapons program. [MIA] [Easing] [Overture]
• Kim Jong Il’s Nuclear Diplomacy and the US Opening: Slow Motion Six-Party Engagement
  By Jeffrey Lewis, Peter Hayes and Scott Bruce This article was article also published by the Asia Pacific Journal: Japan Focus. October 21, 2011 In this essay Jeffrey Lewis, Director of East Asia Nonproliferation Program of the James Martin Center for NonProliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute, Peter Hayes, Professor of Global Studies, RMIT University and Executive Director of Nautilus Institute and Scott Bruce, Director of the Nautilus Institute, San Francisco examine the lead-up to negotiations between the United States and the DPRK on the nuclear issue that resume in Geneva on October 26, 2011. It notes the high priority placed on domestic economic issues, the escalating threat of a missile or nuclear test in North Korean statements, but then points to the underlying and fundamental issues of the threat of nuclear attack and the need for removal of such threat as the basis for eventual resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. It concludes by prefiguring the issues that re-engagement of the DPRK would require be addressed in order to actually resolve the nuclear issue. [US NK policy] [Agency]
• A new line-up for North Korea talks
  Posted By Mike Green Thursday, October 20, 2011 - 3:07 PM The administration announced on Oct. 19 that talks will resume with North Korea in Geneva and that a new team will represent the U.S. side. Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, the administration's Special Envoy on North Korea and the distinguished Dean of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, will make Geneva his last official meeting before stepping down. He will be replaced by Glynn Davies, the current ambassador to the IAEA. Meanwhile, Ford Hart, one of the Department's top China hands, will continue to serve as U.S. representative to the Six Party Talks. This shift demonstrates several things about the Obama administration's diplomacy. First, it signals the end of candidate Obama's promise of dramatic new engagement strategies with the world's most difficult regimes. High profile special envoys (Mitchell to the Middle East, Grayson to Sudan, Holbrooke to Af/Pak, Bosworth to North Korea) are being replaced by steady but low-profile professionals from within the foreign service. [US NK negotiations]
• Global Hawk set to watch over North Korea
  By Unmanned Editor– September 15, 2011 Posted in: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) News SEOUL — The United States is close to deploying an advanced unmanned spy plane over South Korea which could provide a much more detailed view of North Korea’s military activities, a report said. The US military newspaper Stars and Stripes said Washington is negotiating with Seoul to fly a Global Hawk drone near the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas. “I think we are very close,” the paper quoted Lt. Col. Terran Reneau, chief of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for the 13th US Air Force in Hawaii, as saying. Another air force officer, Lt. Col. David Gerhardt, was quoted as saying in the article published Monday that the Global Hawk “will likely fly over land in Korea as soon as agreements have been solidified to do that”. South Korean defence ministry spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment. The United States, which bases 28,500 troops in the South, already keeps watch over the North with satellites and piloted U-2 spy planes. The Global Hawk can stay in the air longer, flying at an altitude of about 20 kilometres (12 miles) for up to 40 hours, with a line of sight to targets some 550 kilometres away. This means that a drone flying just south of the DMZ could keep watch over all North Korea and over Chinese territory north of the Yalu border river. The deployment could provide an “unprecedented view of goings-on in reclusive North Korea and draw the ire of China”, Stars and Stripes said. The Hawks carry long-range and infrared cameras, radar and listening devices that can intercept foreign military signals. [Surveillance; [UAV] [US military dominance]
• U.S. appoints new special envoy to North Korea
  By William Wan, Published: October 19 The United States on Wednesday appointed a new special envoy to North Korea who will meet with representatives of the isolated regime in Geneva next week, the latest in a series of actions to renew talks that stalled years ago. The current envoy, Stephen Bosworth, will be replaced by Glyn Davies, who has been serving as the U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. .State Department spokesman Mark Toner called the replacement “a change in personnel but not policy.” He said the goal of next week’s meeting is “exploratory,” to see whether North Korea is willing to follow through on promises made in 2005, before the multilateral talks on its denuclearization broke down. “We are not going to reward North Korea just for returning to the table, nor give them anything new for action they have agreed to take, but we want to see that they’re committed to move the process forward,” Toner said. The appointment of Davies — a lower-key and lower-profile figure — reflects a cautious approach by the Obama administration toward the renewed talks, said Victor Cha, a former Asian affairs director for the White House. [US NK policy][preconditions]
• Commander in Chief U.S. Pacific Command History Vol I (U) 1992
  October 19, 2011 This report was released to the Nautilus Institute under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). See the Institute's FOIA Global Disclosure Project page to read more chronologies, histories and reports released to Nautilus.
• U.S. to Replace N.Korea Envoy
  The U.S. special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, is likely to be replaced by Glyn Davis, now U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Sources in Washington said the U.S. government decided to replace Bosworth before the new round of talks with the isolated communist nation next week. Davis became ambassador to the IAEA in 2009 after serving as principal deputy assistant secretary of state and is known to be well versed in nuclear weapons and disarmament issues. Bosworth, a one-time U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has overseen U.S. policies on North Korea since the inauguration of the Obama administration but achieved little and kept his day job as dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. [US NK policy]
• A Time for All to Embrace Change
  Paul Liem* | October 12, 2011 [Originally submitted to Korean Quarterly, Fall 2011] For the entire post WWII period the political security and economic development of South Korea has been guaranteed by the United States. In turn South Korea has served as a bulwark against communist expansion in Asia — as a security buffer for Japan, in particular. But today, this scenario is appearing more and more anachronistic, so rapidly is change coming to Northeast Asia. To be sure, the U.S. will maintain a strong presence in Northeast Asia for years to come, but it will be one among others vying for influence on the Korean peninsula, as Seoul and Pyongyang leverage their geopolitical and other economic assets to reap the benefits of what is shaping up to be a new regional economy encompassing China, Russia, Japan and both Koreas. [US NK policy] [Liberal] [Russia1108] [Pipeline]
• North Korea's Air Koryo Is The Worst Airline In The World
  Kim Bhasin | Oct. 3, 2011, 10:58 AM | 90,077 | 23 There's only one airline in the world that has been deemed horrible enough to earn a dismal 1-star rating from leading airline reviewer SkyTrax. It's North Korea's state-owned airline: Air Koryo. It boasts a fleet of less than two dozen Russian-made planes and offers flights to China, Russia, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and more, according to the Centre of Aviation. The planes are based in the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang. But in an industry already suffering from widespread negative perception, what makes Air Koryo stand out as the very worst? Customer service, food, safety or a little bit of everything? Australian biomedical engineer Mark Fahey recently took a flight to Pyongyang and put up some shots of his trip on Flickr. We compiled his pictures along with a few others who documented their flights to show you what it's like on Air Koryo. [Media] [Bizarre]
• N.Korea, U.S. to Discuss Recovery of War Dead
  North Korea said Friday it will discuss with the United States resuming the recovery of American soldiers killed during the Korean War. A foreign ministry spokesman told the North's official Korean Central News Agency that Pyongyang had accepted the United States' proposal on humanitarian grounds and work is already underway to arrange talks between the two militaries. The U.S. Department of Defense says around 8,000 troops are still missing from the Korean War, with more than half believed to be buried in the North. Joint efforts to recover U.S. missing in action began in 1996, but Washington suspended the operations in 2005 after recovering more than 220 sets of remains, citing security concerns for the U.S. teams. In another sign of easing tensions, the U.S. said Thursday it will provide North Korea with up to $900,000 in emergency flood aid. The U.S. State Department said the provision of humanitarian assistance is separate from political and security concerns and demonstrates the United States' "concern for the well-being of the North Korean people." [MIA] [Easing]
• North and South Korea representatives share laughs while discussing serious business of peace
  By Associated Press, Published: October 18 ATHENS, Ga. — North and South Korean representatives holding informal talks meant to help resolve a nuclear standoff are sitting together at meals in the U.S., sharing laughs and even breaking out together in song. But longstanding disputes still cropped up Tuesday on the second day of the summit being held at the University of Georgia, the site chosen for the discussions. Members of the U.S. and South Korea delegations told The Associated Press that the closed-door talks have been serious at times and light-hearted and respectful at other moments. “That doesn’t mean they are agreeing, but it is important,” said Jim Walsh, an expert in international security and a research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. “In there, they’re all Koreans. The Americans are the foreigners in the room.” At dinner Monday night, North and South Korean delegates sat with each other as they dined on filet mignon, pan-seared tuna and chocolate tart. At one point they stood and joined each other in song as South Korean violinist Yong-Ku Ahn played a folk tune familiar to both sides, according to several people who were present. [SK NK negotiations]
• U.S., N.Korea to hold nuclear talks next week in Geneva
  The US is preparing to restart talks with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program to prevent further provocations by the communist regime. South Korea‘s Yonhap News quoted a diplomatic source Monday saying that a high-level dialogue between North Korea and the US will be held in Geneva around next Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal reported that the second meeting became clear after last week’s summit between Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Barack Obama and the recent talks between the two Koreas in Beijing.
• Assembly in deadlock over KORUS FTA
  Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon rubs his face in frustration over a partisan stalemate over the ratification of Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) at the National Assembly, Tuesday. / Yonhap By Chung Min-uck The National Assembly is locked in an impasse with the ruling and the opposition parties showing no signs of backing down from their position on the long-stalled Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA). Prompted by the unusually swift ratification of the free trade bill by the U.S. Congress last week, the Grand National Party (GNP) has been pushing to follow suit of its counterpart’s quick approval. But lawmakers of the opposition parties continue to insist on implementing relief measures and renegotiations with Washington. [FTA]
• Peace, nuclear disarmament being discussed at Georgia summit on North-South Korea relations
  By Associated Press, Published: October 17 ATHENS, Ga. — Academics, legislators and former government officials are trying to do what diplomats have so far failed to: lay the foundation for lasting peace between North and South Korea, reunification of the two countries and, perhaps most importantly, nuclear disarmament. The University of Georgia was hosting a four-day summit that opened Monday with a few dozen representatives from the two Koreas and the U.S. in attendance. The so-called Track II talks aimed to formulate policy recommendations for solving the standoff. The talks were unofficial, and representatives from the U.S. State Department and the respective foreign ministers were not participating in the closed-door sessions. A senior North Korean ruling party official was in attendance, however. Han S. Park, a University of Georgia professor who has ties with top officials in both Koreas and who organized the meeting, promised results.
• Korea-US alliance
  Action plans needed to forge closer partnership
  President Lee Myung-bak’s visit to the United States this week has produced successful results as the two countries agreed to turn their defense and security alliance into a new economic partnership. The ratification of a Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (FTA) by Congress will serve as a stepping stone to upgrade the alliance. We hope that Korea and the United States will work together more closely and on a more equal footing to open a new chapter in bilateral relations. It is worth attaching significance to Thursday’s summit between Lee and U.S. President Barack Obama, in which the two leaders committed to develop a better partnership for co-prosperity [US SK alliance]
• Summit Boosts Korea-U.S. Alliance
  President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama said during their summit Thursday that the Seoul-Washington alliance is the "primary axis of security" for South Korea and the "foundation" of security in the Pacific for the U.S. The two leaders also vowed to strengthen the alliance to promote peace and prosperity, developing it into a "multi-dimensional strategic alliance" with greater cooperation on terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the global economic crisis. [US SK alliance] [Capture] [Client]
• What Korea Gains from Summit in Washington
  The summit on Thursday between President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama was carefully timed to coincide with the ratification of the Korea-U.S. FTA by American lawmakers. Lee said the FTA would become "a new engine of growth" for both countries. [FTA] [US SK alliance]
• Sung Kim Confirmed as Next U.S. Ambassador to S.Korea
  The U.S. Senate passed the stalled confirmation of Sung Kim as the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea on Thursday, just minutes before President Lee Myung-bak made a rare address to a joint session of Congress during his six-day state visit to the country. Republican Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona had held up the confirmation, to the dismay of many U.S. and South Korean officials, due to concerns that the U.S. would continue to hold one-on-one meetings with North Korea. [Sidelined]
• Lee and Obama reaffirm economic, military alliance
  U.S. provides lavish hospitality to Lee through informal Korean dinner and briefing in the Pentagon ‘Tank’ » President Lee Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama pose for a commemorative picture at the White House, Oct. 13. (Photo by Kim Bong-gyu) » President Lee Myung-bak listens to a briefing by top U.S. military officials at the “Tank” in the Pentagon, Oct. 12. (Photo by Kim Bong-gyu) By Ahn Chang-hyun, Staff Writer President Lee Myung-bak met with U.S. President Barack Obama for a summit meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday morning (local time). Lee, who is visiting the United States as a guest of the state, discussed major issues between the two countries including the development of their alliance and the ratification of the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). In a joint statement to the press after the meeting, the two countries reaffirmed the bilateral alliance to be the “lynch-pin for security” to South Korea and the cornerstone for Asia-Pacific security to the United States and said they would continue working in the future to solidify a “Pacific Partnership for Peace and Prosperity.” In particular, the two stated their agreement that the KORUS FTA would lead to another leap forward in bilateral relations as the alliance expanded from military and national security to the economy. Lee was accorded an unusual level of hospitality from the United States for his visit. [US SK Alliance]
• WaPo Ramps Up Lee Remarks About China
  The Washington Post on Wednesday quoted President Lee Myung-bak as saying that while many Asian countries wish to maintain good relations with China, they also want to keep China in check and therefore U.S. "re-engagement" in Northeast Asia is crucial. The paper interviewed Lee on Seoul on Monday. It asked him to share his views on the expansion of China's influence over Asian countries and the role of U.S. It quotes Lee as replying it is "understandable and unavoidable" that Asian countries are developing close economic ties with China, but "at the same time, many countries worry about sustainable security, peace, values such as democracy… U.S. re-engagement is crucial for that." The interview was only published online. In response to apparent jitters here that the statement could alienate China by implying that it is not beneficial to democracy and stability, Cheong Wa Dae published the whole transcript of the interview, saying the paper misreported Lee's remarks. In the transcript, Lee says, "Of course, when it comes to economy, Asian countries trade more and more with China. But all countries not only consider economy but also the balance of power, peace, and security, and from that angle, I believe many Asian countries may think of the role of U.S. in Asia positively." [Lee Myung-bak] [China confrontation]
• U.S. Congress Ratifies Korea-U.S. FTA
  The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate finally approved the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement on Wednesday, four years and three months after it was signed. Korea has still not ratified the FTA. U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill immediately after it is delivered to the White House the same day. It "will support at least 70,000 American jobs. This agreement has unprecedented support from business and labor," he said. [FTA]
• Lee Visits Pentagon
  President Lee Myung-bak visited the U.S. Defense Department on Wednesday afternoon and received an unplanned briefing on the security situation on the Korean Peninsula from top military officials. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security Chun Young-woo, and secretary for national security strategy Kim Tae-hyo accompanied Lee when he met U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, and most of the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Forces, according to Cheong Wa Dae. After the briefing, the two defense chiefs met separately face-to-face. Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Park Jeong-ha said, "It is very rare for top U.S. defense officials to brief a foreign head of state, and it is certainly unprecedented for Korean presidents. This shows the importance and closeness of the Korea-U.S. alliance." There is speculation that the sudden briefing was prompted by unusual movements by the North Korean military, but Cheong Wa Dae denied this, saying it is merely "part of efforts to strengthen the alliance" and is "not related to any special and pressing issues." [Buildup]
• Bradley tanks arrive
  Around 100 Bradley tanks are unloaded after arriving at South Korea’s largest port city of Busan on Oct. 12. The tanks will be moved by train to U.S. Camp Caroll in Waegwan, North Gyeonsang Province, by the end of the month. U.S. Forces Korea unveiled the tanks to the press. (Newsis News) [Buildup] [Military balance]
• Allies to strengthen post-FTA partnership
  President Lee Myung-bak, left, places his hand on his heart during the playing of the Korean national anthem prior to a summit with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington D.C., Thursday (local time). / Yonhap Korea, US agree to cooperate for currency swap, Libya rebuilding By Kang Hyun-kyung President Lee Myung-bak and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama agreed Thursday (KST) to expand their countries’ security-oriented alliance into a comprehensive and multi-faceted strategic partnership.
  During the summit, Lee and Obama agreed to bolster security ties to counter nuclear and conventional threats posed by North Korea. The two leaders agreed to activate further the newly established Extended Deterrence Policy Committee (EDPC), which serves as a cooperation mechanism to respond effectively to Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction.
• Korea-US FTA bill in limbo at Assembly
  By Kang Hyun-kyung Rival parties are still at odds over a free trade deal signed with the United States even after the U.S. Congress ratified the pact Thursday (KST). They also show few signs of reaching a consensus over the long-delayed bill at the moment. The ruling Grand National Party (GNP) is eager to push the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) to cooperate in passing the so-called KORUS FTA in the National Assembly by the end of this month. [FTA]
• Obama welcomes South Korean president to White House a day after trade pact approved
  View Photo Gallery — ?President Obama welcomed South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to the White House on Thursday, with plans for bilateral meetings, a state dinner and a trip to Detroit. By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, October 13, 7:09 PM WASHINGTON — Heralding a visiting friend and some rare bipartisanship at home, President Barack Obama welcomed South Korea’s president to the White House on Thursday as a valuable world partner. The pageantry came mere hours after Congress pushed through a long-delayed trade pact between both leaders’ countries. Under a steady rain and the cover of an umbrella, Obama told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak that the alliance of their nations is stronger than ever. [FTA]
• U.S. Fighter Jets Deployed in Korea
  Twelve F-16C "Fighting Falcons" and 200 personnel have arrived in Korea from the U.S. mainland and will be stationed here for six months, the U.S. Seventh Air Force Command here said Tuesday. The F-16Cs and personnel from the 466th Air Expeditionary Squadron under the 419th Fighter Wing headquartered at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, arrived at Gunsan Base last Friday.
• In South Korea, president’s ascent mirrors his country’s rise
  By Fred Hiatt, Wednesday, October 12, 4:57 PM SEOUL Here are some things South Korean president Lee Myung-bak probably will not dwell on when he addresses a joint session of Congress Thursday afternoon: .?How American fighter jets inadvertently killed two of his siblings as the jets hunted communist infiltrators in his village during the Korean war; [Lee Myung-bak] [Eulogy] [Client]
• South Korea’s Lee defends stance on North
  Courtesy of the Blue House/South Korean Presidential Office - South Korean President Lee Myung-bak defends his hard-line strategy against the North, saying there are signs his approach is beginning to work. By Chico Harlan, Wednesday, October 12, 12:02 AM SEOUL — Facing growing criticism that his hard-line stance toward North Korea has backfired, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak defended the strategy, and said there are signs his approach is beginning to work. Lee has said that Seoul will provide aid and security to its neighbor only after Pyongyang denuclearizes. Speaking on Monday, he said that controversial strategy had yielded a breakthrough: In recent meetings between the Koreas, the North has been willing to discuss its nuclear program. Though talking about the arsenal is far different than dismantling it, the subject itself was previously off limits. .“There are some real changes we are detecting,” Lee said in an interview. “In the past, if we had dialogue between the two Koreas, it was never about nuclear weapons. The discussion was only about when and how much aid we would give.” If Pyongyang agrees to a monitored shutdown of its nuclear weapons program, the concession would validate a strategy that has, in the short term, turned North Korea more dangerous, not more compliant. Lee had hoped his stance would push North Korea to recommit to old denuclearization promises. Instead, the North has kept its weapons — and turned to China for the aid and investment it once got from Seoul. Intra-Korean relations hit a low point last year with two military attacks on South Korea, prompting calls domestically for Lee to soften his approach. [Lee Myung-bak] [SK NK policy] [Media] [Easing] [Unintended consequences]
• North Korea criticizes U.S. reluctance to negotiate
  By YOSHIHIRO MAKINO / Correspondent SEOUL -- North Korea is showing increasing signs of frustration at the United States' reluctance to resume the six-party talks on Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. It is now looking unlikely that talks between the two nations originally planned for October will go ahead. Visiting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Oct. 7 in Seoul that the United States was not prepared to make compromises with North Korea. [US NK negotiations] [Six Party Talks] [Preconditions] [US objectives]
• Gov't to Rethink USFK Agreement After Rapes
  The government wants to take another look at the Status of Forces Agreement with the U.S. military to bolster the authority of Korean police after a series of rapes of Korean teenagers by American soldiers. A Foreign Ministry official on Monday said, "We will assess the problems and difficulties encountered by police in investigating U.S. soldiers accused of crimes and demand improvements." The ministry plans to comb through SOFA and discuss possible improvements next month. Under SOFA, which was revised in 2001, the U.S. military must hand over soldiers accused of 12 major crimes, including murder and rape, after prosecutors here indict him. That was an improvement from the old SOFA regulations between the U.S. and Germany, whereby the U.S. hands over a suspect only after a court sentences him. But unless a suspect has been arrested by Korean police, a U.S. soldier accused of a crime cannot be held in custody, making it difficult to determine his whereabouts in the initial stage of investigations. The official said, "Under existing SOFA rules, the U.S. military is bound to respond immediately to requests by our side for an American soldier to appear before investigators, so we plan to focus more on finding a better way to manage the agreement rather than on revising it." [US offences] [Friction] [Extraterritoriality] [Anti-Americanism]
• Palin 'looks forward to NK regime change'
  By Philip Iglauer Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin said she “looks forward to regime change” in North Korea while calling on South Korea to help the North when its regime is finally ousted. “Being under the thumb of a dictator, the first victims of his regime are his own people,” said Palin during a keynote address at the 12th World Knowledge Forum in Seoul, Tuesday.
  Regarding Palin’s remark, the Seoul government showed a cautious response. Jo Byoung-jae, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said flatly “regime change is not a policy goal or the objective of this government.” He said he is not criticizing Palin or her statement, but just stating as clearly as possible what the North Korea policy of Seoul is, adding, “I think it is safe to say that it is also not the policy goal of the U.S. government either.” [US NK policy] [Regime change] [Spin]
• North Korea and Northeast Asian security
  October 4th, 2011 Author: Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University In much of the world the Six-Party Talks represent a futile attempt to rein in North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and deter it from a path of belligerence. But in China the talks offer hope for a new regional security arrangement. While observers took keen interest in China’s resistance to condemn the North’s two attacks on South Korea in 2010, few paid attention to Chinese rhetoric on the Korean peninsula, apart from expressing surprise at Xi Jinping’s revival of Chinese support for the North in the ‘glorious’ Korean War. Since 2008, Chinese coverage of South Korea has grown far more negative while discussion of North Korea has revealed an agenda quite different from what it appeared to be pursuing at the time of the talks in 2003–08. Given China’s support for North Korea’s objectives in restarting the talks, it is important to consider other parties’ strategic thinking regarding the Korean peninsula. In the summer of 2011 there was more manoeuvring over the prospect of talks than many anticipated. [Six Party Talks] [China confrontation]
• Pyongyang Looks for the Next Payoff
  The lesson North Korean leaders learned from Libya is that there is no security without nuclear weapons. By ANDREI LANKOV North and South Korea held talks in Beijing last week, which means the next episode of the endless diplomatic soap that is the six-party talks is approaching. The official goal of these talks is North Korean denuclearization. The problem is that Kim Jong Il's regime has absolutely no intention of surrendering its weapons program, which has been in development for half a century. [Deterrence] [US NK negotiations] [Libya]
• S.Korean Navy Says New Base Will Not Host U.S. Military Vessels
  South Korean defense officials say a controversial proposed naval base, off the southern coast on Jeju island, will not allow permanent stationing of U.S. naval vessels. And, they say the facility, to be completed in 2015, is meant to deter North Korea, not China. However, they are not commenting on reports another small base will be built in the sea, between the Korean Peninsula and Japan, to protect an island also claimed by the Japanese. South Korea's defense establishment is hitting back against what it says are inaccurate reports about a joint civilian-military project being built on a southern resort island. [Bases] [China confrontation] [Missile defense]
• KCNA Blames U.S. for Deteriorating Situation on Korean Peninsula
  Pyongyang, October 5 (KCNA) -- The situation on the Korean Peninsula is getting tenser, far from being defused. The international community is concerned about the force that renders the regional situation instable. It is none other than the U.S. The U.S. tightens military tie-up with south Korea and escalates confrontation with the DPRK. The U.S. had confab with south Korea on a meeting on security policy initiative, a meeting of extended deterrence policy committee, the issue of regularizing combined mobile maneuvers and joint exercises in waters around five islands in the West Sea, the issue of amending missile guidelines for increasing weight of ballistic missile payload and its range, etc. It has staged with south Korea military exercises one after another, including joint live shell firing exercise, joint marine corps drill for improving logistic support and cooperation, a drill for mid-air refueling of south Korean fighters by a U.S. refueling tanker and anti-submarine exercise and field mobile exercises in areas along the Military Demarcation Line. [Buildup] [Joint US military]
• How to disarm a nuclear North Korea
  By Victor D. Cha, Monday, October 10, 12:45 AM North Korea’s nuclear test and military provocations in 2009 and 2010 created a situation far too dangerous to leave unattended. When President Obama hosts South Korean President Lee Myung-bak this week, they are likely to discuss a second round of U.S.-North Korea talks this month, effectively opening the first negotiation of Obama’s presidency to contain North Korean belligerence. The goal of this diplomacy remains the peaceful denuclearization of North Korea. But the administration needs to make clear the costs that will come with a failed negotiation. For too long, the North Koreans have been told to “denuclearize or else,” yet the regime has defied agreements with little consequence. Washington would do well to plan with other participants in the “six-party talks” — South Korea, China, Russia and Japan — and U.N. Security Council members the consequences of another failed negotiation: financial sanctions, military augmentations of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and other actions that target the regime in Pyongyang. [US NK policy] [Sanctions] [Rightwing] [Partisan]
• The Threat of Warships on an "Island of World Peace"
  Friday 7 October 2011 by: Noam Chomsky, Truthout | News Analysis Song Kang-ho, an activist opposing a naval base under construction, near the construction site, in Gangjeong village on Jeju Island, South Korea, August 2, 2011. (Photo: Jean Chung / The New York Times) Jeju Island, 50 miles southeast of South Korea’s mainland, has been called the most idyllic place on the planet. The pristine, 706-square-mile volcanic island comprises three UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites. Jeju’s history, however, is far from idyllic. In 1948, two years before the outbreak of the Korean War, the islanders staged an uprising to protest, among other issues, the division of the Korean Peninsula into North and South. The mainland government, then under U.S. military occupation, cracked down on the Jeju insurgents. South Korean police and military forces massacred islanders and destroyed villages. Korea historian John Merrill estimates that the death toll may have exceeded 30,000, about 15 percent of the island’s population. Decades later, a government commission investigated the Jeju uprising. In 2005, Roh Moo-hyun, then South Korea’s president, apologized for the atrocities and designated Jeju as an “Island of World Peace.” Today Jeju Island is once again threatened by joint U.S.-South Korean militarization and violence: the construction of a naval base on what many consider to be Jeju’s most beautiful coastline. [Bases] [China confrontation]
• 8th U.S. Army Chief Goes on Curfew Patrol
  Eighth U.S. Army Commander John Johnson went on a curfew patrol in Seoul's Itaewon at 2 a.m. last Saturday in a show of discipline after the rape of two Korean teenagers by soldiers under Johnson's command. He patrolled an entertainment district frequented by U.S. Forces Korea servicemen. Johnson postponed a trip to the U.S. in order to patrol the area. In a military police uniform, Johnson walked the 100 m distance from the Hamilton Hotel to the Cheil Worldwide building accompanied by his aide-de-camp and five military police officers. He went into three bars that are popular with USFK servicemen. The aim was to enforce a 30-day curfew for all USFK personnel living in barracks put in place by USFK Commander James Thurman last Friday, according to the Eighth U.S. Army.
• US-N.Korea discuss for 2nd meeting : source
  After hours of meetings with senior U.S. officials, South Korea’s new top nuclear envoy Lim Sung-nam said Thursday that the two sides had “in-depth discussions” about the next steps in dealing with North Korea. The nuclear envoy arrived in Washington earlier Thursday, a trip coming on the heels of his appointment as Seoul‘s top delegate to the now-suspended six-party talks. He replaced Wi Sung-lac who was named ambassador to Russia. Washington and Pyongyang are expected to hold another round of high-level talks in the near future aimed at restarting the six-party talks that also involve China, Russia and Japan. Informed sources said Pyongyang and Beijing have been ruled out as a possible venue, adding the widely anticipated talks will likely take place in a Southeast Asian or a European nation. Lim, however, would not talk about the timing and venue of the talks between the U.S. and North Korea. (Yonhap News)
• Children of US soldiers caught for violence, theft
  By Lee Hyo-sik Five children of U.S. military servicemen here have been apprehended for assaulting a Korean man, and stealing cash as well as other valuables from him in early September, police said Sunday. The Yongsan Police Station in central Seoul said that the adolescents, aged between 15 and 20, followed a 27-year-old Korean man and beat him up in Itaewon on Sept. 4. They robbed him of cash, a cellular phone and other valuables worth 200,000 won ($180). Police said a resident in the area reported the crime. After viewing surveillance cameras monitoring nearby streets and questioning eye-witnesses, police officers arrested the five offenders. “Three of them were found to be minors. In accordance with the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed between the United States and Korea, we handed them over to U.S. military police after questioning them about the alleged crime,” an officer said. Under the accord, the Korean law enforcement authorities are required to hand over U.S. soldiers and their family members committing crimes here to U.S. military authorities. [US offences] [Extraterritoriality]
• Deputy CFC commander tapped as new JCS chairman
  The deputy commander of the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command, Army Gen. Jung Seung-jo, has been named the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defense officials said Sunday. In a major reshuffle of top military officers, Jung will replace Gen. Han Min-koo as Korea's top military officer, the officials said. Kwon Oh-seong, the JCS officer in charge of operations, was named the new deputy commander of the Combined Forces Command while No.2 Navy officer Choi Yun-hee was designated to lead the Navy. Another Navy officer, Lee Ho-yeon, was tapped as the new commandant of the Marine Corps.
  The reshuffle comes as Korea prepares to take over wartime operational control of its military from the United States in 2015. The U.S. has held wartime command of South Korean troops since the beginning of the 1950-53 Korean War, though it handed over peacetime control of the Korean military to Seoul in 1994. [OPCON] [US military dominance]
• Private university in North Korea offers lessons in science and world peace
  (Courtesy of Chan-Mo Park) - Chancellor Chan-Mo Park is eating lunch with North Korean students at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. Students are selected by the North Korean government to attend the tuition-free school. They get three meals a day and a chance to get to know their international professors during meal time. By Michael Alison Chandler, Published: October 7 | Updated: Sunday, October 9, 1:45 AM In communist North Korea — tightly sealed off from the Internet and foreign news — a fledgling private university is offering hand-picked students a rare window to the outside world. The Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, backed by evangelical Christians and Western-trained scientists, aspires to give future leaders tools to develop the country’s backward economy and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula. [Education] [Media] [PUST]
• Review: The Survival of North Korea
  By John Feffer, September 29, 2011 Despite the predictions of many obituary writers, North Korea is still around. It was supposed to collapse with the Eastern European communist regimes, but it didn't. It was supposed to crumble during the great famine of the mid-1990s, but it didn't. The hard-line policies of the George W. Bush administration were supposed to do the trick, but they didn't. The North Korean economy is in lousy shape, the ruling elite is a gerontocracy, and several thousand North Korean citizens vote with their feet every year. But the government in Pyongyang soldiers on. The contributors to The Survival of North Korea attempt to understand the reasons for North Korea's longevity and the appropriate policy responses. They all come to a similar conclusion. If North Korea isn't about to collapse, then policymakers must stop complaining and deal with it. [US NK policy] [Collapse]

• Inter-Korean talks set stage for N.Korea-U.S. bilateral talks
  Seoul now hopes for parallel inter-Korean talks during N.Korea-U.S. bilateral talks By Son Won-je, Staff Writer A second round of inter-Korean denuclearization talks ended Wednesday without any clear results. Observers are now saying the question of whether the six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue resumes depends on additional dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, which is expected to take place in mid-October. The inter-Korean talks that took place, however, effectively met the conditions for another round of North Korea-U.S. dialogue. [SK NK negotiations] [Six Party talks]
• US the top buyer of Korean arms
  The United States was the biggest buyer of Korean arms during a five-year span with $1.7 billion in deals, a state-run arms procurement agency said Wednesday. Local weapons firms have mostly exported aircraft components and ammunitions to the U.S., Korea's closest ally, from 2006 to 2010, the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) said in a report submitted for a parliamentary audit. Next on the list were Turkey with $1 billion on purchases that included KT-1 trainers and Indonesia with $780 million on purchases that included T-50 Golden Eagle supersonic trainer jets, the DAPA said. Other major buyers in the period were Malaysia ($397 million), Iraq ($329 million) and Pakistan ($119 million), said the report released by Rep. Seo Jong-pyo of the Democratic Party. The total amount of exports soared to $1.1 billion last year, up from $253 million in 2006, it said. In the first half of the year, Korean firms sold $681 million worth of weapons overseas. The U.S. was the biggest supplier of weapons to Asia's fourth-largest economy in the cited period, trailed by Germany, Israel, England and Turkey, according to an earlier report by the DAPA. (Yonhap) [Arms sales]
• Admitting North Korean Refugees to the United States: Obstacles and Opportunities
  By Roberta Cohen “The numbers are too small,” a Korean American told me, referring to the fact that the United States has admitted only 122 North Korean refugees to this country since the adoption of the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA) in 2004, and that only an estimated 25 have received political asylum.[i] His remark reflected the view of Korean Americans who would like to see more North Koreans find refuge in the United States after the brutality, oppression, and economic hardship to which they have been subjected [Refugee reception] [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• Can’t We All Just Get Along? The Politicization of North Korean Human Rights
  By Andrew Yeo Irrespective of political orientation, little dispute exists among politicians, government officials, activists, and NGO workers that a large number of North Koreans suffer from human rights abuses at the hands of the regime. Despite consensus regarding the serious nature of these abuses, however, addressing (much less resolving) them has proven to be difficult with the problem of North Korean human rights embedded in the context of a perpetual nuclear and humanitarian crisis. This has stimulated ethical debates and much soul-searching among policymakers, aid workers, and activists torn between choices of principle or pragmatism which have led to the politicization of North Korean human rights. [Refugee encouragement] [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• Koreans in US fight for East Sea
  By Jane Han NEW YORK ? Koreans in the U.S. say the long distance from their home country doesn’t keep them from being any less frustrated about the East Sea naming dispute between Korea and Japan. In fact, they’re starting to take matters into their own hands. [Sidelined]
• Seoul Wants Missile Range to Cover Whole Peninsula
  Officials from Seoul and Washington are discussing a revision of restrictions on the range of South Korean missiles, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin said Monday. The current missile guidelines restrict the range of South Korean ballistic missiles to 300 km, but Seoul wants them to cover the entire peninsula, according to Kim. He made the remark in answer to an enquiry from Democratic Party lawmaker Park Sang-chun in a National Assembly audit of the Defense Ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Kim did not specify how much longer Seoul wants the range to be, but a range of some 800 km is needed to cover all of North Korea. This was the first time the defense chief has formally revealed that discussions are underway. Asked whether he wants to extend the range to cover all missile bases in the North, Kim said yes. The missile guidelines were worked out in 1979 and revised in 2001. They limit the range to 300 km and the payload to 500 kg, even though North Korea is developing inter-continental ballistic missiles [US dominance] [Sovereignty] [Missile] [Military balance]
• Air Force Practices Mid-Air Refueling
  Air Force fighter jets are for the first time practicing mid-air refueling in South Korean skies. The exercise started Friday and will last until Sept. 30. F-15Ks and F-16/KF-16s are being refueled from a U.S. military aircraft. An Air Force spokesman on Monday said the exercise is being carried out in skies over the West Sea using a KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft from the U.S.' Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. [Military balance] [US military dominance] [Buildup]
• How did North Korea nearly put itself out of the missile business? It was just too good at selling
  By Joby Warrick Kim Jong Il, center, at an undisclosed location in North Korea in 2009. (KCNA via Reuters) Not long ago, North Korea was the go-to source for any despot or rogue state looking to beef up on missiles. At least seven countries were counted as regular customers, providing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il with an important source of hard currency. Now this important cash crop has nearly evaporated, and North Korea bears much of the blame. According to a new analysis, North Korea did so well at marketing its missiles that it eventually put itself out of business. In recent years, customers like Iran and Pakistan have increasingly transformed themselves from missile importers to missile manufacturers, building their own weapons in factories often designed and constructed with North Korean expertise, said the study by Josh Pollack, a consultant to the U.S. government on arms control. For those countries and others, building one’s own missiles was both cheaper and safer, limiting the risks of interference or pressure from the United States and other Western powers. “North Korea’s customers no longer wanted to buy missiles,” Pollack said at a recent panel of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington. “They wanted to have their own missile factories, and the North Koreans were prepared to help.” [Arms sales] [MISCOM][Media] [Logic]
• The intelligence community gets social
  By Brian Fung CIA Director Leon Panetta (JIM YOUNG - REUTERS) Digital media is mostly about entertainment for some, while for others, the value lies in being able to spread messages to a large audience. But, as many news organizations are discovering, Web 2.0 technologies are as good for listening as they are for broadcasting. The notion of social media as a trend-monitoring tool is spreading — and now U.S. spy agencies are jumping on board.
  The CIA already monitors social networks manually. In 2010, agency analysts became aware of a YouTube account allegedly belonging to the propaganda service of North Korea. Pyongyang soon had other identities set up on Twitter and Facebook (the latter of which was abandoned). The CIA issued several reports later that year on the regime’s entry into social media, concluding that the new Web offensive was primarily aimed at influencing the population of South Korea, one of the world’s most digitally enabled societies. Both countries are engaged in a tenuous military truce and longstanding public relations war. [Social media] [Surveillance] [Intelligence]
• North Korea: Future prospects for the Six-Party talks
  September 16th, 2011 Author: Ron Huisken, ANU Political manoeuvering aimed at resuming the Six-Party Talks process on reversing North Korea’s nuclear weapon program is intensifying following a Russia-DPRK summit in August 2011.
• U.S., S.Korea Negotiate Drone Support Near DMZ
  A U.S. military newspaper says the United States expects to soon deploy sophisticated Global Hawk drone surveillance aircraft near South Korea's tense border with North Korea. The Stars and Stripes newspaper quotes senior intelligence officers saying an agreement with South Korea is "very close." Reuters news agency reported earlier this month that members of the U.S. Congress have been told the U.S. government is also negotiating to sell the spy planes to Seoul. [Military balance][US military dominance]
• Photos of Everyday Life in N.Korea Released
  U.S. experts on North Korea released photos showing changes in the reclusive regime in a press briefing in Washington D.C. on Thursday. They visited the Stalinist country in June and toured Pyongyang, Kaesong, Mt. Myohyang and the truce village of Panmunjom. They said North Korean women's hairstyle and makeup showed South Korean influences, and South Korean TV series and songs are also popular. [Media]
• U.S. Report Slams N.Korea for Restricting Religious Freedom
  The U.S. State Department in a report Tuesday slammed North Korea for brutally restricting religious freedom. "Persons engaged in proselytizing or who had ties to overseas evangelical groups operating across the border in China, have been arrested and subjected to harsh punishment," the State Department says in its 2010 International Religious Freedom Report. [Religion] [Manipulation]
• US to North Korea: Negotiations must lead to cessation of nuclear activity
  By Associated Press, Published: September 14 VIENNA — The United States says it is not interested in negotiations with North Korea “for the sake of simply talking,” stressing the country must stop all nuclear activity. The U.S. statement to the U.N. nuclear agency on Wednesday said North Korea must “demonstrate its seriousness on denuclearization.” The statement follows an International Atomic Energy Agency report that strengthened suspicions North Korea turned to black market suppliers to set up a uranium enrichment plant. Last week a U.S. scientist who visited a previously secret North Korean uranium enrichment plant said it was more advanced than operations in Iran and that Pyongyang might launch a third atomic test. The North tested nuclear devices in 2006 and 2009. [US NK negotiations] [Precondition]
• Construction of Disputed Navel Base Resumes on Jeju Island
  Construction of a naval base has resumed on Jeju Island after the Jeju district court on Aug. 29 granted an injunction to the government and Navy banning protestors from obstructing construction of the base. The Navy says having a base in Jeju is crucial for national security as the island sits in a strategic location facing the South China Sea. [Bases] [China confrontation]
• N.Korea Jammed U.S. Reconnaissance Plane GPS
  A U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft made an emergency landing during annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises in March when North Korea jammed its GPS device, it emerged Thursday. According to a report the Defense Ministry submitted to Democratic Party lawmaker Ahn Kyu-baek of the National Assembly's Defense Committee, the RC-7B took off from its base at 8:30 p.m. on March 4 but had to make an emergency landing about 45 minutes later due to disruption of its GPS functions by jamming signals transmitted from Haeju and Kaesong in North Korea at intervals of five to 10 minutes that afternoon. [Military balance][Joint US military][Cyberwar]
• North Korean nuclear weapons: Lessons from Libya
  September 3rd, 2011 Authors: Alexander Vorontsov, Russian Academy of Sciences and Oleg Revenko Despite Libya and North Korea’s geographical distance many analysts have drawn parallels and even forecast similar fates for their leaders. The NATO intervention in Libya poses the following question: In the contemporary world can a small country conduct an independent foreign policy, regardless of the approval of the global ruling class, without running the risk of being punished for it? The answer appears negative. [Libya]
• Korea Talks Must Quickly Move From Tactics to Strategy
  By Stephen Costello Progress on denuclearization will require far more work from the US The recent North-South Korean meeting in Bali and US-DPRK meetings in New York allow the parties to appear to engage while temporarily reducing the threat of instability. Yet while the urgent political needs of the US and ROK administrations are tended, the strategic and longstanding needs of the DPRK and its neighbors—and therefore of the US—are unlikely to be addressed without a major reassessment of interests as well as a recalibration of strategic goals and political tactics by the United States. Washington’s pledges that it has returned its attention to East Asia, while welcome, will fall short of expectations if the challenges presented by North Korea remain unaddressed and the party with the most abundant and useful leverage continues to stand on the diplomatic sidelines. What is the context for the meetings in Bali and New York, and what is at stake? [US NK policy]
• Solving N.Korea problem demands ‘enormous persistence,’ Sherman says
  Wendy Sherman, nominated to become the State Department’s third highest-ranking official, said Wednesday she still believes that Washington should use both “carrots and sticks” in dealing with North Korea, a task that requires “enormous persistence.” In her confirmation hearing at the Senate, she faced questions on her role in the Clinton administration in formulating policy on the communist nation, a policy that conservative lawmakers view as a failure. “I think we learned what every administration since has learned -- working with North Korea is very frustrating, extremely difficult,” she said. “They are elusive, they do not keep their commitments, they are often hostile, they are oppressive to their people.” Sherman said she recognizes that solving the North Korea problem is “very, very tough, takes enormous persistence and that there are no good choices.” Sherman, who was adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, worked from 1997 to 2001 as then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright‘s counselor and doubled as President Clinton’s policy coordinator on North Korea. Her policy on Pyongyang remains politically controversial as Republican lawmakers claim that it was much too focused on granting “carrots” to the recalcitrant North. [US NK policy] [US NK negotiations] [Inversion]
• WikiLeaks Cable Details Rise of Lee Myung-bak
  WikiLeaks has disclosed a classified diplomatic cable showing that a miscommunication between former President Park Chung-hee and Chung Ju-yung, the late chairman of the Hyundai Group, contributed to the eventual rise of Lee Myung-bak from the ranks of the conglomerate to the presidential office. [Lee Myung-bak]
• WikiLeaks Reveals Fresh Information About Korea-U.S. Contacts
  About 14,000 of the unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks last Friday concern the Korean Peninsula. They are expected to cause ripples throughout South Korea's political and business circles. ? New Information Some of the cables reveal interesting new information. They show, for instance, that prior to U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth's visit to Pyongyang in 2009, the presidential secretary for national security strategy Kim Tae-hyo, a reputed hardliner, asked the U.S. to avoid abstract discussions with the North but focus on issues whose solutions could be found. A cable from Seoul dated Dec. 3, 2009 quotes Kim as making the remarks in a meeting with U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Joseph Donovan the previous day. Kim said the North would goad Bosworth by demanding to be recognized as a nuclear state and try to conclude a peace treaty with the U.S. [US NK policy] [Client] [Peace Treaty]
• U.S. prepared to intercept N. Korean missile: cable
  WikiLeaks cable reveals U.S. had prepared for attack in 2009, informed Russia of plan » Former South Korean president Kim Yong-sam rebukes North Korea’s missile test launch. (Yonhap News) By Yi Yong-in, Staff Writer The U.S. government prepared for an interception in the event that North Korea's 2009 long-range missile launch directly threatened its own territory, and provided prior notification to Russia about this policy, a WikiLeaks cable revealed. According to a cable released by WikiLeaks, the U.S. State Department sent a confidential message to the U.S. ambassador to Russia on March 30, 2009, in which it said a defensive interception would be attempted to protect U.S. citizens and territory if it were detected that the flight path of the Taepodong-2 would be immediately affecting U.S. territory. The message was sent six days before North Korean launched the missile on April 5. The State Department expressed hopes that Moscow would not misunderstand the potential ground launch of an interception missile and instructed the ambassador to inform Russia that it would immediately notify the country of any interception missile launch over the U.S.-Russia hotline. As bases for the missile launch, the State Department named Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The U.S. was found to have prepared a message to Russia stating that any interception missile launch was entirely defensive and that additional information would be provided to Moscow as appropriate. But it viewed the prospects of the North Korean missile launch posing a direct threat to its territory as slim. In the lead up to the missile launch, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates initially said he wished to make it clear that the U.S. would be opting to prepare for an interception if necessary, only to reverse himself later and say that the U.S. had no plans for an interception.
  According to another cable, former President Kim Young-sam said at a lunch meeting with then U.S. ambassador to South Korea Alexander Vershbow on April 25, 2008, that the situation at the time would have been “better” if he had allowed a U.S. bombing of the North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear facility in 1994.
  Kim stated that then-U.S. President Bill Clinton and then-Secretary of Defense William Perry had wanted to attack, and that they would have done so if he had not intervened [Satellite] [Kim Young-sam]
• [ed] WikiLeaks on Korea
  Leaks should not cut communication channels A number of WikiLeaks’ revelations on Korea contain nothing surprising as most of the U.S. cables were similar to news reported by the local media. There are no indications that American diplomats had used unconventional methods of bribery, threats, high-handedness, conspiracy or coercion. One cable showed that two confidantes of President Lee Myung-bak ? Choi Si-jung, chairman of the Korea Communications Commission and former Unification Minister Hyun In-taek ? had informed the U.S. of Seoul's decision to import American beef before the summit between Lee and George Bush in January, 2008. It indicates the Lee administration's mistaken decision had not anticipated the ensuing three-month candlelight protests. The briefing itself is not a leak of sensitive state intelligence, but policy failures of the Seoul government. Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong lobbied Seoul officials to help solve the concerns of American pharmaceutical companies in resetting the nation’s pricing policy. Choi, Hyun, and Kim are mistakenly portrayed in the local media as traitors for representing U.S. interest. Lamentable is the lack of Seoul's submission of its wish list to Washington in return for Korea’s accommodation of the American requests. Consoling is the absence of U.S. pressure on Korea to buy American military equipment contrary to the prevailing public myth.
  American diplomats only dug issues of commercial interest and gossip-like tips. No cables have emerged with information on human rights violations. They seem to only hear the views of the incumbent administration, not those of the opposition and NGO leaders. They appeared to be at pains not to give the impression of meddling in internal affairs [Tribute] [WikiLeaks] [Intelligence]
• 'US to respond forcefully to NK provocations'
  CSIS President John Hamre By Kim Young-jin The United States would not hesitate to engage militarily against further aggressive behavior by North Korea, a leading U.S. expert said Thursday, stressing that Washington would maintain its role in East Asia despite shifting regional dynamics and internal strife. “We must maintain a steady course to assure the North Korea regime that there is no military solution to their problem and no advantage in reckless acts of intimidation,” John Hamre, president of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told an international forum in Seoul [MISCOM]
• A troubling lesson from Libya: Don't give up nukes
  Qaddafi stopped his nuclear program. Would NATO have bombed if he hadn’t? Now, Iran watches as nonnuclear states are invaded and nuclear ones win favors. By Reza Sanati / August 30, 2011 Of all the lessons to draw from the ignoble end to Muammar Qaddafi's brutal regime in Libya, the one about nuclear weapons proliferation is probably not the first tutorial that comes to mind. But you can believe it is not lost on countries that feel vulnerable, including Iran. And for the sake of global security, the international community must consider what it's like to be in their shoes. [Deterrence] [Libya]

• North Korea: "Sanity" at the Brink
  Michael Parenti | 14:27 BeiJing Time,Tuesday, August 30, 201168 views Comments(0) Nations that chart a self-defining course, seeking to use their land, labor, natural resources, and markets as they see fit, free from the smothering embrace of the US corporate global order, frequently become a target of defamation. Their leaders often have their moral sanity called into question by US officials and US media, as has been the case at one time or another with Castro, Noriega, Ortega, Qaddafi, Aristide, Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Hugo Chavez, and others. [Deterrence] [Nuclear weapons] [Irrationality]
• Korea to join newly made int’l group to rebuild Libya
  September 01, 2011 Korea is joining a new group of countries that will lead international efforts to reconstruct Libya, with many business opportunities expected along the way. [Tribute]
• Colin Powell versus Dick Cheney
  By Glenn Kessler The old feud between former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and former vice president Dick Cheney has erupted again, with the publication this week of Cheney’s memoir, “In My Time.” A casual listener to the back-and-forth might think the two are fiercely disagreeing — Powell accused Cheney of taking “cheap shots” — but in several instances they are talking past each other. Perhaps that’s why national security decision meetings were so inconclusive in George W. Bush’s White House? Let’s take a closer look at what the two men are saying. “You know, he takes great credit for my resignation in 2004. Well, President Bush and I had always agreed that I would leave at the end of 2004. After the election, I stayed on for three more months because I wanted to and because there were some conferences that I wanted to attend and because Dr. Rice hadn't been confirmed.” — Powell, Aug. 28, 2011, on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Actually, if you look at Cheney’s book, he does not take “great credit” for Powell’s resignation. He writes, on page 425: “Although I tended to get involved in personnel matters with less frequency that I had at the beginning of our time in office, I felt strongly that major change was needed in the national security team. Getting a new secretary of state was a top priority.” Cheney clearly does not think much of Powell’s performance as secretary, but he does not say he engineered Powell’s departure. He merely suggests he made his views known about Powell’s performance. (Ironically, Cheney later devotes many pages to criticizing Powell’s successor, Condoleezza Rice, for ineffectual diplomacy, especially regarding North Korea.) [Dissension]
• Ultimate Frisbee lands in North Korea
  By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, August 31, 11:01 AM PYONGYANG, North Korea — Ultimate Frisbee has landed in North Korea. A group of international Frisbee players and supporters were in Pyongyang on Sunday to give some North Koreans their first taste of the sport and hold a rare Frisbee competition there. Footage from Associated Press Television News in Pyongyang shows dozens of foreign and North Korean players testing their skills in Frisbee matches on a grass field. North Korean student Ri Un Jong says it was her first time to play. She says she wants to play again in the future. Ultimate Frisbee combines elements of football, basketball and rugby but with no tackling. The object of the game is to score points by passing the disc to a player in the opposing end zone. [Media]
• Mitt Romney’s dark vision
  By Chris Cillizza Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney listens as he is introduced at a campaign fundraising event at a home in Des Moines, Iowa, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)In a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars today in San Antonio, Texas, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney painted a decidedly dark portrait of the current state of the country at home and abroad. “We stand near the threshold of profound economic misery,” said Romney. “Four more years on the same political path could prove disastrous.” At another point in the speech, Romney said: “Today we are united not only by our faith in America. We are united also by our concern for America.” On foreign policy, Romney cited a “near-nuclear Iran...an unstable Pakistan... [and] a delusional North Korea” as evidence that “the world is not becoming safer.” [Irrationality] [US NK policy]
• Kaesong-made products excluded from KORUS FTA by U.S.
  A bill in the U.S. Congress indicates sanctions against N.Korea prevents the inclusion of the products By Jung Eun-joo The United States government has made it official that products made at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea will not be classified as “made in Korea” according to the terms of the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). The formation of a committee to discuss whether products from the complex should be regarded as made in Korea, the formation being previously agreed upon by the United States and South Korea has now been thrown into doubt. This goes directly against previous statements by the South Korean government, which emphasized that the FTA would re-open a path for exporting Kaesong Industrial Complex products to the United States. [Sanctions] [Kaesong] [FTA]
• Has Strategic Patience Run Its Course?
  by James J. Przystup James J. Przystup [przystupj@ndu.edu] is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. The views expressed here are his own. The well-choreographed pas de deux of ROK and DPRK nuclear negotiators in Bali and the visit of North Korea’s Senior Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan to New York appear to have rekindled hopes for dialogue with North Korea and a resumption of Six-Party Talks. Pardon my skepticism, but haven’t we seen this movie before? Looking over the record of the past two decades, it is fair to ask what are we to talk about now that we have not talked about before. Three successive administrations have posed essentially the same simple binary choice to Pyongyang: butter or guns? [MISCOM] [US NK policy]
• Teaching Initiative to End the Korean War
  In collaboration with the National Campaign to End the Korean War, the Alliance of Scholars Concerned About Korea (ASCK) has launched a three-year Teaching Initiative to End the Korean War. Scholars participating in the initiative have 1) indicated agreement with our statement (see below), and 2) committed to teaching at least one course on the Korean War, or a course that includes a significant focus on the Korean War, between Fall, 2010 and Spring, 2013.
• On the military position of DPRK
  Statement from Pyongyang
  Dear friends, Warm greetings from Pyongyang! As you know well, today, the DPRK is known to the international community as a military strong country which no imperialist power dares to invade. At the beginning of the previous century, Korea could not help but be deprived of its sovereign rights and compelled to suffer the fate of colonial slavery by the foreign aggressors as it had no military capacities to speak of. But now it has become an object of admiration among the people of the world. It can be said that this is a natural result brought about by Songun Politics. Living in a peaceful world free from war is a unanimous desire of mankind. But the reality of today shows well that the peace does not come of its own accord. [NK US policy] [Songun]
• North Korean official to visit US for preliminary talks
  After successful talks between North and South Korea last week, the US has invited a North Korean official to New York to gauge if broader six-party negotiations should resume. By Ariel Zirulnick, Staff writer / July 25, 2011 The North Korean vice foreign minister will visit the United States this week to discuss resuming multilateral talks, which were cut off in 2008 because of tensions between North and South Korea. [US NK negotiations]
• N.Korea on U.S. Terror List After All
  The U.S. State Department belatedly added a section on North Korea to its annual "Country Reports on Terrorism 2010," Radio Free Asia reported on Tuesday. When the report came out last Thursday, there was no mention of the North. The absence of North Korea from the earlier version prompted speculation that it reflects an improvement in relations between Washington and Pyongyang after a bilateral meeting in New York in July and Washington's recent decision to give relief aid to North Korean flood victims. But the State Department on Monday said the section was "omitted by accident," RFA said. The new section on North Korea reads in part, "In May, the United States re-certified North Korea as 'not cooperating fully' with U.S. counterterrorism efforts under Section 40A of the Arms Export and Control Act.” "There also continues to be evidence of North Korean involvement in weapons proliferation, in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874." [Terrorism List] [Double standards] [UNUS]
• Korean Builders Upbeat as Gov't Pledges $1 Million to Libya
  Korean builders have bright prospects of resuming construction projects in Libya once the civil war comes to an end there, the Korean government and industry insiders predicted. The government on Monday pledged US$1 million in cash aid to the Libyan National Transitional Council, the mainstay of the Libyan rebel forces fighting Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi. A Foreign Ministry official said, "We've already provided humanitarian aid worth $1 million for displaced people in Libya through international agencies such as the World Food Programme. We're planning to give an additional $1 million directly to the NTC for humanitarian reasons." [Aid weapon] [Subordinate] [Libya]
• Korea Takes Delivery of 3 More F-15K Fighter Jets
  Three F-15K fighter jets made by Boeing in the U.S. were delivered to an airbase in Daegu on Monday. The F-15K, or "Slam Eagle," is now the main fighter jet of the South Korean Air Force, and 41 units were handed over to the Korean Air Force in 2008. [Military balance]
• N.Korea Kept Out of Annual U.S. Terrorism Report
  For the first time, the United States does not mention North Korea in its annual Country Reports on Terrorism. The State Department report, released Thursday, not only excludes the North from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list for the third straight year but also makes no reference to North Korea's terror-related activities. The North was first named as a sponsor of terrorism after the bombing of a Korean Air flight in 1987 that killed 115 people. It was finally removed from the list in 2008, and the U.S. claims the country has not been involved in terror-related activities since. Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria are on this year's terrorism sponsor list. [Terrorism List] [US NK policy]
• S. Korean Puppet Army in Afghanistan Attacked by Rockets
  Pyongyang, August 21 (KCNA) -- A unit of the south Korean puppet army dispatched to Afghanistan to join the U.S. imperialists in their war of aggression was attacked again by rockets on August 14, according to south Korean MBC. Four rockets out of six fired by the Afghan armed forces suddenly slammed into the base of the south Korean army that evening. This was the 13th attack on the puppet army in Afghanistan this year. [Tribute]
• Why Not Opt for a “Win-Win” Strategy for the Korean Peninsula?
  By Haksoon Paik July 26, 2011 Haksoon Paik, senior fellow at The Sejong Institute, South Korea, argues that while current prospects for denuclearizing the Korean peninsula are slim, US and ROK policymakers still have several opportunities to facilitate the resumption of negotiations with the DPRK by "returning to the basics". The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground. The last chance to denuclearize Korea and create peace on the Korean peninsula is slipping away due to the policies of the states involved. Missing from the scene is U.S. leadership, which could make a critical difference in settling the conflict. President Obama has not dealt with the “Korean problem” aggressively and proactively and has not been mindful of the long-term negative effects of “strategic patience” on the Korean peninsula and in East Asia. The failure to address this situation has intensified the threat of war and allowed North Korea to retain nuclear arms. The Korean War has not yet ended as there is an armistice, not a peace treaty, in place, and one of the byproducts of this unresolved conflict is the North Korean nuclear problem. However, the U.S. government is not yet prepared to resolve the root cause of the Korean problem. [US NK policy] [False balance]
• U.S. Vice President Gives Seoul a Miss
  U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in China on Wednesday as part of a trip to Asia that does not include Korea. [Sidelined]
• Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry Slams Ulji Freedom Guardian
  Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK Wednesday issued the following statement denouncing the U.S. and the south Korean authorities for kicking off the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises: The United States and the south Korean authorities kicked off extremely provocative and aggressive Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises targeted against the DPRK despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK. This saber-rattling started by the U.S. in collusion with the south Korean authorities is maneuvers for a nuclear war against the DPRK which brought to light their invariable hostile aim to stifle it by force of arms. [US joint military]
• U.S. sending North Korea emergency aid
  By William Wan For the first time in almost a year, the United States is providing aid to North Korea, sending up to $900,000 in emergency assistance for flood relief. The plans to deliver aid, announced on Thursday, come at a time when North and South Korea have tried to improve relations, with the United States playing a key role. After a meeting of nuclear envoys from the North and South last month in Indonesia, U.S. officials met with North Korea representatives in New York. Pyongyang has been pushing to resume broader, multinational talks on its nuclear disarmament, but other countries, including the United States, have been wary of reengaging without some sign of commitment from North Korea, which has reneged on its promises before. At the same time, however, U.S. officials have expressed concern that without a dialogue, North Korea is likely to engage in more provocative actions.
• U.S., S.Korea Naval Drills Draw Threats from North
  The South Korean and United States navies began joint military exercises Tuesday in the West Sea. Those waters are a flashpoint of tension between North and South Korea and have been the site of several deadly incidents during the past decade. Analysts say the volatility stems in part from a maritime border that has been in dispute for almost 60 years. [Joint US military] [Inversion]
• 10-Day Ulchi Freedom Guardian Combined Defense Military Exercise Begins
  Ulchi Freedom Guardian, or UFG, the South Korea-United States combined forces command exercises began on Tuesday at various command posts in Korea and in the US. The significance of this year’s UFG annual military exercises, involving more than 530-thousand troops from the two countries, is the participation of the South Korean Army’s Chief of Staff as well as its Chief of Naval Operations as part of the chain of command. Since 1990 the service chiefs of the South Korean military did not have operational control, therefore they did not take part in the UFG as commanders. But under the government’s most recent military reform plan, dubbed the “3-0-7 Plan,” which is set to take effect in about four years, each service’s top generals, or an admiral, will hold the command, as well as the current administrative authorities. And the militaries from South Korea and the US are to examine the new operational command structure during this year’s UFG, ahead of the wartime operational control transfer scheduled for 2015. The exercises are directed by the Combined Forces Command, and are to run for the next ten days. But, responding to the start of the annual joint military drill between South Korean and US troops North Korea has reacted furiously once again. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday that inter-Korean relations “are getting tenser as the days go by” and the joint exercises “would further aggravate the already-strained situation on the peninsula.” (Arirang News) [Joint US military]
• [Editorial] U.S. Senate should confirm Sherman and Kim
  Confirmation has been indefinitely postponed for former U.S. North Korea Policy Coordinator Wendy Sherman, who was nominated early last month as U.S. State Department undersecretary for political affairs. Confirmation hearings also have yet to take place in the Senate due to objections from conservative members of the Republican Party. Republicans have also prevented Sung Kim, the first ethnic Korean to be nominated as U.S. ambassador to South Korea, from starting his service in Seoul, withholding confirmation despite the high marks he received during his confirmation hearing. The Republican Party’s decision to withhold confirmation certainly appears to be strategic pressure aimed at blocking the Obama administration’s recent attempts at a new approach to North Korea. There is a good chance this will have a significant negative impact on improvements in North Korea-U.S. relations and the six-party talks, as well as the prospects for improved inter-Korean relations. Sherman is a key figure who played a leading role in a shift in North Korea-U.S. policy and rapid improvements in Washington-Pyongyang relations while serving as aide to then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and North Korea policy coordinator during the later part of the Clinton administration. Right after Sherman was named for the undersecretary for political affairs post, the Republican Party began raising questions about her suitability, digging through her prior history working with the Clinton administration, business, and Oxfam America. It was reported, however, that her background contains nothing that would present a problem. What the Republican Party most takes issue with is said to be the very fact that she worked under Albright. This likely stems from an aversion to the potential for a dramatic shift in North Korea policy and improvements in Pyongyang-Washington relations if she takes office as scheduled overseeing affairs related to the State Department’s various regional bureaus in the post of undersecretary for political affairs. [US NK policy] [Governance]
• S.Korea-U.S. Joint Military Drill Begins
  South Korea kicked off its annual joint military exercise with the United States on Tuesday, dubbed the "Ulchi Freedom Guardian." Some 56,000 South Korean soldiers and around 30,000 American personnel are participating in the exercise through Aug. 26. Seoul says it is aimed at improving and enhancing capabilities to counter North Korea's provocations, as well as part of the preparations for the transfer of wartime operational control of South Korean forces, which is scheduled for 2015. The UN Command in Korea notified North Korea last month of the timing and objectives of the exercise. Arirang News / Aug. 16, 2011 11:06 KST [Joint US military]
• US and South Korea start annual military drills slammed by North Korea as a provocation
  By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, August 16, 10:55 AM SEOUL, South Korea — The United States and South Korea on Tuesday began joint war games that North Korea has warned would choke off budding diplomacy and drive the Korean peninsula to war. After months of hostility and threats, diplomats from the United States and the two Koreas have held talks meant to restart long-stalled negotiations to persuade the North to give up its nuclear ambitions. But the 11-day annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian drills make clear that Seoul and Washington still view Pyongyang as a military threat. ( Yonhap, Yang Yong-suck / Associated Press ) - South Korean special warfare command soldiers ride on inflatable boats during a sea infiltration drill in Taean, South Korea, Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2011. .The United States has 28,500 troops regularly stationed in South Korea as a deterrent against North Korean attacks. The U.S. military said this year’s drills would take place on the Korean peninsula, the U.S. mainland and in the Pacific, involving more than 80,000 troops from South Korea, the United States and seven countries that sent forces to help the allies in the 1950-53 Korean War. North Korea, which labels any joint exercises by the allies as preparation for war, has warned for weeks that the drills would obstruct continuing diplomatic efforts to ease tension through dialogue. “The DPRK is ready for both dialogue and war,” North Korea’s official media said Tuesday, using the acronym for the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The North’s official Korean Central News Agency carried a commentary that said the exercises show South Korea’s offer for dialogue is “nothing but a cynical ploy to mislead the public opinion.” [US joint military]
• Now 'East Sea' Has Sunk, Can 'Sea of Korea' Swim?
  The naming of the bodies of water surrounding the country looks set to become even more confusing amid strong indications that a campaign to use "East Sea" on international maps for the more common "Sea of Japan" has failed. Instead, Korea is now minded to promote the old name "Sea of Korea" from international maps or nautical charts predating the 20th century
• National and International Protests Challenge Naval Base Construction on Jeju Island, South Korea
  Gwisook Gwon Update, August 14, 2011 Tension heightened in Gangjeong village on August 14 when the protestors learned that 500-600 policemen, 16 police buses, 10 vehicles with suppression gear including 3 water cannons were dispatched from the mainland. The protesters responded by confirming their determination to protect their village (Headline Jeju, August 14, 2011) Meanwhile, the navy announced that it was proceeding with construction in a land area of 489,000 square meters with an investment of 9.8 trillion won. It stated that 14% of the work has already been completed at a cost of 1.4 trillion won (Kyunghyang.com, July 25, 2011). At this writing, peace activist, Choi Sung-hee remains in prison,1 and some 40 protestors have been charged with obstruction and fined 50 million won (The Hankyoreh, July 26, 2011). In addition to applying for an injunction against 77 protestors, the navy and Samsung C & T claimed 290 million won in compensation for damages by 14 protestors. [Bases] [China confrontation] [Human rights]
• Jeju: From peace island to war island
  Aug. 14, 2011 By John Eperjesi Originally published in the Asia Times Korean-American writer Paul Yoon's 2009 short story collectionOnce the Shore (Sarabande), which won the prize for fiction at the 13th Asian American Literary Awards, is set on a fictionalized version of Jeju Island and deals with the devastating impact of militarism, colonialism, and the cold war on a rugged island culture. Many believe that the base may also provide "lily pad" support for the United States Navy [Bases] [China confrontation]
• Seoul police deploy 500 officers to Jeju
  Tensions are rising after the police sent five squadrons of Seoul and Gyeonggi Province area police forces to Jeju on Sunday. Jeju is the site of a brewing controversy over the construction of a naval base, which has drawn strong resistance from local residents and civic organizations. [Bases] [China confrontation]
• Rodong Sinmun on Dangerous Ulji Freedom Guardian
  Pyongyang, August 12 (KCNA) -- The south Korean authorities are contemplating staging massive Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises from August 16 to 26 in collusion with the United States. Rodong Sinmun Friday says in a bylined article in this regard: The warmongers claim the aim of exercises is to strengthen the "combat posture of the south Korea-U.S. alliance" in a bid to "cope with and overcome all threats". But, with no rhetoric can they cover up their aggressive and dangerous nature. The said exercises will be an undisguised military threat to the DPRK and a wanton challenge to the peace on the Korean Peninsula as they are a full revelation of the invariable policy of the warmongers at home and abroad for escalating the confrontation with it. [Joint US military]
• Mystery Shrouds Delay of New U.S. Ambassador's Confirmation
  Sung Kim The official confirmation for the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea designate, Sung Kim, is unexpectedly being delayed although it seemed a mere formality. Apparently some senators are stalling because they worry about the direction of the Obama administration's North Korea policy, but who they are is not known. [US NK policy] [Partisan] [Governance]
• Reading Between North Korea's Lines
  By MARK McDONALD Published: July 21, 2011 SEOUL — Whenever North Korea sends up a diplomatic flare, as it did recently with a threat to start “a merciless sacred war” against South Korea, the message is delivered in a flamboyant vernacular that can sound comically retro or ominous and threatening. The statements come through the Korean Central News Agency, the state-controlled office that operates a rudimentary Web site with daily reports in Korean, English and Spanish. The agency is the principal (and nearly only) way in which North Korea communicates with the outside world. [Propaganda] [Media]
• Korea Dropped the Ball Over Int'l Naming of East Sea
  The U.S. and United Kingdom have submitted letters to the International Hydrographic Organization supporting the name "Sea of Japan" as the sole designation for the body of water between Korea and Japan. The IHO publishes "Limits of Oceans and Seas," which serves as the standard reference in map production. The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday the U.S. prefers "Sea of Japan" because it is commonly used around the world. [Sidelined]
• US ignores Koreans' protest in naming sea between Korea, Japan
  WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Yonhap) -- Despite a growing furor among Koreans, the U.S. government formally confirmed a policy Monday of calling the waters between Korea and Japan the Sea of Japan. Koreans are campaigning for the international community to recognize the waters as the East Sea or at least use both names. Korean people are encouraged by an increasing number of international organizations that use the two names together. The State Department, however, reaffirmed that it authorizes only the name supported by Japan. [Friction] [US-Japan alliance] [Sidelined]
• N.Korea, U.S. to Exchange List of Separated Families
  A U.S.-based group established to arrange reunions of Korean-Americans and their families in North Korea says it is contacting family members in the U.S. to be included in a list for an exchange.
• U.S.-N.Korea Track 2 informal talks hosted by NCAFP in NYC
  The talks followed official U.S.-N.Korea talks aimed at resuming six-party talks last week By Ronda Hauben, Freelance Journalist Government officials from the United States and North Korea held talks from July 28 to 29 in New York City. But these were not the only talks in which Americans and North Koreas were involved. The National Committee on American Foreign Policy (NCAFP) held a press conference to describe Aug. 1 talks between the United States and North Korea. Professor George Schwab, president of NCAFP opened the briefing. The NCAFP had invited the North Korean delegation to New York and had hosted it at a day-long meeting on Monday, August 1. In contrast to the formal government-to-government meetings that took place on Thursday and Friday of the previous week, the meeting hosted by the NCAFP was what is known as a Track 2 meeting. “Track 2 meetings encourage the parties to explore the issues and understand each other’s views in an informal setting,” said Schwab Though the North Korean participants are government officials, they participated in an unofficial capacity. Henry Kissinger, co-chairman of the NCAFP, was a participant in these talks, as he had been in all the previous NCAFP Track 2 meetings with the North Koreans, according to Schwab. Among those participating on the U.S. side of the talks, were former government officials, officers of the Korea Society, academics with a deep knowledge of Korean affairs, and Congressional staff. Along with Schwab, at the press conference were Professor Donald Zagoria, Senior Vice President of the NCAFP, Mark Minton and Evans Revere of the Korea Society, and Stephen Del Rosso of the Carnegie Corporation Track 2 program on North Korea. [US NK Negotiations]
• CONPLAN 5029 cedes control to U.S. and China in N.Korean emergency
  S.Korean officials have criticized the move, saying Seoul rashly acquiesced to the U.S. request A claim has been raised that the South Korean government has tacitly consented to allow the United States and China to take the lead in dealing with a sudden situation in North Korea like regime collapse or large-scale riots. The military affairs journal D&D Focus reports in its August issue released Saturday that the military leaderships of South Korea and the United States have almost completed a secretly written addendum to CONPLAN 5029 that calls for cooperation with China if the North Korean regime collapses, and that this could violate the sovereignty of the Republic of Korea by strengthening American and Chinese leadership over the issue of Korean reunification. [OPLAN 5029] [Takeover] [US dominance]
• U.S. and North Korea May Discuss Recovering Remains of Americans
  By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: August 9, 2011 SEOUL, South Korea — The United States has proposed to meet with North Korea to discuss for the first time in six years bringing home the remains of any American soldiers buried there. Remains of Americans believed to have fought in the Korean War were taken to Hawaii in 2007. North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated countries, has no diplomatic ties with the United States, with which it is still technically at war. “The U.S. recently sent a letter requesting a meeting on resuming remains recovery in North Korea,” Maj. Carie A. Parker, a spokeswoman for the Defense P.O.W./Missing Personnel Office of the Pentagon, said on Tuesday. “We have received no response from North Korean officials regarding the request.” [Overtures] [MIA]
• The Black Hole of North Korea
  By ISAAC STONE FISH Published: August 8, 2011 BEIJING — North Korea might be struggling with an unprecedented crystal meth epidemic. Reporting a story on the drug trade between North Korea and China, I spoke with dozens of sources: defectors, academics, policemen and even one North Korean crystal meth dealer, and I heard estimates that anywhere from zero to 50 percent of the population have tried the drug. I painted a picture of the drug’s abuse for my article: part escape from the desolation of North Korean life, part medicine in a country with practically no healthcare infrastructure. Yet after months of research I have to admit that I have no idea what is actually happening inside North Korea. [Media][Intelligence]
• AP withdraws KCNA photo, saying it was altered
  The Associated Press (AP) has asked its client agencies worldwide to withdraw a North Korean news agency's photo of flooding in the North's capital, saying it appears to have been altered through digital technology. The photo (below) taken by the North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) was distributed to AP members and customers on July 16 and purports to show floods that hit Pyongyang a day earlier. On Sunday, one day after the picture originally ran, the AP decided something about the picture didn't quite look right and issued a "kill notice" -- a message telling subscribers that the agency no longer stands by the photo.
• Mullen Warns S.Korea of Continued Threat from North
  America's highest ranking military officer says North Korea poses a "very real" threat to South Korea. Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Seoul Thursday the isolated regime has shown no signs of easing in its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Mullen made the remarks after attending the installation of General James Thurman as commander of the more than 28,000 U.S. forces in the country. Thurman, who succeeds General Walter Sharp, said the U.S.-South Korean alliance "stands ready to counter any provocation intended to destabilize the Korean peninsula." [Threat]
• James Thurman Inaugurated as New USFK Chief
  The new commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, James Thurman, at his inauguration ceremony Thursday vowed to strengthen the alliance between Seoul and Washington. Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Han Min-koo and the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, attended the ceremony at USFK headquarters in Yongsan, central Seoul. Thurman, who served as commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command and has extensive operational combat experience, will also be in charge of the UN Command and the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. [US dominance] [UNUS]
• Bolton urges Obama to abandon failed 'strategic patience' on NK
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama should drop his "strategic patience" policy on North Korea, which has only raised the possibility of more nuclear tests and weapons proliferation by the communist nation, a former senior U.S. official said Friday. John Bolton, ambassador to the United Nations in the Bush administration, also urged Obama to put more pressure on China and Russia to counter the North's proliferation activity. "Mr. Obama's deliberate silence and near-palpable lack of interest have helped drive North Korea into media obscurity while simultaneously symbolizing our failure to contain -- let alone eliminate -- the DPRK's threat," he said in a contribution to the Washington Times. [US NK policy] [John Bolton]
• S.Korea, U.S. Stage Joint Marine Drill on Baeknyeong Island
  South Korean and U.S. marines are staging a joint drill on Baeknyeong Island for the first time, a military officer said Wednesday. "As part of the U.S. Marine Corps' Korean Incremental Training Program, a joint mobility exercise has been conducted on the marines' drill field on Baeknyeong Island since July 2," the officer added. The drill ends Thursday. The officer said this is the first time the Korean and U.S. marines have staged a joint exercise on one of the northwesternmost islands. Some 230 troops from the Third U.S. Marine Division and about 150 troops from the Sixth Korea Marine Brigade took part. They reportedly practiced responding to a surprise local provocation against the islands by North Korean special forces. [Buildup] [Joint US military]

• Reading the Egyptian Revolution Through the Lens of US Policy in South Korea Circa 1980: Revelations in US Declassified Documents
  Tim Shorrock Since early 2011, major peoples’ revolutions have swept through North Africa and the Middle East. Most recently, the revolts engulfed Syria and Libya, leading to enormous violence in both countries and a NATO-led bombing campaign in the latter. By far the most important to the United States was the uprising in Egypt, where the military took advantage of a popular insurrection to stage a coup against Hosni Mubarak, a 30-year U.S. ally whose military forces and intelligence services had – and continue to have - extremely close ties to Washington. In August, Mubarak will face trial for corruption and murdering protesters during the uprising that engulfed Cairo’s Tahrir Square for 18 days in January. He could face the death penalty if convicted. Tahrir Square uprising As the mass and social media beamed the so-called “Arab Spring” around the world, analysts and pundits in the United States quickly began comparing the revolts to past uprisings, particularly those during the Cold War, which had shaken U.S. foreign policy. A favorite topic, particularly on Fox News, was Egypt’s purported similarity to the Iranian revolution of 1979, which toppled the pro-US Shah of Iran and eventually led to a Shiite Islamic state hostile to the United States. A few opportunistic neocon voices also compared the Obama administration’s public support for Mubarak’s opponents to Washington’s past actions to pressure Ferdinand Marcos and Suharto to end their dictatorial rule in the Philippines and Indonesia once popular uprisings had already sealed their fate. But not a single analyst or journalist of note mentioned what remains one of the most significant rebellions against a US-backed tyrant of the past half-century: the student and worker uprising in South Korea in 1979 and 1980, which was mercilessly crushed by the Korean military with the US support. Korea didn’t even make the list of near-revolutions: in mid-February, PBS published a list of “30 Years of Uprisings” that had “brought down governments and transformed societies” or were either “dissipated” or “crushed.” The list included Iran, the Philippines, the Baltics, China’s Tiananmen Square, the 1997 Kosovo Rebellion against Serbia and the 1998 Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela – but unaccountably skipped South Korea as well as Taiwan. [Kwangju] [US Global strategy] [Democracy] [Media]
• Air Force Fighter Jets to Practice Mid-Air Refueling
  The Air Force's fighter jets will practice midair refueling from U.S. flying service stations over the Korean Peninsula for the first time late this month. Aerial refueling increases the time fighter jets can stay in the air and raises their weapons payload. A government source on Sunday said Air Force fighters will practice the maneuver over the peninsula and the West Sea from July 25. The U.S. military will reportedly send KC-135 aerial refueling aircraft from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa for the drill. [Military balance] [US joint military] [Buildup]
• 'NK exodus unlikely if basic needs are met'
  Professor David Kang University of Southern California By Kang Hyun-kyung An expert has challenged the conventional belief on a possible sudden change in North Korea, claiming that a mass exodus is unlikely even if the North collapses. “South Koreans, Chinese and Americans are all worried about North Korean refugees,” David Kang, a professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California, said Friday, citing the findings of his ongoing research project “But the research from demographers who studied Ethiopia, Bosnia and the China-North Korea border consistently found that if you provide a minimum of human security to people, they won’t leave. Even in war-torn Bosnia, for example, bullets were going over people’s heads but they preferred their homes.” [refugee encouragement]
• AP Makes History with Bureau in Pyongyang
  In September 1977, Associated Press general manager Keith Fuller visited China for more than two weeks to get the permission to open a Beijing bureau of the news agency. Chinese officials told him it was not the right time. But in March 1979, two months after the U.S. and China normalized relations, AP became the first American media company to set up a Beijing bureau. Rival UPI also opened a bureau there. [Media]
• 1st N.Korean Defector Gets U.S. Citizenship
  A man in his 20s became the first North Korean defector to get U.S. citizenship last month, VOA reported Thursday. He was among six North Koreans who were belatedly given asylum in the U.S. in May 2006 under the North Korean Human Rights Act. [Refugee reception]
• KCNA Delegation Comes back Home from US
  Pyongyang, July 1 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the Korean Central News Agency led by Director General Kim Pyong Ho came back home by air Friday after visiting the United States at the invitation of AP. During the visit the KCNA and the AP signed an agreement on the AP's use of video from KCNA's archive. They also signed other agreements and cooperation documents including MOUs on setting up the AP Bureau in Pyongyang and holding a joint photo exhibition in New York. They will contribute to deepening the relations between the two news agencies, promoting mutual understanding of the peoples of the DPRK and the U.S. and improving the bilateral relations.
• Preventing a Nuclear North Korea
  Leon V. Sigal | June 23, 2011 If engagement with North Korea has been difficult over the past two decades, disengagement has been disastrous. In the absence of negotiations, Pyongyang has taken steps to improve its nuclear and missile capabilities—or worse. The conventional wisdom in Washington is that Barack Obama held out his hand to Kim Jong-il only to have it slapped away. The reality is more complicated. Instead of resuming talks with North Korea, the administration moved to improve ties with South Korea, where President Lee Myung-bak was determined to isolate and pressure Pyongyang in hopes of making it more pliable in negotiations, if not cause its collapse. [US NK policy] [US Korea]
• Beyond Good Intentions: The Challenges of Recruiting Deserving Young North Koreans
  By Geoffrey K. See Not too long ago, I met a diplomat assigned to North Korea. Through the DPRK’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), his country awards scholarships to North Koreans to spend a year studying agriculture abroad. In our discussions, the diplomat complained that the candidates nominated were so far below his expectations that his government was planning to cancel the scholarship program. Most of the candidates hardly spoke English, were over 40 years old, and were far more interested in preaching juche than doing well in their programs. Diplomats from other countries have recounted similar experiences. Their negative experiences seem strange to me when Beijing University professors have told me that their North Korean students are routinely top of their classes, in Chinese, at what is one of the most selective and competitive universities in China. So what is the root of this disconnect? [Training]
• The Survival of North Korea: Essays on Strategy, Economics, and International Relations
  By Suk Hi Kim June 30, 2011 Suk Hi Kim, Editor of North Korean Review, provides a summary of his new book “The Survival of North Korea: Essays on Strategy, Economics, and International Relations”. The book interweaves threads of argument and evidence to reflect the complicated nature of the international conflict focused on and in Korea and the urgency of ending the standoff on the Peninsula to avoid what could easily escalate into a catastrophic, nuclear war. This summary provides an overview of the engagement options the book suggests the U.S. and its allies should consider as part of a long-term strategy to complement short-term efforts to address North Korea’s nuclear weapons capabilities. [Collapse] [Agency]
• Dilemmas and policy options for US aid to North Korea
  June 22nd, 2011 Author: Ben Ascione, Waseda University Since 1995 the US has ‘provided North Korea with over US$1.2 billion in assistance’ — about 60 per cent for food aid and about 40 per cent for energy assistance to North Korea. [Aid weapon] [Inversion] [Agency]
• Disparate sanctions: US sanctions, North Korea and Burma
  June 23rd, 2011 Author: David I. Steinberg, Georgetown University The case of US sanctions against North Korea and Burma/Myanmar is an interesting anomaly among sanctions. Of all the states in the world with which the US has problems, North Korea places first, whether in terms of its potential threat to the US and its allies, South Korea and Japan; attempted nuclear proliferation, nuclear weaponry and missiles; its human rights abuses and its extensive gulags; its isolation; its aggressive behaviour toward South Korea; etc. We have sanctions against the import of certain materials and ‘luxury’ goods, but whether that includes red, black, or blue Johnny Walker scotch is a question. [Sanctions]
• USFK Chief Plays Down N.Korean Military Threat
  The outgoing commander of the U.S. Forces Korea has said the North Korean Army is only good at managing operations involving small units of personnel and not much else, VOA reported Friday. "But when you consider the size of their military and their location, they don' have to be that good," Gen. Walter Sharp added. "Their main goal is -- if they were to attack -- is just to attack south and kill as many [they] can." The North does pose a threat, "but if you look at it from the perspective of the alliance, I'm very confident if North Korea were to attack we would be able to -- as an alliance -- be able to stop them south of Seoul and then eventually be able to complete the destruction of the North Korean military." [Friction] [Buildup]
• Korean Base in Afghanistan Attacked for 11th Time
  The South Korean base in northern Afghanistan was attacked again last week, the eleventh hit against the camp this year. The Foreign Ministry on Sunday said two rocket shells landed on the ground near the Charika base at around 9:08 p.m. on Saturday local time but no casualties were reported. [Tribute] [AfPak]
• Former Albright aide Wendy Sherman tapped to be State Department’s new No. 3
  By Associated Press, Saturday, July 2, 7:18 AM WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is tapping a former top aide to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to take over the No. 3 post at the State Department. The White House says that Albright’s one-time counselor and North Korea expert, Wendy Sherman, is set to be nominated Thursday to be undersecretary of state for political affairs. .The choice is unusual as the position is usually held by a serving career diplomat. Sherman is the vice chair of Albright’s consulting firm, the Albright Stonebridge Group, and was an adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign. If confirmed by the Senate, Sherman will succeed veteran diplomat William Burns, who has been nominated to be deputy secretary of state. Burns would replace James Steinberg, who resigned to take a teaching position at Syracuse University.
• AP opens Pyongyang bureau
  For the first time, Western staff will be permenately stationed in N.Korea By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent The U.S. news agency the Associated Press has become the first Western media organization to open a general bureau in Pyongyang for news and photo coverage. Questions remain, however, over whether North Korea’s permission for the bureau will lead to a full open-door policy to the rest of the world. The AP stated on June 29 that it had signed a memorandum of understanding, the contents of which included the opening of a Pyongyang bureau, with the head of the North’s Korean Central New Agency (KCNA) in New York. The announcement followed a visit by a North Korean delegation that included KCNA President Kim Pyong-ho to AP headquarters on June 25, and talks with AP President and CEO Tom Curley. [Media]

• Kim Jong-un Unpredictable, Warns Next USFK Chief
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son and heir Jong-un's "youth and inexperience increase the likelihood of miscalculation," the next commander of the U.S. Forces Korea has warned. "These factors make him less predictable in the near term." Kim junior seems to be trying to "establish credibility with the military hardliners he needs to support [his] succession," Gen. James Thurman added
• Happy Penguin Escapes U.S. Sanctions
  The United States has decided to allow imports of the popular Korean animated series "Pororo the Little Penguin" despite the fact that it was partly produced by a North Korean company. According to Voice of America on Wednesday, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the cartoon is not on a list of items subject to import restrictions, saying cartoons such as "Pororo" are classified as information, which is exempt under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. [Sanctions] [Inter-Korean business]
• Will US allow import of inter-Korean cartoon?
  By Lee Tae-hoon Questions have been raised as to what extent Washington will ban imports of inter-Korean products, following news reports that the U.S. will ban Pororo, a popular animated cartoon series jointly produced by South and North Korea. [Sanctions] [Inter-Korean business]
• Bradley Fighting Vehicles arrive for exercises
  Bradley Fighting Vehicles: M2A2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles unloaded from a cargo ship on a wharf, Busan, Wednesday, await transportation for a joint military exercise between Korean and U.S. military units. The Bradley that the U.S. Forces in Korea uses are capable of destroying tanks at a maximum range of 3,750 meters. The 22.6-ton vehicle can fire up to 200 rounds of a 25 mm cannon per minute and travel at a speed of up to 66 kilometers per hour. / Korea Times photo by Lee Sung-deok [Joint US military] {military balance] [Photo]
• AP, NKorea’s news agency sign video contract and pact to set up AP news bureau in Pyongyang
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Associated Press, Thursday, June 30, 6:01 AM NEW YORK — The Associated Press and the North Korean state news agency have signed a series of agreements, including one for the opening of a comprehensive AP news bureau in Pyongyang, the organizations announced Wednesday. A memorandum of understanding agreed by the AP and the Korean Central News Agency would expand the AP’s presence in North Korea to a level unmatched by any other Western news organization. It would build upon the AP’s existing video news bureau, which opened in Pyongyang in 2006, by allowing AP text and photo journalists to work in North Korea as well. ( Frank Franklin II / Associated Press ) - Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s Kim Pyong Ho, President of Korean Central News Agency, right, exchanges an agreement during an official signing with Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley Tuesday, June 28, 2011 in New York. The Associated Press and the North Korean state news agency signed a series of agreements including one for the opening of a comprehensive AP news bureau in Pyongyang, the organizations announced Wednesday June 29, 2011. .With the signing, the agencies agreed to begin work immediately on detailed planning needed to set up and operate the new bureau as quickly as possible. It would be the first permanent text and photo bureau operated by a Western news organization in the North Korean capital.
• Gen. Thurman urges preparation for NK regime collapse
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The incoming top American military commander in Korea said Tuesday that the United States and South Korea should prepare for the possibility of a regime collapse in North Korea. In his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing, Gen. James Thurman, the nominee to lead 28,000 U.S. forces in South Korea, raised doubts over the North's heir apparent, Kim Jong-un, who is said to be under 30. The U.S.-South Korea Combined Forces Command "must continue readiness preparations to fight and win a war with North Korea and at the same time prepare to deal with the complexity of a regime collapse and the attendant consequences," he said. Thurman, who has spent most of his career in field operations, stressed North Korea represents "one of the greatest near-term threats to regional security and stability." "A significant challenge is to understand the regime of Kim Jong-il and attempt to determine its intent," he added. "The alliance must take the necessary actions to deter attack, break the cycle of North Korean provocation, and remain ready to defend if deterrence fails." [Takeover] [Collapse]
• U.S. Wants Seoul to Do More Against Human Trafficking
  The U.S. Trafficking in Persons Report 2011 published on Monday depicts South Korea as a "source, transit, and destination country for men and women subjected to forced prostitution and forced labor." But the report mostly repeats what the U.S. government has been saying in previous editions, and experts say some of the allegations are unfounded. [Human rights] [Manipulation] [Double standards]
• Pororo" is not subject to US import restriction
  The U.S. government has revealed that Korean animation “Pororo” is no longer a target of import restriction laws. Voice of America reported Wednesday that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the Department of Finance has sent an e-mail to the Korean firm that the animation is not included in a list of items subject to import restrictions. [Sanctions] [Inter-Korean business]
• U.S. Gave $1.3 Billion to N.Korea Since 1995
  U.S. aid to North Korea over the last 15 years totaled more than US$1.3 billion, according to official figures. The U.S. Congressional Research Service in a report Sunday said Washington provided $1.31 billion worth of food, energy and medical aid to North Korea since 1995, when the Geneva accords on the dismantlement of the North's nuclear weapons was signed. North Korea has continued to develop nuclear arms, but U.S. aid to North Korea continued every year except 2006, when the North conducted its first nuclear test. Even last year, when UN and U.S. sanctions coincided, Washington still gave $600,000 worth of medicine to North Korea to help flood victims. Humanitarian food aid accounted for the largest portion of $781.5 million or 2.26 million tons, though this was halted in March 2009. The U.S. also provided $146 million worth of heavy oil under agreements reached in six-party denuclearization talks, as well as $437 million related to the abortive construction of a light-water nuclear reactor under the now defunct Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. It gave another $10 million worth of medicine and other daily necessities. The CRS said that from 1995 to 2009, the international community as a whole gave 12 million tons of food aid to North Korea. China accounted for 26.9 percent, South Korea for 26.5 percent, the U.S. for 17.5 percent and Japan for 10.7 percent, and together they made up more than 80 percent. [Aid] [Agreed Framework] [Spin]
• N.Korea Tops U.S. Human Trafficking Blacklist
  The United States has once again ranked North Korea as having the poorest record in preventing human trafficking. In its 2011 Trafficking in Persons Report released on Monday, the U.S. State Department assessed efforts by 184 governments to fight sexual exploitation, forced labor and modern-day slavery. [Human rights] [Manipulation] [Inversion]
• Navy special forces to be dispatched to UAE: ministry
  About 10 troops of the South Korean Navy's special forces will be dispatched to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) following their successful rescue operation against Somali pirates, the defense ministry said Monday. An official at the ministry said the UAE in February asked for members of the Navy's elite Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) to help train UAE forces. "We will send about 10 UDT troops to the UAE in the middle of next month," the official said. [Tribute] [Military balance]
• U.S. 'Worried About S.Korea's Bolder Deterrence Strategy'
  The U.S. is worried about South Korea's more aggressive deterrence strategy against North Korea, which was formulated after the North's attacks on the Navy corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island last year, a government source said Sunday. The military has been instructed to strike back faster and more aggressively in the event of any further provocations by the North. "After the North's attack on the Cheonan last year, Gen. Walter Sharp, the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea, expressed concerns about our military's increase of firepower near the demilitarized zone," the government source said. "Since the start of this year, the U.S. has asked officially and unofficially for explanations of the military's aggressive deterrence strategy against the North." The source added some State Department officials "worry about escalation if the military's aggressive deterrence is implemented near the DMZ." The military has reportedly explained to the U.S. that Seoul's the strategy does not include preemptive strikes but is to be implemented in a limited way against local provocations by the North. Since he took office late last year, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin has been saying that the military has been too timid in responding to these provocations and stuck to the letter of rules of engagement. [Buildup] [Friction] [Capture]
• Obama names Sung Kim ambassador amid diplomatic reorganization
  Analysts say despite the reshuffle, no immediate changes in Korean Peninsula policy are expected By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent Sung Kim, 51, was officially named the next United States ambassador to South Korea on Friday (local time) by U.S. President Barack Obama. In a statement announcing the appointment, Obama said, “It gives me great confidence that such dedicated and capable individuals have agreed to join this administration to serve the American people.” He also said, “I look forward to working with them in the months and years to come.” Once Kim, a special envoy to the six-party talks on the North Korea nuclear issue, is confirmed by the U.S. Senate to assume the post, he will become the first Korean-American U.S. ambassador to South Korea in the 129 years since diplomatic relations between the United States and South Korea were first established in 1882. [Diaspora]
• Obama names Sung Kim as top envoy to Seoul
  06-25-2011 13:19 WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. President Barack Obama has formally nominated Sung Kim, a career diplomat with expertise in Korean affairs, as his new ambassador to Seoul, the White House announced Friday. If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, Kim, 51, will replace Kathleen Stephens and become the first person of Korean origin to serve as U.S. ambassador to Seoul. Kim immigrated to the U.S. in the 1970s and obtained U.S. citizenship in 1980. Kim, who is fluent in Korean, is known as the State Department's top Korea expert [Diaspora]
• Scars of Korean War found at Han River Bridge
  It’s like stepping into a time machine, when watching some part of a bridge on the Han River. An unexpected ‘blast’ in the form of bullet holes from the (1950-53) Korean War was discovered amongst the steel skeleton of the Han River Bridge, the earliest installation to cross the river that winds through the heart of Seoul. “Approximately 170 holes have been spotted on the bridge’s structure,” said Jung Jin-oh, a team leader for Seoul City’s Urban Safety Headquarters. “The discolored spots in the orange-colored steel were not noticed previously because the area had been off-limits to civilians,” he said. “If the cars and the citizens crossing the bridge represent modern Korea, then these bullet holes are a reminder of days past,” Jung said. From the size of the bullet holes, it appears that the bridge had been blasted by aircraft fire. “All the holes are shaped irregularly and the area around them had melted,” Jung said. The city is planning to use the 61-year-old legacy of the Korean War as a public education exhibit about the three-year-long battle. The Han River bridge, built in 1937 under Japanese colonial rule, is the oldest out of nearly 30 bridges on the river. [Korean War events]
• U.S.-DPRK Educational Exchanges: Status and Future Prospects
  By Karin J. Lee and Gi-Wook Shin Despite the lack of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), civil society has developed a number of ways for citizens of the two countries to interact. These include friendship organizations, non-governmental organization (NGO) activities, tourism, and educational and professional exchanges. A number of different American actors are involved in educational exchanges with the DPRK such as NGOs with in-country programming, civil society organizations working outside of the country, and academic institutions.[i] These individuals and institutions pursue their activities with a variety of objectives, including increasing the well-being of the North Korean people, providing a means of communication between North Korea and the United States outside of government channels, stabilizing relationships in the region, advancing knowledge in academic fields, and fostering professional development. [Education]
• Outgoing U.S. envoy Stephens lauds DJ’s vision
  » Kathleen Stephens, first, during a bike trip (Courtesy of Jinju City) Kathleen Stephens, the U.S. ambassador to Seoul, paid tribute to Korea’s late President Kim Dae-jung in a recent blog posting, saying she respected his vision for a peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula. Writing on her blog earlier this week, the top U.S. envoy recalled her recent bike trip along Korea’s west coast, which included a speech at a ceremony marking Korean Memorial Day on June 6. “We honor the memory of President Kim Dae-jung, and we remember President Kim’s vision of eventual reunification through reconciliation,” she wrote, quoting her speech. “We look forward to the day when the whole Peninsula is free and all Korean people experience a reconciliation befitting the sacrifice we honor.”
• Clinton says no hasty decision on food aid for N. Korea
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday a decision on food aid to North Korea is on hold due to concerns over transparency in distribution and outstanding issues from the suspension of Washington's previous food shipments. Speaking after talks with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on the eve of the 61st anniversary of the start of the 1950-53 Korean War, she also emphasized that her government will engage Pyongyang only under the condition that the two Koreas move to resolve their own concerns and disputes. [Aid weapon]
• 'Proliferation could lead to Pyongyang’s demise'
  By Kim Young-jin North Korea’s suspected proliferation of weapons materials would come back to haunt the Kim Jong-il regime in a fatal way if they were used against the United States, a former U.S. intelligence director said. “North Korea seems willing to sell weapons and maybe even nuclear materials to other countries,” Dennis Blair, who recently served as President Barack Obama’s director of national intelligence, told Voice of America. “If...one of those countries or groups were to use them against the United States, I’m sure the U.S. would retaliate very strongly and that would probably be the end of the North Korean regime.” “Yet the North seems determined to sell as many things as it can get away with, as long as they can keep it a secret. There’s a chance for miscalculation there.” Concerns are rising over the North’s apparent proliferation of weapons and related materials to such countries as Myanmar, Iran and Syria. [Arms sales] [Chutzpah] [Pretext]
• Consular access: A two-way street on a crucial right
  By Euna Lee, Saturday, June 25, 11:14 AM In 2009, while on assignment for Current TV, my colleague Laura Ling and I were arrested by North Korean soldiers for crossing the frozen Tumen River, which separates the Republic of China and North Korea. We were imprisoned and isolated from one another for 41 / 2 months. We were repeatedly interrogated, eventually put on trial and sentenced to 12 years’ hard labor. It was only through the extraordinary efforts of the State Department and former president Bill Clinton that we were pardoned and allowed to return home. It is difficult to describe the fear that comes with being arrested and detained in a foreign country. The sense of darkness in that first week of North Korean captivity was unbearable. My biggest fear was nobody knowing where I was or what had happened to me. The strained relations between the United States and North Korea only increased my despair. .In the middle of the second week, though, I was handed a lifeline: a meeting with the Swedish ambassador, who represented U.S. interests and pointed out to North Korea its responsibilities under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. His hard work yielded a meeting no longer than 10 minutes, but the significance is hard to express. I can only mention the sense of security I now had — that someone outside of North Korea was monitoring my case. The prompt consular access, I believe, protected me from any physical mistreatment by my captors. I was allowed to meet with the ambassador three more times. The meetings were my only communication with the U.S. government — the only way for me to ask for help and to deliver messages to my family. I know the importance of what the Vienna Convention provides. Legislation has been introduced in Congress to ensure judicial review of death penalty cases involving foreign nationals who were not given consular access under the Vienna Convention. This legislation is not only a matter of honoring our obligations to such inmates. There are still many American journalists, aid workers, missionaries, members of the military and tourists detained in foreign countries. For all of them, and for their fearful families at home, there is nothing more important than upholding the reciprocal right to consular protection. With this legislation, Congress can protect that right. The United States failed to abide by the Vienna Convention in the case of Humberto Leal Jr., a Mexican national who is scheduled to be executed in Texas on July?7. [Double standards]
• US willing to engage NKorea if the communist state improves relations with SKorea
  By Associated Press, Saturday, June 25, 8:08 AM WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday the U.S. remains willing to engage with North Korea but only if the communist state improves relations with South Korea. Clinton was speaking after talks in Washington with South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan. .The U.S. and South Korea have closely coordinated policy toward Pyongyang in the past two years, but have made little headway. They are demanding North Korea improve tense relations with the South before international negotiations resume on the North’s nuclear weapons program. Meanwhile, there are mounting concerns that the North’s atomic capabilities are growing. [US NK policy] [Capture]
• KCNA Delegation Leaves for U.S.
  Pyongyang, June 23 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the Korean Central News Agency led by its General Director Kim Pyong Ho left here Thursday to visit the United States at the invitation of the Associated Press.
• 'U.S. Considered Using Nuclear Weapons During Korean War'
  A recently translated memoir by a former U.S. Air Force commander during the Korean War reveals that Washington considered using nuclear bombs only three months into the conflict. The author, Lt. Gen. George Stratemeyer, says he kept a record of his activities from June 25, 1950 to May 20, 1951 while serving as the Far East Air Forces commander in the war. He writes that the use of nuclear weapons was being considered as early as September 1950 since the U.S. army leadership looked for a strategic means to fight off the Soviet Army if it intervened on the Korean Peninsula. [Korean War] [Nuclear weapons]
• [Editorial] U.S.’s tougher N.Korea sanctions
  » Pororo A new Executive Order for sanctions against North Korea went into effect in the United States a few days ago. These sanctions are even more stringent than before, blocking exports to the United States not only of completed products made in North Korea but also products containing North Korean parts and technology, among other things. As a result, goods made in the Kaesong Industrial Complex after the effective date of the South Korea-United States Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA), which is currently awaiting ratification, are completely prohibited for export to the United States, as are products made through North Korean-Chinese economic cooperation. It has been reported that even joint North Korea-South Korea film productions could be among the targets for regulation, including the “Pororo” animated children’s series, which has been exported to some 110 countries. [Sanctions] [SEZ] [China confrontation] [Kaesong] [Tribute]
• Animated Penguin Could Fall Victim to U.S. Sanctions
  The popular South Korean animated series "Pororo the Little Penguin" could fall victim to new U.S. sanctions against North Korea, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday. The U.S. government announced a new set of sanctions against the North that bans not only imports of finished goods produced there but also products made using its technology. Eighteen of the 104 episodes of the "Pororo" series, which is hugely popular among children in South Korea, were made by North Korea-based subcontractor Samcholli General Corp. between 2002 and 2005. [Sanctions] [Tribute] [ICT] [Animation]
• Fears as Rocket Attacks on Korea's Afghan Base Increase
  The Korean government is worried after the base of its contingent in Afghanistan was hit by insurgent rockets on Monday for the 10th time this year. Two rockets landed in the drill ground of the base in Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, at around 10 p.m. that day. As it turned out, the base has been attacked once every 17 days. No casualties have occurred so far. But officials of the Korean foreign and defense ministries are all nerves due to the possibility that casualties could occur anytime. [Tribute] [AfPak]
• Will US ban Pororo animation?
  Pororo the Little Penguin Will U.S. ban Pororo animation? By Lee Tae-hoon The United States operates sanctions that would ban South Korean products produced in partnership with North Korea, Radio Free Asia (RFA), a U.S.-based nonprofit radio and Internet news service, reported Wednesday. Citing Dick Nanto, a senior researcher at the U.S. Congressional Research Service, RFA claimed that the hit animated cartoon series, “Pororo the Little Penguin,” will be on the list of items that Washington will prohibit from being imported. Iconix Entertainment, a South Korean animation company, created 18 of the 182 animated episodes with Samcheonri, a graphic design firm in North Korea [Sanctions] [ICT]
• USFK commander says no to US nukes in Korea
  Gen. Walter Sharp, outgoing commander of the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK), reaffirmed Monday Washington’s opposition to the redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons here. “I don’t believe tactical nuclear weapons need to return to the Republic of Korea,” he told a forum in Seoul, referring to South Korea by its official name.
• Rockets land near Korean base in Afghanistan
  Two rockets fell near the base for South Korean aid workers and troops in Afghanistan Monday, the South Korean foreign ministry said, in the latest of a string of attacks after the U.S. shooting death of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last month. No casualties or property damage was reported after the rockets landed near the base in Charikar at 9:56 p.m. local time, a ministry spokesman said. "The shells appeared to have been fired from a nearby village," the spokesman said. "We will work with the Afghan police to find out more details once the day breaks there." [tribute] [AfPak]
• Senators Throw Cold Water on USFK Normalization Plan
  A plan authorizing U.S. troops to bring their families to Korea for three-year tours has been held in check by the U.S. Congress, giving rise to confusion among foreign servicemen in the country. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday had the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act include a recommendation that would indefinitely delay the expanded tour normalization plan. The proposal was submitted by committee chairman Carl Levin, Democratic Senator Jim Webb and Republican Senator John McCain.
• USFK commander says more NK attacks likely
  The top U.S. commander in South Korea said Monday North Korea is likely to launch more military attacks against the South, but Seoul and Washington are prepared to more adequately address the threat. "While the Kim (Jong-il) regime has proven a willingness to escalate in order to obtain what it wants, I am convinced that the ROK-U.S. alliance is prepared," Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of U.S. Forces Korea, told a forum in Seoul, referring to South Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Republic of Korea. [Buildup] [Inversion]
• Collapse of six-party talks Northeast Asia’s shaky stand on North Korean nuclear threat
  Asian Currents June 2011 The collapse of the six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program underscores the crosscutting interests and rivalries of the security dilemma in Northeast Asia, writes BEN HABIB. n 14 April 2009 the Kim Jong-il regime in North Korea announced its withdrawal from the six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program and resumption of operations at its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon. This was followed shortly afterward by its second nuclear test and further missile trials on 25 May. In 2010, North Korea pushed the barrel further, sinking the South Korean navy corvette Cheonan in the East China Sea and shelling South Korean-held Yeonpyeong Island, both in proximity to the disputed Northern Limit Line maritime boundary. In the wake of these provocations, the six-party talks appear to be all but finished as a vehicle for securing North Korea‘s denuclearisation.
• Top Strategist Says N.Korea Will Be Able to Nuke U.S. in 2012
  North Korea will by next year have developed a downsized nuclear warhead that can be attached to ballistic missiles and fired onto the U.S. mainland, a senior U.S. strategist predicted this week. The rogue state will continue experimenting with intercontinental ballistic missiles that put the U.S. within striking distance until it succeeds in 2012, said Larry Niksch, a senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. His prediction came during a seminar on North Korean affairs hosted by the Korea Economic Institute in Washington D.C. on Wednesday. It was reported by the Voice of America on Thursday. [Military balance]
• U.S. Urged Japan to Speed Up Contingency Plans for War in Korea
  WikiLeaks is again proving a thorn in the side of the U.S. military, with recently leaked documents indicating that Washington asked Tokyo to conduct a status report on the availability of its civilian airports and ports in 2008 in the event of a war breaking out on the Korean Peninsula. Japan’s Asahi Shimbun reported on Wednesday Washington called on Tokyo to wrap up the report on its 23 airports and harbors earlier than scheduled so that American forces could use them as strategic bases if aggression broke out in the region, according to a report that the U.S. Embassy in Japan submitted to the U.S. State Department on July 31, 2008. The embassy report was obtained by WikiLeaks. [Takeover] [US-Japan alliance]
• Will State Dept. nominee get through the Senate?
  By Jennifer Rubin Posted at 04:47 PM ET, 06/14/2011 Last month Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy reported: Former State Department counselor Wendy Sherman, a long time confidant of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has emerged as the “leading candidate” to replace Bill Burns as the third-highest ranking official in Foggy Bottom, according to two State Department officials. Sherman, currently the vice chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group, was counselor to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, where she also held the role of North Korean policy coordinator. She served as assistant secretary of State for legislative affairs from 1993 to 1996 under Secretary of State Warren Christopher. She is also chair of the board of directors of Oxfam America and serves on the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board. Sherman would fill a position usually occupied by a career foreign service person, which makes some sense since William Burns, a career fso, is going into the No. 2 slot that is usually reserved for political appointees. Rogin tells us “the Sherman appointment is not a 100 percent done deal, but very close.” But perhaps the White House has underestimated the degree of opposition she might generate, perhaps even a Senate “hold” that would block her nomination. The first hurdle she’ll have to clear is on North Korea. She was a key player, at then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s side in negotiating the North Korea deal that is generally regarded as a farce and a failure. Former State Department senior adviser Christian Whiton e-mails me : She was on the 7th floor [of the State Department] coaching as Counselor when Albright went to Pyongyang at end of Clinton presidency, which was actually meant as a lead-up for a visit by Clinton himself, (thankfully it didn’t happen). A full believer in the notion that we can buy North Korea’s arsenal from them, even though Kim [Jong Il] is in competition with the late Arafat for selling the same thing over and over without delivering. [MISCOM] [US NK policy]
• 'More pain, more gain' policy needed to break NK stalemate: expert
  Bruce Klingner, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation By Kim Young-jin The United States should pursue more aggressively its two-track policy toward Pyongyang of sanctions and diplomacy to break the stalemate over its nuclear program and decrease “a very high risk” of further provocations, an expert said Wednesday. “The two-track policy is a good one, but it has been weakly implemented,” Bruce Klingner, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Heritage Foundation, said on the sidelines of a nuclear forum in Seoul. “More needs to be done on both tracks. We need more pain and more gain.” [US NK policy] [MISCOM]
• 'Obama's executive order aims to ban imports of Gaeseong products'
  06-16-2011 07:50 WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- A recent executive order issued by U.S. President Barack Obama is partly aimed at banning the imports of products made at an inter-Korean industrial park in Gaeseong, a North Korean border town, ahead of the ratification of a free trade pact with South Korea, a Congress-affiliated researcher said Wednesday. Dick Nanto, a specialist in industry, trade and foreign affairs with the Congressional Research Service (CRS), noted that the April executive order prohibits the direct and indirect entry of North Korean goods. [Sanctions] [US NK policy] [Kaesong]
• U.S. 'Wants to Avoid Mistakes with N.Korea'
  A top U.S. diplomat says the United States is prepared to resume talks with North Korea, but it wants to avoid the mistakes made in previous negotiations with the communist nation. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told Foreign Policy magazine in an interview published Tuesday that no policy is the right policy forever. On North Korea, he said that the U.S. government's basic conviction has been a preparedness to engage in negotiations, but also a desire to avoid the mistakes of the past. [US NK negotiations]
• Libya, North Korea, and the International Nonproliferation Regime
  By Alexander Vorontsov It is clear that the effects of what is happening in Libya will not stay confined to North Africa. Instead, the “Libyan problem” will undoubtedly have a long-term impact on many aspects of international affairs. “38 North” has discussed the potential impact of Libya’s experience on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions in an insightful article by Ruediger Frank. I would like to continue looking at this issue, but from a broader angle. Beyond North Korea, what effect will Libya’s fate have on the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the nonproliferation regime as a whole? After all, Pyongyang and Tehran are not the only countries in the world that will take extract lessons from Libya’s experience, but many countries around the world will do so as well, including “nuclear threshold states.”[i] One of the fundamental questions that can be derived from Libya’s experience is whether or not small countries today have the right to implement policies based on their own national interests and priorities, but with which the Western world disagrees? The answer to this question would seem to be negative. [Renege] [US NK negotiations]
• ‘US intercepted NK ship suspected of carrying military contraband’
  The United States recently intercepted a North Korean ship suspected of carrying military-related contraband, causing the vessel to eventually sail back home, a U.S. official said Monday. The remarks by Gary Samore, special assistant to U.S. President Barack Obama, came after local media reported that the North Koreans turned back after apparently sensing their cargo would be inspected if they called into a foreign port. It was not clear where the ship was headed or what it was carrying, but the vessel returned home at the end of last month after drifting in international waters near Southeast Asia, the reports said. [Sanctions] [Legality]
• U.S. Said to Turn Back North Korea Missile Shipment
  By DAVID E. SANGER Published: June 12, 2011 SEOUL, South Korea — The United States Navy intercepted a North Korean ship it suspected of carrying missile technology to Myanmar two weeks ago and, after a standoff at sea and several days of diplomatic pressure from Washington and Asia nations, forced the vessel to return home, according to several senior American officials. The presidential adviser Gary Samore lobbied Asian nations to pressure Washington made no announcement about the operation, which paralleled a similar, far more public confrontation with North Korea two years ago. But in response to questions about what appears to be a growing trade in missiles and missile parts between North Korea and Myanmar — two of the world’s most isolated governments — American officials have described the episode as an example of how they can use a combination of naval power and diplomatic pressure to enforce United Nations sanctions imposed after the North’s last nuclear test, in 2009. [Sanctions] [Legality]
• North Korea and the US Nuclear Umbrella: The Credibility Gap
  Sep 3, 2010 By: Kevin Kallmyer The CSIS recently hosted the program “North Korea and the U.S. Nuclear Umbrella: Extended Deterrence in East Asia.” The program discussed the utility of U.S. extended deterrence in East Asia and its effectiveness to deter and contain an increasingly aggressive North Korea. A panel of experts on U.S. nuclear policy and East Asia gathered at the CSIS to lead the discussion, composed of Dr. Patrick Morgan (University of California, Irvine Peace & Conflict Program Tierney Chair), Robert Carlin (National Committee on North Korea Co-Chair and Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation Visiting Fellow), Dr. Victor Cha (CSIS Korea Chair and Georgetown University Asian Studies Director), and Jofi Joseph (U.S. Department of State Senior Advisor to Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security), and was moderated by Sharon Squassoni (CSIS Proliferation Prevention Program Director and Senior Fellow).
• USFK Objected to S.Korea Boosting Firepower Along Border
  Walter Sharp The U.S. military expressed misgivings when South Korea bolstered firepower along the border with North Korea following the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan in March last year, apparently for fear that this would escalate tensions. A government source on Tuesday said U.S. Forces Korea Commander Walter Sharp "conveyed Washington's concerns" to South Korean top brass around June last year after Seoul "drastically stepped up firepower near the demilitarized zone in May last year" when North Korea threatened to shoot at loudspeakers broadcasting anti-communist propaganda, which was resumed as part of sanctions against the North. Seoul apparently aimed to launch a massive retaliation against any additional provocations by North Korea. The source said K-9 self-propelled howitzers, multiple-launch rocket systems, and 105 mm and 155 mm howitzers were placed on emergency standby ready to return fire immediately. [Buildup] [Friction] [Sovereignty]
• Successful inter-Korean dialogue necessary before six party talks
  At the Hankyoreh-Incheon International Forum in South Korea, June 7, 2011 By Wallace Chip Gregson Former Assistant Secretary, Defense for Asian & Pacific Affairs Lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Pacific Thank you for the kind introduction. It’s an honor to be able to address this symposium celebrating the 11th anniversary of the June 15th South-North Joint Declaration. [Capture]
• Top NK export to US last decade: stamps
  By Kim Young-jin Amid tough sanctions, North Korea’s top export to the United States appears driven by one of America’s favorite pastimes ? stamp collecting. Radio Free Asia reported Tuesday that between 2000 and 2010, the communist state exported some $335,000 worth of stamps to the United States, citing data from the U.S. Congressional Research Service. The amount outpaced all other export items, it said. [Sanctions]
• Over 100 Kinds of Chemicals Dumped at Camp Carroll
  Area D in Camp Carroll in Chilgok, North Gyeongsang Province was used as a landfill for more than 100 kinds of hazardous and toxic materials between 1977 and 1982, it emerged Friday. A joint investigation by Korea and the U.S. is under way, triggered by revelations from veterans that they buried large quantities of the lethal defoliant Agent Orange at the camp in 1978. [cbw] [Defoliant] [Tribute]
• Korea hails nomination of Sung Kim as new US envoy
  The recent nomination of a South Korean-born American diplomat as the new U.S. ambassador to South Korea is a positive development for relations between Seoul and Washington, diplomatic sources said Sunday. The Barack Obama administration tapped Sung Kim, the State Department's top Korea expert, as its new top envoy to Seoul, according to sources in Washington on Saturday. If his nomination is confirmed by the Senate, the 51-year-old diplomat will become the first person of Korean descent to be appointed U.S. ambassador to South Korea. One diplomatic source said the move is a symbolic one that reflects "upgraded South Korea-U.S. relations." [Diaspora]
• Robert King confirms Seoul’s opposition to food aid
  U.S. moves indicate it will soon resume food aid to N.Korea despite Seoul’s opposition » North Korean leader Kim Jong-il poses for a commemorative photograph after conducting an inspection with officials at a fish farming research institute. (Korea Central News Agency Yonhap) By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent At a hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 2, United States Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues Robert King said with regard to food aid to North Korea, “South Korea does not want the United States to give food aid [to North Korea].” Many people have already observed that the Lee Myung-bak administration’s stance toward the US giving food aid to North Korea is negative, but this is the first time that a high-ranking U.S. figure has made such a concrete statement of the fact in a public setting. [Aid weapon] [SN NK policy] [Friction]
• Korea-US FTA had 296 translation mistakes
  By Kim Tae-gyu The Seoul administration has committed hundreds of errors in translating the free trade agreements (FTAs) with the United States and Peru into Korean. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT) said Friday that the FTA between Korea and the U.S. had a total of 296 blunders including 166 incorrect translations, 65 outright omissions and nine typos. It also located 145 miscues in the trade pact with Peru. [FTA]
• Campbell to visit Seoul for talks on N. Korea
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- Kurt Campbell, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, will visit South Korea next week as part of a regional trip, his department announced Friday, amid speculation that the allies are split over North Korea's request for food aid.
• After three decades of silence, US soldiers say they buried toxic Agent Orange in South Korea
  By Associated Press, Published: June 2 SEOUL, South Korea — Steve House can’t stop thinking about the day in 1978 when he says he helped bury toxic Agent Orange at a U.S. military base in South Korea, hauling rusting drums to a ditch from a warehouse that soldiers called “voodoo land.” After decades of silence and countless hours of suffering that he links to exposure to the dangerous herbicide, House is one of three former American soldiers whose accounts have sparked a joint U.S.-South Korean investigation. 1 .The allegations have set off a media firestorm in South Korea, fueling daily TV news shows, front-page newspaper stories and worries among people near the base about groundwater safety, cancer and drops in land prices. [cbw] [Defoliant] [Tribute]
• US human rights envoy invited to return to North Korea; American food assistance sought
  By Associated Press, Friday, June 3, 2:51 AM WASHINGTON — A U.S. diplomat just back from his first trip to North Korea described the communist nation as among the world’s worst violators of human rights yet reported Thursday that a government minister had asked him to return for more discussions. “They were willing to talk about human rights. They were willing to look at some of the issues that we are raising with them,” Robert R. King, the Obama administration’s special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, told a House committee. .He said the North Korean official, Kim Kye-gwan, “invited me back to have a discussion on human rights and I look forward to possibly having that opportunity,” King said. He said the first vice minister of foreign affairs had indicated during their 20-minute conversation that North Korea was ready to keep talking. [Aid weapon]
• Calls grow for SOFA revision
  Experts stress need for clearer pact for greater access to camps By Kim Tae-jong Amid allegations of the dumping of toxic chemicals by the U.S. military here, civic groups and experts are mounting calls for a revision to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to allow for more independent and effective investigation into environment-related incidents involving the U.S. military here.
• Rocket Hits Korean Base in Afghanistan
  Another rocket attack struck the Korean Provincial Reconstruction Team base in Charika in northern Afghanistan. Seoul's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that a single rocket fell near the outer wall of the camp at around 11:30 Monday night, but no one was hurt and the facilities were undamaged. [Tribute]
• U.S. Military 'Has Records of Agent Orange at Camp Carroll'
  A U.S. military document from the early 1990s confirms the dumping of the lethal defoliant Agent Orange in the grounds of Camp Carroll in Chilgok, South Gyeongsang Province, KBS News reported Monday. The broadcaster said the report notes that drums of Agent Orange were buried under a baseball field inside the U.S. military base. [cbw] [Defoliant]
• Questions, worries abound without answers
  A worker takes a soil sample at Camp Carroll in Chilgok, North Gyeongsang Province, under the supervision of the joint investigation team of Korea and the U.S. to check on allegations that the U.S. military stationed there buried large amounts of chemical substances including Agent Orange in 1978. / Yonhap By Kim Tae-jong Not a day passes without new testimony about the dumping of chemical defoliants here by the U.S. military. But few of the allegations have been confirmed, leaving lots of questions unanswered and amplifying public concern. Among the key questions are the origins of the toxic chemicals, where and how much of it was sprayed here, and how any leftover were disposed of. Environmental civic groups criticize the government and the U.S. Army for keeping key information about the use and disposal of defoliants here secret, though this is closely related to public health. [cbw] [Defoliant]
• King discuses food aid terms in N. Korea: State Dept.
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- U.S. government officials and experts focused on coordinating monitoring terms of possible food aid to North Korea during their trip to the communist nation last week, the U.S. administration said Tuesday. "While they were there, they discussed, specifically related to the food assessment, monitoring terms necessary to ensure that if indeed we did provide humanitarian aid to North Korea, that it would reach those for whom it's intended," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a press briefing. [Aid weapon]
• USFK sprayed defoliant from 1955 to 1995, new testimony suggests
  Other USFK veterans and S.Koreans attest to spraying defoliants, damaging the environment and health » A veteran who served near the DMZ touches a black-and-white photo with bent fingers. In 2007, he who scattered defoliant dust by hand were recognized by the government as victims. (Yonhap News) By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent An official U.S. government document confirms that the country’s military sprayed defoliant in South Korea for a far longer period than had previously been officially stated. According to a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) document obtained by the Hankyoreh on Sunday (local time), the period during which defoliant was sprayed in South Korea was recorded internally as being from 1962 to 1970. [cbw][Defoliant] [Tribute]
• Korean PRT base in Afghanistan shelled again
  By Lee Tae-hoon Korea’s provincial reconstruction team (PRT) base in Charikar, Afghanistan, came under another rocket attack late Monday, but no casualties were reported, foreign ministry officials said Tuesday. It was the ninth attack on the base this year and the fourth since Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan on May 1. [Tribute]

• U.S. National Intelligence director makes top-secret visit to S.Korea
  Clapper’s visit followed Kim Jong-il’s visit to China and S.Korea-China summit in Japan By Ahn Chang-hyun, Staff Writer U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, 70, came to South Korea for a top-secret visit this past weekend, it was reported Sunday. According to an intelligence source, Clapper came to South Korea during the weekend and met with a full list of senior foreign affairs and national security officials, including Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Kim Sung-hwan, Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin, and National Intelligence Service Director Won Sei-hoon. Clapper is also scheduled to pay a courtesy visit to President Lee Myung-bak at the Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office in South Korea or Blue House) on Monday, the source reported.
• 'US Army dumped chemicals in Imjin River in 1960s'
  By Lee Tae-hoon A new allegation has surfaced over the U.S. Army’s involvement in the disposal of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange, into Korean waterways during its massive defoliation campaign in the 1960s.
• North Korea frees American man detained for half year as U.S. envoy says no aid promised
  By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, May 28, 5:33 PM BEIJING — North Korea freed an American held for a half year for reportedly proselytizing, handing him Saturday to a U.S. envoy who said Washington had not promised to provide aid in exchange for the man’s release. The envoy, Robert King, accompanied Eddie Jun on a flight from the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, and told reporters after arriving in Beijing that Jun would return to the United States to be reunited with his family “within a day or two.” An American held by North Korea for a half year reportedly for proselytizing is returning to the United States, brought out by the U.S. envoy who negotiated his release. King told reporters after arriving in Beijing from North Korea on Saturday that the detained American, Eddie Jun, had been released and would be reunited with his family. .Jun did not appear with King before reporters in Beijing. Jun, dressed in a dark windbreaker, appeared in good spirits, smiling with King as they boarded the plane in Pyongyang, according to footage from Associated Press Television News. Jun, a Korean-American from California who traveled to North Korea several times and had business interests there, was arrested in November, with the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, saying he was accused of committing a serious crime. Pyongyang didn’t provide details about the alleged crime, but South Korean press reports say Jun was accused of spreading Christianity. [Overtures] [Aid weapon]
• Engaging North Korea: The Role of Economic Statecraft
  by Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland Policy Studies, No. 59 Publisher: Honolulu: East-West Center Publication Date: 2011 This monograph reviews the efficacy of economic statecraft vis-à-vis North Korea, with a particular focus on the use of sanctions and inducements on the part of the United States in seeking to achieve nonproliferation and wider foreign policy objectives. Two structural constraints operate: North Korea's particularly repressive state, with a narrowing governing coalition; and the country's changing economic relations. As an empirical matter, there is little evidence that sanctions had effect, or did so only in conjunction with inducements. However, inducements did not yield significant results either, in part because of severe credibility and sequencing problems in the negotiations [Sanctions]
• Why We Must Oppose the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement
  Christine Ahn and Seung Hye Suh* | May 25, 2011 In a matter of weeks, Congress could vote on the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. If passed, the Korea-U.S. FTA is predicted to have profound consequences on jobs, workers' rights, environmental protections, the U.S. trade deficit, banking and financial services, healthcare, agriculture, and both governments' ability to pass public health and anti-discrimination laws. [FTA]
• NK to release American detainee
  North Korea said Friday it will release a Korean-American missionary detained in the communist state since November. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said missionary Jun Young-su will be set free on humanitarian grounds after visiting U.S. rights envoy Robert King had expressed regret about the case.
• No Environmental Checks Carried Out at Former U.S. Facilities
  The government failed to conduct environmental damage assessments at 113 U.S. military bases that were returned to Korea between 1990 to 2004, a Defense Ministry official admitted Wednesday. "According to a special agreement on environmental protection under the Status of Forces Agreement in 2001, the U.S. military has no obligation to clean up environmental pollution at installations returned to Korea before 2005, and we had no authority to investigate them," the official said. "As a result, we could not conduct any environmental damage assessments on 113 U.S. bases that were returned until 2004, and to my knowledge no such assessment took place after their handover."
• Talk Show King Would Like to Interview Kim Jong-il
  The veteran U.S. talk show host Larry King, who has interviewed about 50,000 celebrities from around the world including seven U.S. presidents, says the Korean he would most like to interview is Kim Jong-il. King was talking with participants after a keynote speech at the Seoul Digital Forum 2011 in Seoul on Wednesday. Larry King /Courtesy of SBS He said it would be interesting to interview the reclusive dictator because "people who are perceived as evil by the world... They don't think they’re different and they don't look in the mirror and say I'm evil and I'm bad," he said. "They have their own point of view and I'm fascinated by how they've got their point of view... I want to ask why they rule North Korea the way they do, and what they are worried about. Do they think someone is going to attack them and what motivates them." [Media] [Bizarre]
• Firms Working with N.Korea, Iran Slapped with U.S. Sanctions
  The U.S. slapped new sanctions on 16 non-U.S. companies and individuals for aiding weapons and missile programs in North Korea, Iran and Syria. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg announced the sanctions on Tuesday, saying the 16 entities transferred or acquired equipment and technology that can be used for weapons of mass destruction or missile systems in these three countries. The sanctions, which will be in effect for two years, ban the U.S. government from doing business or assisting the 16 individuals and firms, which are from Belarus, China, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Venezuela. Meanwhile, in a separate action, Washington also imposed sanctions on seven foreign companies for doing business with Iran's energy industry in ways that might bolster the country's nuclear activities. [Sanctions]
• Rodong Sinmun on Danger of Law of Jungle Touted by Imperialists
  Pyongyang, May 25 (KCNA) -- Imperialists claim that the law of the jungle is inevitable in human society. A bylined article of Rodong Sinmun Wednesday terms this sheer sophism intended to justify their exploitation and plunder of the toiling masses and eternally maintain their class and political rule over them. The gravity and dangerous nature of their claim lie in that they not only seek to maintain the unequal relations based on the law of the jungle at home but turn international relations into such. All the countries in the world are equal in their rights as the equal members of the international community. If a specified country is allowed to act as if it had the right to dominate the world in violation of the international norms and principles it is impossible to establish a fair international order and the law of the jungle is bound to prevail in the international relations. The imperialists regard high-handed and arbitrary practices as [Independent states]
• U.S. Delegation Here
  Pyongyang, May 23 (KCNA) -- A delegation of the Asia Society of the United States led by Chairperson Vishakha Nirubhai Desai arrived here by air on Monday.
• Some US officials to stay in NK longer than scheduled
  Some of the U.S. officials set to travel to North Korea this week plan to stay in the communist country longer than originally scheduled because they seek to check out food shortages in more remote areas, sources here said Tuesday. The officials, led by Robert King, special American ambassador on North Korean human rights, are set to fly into Pyongyang via Beijing later Tuesday on a fact-finding mission that comes as North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is in China for lessons on economic development.
• U.S. Nuclear Envoy Tipped as Ambassador to Seoul
  Sung Kim Washington's special envoy to the six-party nuclear talks is likely to become the next ambassador to South Korea, a diplomatic source in Seoul said Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently recommended Sung Kim to the White House as the successor to Ambassador Kathleen Stephens "and most of the verification procedures have been completed." [Diaspora]
• U.S. Veterans Admit Burying Deadly Chemical in Korea
  The Environment Ministry is investigating claims by three American veterans that the U.S. Forces Korea buried the toxic defoliant Agent Orange at one of their bases in Korea. KPHO-TV in Phoenix, Arizona on Monday broadcast interviews with the three.
• 6-Party Trap
  By Nicholas Eberstadt May 19, 2011 Nicholas Eberstadt, Senior Adviser, National Bureau of Asian Research and Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, writes, “North Korean leadership is confident it can manipulate the “6 Party” process to generate further, perhaps unprecedented, benefits for its otherwise impoverished and discredited regime.” [MISCOM] [US NK policy] [Sequencing]
• USFK to Send Permanent Observers to Island Drills
  The South Korean and U.S. militaries want officers of the U.S. Forces Korea and the UN Command to observe South Korean artillery drills in the northwestern islands on a permanent basis. "The U.S. military is displaying a positive attitude toward the idea with a view to deterring the North" from launching local provocations like the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last year, a military source said Wednesday. "It's been agreed in principle that USFK and UNC officers will permanently observe artillery drills on the West Sea islands including Yeonpyeong and Baeknyeong." [Buildup] [Capture] [NLL]
• Kim Jong-il Makes List of Top 10 Abusers of Power
  Time magazine has included North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's kidnapping of women as concubines among the 10 most egregious abuses of power in the world. [Media]
• White House's New Korea Point Man Visits Seoul
  Sydney Seiler (left), the new Korea policy chief at the White House National Security Council, and Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, enter the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on Tuesday. Sydney Seiler, the new Korea policy chief at the White House National Security Council, visited the Korean Foreign Ministry in Seoul on Tuesday. He arrived alongside a U.S. delegation led by Stephen Bosworth, the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy. Seiler replaces Daniel Russell, who has been promoted to senior advisor for East Asian and Pacific affairs at the NSC. Seiler is considered the most authoritative expert on political, cultural and social issues in both Koreas in the Obama administration. In the 30 years he had worked as an analyst of intelligence on North Korea at the CIA, he spent 12 years in South Korea. He has an MA in Korean studies from Yonsei University and is so proficient in Korean language that he once gave a lecture in Korean at a Korean-American church in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. [US NK policy] [MISCOM] [Capture]
• U.S., S.Korea Discuss Resumption of Six-Party Talks
  South Korea's top nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac and Washington's point man on North Korea Stephen Bosworth met in Seoul on Tuesday to coordinate measures concerning the denuclearization of North Korea, including the resumption of the six-party talks. In response to Bosworth's call to coordinate with Seoul on issues pertaining to the Korean Peninsula, Wi suggested the two sides meet face-to-face at least once a month to correlate their respective stances.
• U.S. ready to resume food aid to N.Korea
  U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Robert King will reportedly visit Pyongyang as early as on May 24, leading a fact finding mission to assess the food situation in the North Korea. “We will be making a decision on that in the next few days and it will be announced from Washington,” Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, said after meeting South Korea’s chief envoy to the nuclear talks, Wi Sung-lac, on Tuesday. According to an official of the South Korean government, the two countries have reached a consensus on the need to further assess the state of the food shortage crisis in North Korea before deciding whether to resume food aid.
• Rocket Attacks on Korean Embassy in Iraq, Afghanistan Base
  The Korean Embassy to Iraq and the Korean Provincial Reconstruction Team base in Charikar, Afghanistan were hit by rockets over the weekend. Seoul has launched an investigation to find out whether insurgents are specifically targeting Korean facilities in retaliation for the U.S.' killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden on May 1. [Tribute]
• U.S. envoy expects ‘effective coordination’ with S. Korea
  Stephen Bosworth, U.S. special representative on North Korea policy, said Tuesday he expects “effective coordination” with South Korea during his one and a half day visit to South Korea after meeting Wi Sung Lac, South Korea’s chief envoy to the nuclear talks, at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. Bosworth will reportedly meet with National Security Advisor Chun Yung Woo and Unification Minister Hyun In-taek. His second visit since January comes after North Korea last week dismissed South Korean President Lee Myung Bak’s conditional proposal for a summit with Kim Jong-il.
• US envoy: Washington to decide soon on sending official to North Korea for talks on food aid
  By Associated Press, Updated: Tuesday, May 17, 4:56 PM SEOUL, South Korea — The United States will decide soon whether to send officials to North Korea for talks on Pyongyang’s urgent request for food aid, a senior U.S. envoy said Tuesday. The U.S. suspended food shipments to North Korea in 2009 after monitors were expelled. Activists and humanitarians, however, have recently urged Washington to resume shipments, saying the North’s need is even worse following summer floods and a harsh winter. .South Korean media have reported that the United States plans to send its envoy for North Korean human rights, Robert King, to Pyongyang next week to discuss how to make sure any aid gets to the hungry and not to the North’s military and elite. [Aid weapon]
• S.Korea, U.S. Plans for N.Korea Collapse Take Shape
  Seoul wants the provisional governments of five North Korean provinces and a related committee to join annual South Korea-U.S. joint exercises. They are to take part in a drill to practice stabilizing the North and transferring power to a civilian administration after a hypothetical North Korean invasion has been successfully defeated and the North overrun. Once power is transferred to a civilian administration, the Ministry of Public Administration and Security and the provisional governments will take charge of replacing North Korean government agencies. "The plans for operations to stabilize North Korea in the wake of a full-scale war or a sudden change in the North are taking more concrete shape," a government source said Sunday. "As part of the plans it wants the committee for the five northern Korean provinces and other agencies to join the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise." The next drill takes place this August. However, the ministry may first let only a handful of senior officials observe the drills, with their entire staff participating from next year. The provisional governments are largely nominal for the time being, and many members concurrently have other jobs and will need time to streamline their organizations. Such stabilization operations have so far been limited to tabletop exercises, but once the agencies take part in the joint drills the approach will become more practical. The two countries also staged drills preparing for collapse of the North Korean regime as part of the Key Resolve/Foal Eagle joint exercises in February. englishnews@chosun.com / May 16, 2011 09:27 KST [Takeover] [Joint US military]
• S. Korean base in Afghanistan comes under attack again
  By Kim Young-jin A South Korean base in Afghanistan came under rocket attack Saturday for the second time in as many weeks, Seoul’s foreign ministry said Sunday. No casualties were reported. The ministry said the rocket landed some 200 meters from the base that currently houses some 90 aid workers and 270 troops in Parwan Province. "We found fragments of what looks to be a 107-millimeter rocket," an official said. "The rocket was apparently fired from a nearby village." It was the seventh attack on the base this year and the second since U.S. Special Forces killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan early this month. [Tribute]
• Third time unlucky: Carter snubbed again on Elder’s North Korea trip
  May 12th, 2011 Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University What was billed as April’s main event in North Korea turned out to be a damp squib. Former US president Jimmy Carter paid his third visit to Pyongyang; this time on behalf of ‘The Elders’, a group of elder statesmen founded by Nelson Mandela. Though most media focused on Carter, he was accompanied by three (less elderly) European former heads of state or government: Ireland’s Mary Robinson, also a one-time UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Gro Harlem Bruntland of Norway, a former head of the World Health Organisation (WHO); and Finland’s Martti Ahtisaari, the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate for his peace-making efforts in the Balkans and elsewhere. This was a high-powered team. Much, perhaps too much, was expected of it.
• NK abducted 180,000 foreigners
  A satellite image of the outskirts of Pyongyang shows residential areas (gray) of foreign nationals abducted by North Korea. A U.S. non-government organization, the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK), said on Thursday that the North has abducted some 180,000 people from 12 nations since the Korean War (1950-1953). / Google-Yonhap By Kim Se-jeong North Korea has abducted approximately 180,000 foreign nationals from 14 countries over a period of 60 years, a higher number than previously known, said Radio Free Asia quoting a U.S.-based human rights organization. The report “Taken! North Korea’s Criminal Abduction of Citizens of Other Countries” by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea stated that North Korea’s history of abducting foreigners is not confined to Japan, and that the number kidnapped was larger. “Those abducted came from widely diverse backgrounds, numerous nationalities, both genders, and all age groups, and were taken from places as far away as London, Copenhagen, Zagreb, Beirut, Hong Kong and China, in addition to Japan,” the RFA quoted the report. In September 2002, North Korea officially admitted to the abduction of 13 Japanese citizens while then-Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was visiting Pyongyang. The report also stated the abduction program was dated to the outset of the regime. South Koreans were among them as well. The most w ell-known abduction was of a Korean movie couple, who were kidnapped in Hong Kong in 1978. They were forced to produce films and nurture the film industry in the North. The two fled North Korea in 1986. [Abductee] [Propaganda] [Media]
• Former Ambassador Donald Gregg discusses Park Chung-hee’s legacy
  Interview with Donald P. Gregg, Former Chairman of the Board of The Korea Society, Ambassador to South Korea and CIA Korea Chapter director By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent Hankyoreh: I’d like to ask you about the Coup. Before 1961, the U.S. didn’t capture any sign of a military coup? Donald Gregg: “I remember that Chang Myun was a Prime Minister, after Seung-Man Rhee. And the U.S. was very hopeful about him. I was in Japan at that time, and there was a lot of optimism about Chang Myun. He was going to be very different from Seung-Man Rhee. He was going to move South Korea toward democracy. we were very optimistic. Here was a new chapter in Korean history. But he was not particularly effective in dealing with the situation. And I think it was not too much of a surprise when the prime minister.. when Park Chung-hee overthrew him.” Did you now Park Chung-hee before? “No, I never met him. First time I met him was 1973. But I was in Japan and we were very interested in what’s happening in Korea and so on. So.. I think they were having mixed feelings about Park Chung-hee coming in. He‘d been trained by the Japanese; he was fluent in Japanese; there were some who worried that he might even be a leftist; there was confusion about what he was. [Park Chung-hee] [Client]
• World Food Programme Under Fire Over N.Korea Report
  A World Food Programme report in March based on a survey of the food situation in North Korea has come in for harsh criticism in the U.S. At a seminar hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington on Wednesday, Nicholas Eberstadt of the equally conservative American Enterprise Institute accused the WFP of playing fast and loose with a "food balance sheet" to assess the shortage. The food balance sheet shows the pattern of a country's food supply during a specific period. It assesses each primary commodity availability for human consumption which corresponds to the sources of supply and its use. The WFP said the North was short of 886,000 tons of food after compiling the balance sheet based on data provided by the North in February and March. Eberstadt, a demographer, compared assessment of food problems using the balance sheet to predicting the unemployment rate based on GNP, in other words he accused the WFP of asking the wrong question. He said a lot more information is needed, including the mortality rate, people's height and weight, and the nutritional state of children. There are many problems with the figures the North provided, he added, for example a report claiming that the rate of low birth-weight babies (those weighing less than 2.5 kg) is 6 percent. If that is accurate, the rate is lower than among Asian-American babies who were born the same year and the North should give food aid to the U.S., he said. He added the information collected and supplied by the North Korean government is completely untrustworthy. [Food] [MISCOM] [WFP] [Aid weapon]
• NATO air strikes 'hit North Korean embassy'
  Source: Global Times [01:25 May 13 2011] Libyan state television reported on Thursday that the North Korean embassy in Tripoli had been damaged in a NATO air strike. The news, which was flashed up in a caption on al-Jamahiriya TV, said the embassy suffered major damage in NATO strikes on military and civilian sites in the Libyan capital. A North Korean diplomat in the embassy confirmed the news to the Xinhua News Agency, saying that the embassy was bombed on Tuesday night with several cars and windows in a building broken. However, NATO denied the bombing had damaged the North Korean embassy. "This is simply not true. In fact, the embassy is located some 500 meters from the target we struck. While we are aware of media reports that there was damage to the North Korean embassy, we have no knowledge of possible collateral damage," the military alliance said on Thursday in a statement in its website.
• U.S. Congress to Get Annual Report on N.Korean Military
  The U.S. Congress has drawn up a bill compelling the Defense Department to submit an annual report on military and security developments involving North Korea. Currently the only country report on such issues is about China. This indicates that the U.S. takes the military threats from North Korea's long-range missile and uranium enrichment programs increasingly seriously. While reviewing a defense authorization bill for next year, the House of Representatives added a clause compelling the Defense Department to submit an annual report on military and security developments in North Korea to Senate and House committees on foreign relations and armed services, a diplomatic source told Radio Free Asia in Washington. The bill is expected to be passed by the House Committee on Armed Services as early as this week.
• U.S. Preacher Visits N.Korea
  U.S. preacher Franklin Graham landed in North Korea on Tuesday for talks with the communist regime's foreign minister. According to the North's Korean Central News Agency, Graham, the son of influential pastor Billy Graham, met with Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun. Graham's organization Samaritan's Purse which visited the North in February reported last month that North Koreans were living on borrowed time as poor winter harvests would lead to severe food shortages in June. Both Graham and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have been advocating the resumption of food aid to the country. South Korea and the U.S. have expressed skepticism over the reports, suspecting Pyongyang of exaggerating the claims to win aid.
• Korea, US could better explain 'strategic flexibility' to China
  Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy of the Asia Foundation By Sunny Lee BEIJING — The U.S. and South Korea can do a better job of explaining to China the concept of “strategic flexibility” so as to allay the Middle Kingdom’s suspicion that their military posture is aimed at it, said Scott Snyder, director of the Center for U.S.-Korea Policy of the Asia Foundation. “Washington and Seoul have not explained very well to Beijing why that approach has been taken,” said Snyder in an interview with The Korea Times. His words serve as a good reminder of the importance of communication in an increasingly intertwined world where one’s behavior can trigger unwarranted concerns from a bystander. [Strategic flexibility] [China confrontation]
• Cash-Strapped N.Korea 'Boosts Heroin Production'
  North Korea is drastically increasing heroin production to earn hard currency, Fox News reported on Tuesday. Analysis of satellite images of the Yodok political prison camp in South Hamgyong Province provided by Amnesty International on May 3 suggests that poppy fields on land around the camp grew by some 130,000 sq. m or about 15-fold since 2001. "These are poppy fields and have been since we first looked at the camp in 2001," one expert told the tabloid channel. The North's total exports of heroin are estimated at around US$1 billion annually, Fox News added. It quoted Chuck Downs of activist group Committee for Human Rights in North Korea as saying that the military, which runs the camps and poppy fields, does not "allow food production by prisoners because they would steal it. [It] would rather grow drugs." Since the 1990s, when the North Korean regime first turned to making heroin, "production has seesawed depending on the success of other exports, like missiles." "Even more startling than the state's involvement in heroin production is its use of its diplomatic corps to beat customs inspections in order to distribute the heroin," claimed Bruce Klingner, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. [Drugs] [Media] [NGO] [Propaganda]
• Images reveal scale of North Korean political prison camps
  3 May 2011 Amnesty International has published satellite imagery and new testimony that shed light on the horrific conditions in North Korea’s network of political prison camps, which hold an estimated 200,000 people. The images reveal the location, size and conditions inside (sic) the camps. Amnesty International spoke to a number of people, including former inmates from the political prison camp at Yodok as well as guards in other political prison camps, to obtain information about life in the camps.
  Satellite images show four of the six camps occupying huge areas of land and located in vast wilderness sites in South Pyongan, South Hamkyung and North Hamkyung provinces, and producing products ranging from soy bean paste and sweets to coal and cement. (sic) [NGO] [evidence] [Propaganda]
• Flourishing Poppy Fields Outside Prison Camps Are Heroin Cash Crop for North Korea
  By Ed Barnes Published May 10, 2011 Outside the Yodok Prison camp agricultural areas previously identified as poppy fields for the production of opium and heroin have been greatly expanded. (DigitalGlobe) Pinched by tightening economic sanctions and faced with what might become a contentious transition of power, North Korea is ramping up production of one of its key foreign currency generators -- heroin. When satellite photos were released last week by Amnesty International showing the rogue nation’s prison camp system, some analysts were surprised by the expansion of agricultural lands around the camps. “What was really surprising,” one satellite analyst, who studied the images but asked not to be identified, said, “was how farming acreage on the land around the Yodok camp had expanded. These are poppy fields and have been since we first looked at the camp in 2001.” That assessment was underscored by Chuck Downs, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, who said that the regime's military, which runs the camps and the nation’s illicit heroin production, “do not allow food production by prisoners because they would steal it. They would rather grow drugs.” Most analysts agree that the expansion of the drug-producing fields is a sign of a regime in deep economic trouble. Downs said that the increase is the result of the bite of trade sanctions that are beginning to devastate the nation's economy and the need to quickly replace the hard currency lost to sanctions. [Drugs] [Sanctions] [Evidence]
• Pak Ui Chun Meets American Reverend
  Pyongyang, May 10 (KCNA) -- Foreign Minister of the DPRK Pak Ui Chun met and had a talk with Reverend Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan's Purse, a non-governmental organization of the United States, and his party at the Mansudae Assembly Hall on Tuesday when the latter paid a courtesy call on him. The reverend and his party arrived here by air that day.
• Objections mount against Jeju naval base plans
  Opposition sharpened with the retraction of the cited strategic location as the basis for construction By Huh Ho-joon, Senior Staff Writer Residents of Gangjeong Village in Jeju Island’s Seogwipo, the planned site for a naval base, along with civic and social organizations, are resolutely objecting to and calling for a reexamination of the construction plan. This objection has been rising since the Ministry of National Defense effectively withdrew the “ocean navy strategy” it had cited as a reason for building the base. Ko Gweon-il, chairman of a committee on measures to opposite the base’s construction, urged the scrapping of the plan, calling the move “proof that the construction of the Jeju naval base is not a key effort for national security.” [China confrontation]
• US Scheme for War against DPRK Flayed--Rodong Sinmun
  Pyongyang, May 8 (KCNA) -- The U.S. warmongers are planning to stage joint military exercises with south Korean puppet forces on Paekryong Island in July under the pretence of "coping with the provocation of local war" by someone, according to a foreign news report. It is reported that the U.S. imperialists hasten the military confab with the south Korean puppet forces while making field survey of the island for the war exercises to be conducted with huge armed forces involved. This is a dangerous scheme for war aimed at surprise attack on the DPRK and a grave challenge to the world people desirous of denuclearization, peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula, Rodong Sinmun Sunday says in a signed commentary. It goes on: The U.S. imperialists' attempt for the war exercises on the island where a very tense situation prevails is a premeditated military provocation to the DPRK as it is designed to let the south Korean puppet forces ignite another warship sinking case and armed provocation in the West Sea. What is more dangerous is that the joint exercises on the island are to be staged in the territorial waters under the DPRK's sovereignty. Lurking behind such plan for staging the exercises on Paekryong Island, the most sensitive area, is a wicked intention to maintain the "northern limit line" at any cost and ignite a war against the DPRK anytime. Through the exercises, the U.S. imperialists seek to finally examine and round off the preparations for operation of surprise attack on the DPRK. To this end, they are going to bring huge armed forces of the U.S. Marine Corps to the area of Paekryong Island. Now the U.S. armed forces in the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. mainland, Alaska, Japan and south Korea are conducting brisk maneuvers aiming at the DPRK under such war scenarios as "New OPLAN 5026". If the enemies dare to invade the DPRK, they will be doomed to a miserable fate. [Buildup] [NLL] [OPLAN5026] [Joint US military]
• Assessing Jimmy Carter-Led Elders’ Efforts To Resolve North Korean Issue – Analysis
  Written by: IDSA May 7, 2011 By Rajaram Panda The last week of April 2011 saw a flurry of diplomatic activity in the Korean peninsula, whose primary objective was to bring North Korea back to the multilateral nuclear disarmament talks which have remain suspended since 2008. First, the chief nuclear negotiators of South Korea and China, Wi Sung-lac and Wu Dawei, got together in Seoul on April 26, to bridge differences over resumption of the six-party talks. Wu urged South Korea to work harder for resuming the inter-Korean dialogue and thus paving the way for the ultimate de-nuclearisation talks. Being the host country of the stalled six-party talks, the Wu-Wi meet was a Chinese initiative as a first step for the resumption of negotiations. Taking an optimistic view, South Korea’s foreign minister Kim Sung-hwan stated that he expected China to understand his country’s position and not take a biased view. [MISCOM] [Inversion]
• Dangerous Scenario of US-S. Korea for Preemptive Nuclear Attack Blasted
  Pyongyang, April 14 (KCNA) -- At the meeting of the south Korea-U.S. "extended deterrence policy committee" held in Hawaii late in March the U.S. and south Korean warmongers decided to stage "an exercise for operating the extended nuclear deterrent means" in the latter half of this year under the pretext of "threat of nuclear weapons from north Korea." Minju Joson Thursday observes in a by-lined commentary carried in this connection: The U.S. and south Korean warmongers' much ado about "threat of nuclear weapons from north Korea" reminds one of a thief crying "Stop the thief!" They are raising a hue and cry over such threat, while leaving their crimes on the shelf. This is nothing but rhetoric to mislead the public opinion at home and abroad and justify and push forward the preparations for a preemptive nuclear attack on the DPRK. [Buildup]
• 12 Nations to Discuss Victims of N.Korean Abduction
  The U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea will report to Congress on May 11 on its investigation of the North's abductions of foreigners over the past decades. The ambassadors of South Korea, China, France, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Romania, Singapore and Thailand will attend the session in Washington because citizens of all these countries fell victim to the crime. In a letter to the 12 countries, committee chairman Richard Allen said the North's abduction policy was traced back to a bizarre campaign led by regime founder Kim Il-sung in 1950. Some 180,000 foreigners were abducted by North Korean agents over the past 60 years, and many of them are still alive and detained against their will, he said. Lee Mi-il of activist group Korean War Abductees' Family Union said, "If the U.S. Congress adopts a resolution on abduction victims, the North's crimes will become an international issue, which will put heavy pressure on the Kim Jong-il regime." [Abductees] [Manipulation] [Bizarre]
• More Shells Pound Korean Base in Afghanistan
  The base of Korea's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Charikar in the Afghan province of Parwan was hit by four RPG-7 anti-tank rocket shells on Wednesday. The base has sustained six rocket attacks this year alone. [Tribute]
• Korean base in Afghanistan hit by artillery
  A base for South Korea's aid workers and troops in Afghanistan has been shelled, but no injuries were reported, a military official said Thursday. Four artillery shells dropped in and around the base compound in Charika, a city in the northern Afghan province of Parwan, around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday local time, or early Thursday in Korean time, according to the Korean military official. "There were no injuries or damages to facilities or properties," he said. "Two of the shells appear to have dropped inside the base, with one of them landing outside and the other detonating in midair. We have yet to confirm who was responsible for the attack." [Tribute]
• North Korean-Style “Democracy” and the Prospects for True Democratisation
  Daniel Pinkston, Strong and Prosperous 2011: Crisis Group's Blog on Korea | 27 Apr 2011 Introduction Recent events in the Middle East have led to speculation about contagion and possible effects on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea). The events in the Middle East began in Tunisia, but were unexpected and progressed mostly in unpredictable ways. The pattern and evolution of contagion showed that each case of rebellion or revolution is different in terms of elapsed time, amount of violence and political outcomes. [MISCOM]
• Korea to Diversify into Yuan as Forex Reserves Hit $300 Billion
  Korea's foreign currency reserves have exceeded US$300 billion for the first time, prompting officials to consider putting some of the money into Chinese yuan. "We're taking steps to incorporate yuan into our forex reserves by buying yuan-denominated sovereign bonds," a senior official said Tuesday. "But we first have to remove all regulatory obstacles that prohibit investment of foreign reserves in yuan." Currently the reserves are invested in U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds as well as gold. But financial officials want to invest in the yuan in anticipation of the Chinese currency becoming a global benchmark alongside the dollar, and to diversify investments and guarantee returns as the greenback continues its downward spiral. As of the end of last year, the dollar still accounted for 63.7 percent of Korea’s foreign currency reserves, which is higher than the global average of 61.4 percent. The BOK said forex reserves amounted to $307.2 billion at the end of last month [Reserve] [China rising]
• Korean Missions on Terror Alert After Bin Laden's Death
  The government on Monday put all 155 overseas missions on heightened terror alert after the U.S. said it killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden. "There is a chance that hardliners of the leaderless al-Qaeda network will carry out terrorist attacks in retaliation against the U.S. and its allies," a Foreign Ministry official said. "Our overseas missions, especially those in the Middle East and Africa, could be targets." The government stepped up defensive measures for the base in Charikar in the Afghan province of Parwan where Korea's Provincial Reconstruction Team and security troops are stationed. [Tribute]
• Hyundai Wia Stops Exports of Strategic Materials to Iran
  Hyundai Wia, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group producing auto parts and machine tools, has stopped exports to Iran of some products classified as "strategic materials" by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, it said Monday. Hyundai Wia president Lheem Heung-soo told reporters, "We found that some products including 'horizontal machining center,' a precision measuring tool, were delivered to Iran via an agent in Turkey. We stopped transactions with the Turkish agent under our group's policy" for fear of such products being used in Iran's missile program. "We've never exported machine tools directly to Iran," he claimed, adding the company will continue to export non-strategic materials such as auto parts to the country. Earlier, WikiLeaks disclosed a U.S. State Department diplomatic cable from 2009 saying AK Makina, a Turkish mechanical company, imported numerical control machine tools from Hyundai Wia, which it then exported to Iran. The U.S. pointed out to the Korean government that they could be used for Iran's missile development. [Sanctions] [Iran] [Tribute]
• US to Let Its Nuclear Submarine Call at S. Korean Port
  Pyongyang, May 1 (KCNA) -- Michigan, a nuclear submarine belonging to the U.S. 7th Fleet, will enter Pusan Port of south Korea, according to south Korean CBS on April 29. The warmongers are going to open to the public the inside structure of the sub equipped with more than 150 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The U.S. imperialists are introducing nuclear war means to south Korea one after another against the Korean nation's desire for peaceful reunification, instigating the puppet forces to escalate confrontation with the DPRK. [Military balance] [Buildup]
• Global Hawk purchase in trouble as U.S. price tag jumps twofold
  A decline in demand due to U.S. defense budget cuts has been cited for the price hike By Lee Soon-hyuk Following the South Korean government’s announcement of plans to hasten the introduction of the Global Hawk unmanned high-altitude surveillance aircraft in the wake of the Cheonan sinking and artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island, the United States has reportedly raised its quote for the aircraft more than twofold. While Seoul announced plans in March to move up the introduction of the Global Hawk in order to improve its North Korean intelligence gathering capabilities, the large increase in the price may generate controversy. [arms sales] [Buildup] [Military balance]
• [Editorial] Carter’s visit to N.Korea
  None of the expectations hung on the North Korea visit of a delegation led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter came to fruition. Seoul and Pyongyang showed a curious approach around the time of the visit, as though attempting to use it as an excuse for not engaging in dialogue rather than an opportunity for dialogue or approaching one another. The situation brought on frustration with no clear end in sight. That said, the opportunities did not disappear, nor did any new obstacles surface. Carter’s visit did produce results in some sense. It is now a question of how to take them and take advantage of them. Through Carter’s delegation, Pyongyang sent a message to Seoul that it was ready to engage in dialogue without any preconditions, including a possible summit meeting. However, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who gave the impression of intentionally avoiding a meeting with the delegation, made the bewildering move of summoning the group back to the meeting site on its way to South Korea to communicate his intentions indirectly. This behavior inevitably gives the dialogue proposal the impression of insincerity, calling into question its significance. [Overtures] [Inversion]
• Former US President Jimmy Carter says Kim Jong Il wants summit with SKorea’s president
  By Associated Press, Published: April 28 | Updated: Friday, April 29, 9:51 AM SEOUL, South Korea — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il wants direct talks with South Korea’s leader — an offer unlikely to be accepted until Pyongyang takes responsibility for violence that killed 50 South Koreans last year. A summit would be a major step toward smoothing over animosity fueled by the bloodshed, and a personal call from Kim is notable, though North Korea regularly pushes for the resumption of aid-for-nuclear-disarmament talks. It generally wants to return to the negotiating table without preconditions, however. [Overtures]
• Furthering North Korean Human Rights Through U.S.-ROK Cooperation
  Balbina Y. Hwang APRIl 2011 [Human rights] [Manipulation]
• North Korea: A Catalyst for Policy Coordination between the United States and Japan
  Scott A. Snyder Chapter Five Introduction North Korea has been exceptionally skilled at exploiting wedge issues between alliance partners. This strategy characterized North Korea’s decades-long maneuvering between its primary Cold War patrons, China and the Soviet Union. North Korea has also used this tactic to separate the United States from South Korea, as well as to evade international pressure from the nations in the Six-Party Talks. However, while North Korea has exploited differences among partners in opposing coalitions, its provocations have also strengthened international coordination in the face of heightened perceptions of tension on the Korean Peninsula. As a result, North Korea’s provocative acts have been an inadvertent catalyst for Northeast Asian regionalism for over two decades,1 and have served as a basis for strengthening alliance coordination between the United States and Japan. [US NK policy] [China confrontation] [Threat]
• Peace: The Only Solution to Hunger in North Korea
  Christine Ahn | April 29, 2011 [Published by Interpress Service] On April 28, former US President Jimmy Carter and three former European heads of state landed in Seoul after traveling to Pyongyang to help reopen dialogue between the two Koreas. Known as the Elders, they carried this message to the leaders of South Korea and the United States: "Chairman and General Secretary Kim Jong-il said he is willing and the people of North Korea are willing to negotiate with South Korea or with the United States or with the six powers on any subject any time and without any preconditions." Also on their agenda was North Korea's current food crisis. According to a recent UN report, up to 6 million people are facing food shortages. This has raised concerns among many in the international community that the situation may grow into a full-blown famine like that of the mid-1990s which claimed the lives of up to one million North Koreans. While many global leaders have returned from Pyongyang with similar messages regarding North Korea's desire for engagement, the difference this time is the Elders' understanding that North Korea's food crisis stems from the unending Korean War, including over half a century of sanctions against the North. [Sanctions][US NK policy][famine]
• The Logic and Illogic of Food Aid
  By Stephan Haggard and Marcus Noland As the food aid discussions heat up, we have been engaged in a number of conversations with friends—and critics—about the logic of granting food aid. Some of the arguments floating around need much closer scrutiny. 1. “The food situation in North Korea is not that bad.” Not surprisingly, these arguments tend to come from those opposed to extending assistance, particularly in South Korea. This claim could mean one of three things. The first is that the situation is not as bad as it was in the mid-1990s, which is undoubtedly true; no one has argued that it is. But given that perhaps 600,000 to a million people died in the great famine, that is not a reasonable metric. Is the argument that we should not intervene unless there is evidence of starvation on a massive scale? The logistic constraints of moving food are poorly understood. For U.S. donations, it takes as much as three months from the decision until food starts arriving in North Korea on a reasonable scale. Like genocide, food aid requires alacrity; waiting for evidence of starvation means you are already too late. And remember that people do not have to die for malnutrition to have long-lived effects on physical and mental development, particularly in children. This claim could mean something more plausible, however; that the North Koreans are systematically overestimating the food problem in order to get aid on the cheap [Sanctions] [Aid weapon] [Famine]
• Alliance Politics: Legislating Hunger
  By Morton Abramowitz The South Korean government should stop blocking American food aid to large numbers of their brethren in the North facing starvation. The Obama administration has worked hard to strengthen its relationship with our ally South Korea and claims today’s partnership is the best both nations have ever had. That is probably true, achieved by following Seoul’s lead on major issues, particularly the reversal after ten years of the “Sunshine Policy” toward North Korea, which saw massive South Korean aid to the North with little success in transforming that floundering state. It is one thing for Washington to join Seoul in isolating the Kim regime. It is another for the U.S. to follow Seoul’s lead in denying food aid to millions of North Koreans. This will lead to deaths or severe malnutrition, diseases, and stunted growth, a malady which is likely to affect even the lower ranks of the DPRK military. It is a price too high for any American government to pay. North Korean hunger is not unfamiliar to the world. North Korean food deficiencies have been frequent during the last two decades, the result of continuing failed agricultural policies and the government’s cruel unwillingness to use foreign exchange to support the basic needs of vast numbers of its poorest population. [Sanctions] [inversion] [Famine] [Mismanagement]
• State Department dismisses Carter charges on North Korean food aid
  By Jill Dougherty and Chelsea J. Carter, CNNApril 30, 2011 -- Updated 0107 GMT (0907 HKT) STORY HIGHLIGHTS Jimmy Carter accused the U.S. and South Korea of withholding food aide for North Korea The State Department dismisses the former president's comments North Korea is responsible for its plight, a State Department official says A U.N. agency announces emergency food aid to 3.5 million starving North Koreans Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. State Department on Friday refuted charges by former President Jimmy Carter that the United States and South Korea were withholding food aid from North Korea for political motives.
  The blame for North Korea's food shortage belongs to the North Korean government, a State Department official said. The State Department's response came the same day that the United Nations World Food Programme announced plans to begin emergency food distribution to 3.5 million North Koreans, primarily women and children, who are starving after a harsh winter decimated crops. [Inversion] [Sanctions]

• Carter Accuses S.Korea, U.S. of Withholding Food from N.Korea
  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter drinks water during a press conference in Seoul on Thursday. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Thursday urged the West not to interfere over human rights in North Korea and immediately resume food aid to the renegade nation. Carter was in Seoul as part of a group of ex- leaders calling themselves the "Elders" that included former Irish President Mary Robinson and former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari who were winding up a three-day visit to North Korea. The group failed to meet either leader Kim Jong-il or his son and heir Jong-un. "Although we did not meet with the leader of North Korea, when we had already departed from our guest home, we were asked to come back to receive a personal message." The delegation had a written message read to them "to be conveyed" to South Korean leaders, he added. Carter said North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho came to the guest house, where he took a sheet of paper from an envelope and read to them what he said was a written message from Kim. "He specifically told us that he is prepared for a summit meeting directly with President Lee Myung-bak at any time to discuss any subject directly between the two heads of state," Carter said. Kim Jong-il "sent word that he and the people of North Korea are willing to negotiate with South Korea or the United States or (the other powers involved in six-party nuclear disarmament talks) on any subject, at any time and without any preconditions," he added. A South Korean government official said, "We don't oppose an inter-Korean summit, but we can't hold talks just because the North wants them." Asked if he mentioned human rights to North Korean officials, Carter said he believes there are some human rights concerns about the North Korean regime’s policies but that they cannot be changed by outsiders. He said that one of the most important human rights is "to have food to eat and for South Korea and Americans, and others to deliberately withhold food aid for North Korean people... is indeed a human rights violation." Critics in South Korea were stunned that Carter appeared to ignore the Kim Jong-il regime's responsibility for egregious violation of human rights including the operation of concentration camps, public executions and torture but accused Seoul of violating North Korean rights. Carter said the North would "not apologize or admit culpability" for the sinking of the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March last year and its attack on Yeonpyeong Island in November, and hinted the South would simply have to accept this. "But they express deep regret... for the loss of life of those on the Cheonan and also the civilians who were killed on Yeonpyeong Island," Carter said. In Seoul, Carter met with Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan, Unification Minister Hyun In-taek, and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp. [Peace efforts] [Jimmy Carter] [Sanctions]
• Jimmy Carter's Role on the Korean Peninsula Has Ended
  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Seoul on Thursday accompanied by the former leaders of Ireland, Finland and Norway after a trip to Pyongyang. The group, who call themselves the "Elders," signally failed to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. It was Carter's third trip to the North and the second during which Kim could not be bothered to meet him. Nonetheless, after telling reporters prior to the trip that South Korea is responsible for the North’s food shortage and saying he wanted to meet the reclusive leader, he came back with the message that Kim is "always ready" to hold a summit with President Lee Myung-bak, as if that was a great revelation. During his stay in Pyongyang, Carter blogged from Pyongyang, "We are hearing consistently throughout our busy schedule here in Pyongyang that the North wants to improve relations with America and is prepared to talk without preconditions to both the U.S. and South Korea on any subject." He wrote that it is a tragedy that the two Koreas have not signed a peace treaty even though more than 60 years has passed since the Korean War. The objective of his visit to Pyongyang was to discuss with Kim Jong-il the scrapping of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. This did not happen, but for some reason he is still parroting the North Korean line that it will not give up its nuclear program without a peace treaty. Did these eminent former leaders really have to travel all the way to Pyongyang to hear a message they could have found on Google? The Barack Obama administration has distanced itself from Carter's visit saying it is a "private matter." The South Korean foreign minister referred to Carter as a "third party" and said he would not place much weight on any message the former U.S. president brings back. When ex-U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang, Kim at least met him and released an American hostage as a favor, but he has ignored Carter twice now, presumably because he decided the 86-year old is of no use any more. Suzanne Scholte, of the conservative Defense Forum Foundation, said in a statement on Thursday on Thursday, "We are ashamed to see a former American president who claims to care about human rights, now attempting to prolong the Korean War by serving as a mouthpiece for the Kim Jong-il regime." It may be time for Carter to accept that his role in inter-Korean affairs has come to an end. [Peace efforts] [Jimmy Carter] [SK NK policy]
• NK leader ready for S-N summit: Carter
  By Kim Young-jin North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is willing to hold a summit with President Lee Myung-bak to discuss denuclearization and other issues, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Thursday after wrapping up a three-day trip to Pyongyang. Carter, who flew directly to Seoul along with three other ex-heads of state, said that while his delegation did not meet with Kim, it received a personal message delivered through a senior official. “They are very willing to discuss nuclear issues and any other military issues directly with South Korea including at the highest possible level between Kim Jong-il and the President of South Korea,” Carter said during a press conference. [Overtures]
• Carter Meets N.Korea's No. 2 Leader in Pyongyang
  A delegation of world leaders including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with North Korea's second in command Kim Yong-nam on their second day in Pyongyang on Wednesday. The North's official Korean Central News Agency said that Carter and his associates sat down with Kim, the president of the Supreme People’s Assembly, at his office, but gave no further details. [Peace effort] [Jimmy Carter]
• Carter arrives in Seoul from Pyongyang
  Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and three former European leaders arrived in Seoul Thursday after wrapping up a trip to North Korea, officials said. The "Elders" delegation landed at Seoul Airport, a military facility south of Seoul, on a chartered plane at 2:10 p.m., said the officials, noting the former state leaders were to brief South Korean officials about their trip that included meetings with North Korea's No. 2 leader Kim Yong-nam and Foreign Minister Pak Ui-chun. There was no word yet whether they held talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his heir-apparent son Kim Jong-un.
• Jimmy Carter leaves NKorea, says Pyongyang demands security guarantees to give up nukes
  By Associated Press, Updated: Thursday, April 28, 4:59 PM SEOUL, South Korea — Jimmy Carter left North Korea on Thursday with a message that Pyongyang had demanded U.S. security guarantees in return for abandoning its nuclear weapons programs. But a key part of the former president’s three-day visit — a hoped-for meeting with leader Kim Jong Il and his son and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un — was still in doubt. Neither Carter nor North Korea’s state media provided immediate word on whether he’d met the Kims. .Carter, who traveled with three former European leaders, said in a blog post that North Korea insisted during the visit that it wants to improve relations with the United States and is willing to talk with Washington and Seoul without preconditions. “The sticking point — and it’s a big one — is that they won’t give up their nuclear program without some kind of security guarantee from the U.S.,” he wrote in a message posted Wednesday night.
• Does Jimmy Carter still have his peacemaking magic when it comes to North Korea?
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprints By Associated Press, Published: April 27SEOUL, South Korea — Jimmy Carter has a remarkable track record on North Korea, credited with a 1994 nuclear deal that may have averted a war. But does the former American president, currently on a three-day mission to Pyongyang, have any peacemaking magic left? Officials in Seoul and Washington have so far put little stock in his ability to engineer a breakthrough in long-stalled, acrimonious nuclear negotiations.
• North Korea Demands U.S. Security Pledge to Give up Nuclear Program: Carter
  Wednesday, April 27, 2011 Former U.S. President Carter on Wednesday said North Korea would not consider shuttering its nuclear program without a security pledge from the United States, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, April 26). (Apr. 27) - Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, shown arriving for a press conference in Beijing on Monday, on Wednesday said North Korea would require U.S. security assurances to consider abandoning its nuclear activities (Frederic Brown/Getty Images). Carter and three former heads of state from Europe are in Pyongyang for a high-profile visit aimed at lowering inter-Korean tensions, evaluating the North Korean food crisis and searching for a breakthrough in the long-stalled six-party nuclear talks. On Wednesday, Carter and the other global "Elders" met with the head of North Korea's rubber-stamp parliament. Though Kim Jong Il has exercised near absolute rule over North Korea for years, Kim Yong Nam is the ceremonial head of state. "We are hearing consistently ... that the North wants to improve relations with America and is prepared to talk without preconditions to both the U.S. and South Korea on any subject," Carter wrote in a web post to The Elders' website. "The sticking point -- and it's a big one -- is that they won't give up their nuclear program without some kind of security guarantee from the U.S.," the former president wrote.
• Seoul Downplays Carter's N.Korea Visit
  Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan on Tuesday downplayed the significance of the recent visit to North Korea by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, saying the North should seek direct talks with South Korea instead. [Sidelined]
• Delegation of Elders Here
  Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- An Elders' delegation headed by Jimmy Carter, ex-president of the United States, arrived here today by chartered plane. [Peace effort] [Jimmy Carter]
• Pak Ui Chun Meets Elders' Delegation
  Pyongyang, April 26 (KCNA) -- DPRK Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun met and had a talk with the elders' delegation headed by Jimmy Carter, ex-president of the U.S., at the Paekhwawon State Guest House on Tuesday when the latter paid a courtesy call on him. The foreign minister gave a reception for the delegation on Tuesday. [Peace effort] [Jimmy Carter]
• Jimmy Carter, other former leaders meet NKorean FM but no word on talks with Kim Jong Il
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Associated Press, Wednesday, April 27, 3:35 PM PYONGYANG, North Korea — Ex-President Jimmy Carter and three former European leaders have been feted by North Korea’s foreign minister, but it was unclear Wednesday whether they would meet top leader Kim Jong Il to discuss ways to restart long-stalled nuclear talks. Carter, former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland and former Irish President Mary Robinson had talks with Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun at a state guesthouse in Pyongyang ahead of a reception Tuesday night, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said in a two-sentence report. [Peace effort] [Jimmy Carter]
• North Korea, America, and the Lure of Food Aid
  Virtue is its own reward, intransigence is infinitely satisfying, and masturbation is an end in itself. That’s my feeling about the “three stage” negotiation process for North Korea, that requires a meeting of the minds between Lee Myung-bak and Kim Jung-Il. Going nowhere, is my prognosis. And that’s why my piece for Asia Times is titled, America’s Plan B for North Korea...Track II My basic thesis: Lee Myung-bak’s hardline policy has led Western North Korea policy into a cul-de-sac. North Korea, backed by China, is simply running out the clock until the ROK presidential election and a hopefully more favorable constellation of forces. The United States discretely pursues Track II (non-government engagement) with North Korea to wean Pyongyang from Beijing. What are they going to talk about? Nukes are off the table as a serious topic of discussion. Even pre-Libya, US policy was based on the idea that North Korea would never give up its nukes. Post-Libya, even the most gullible dictatorship realizes that a nuclear weapons program is an indispensable insurance policy. Food aid is apparently the preferred currency of discourse. [US NK policy] [Aid weapon]
• North Korean Nuclear Nationalism and the Threat of Nuclear War in Korea
  By Peter Hayes and Scott Bruce April 21, 2011 Peter Hayes, Professor, RMIT University and Nautilus Institute Executive Director, and Scott Bruce, Nautilus Institute Director, write, “We suggest that as of 2009, the DPRK made the ROK the main target of its nuclear strategy rather than the United States as was the case from 1991-2009. The sinking of the ROK corvette Cheonan in 2010 provides a mini-case study of the collision of ROK and DPRK historical trajectories, and portends continuing clashes involving nuclear threat that need to be managed to avoid escalation to nuclear next-use. The artillery attack on Yeonpyeong island in November 2010 may be the second in what proves to be a series of such risky provocations. We conclude the paper by outlining the advantages of a ROK-Japan only nuclear weapon free zone relative to alternative ROK responses to the threat posed by the DPRK nuclear breakout.” [NK SK policy] [NK US policy] [Cheonan]
• Analytical Failure and the North Korean Quagmire
  By John Delury and Chung-in Moon Last year’s sinking of the Cheonan, the revelation of a new uranium enrichment program at Yongbyon, and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island brought North Korea back to the center of worldwide attention.[1] The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has once again become scarlet-lettered as a rogue regime with evil and aggression encoded in its DNA. Few—outside Beijing—have the stomach to sit down and talk with the North Koreans. Although the Obama Administration shows signs of interest in dialogue, Seoul appears bent on more sanctions, military exercises, and contingency planning, premised on the belief that a North Korean collapse may be nearing. [Buildup] [Takeover] [NK US policy] [Intelligence] [Paradigm]
• Doves who'd shoot the messenger
  By Aidan Foster-Carter How do we know anything about North Korea? Where can you find reliable information? If sources conflict, how does one judge between them? Bottom line: Who ya gonna trust? [Intelligence] [MISCOM] [Paradigm]
• How to Talk to a North Korean
  By Joel Wit “How to Talk to a North Korean,” was originally posted on foreignpolicy.com on April 20, 2011. The original article can be found here. Last week, China’s nuclear envoy Wu Dawei proposed after a meeting with his North Korean counterpart that the two Koreas hold dialogue as a first step to reopening the six-party talks, the nuclear negotiations that have been stalled for two years. The Chinese proposal may or may not succeed. But until official talks resume, figuring out what Pyongyang is thinking must be done through deciphering messages in its state-controlled media or through unofficial contacts, such as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s upcoming visit to Pyongyang. When left to experienced hands, both can yield insights. When practiced by inexperienced observers, they can do more damage than good. I have been meeting with North Koreans for almost 20 years. As head of the State Department’s section charged with implementing the 1994 Agreed Framework, I held discussions with the North Korean Foreign Ministry, scientists, bureaucrats in charge of North Korea’s nuclear program, military officers, intelligence officials, and others. Those talks were often difficult but could be productive. [US NK negotiations]
• 'Elders Group' to Visit N.Korea
  A group of retired statesmen led by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is on the way to North Korea in an effort to break the ongoing impasse in six-nation talks on ending Pyongyang's controversial nuclear program. The so-called "Elders Group" consisting of Carter, former Irish president Mary Robinson, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari and former Norwegian prime minister Harlem Brundtland, arrived in Beijing Sunday. The group said they will continue to North Korea Tuesday for a three-day visit before traveling to Seoul, where they are scheduled to meet senior officials, members of civil society and academia, and foreign diplomats. Diplomatic sources say it is not clear whether the delegates would meet with the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. But analysts say the trip is clearly aimed at helping mend ties between the two Koreas and resuming the six-party nuclear negotiations, which have been stalled for two years. [Peace effort] [Jimmy Carter]
• Drills will 'lead to war,' N. Korea warns
  Source: Global Times [03:12 April 25 2011] Comments By Jia Cheng North Korea has again accused the US and South Korea of having staged a series of joint military drills, saying tensions on the Korean Peninsula may lead to a war. The latest rhetoric comes amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts aimed at jump-starting stalled inter-Korean dialogue. North Korea's Defense Chief Kim Yong-chun said on Sunday that South Korea and the US have staged "madcap maneuvers for mounting a surprise preemptive strike" on the North with various nuclear attacks, according to Yonhap News Agency. "If the US imperialists and the South Korean group of traitors finally ignite a war against the North, its revolutionary armed forces will wipe out the aggressors at one blow," Kim added at a meeting on the eve of its army's anniversary. Kim's statement came amid a flurry of diplomatic efforts to resume stalled inter-Korean dialogue and broad Six-Party Talks on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs. China's top nuclear envoy will visit South Korea this week to discuss the possibility of resuming peaceful bilateral talks with North Korea, AFP reported on Friday. Former US President Jimmy Carter was also in Beijing on Sunday on the way to North Korea for a visit aimed at easing tensions on the Peninsula. "At a time when official dialogue with North Korea appears to be at a standstill, we aim to see how we may be of assistance in reducing tensions and help the parties address key issues including denuclearization," Reuters quoted Carter as saying while in Beijing. Meanwhile, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, on a visit to Seoul as part of her Asian tour, urged China to help rein in North Korea, saying it is not in China's interest to have instability on the Korean Peninsula, the Straits Times reported on Sunday. Lü Chao, director of the Center of South Korea studies at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that South Korea needs to give up its preconditions for reopening inter-Korean talks, as dialogue is the only way to resolve the problems in Northeast Asia. The South Korean government needs to make efforts to calm strong domestic indignation over the issue, which is why South Korea had set the preconditions, he added. Agencies contributed to this story [Buildup] [Inversion]
• S.Korea to allow Carter's flight from Pyongyang
  Source: Global Times [04:11 April 22 2011] Comments South Korea is set to allow former US president Jimmy Carter the rare privilege of flying directly to Seoul after his visit to the North Korean capital next week, a report said Thursday. "President Carter has informed us that he wants to fly directly to Seoul" from Pyongyang by private jet instead of detouring via Beijing as normal, Yonhap news agency quoted an unidentified Seoul government official as saying. "I think the government will find it difficult to reject the request," the official said. There are no commercial air services across the inter-Korean border, but diplomats have occasionally taken direct private or military flights. The Carter Center has not confirmed dates, but widespread media reports point to him beginning a three-day trip to Pyongyang starting April 26. Seoul's foreign ministry confirmed that Carter hopes to stop in Seoul on his way home but did not comment on details. "From what we understand, he will visit South Korea unless there is a special reason not to do so," said spokesman Cho Byung-jae, adding that details had not been finalized. News reports have said Carter will be accompanied by three other ex-world leaders – former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, ex-Irish president Mary Robinson and ex-Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. [Peace efforts] [Jimmy Carter]
• KCNA on "Democracy" Touted by US
  Pyongyang, April 23 (KCNA) -- It was disclosed recently that the United States secretly offered funds to the dissident organizations in Syria. The Washington Post on April 18 quoted the information disclosed by WikiLeaks as saying that the U.S. Department of State has provided 12 million U.S. dollars to the dissident organization in Syria since 2005. According to it, this U.S. financial support has been invariably given under this administration since the days of the Bush administration as it was aimed to bring down the present Syrian government. As the international community became increasingly vocal censuring and protesting the U.S., its Department of State came out to justify the financial support, claiming it only backed "democracy" in Syria. The deputy spokesman for the department openly disclosed the fact that it has pushed forward its plan to put spurs to the anti-government activities in Syria and other countries. As seen above, "democracy" touted by the U.S. is nothing but a blatant move for aggression as it is aimed to bring down the governments and political systems in the countries it eyes and, furthermore, Americanize the world. [Subversion]
• Jimmy Carter says he hopes to meet with Kim Jong Il as part of his trip to North Korea
  By Associated Press, Sunday, April 24, 7:40 AM BEIJING — Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that he hopes to meet with North Korea’s reclusive leader during a visit aimed at assessing severe food shortages and discussing the revival of nuclear disarmament talks. Carter is making the three-day visit to North Korea this week accompanied by former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Brundtland and former Irish President Mary Robinson. The four are members of a group of retired world leaders called the Elders founded by former South African President Nelson Mandela. Carter said the group “would like very much” to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, as well as his son and heir-apparent Kim Jong Un, but was unsure whether that would happen. “We have no indication that we will do so, but it would be a pleasure if we could,” he said at a news conference in Beijing prior to his departure for Pyongyang on Tuesday. The former president said he was not “prejudging in advance” his discussions on restarting talks on North Korea’s nuclear programs, which have been stalled for the past two years. Pyongyang is believed to be holding out for diplomatic concessions from Washington before committing to returning to the six-nation talks, under which it has pledged to dismantle its programs in return for food and fuel aid. Carter did not respond when asked if he was carrying a message from the U.S. administration and made no mention of Korean-American Jun Young Su, who is being held in North Korea, reportedly on charges of carrying out missionary activity. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency quoted Carter as saying in an interview that he wasn’t carrying any messages and didn’t intend to raise Jun’s case. The U.S. State Department said last month that Carter would not be carrying any official messages. Carter is well-regarded in North Korea and met in 1994 with the North’s then-leader Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il’s father, and brokered a U.S.-North Korea nuclear deal. He last visited North Korea in August to secure the release of imprisoned American Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years of hard labor for crossing into the North from China. Carter did not meet Kim then because the leader was on a rare visit to China, his isolated, impoverished nation’s biggest ally and aid provider. Carter’s trip comes amid efforts on several fronts to reinvigorate the nuclear negotiations. China’s top nuclear envoy was due to travel to Seoul on Tuesday for talks, while a South Korean delegation was to meet with U.S. diplomats in Washington. North Korea’s top nuclear envoy reportedly traveled to Beijing earlier this month to discuss restarting the talks, which two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia. At Monday’s briefing, Carter also criticized long-standing economic sanctions imposed on the North’s hardline communist regime, saying they were adding to suffering among ordinary citizens amid a severe drop-off in food aid to the North. “In almost any case when there are sanctions against an entire people, the people suffer the most and the leaders suffer least,” he said. “And we believe that the last 50 years of deprivation of the North Korean people to adequate access to trade and commerce has been very damaging to their economy, as well as some problems they may have brought on by themselves.” Years of poor harvests, a lack of investment in agriculture and political isolation have left North Korea severely vulnerable to starvation, with the average amount of food distributed by the government to each person dropping this year from 1,400 calories per day to just 700, according the U.N.’s World Food Program. Former Irish President Robinson said a recent United Nations study based on conditions throughout North Korea classified 3.5 million out of the country’s 24 million people as “very vulnerable” to starvation and that conditions stood to worsen with cuts in food distribution. “We believe that it is very, very important to ensure that women and children and the elderly do not suffer because of a political situation,” Robinson said. Carter described the North’s food problems as “a horrible situation” and said the group hoped to convince other nations to step up shipments, mentioning in particular South Korea, which has cut off all food aid to its neighbor. Carter, who was president from 1977 to 1981, said his delegation was invited by top North Korean leaders, but declined to identify them by name. [Peace efforts] [Jimmy Carter] [Sanctions]
• On eve of its founding, North Korea’s army threatens to ‘wipe out’ US, SKorea
  By Associated Press, Sunday, April 24, 4:37 AM SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea has again threatened to destroy the United States and South Korea. The communist North issued its latest war rhetoric on the eve of its army’s anniversary. The official Korean Central News Agency says that People’s Armed Forces Minster Kim Yong Chun issued the warning Sunday in a Pyongyang national meeting ahead of the army’s founding anniversary. KCNA cites Kim as saying the North’s military knows no mercy and will “wipe out” the allies if they ignite a war. The United States and South Korea launched annual joint drills in late February. Seoul’s Defense Ministry says some part of the training are still under way. North Korea has repeatedly threatened war over the drills, which it views as an attack preparation. [Media] [Conditionality] [Military exercises]
• USFK to Take Part in Overseas Training Missions
  The U.S. Forces Korea will participate in more multinational military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region, going beyond its duties to defend the Korean Peninsula. In a press briefing at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul on Wednesday, Lt. Gen. John D. Johnson, the commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, said the USFK's participation in overseas drills will become "routine." But he claimed the USFK has secured transport so troops can immediately return to South Korea from overseas missions in case of a crisis on the peninsula.
• 'Obama's NSC to have N. Korea expert as Asia director'
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The Obama administration's national security team will soon have a North Korea expert as director of Asian affairs to reflect Obama's commitment to the North's nuclear dismantlement, informed sources said Wednesday. Sydney Seiler, deputy mission manager for North Korea at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, will replace Daniel Russel, National Security Council director for Asian affairs, who was recently promoted to NSC senior director for Asian affairs, the sources said, asking anonymity. Jeffrey Bader, Russel's predecessor, has resigned to get back to the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution. Seiler served with the National Clandestine Service of the Central Intelligence Agency until 2007, when he was assigned to the DNI. He has closely followed North Korean affairs while serving in the intelligence community and various positions at the U.S. mission in South Korea for more than 20 years. Seiler has a master's degree in Korean Studies from Seoul's Yonsei University, and studied Korean language at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., and at Yonsei University. He authored a book on the foundation of North Korea by late North Korean leader and founder Kim Il-sung, titled "Kim Il Song 1941-1948: The Creation of a Legend, the Building of a Regime."
• When will we stop the genocide in North Korea?
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Robert Park, Wednesday, April 20, 7:52 PM “Holocaust” is the word used to describe the systematic extermination of millions of innocent European Jews during World War II. In the aftermath of this mammoth failure of humanity, many nations “repented” and declared that “never again” would such inhumanity and absolute disregard for human dignity and life be tolerated. [MISCOM] [Bizarre] [Religion]
• A Clear Message to N.Korea
  Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met in Seoul on Saturday and agreed that nuclear disarmament talks between Seoul and Pyongyang must precede the resumption of stalled six-party nuclear talks. "Certain conditions need to be created, including talks between South and North Korea first and a show of sincere willingness on behalf of North Korea to denuclearize," the two said. "We urge North Korea to take responsible actions regarding its previous provocations." [Capture] [Pretext]
• S. Korea, US sign pact on missile defense system development
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States has signed an agreement with South Korea for the development of a missile defense system against North Korea, which is believed to have developed ballistic missiles carrying nuclear warheads capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. [Missile defense]
• In Seoul, Clinton quiet on North Korea issue
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy William Wan, Saturday, April 16, 11:35 PM SEOUL — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton landed here Saturday night, she had a whole list of issues she wanted to talk over with South Korean officials, including a pending free-trade agreement and disaster relief for their mutual ally Japan. ? But she made no direct mention in her public remarks of one key goal that, according to U.S. officials, she hoped to address: the ever-present, vexing problem of Seoul’s neighbor to the north. The past two years — ever since President Obama’s inauguration — have been especially challenging for U.S. diplomacy on the Korean peninsula. In that short time, North Korea has torpedoed a South Korean ship unprovoked, bombarded civilians in the South and detonated a nuclear weapon in a test. All the while, the six-party talks to denuclearize North Korea’s government have remained stalled.
• America's Plan B for North Korea ... Track II
  By Peter Lee
  A delegation including former United States president Jimmy Carter will go to North Korea to explore the possibility of Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear weapons. For this he received the obligatory label of "useful idiot" from regime-change activists; no, excuse me, The Daily NK, in a sententious show of restraint, expressed the pious hope that Carter would merely refrain from extending his previous practice of useful idiocy into the third generation of North Korean leadership [US NK policy] [Libya]
• North Korea’s six-party trap
  Text Size PrintE-mailReprintsBy Nicholas Eberstadt, Thursday, April 14, 6:54 PM Two years into the Obama administration — after detonating a nuclear weapon, test-firing long-range ballistic missiles, killing dozens of South Korean sailors in an unprovoked torpedo strike, unveiling a long-denied uranium enrichment facility, and murdering South Korean civilians in a daylight artillery attack that was broadcast globally — Pyongyang has decided to return to the negotiation tables. With China’s backing, North Korea is vigorously campaigning to draw the United States into another round of “six-party talks,” the multilateral deliberations on North Korean “denuclearization” first convened in 2003. American officials appear increasingly receptive; this weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to visit South Korea, purportedly to test the waters with this key U.S. ally about a possible diplomatic reengagement with the North. But if Obama’s North Korea team really expects to settle some of its many differences with the North, it is in for a rude awakening. Pyongyang shows no intention of being ready to compromise with Washington. Quite the contrary: There is every reason to believe the North Korean regime regards new talks as an avenue for achieving permanent ratification of its status as a nuclear weapons state and for pressing demands for stunning new strategic concessions from Washington. [US NK policy] [Hardliner] [Six Party Talks]
• Korean-American Missionary Held in N.Korea
  Korean-American missionary Jun Young-su was arrested and interrogated in North Korea last November for a crime against the regime, the official KCNA news agency reported on Thursday. The report came only a day after the U.S. State Department released a statement about his detention.
• Korea to Spend US$500 Million to Aid War in Afghanistan
  Korea will spend US$500 million over the next five years to support U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan. The announcement followed a meeting by the foreign ministers of the 48 countries that contribute to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan, where Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jae-shin was the Korean representative. [Tribute]
• N. Korea Says It Is Holding U.S. Citizen
  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: April 13, 2011 Updated: April 14, 2011 at 12:43 AM ET . SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea confirmed Thursday that it has arrested an American man for committing an unspecified crime against the country and is preparing to indict him. The man, named Jun Young Su, has been held since November last year, the North's official Korean Central News Agency said. He is the latest U.S. citizen to be detained in the reclusive communist state in recent years. North Korea informed Washington about the situation and Jun is being given necessary humanitarian conveniences including consular contact with Swedish Embassy officials in Pyongyang, the news agency said. Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department called for North Korea to release one of its citizens and said Swedish officials had visited the American. But it gave no further details. The U.S. — which fought on South Korea's side during the 1950-53 Korean War — doesn't have diplomatic staff inside North Korea and Sweden handles Washington's interests there. South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Thursday that a Korean-American with business interests in North Korea was being detained for alleged Christian proselytizing. Yonhap, citing the Korean Christian community in the United States, said the man is in his 60s, attends a Korean church in Orange County, California, and has a North Korean visa. Several Americans have been detained in North Korea in recent years and freeing them often requires high-profile negotiations. In August, former President Jimmy Carter brought home Aijalon Gomes, who had been sentenced to eight years' hard labor for crossing into the North from China. He was detained for seven months in all. Korean-American missionary Robert Park defiantly walked into North Korea on Christmas Day in 2009 to draw attention to the North's alleged human rights abuses and to call for the resignation of leader Kim Jong Il. He was released weeks later without charge. Also in 2009, journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were arrested for trespassing in North Korea and released only after former President Bill Clinton made a trip to Pyongyang to ask for their freedom. The latest arrest came as Carter plans to travel to Pyongyang again as early as this month. Carter said last week that he plans to focus on trying to revive international disarmament talks on the North's nuclear program and seek ways to help with the country's humanitarian woes. The North appears to want to use the latest detention to improve ties with the United States, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies. Still, given that the country usually releases detainees after indicting and sentencing them, there may not be sufficient time for Carter to bring Jun home during the upcoming visit, Yang said.
• US citizen held in NK for unknown reasons: State Dept.
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The United States Tuesday urged North Korea to release an American citizen being held for unknown reasons. "We would call on the government of North Korea to release this citizen on humanitarian grounds," State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. "We would ask that they respect and treat this citizen in a manner consistent with international human rights law." Toner said the individual was held in North Korea "recently," adding, "I don't have any details on what this individual was doing in North Korea. We don't have any information about allegations. We don't even know what this individual is being held for."
• A Meaty Role Brings James Gandolfini Back to HBO
  By DAVE ITZKOFF James Gandolfini may be a man of few words, but when he returns to the cable channel that made him, it’s worth devoting a few words to. HBO said on Tuesday that Mr. Gandolfini was planning to star in a new made-for-cable film that would return him to the network that gave us “The Sopranos,” as well as the state that gave us the Bada Bing! club. The film will be adapted from “Eating With the Enemy: How I Waged Peace With North Korea From My BBQ Shack in Hackensack,” a nonfiction book by Robert Egan and Kurt Pitzer, in which Mr. Egan recounts how he used his barbecue restaurant to build friendships with diplomats from Vietnam and North Korea, and became an unlikely liaison between North Korea and the United States. Mr. Gandolfini, who has also produced the HBO documentaries “Alive Day: Home from Iraq” and “Wartorn: 1861-2010,” is attached as a star and would also be an executive producer of the new film, which will be produced by his Attaboy Productions company and Tribeca Productions, though neither a start date for production nor a broadcast date on HBO have been announced. .
• U.S. Human Rights Report Pinpoints Both Koreas
  The U.S. State Department says the human rights situation in North Korea remains "grave" as people there "were denied freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association." The assessment comes in the State Department's Human Rights Report 2010 published Saturday. [Human rights] [Manipulation] [Double standards]
• USFK Chief Positive About S.Korean Defense Reform
  Walter Sharp U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp said he believes the defense reform plan proposed by the South Korean military is opportune and ready to be tested during a joint military exercises this August. A government source on Sunday said Sharp "was briefed recently on our defense reform plan and said he basically agreed with it." And at a Senate hearing in Washington last Wednesday, Sharp told U.S. lawmakers the reform plan adequately reflects the lessons of the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan and the North Korean artillery attack on Yeonpyong Island last year. He added that it includes steps to bolster the Army, Navy and Air Force and aims to continuously monitor North Korea for signs of a potential provocation. The source said Sharp's response cannot be considered the U.S. government's official position but shows that Washington is "positively assessing" Seoul's plans. Although South Korea does not need U.S. approval for the plans, Washington's assessment of the changes matters because combined military operations need to continue even after the South regains full operational control of its military from the U.S. in 2015. [Sovereignty]
• No. 2 Official at State Department Is Leaving
  By MARK LANDLER March 30, 2011, 12:08 pm The State Department’s No. 2 official, James B. Steinberg, is leaving to become dean of the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a letter to her staff Wednesday. President Obama plans to nominate William J. Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, to succeed Mr. Steinberg as deputy secretary. Mr. Steinberg’s departure is not a big surprise: there had been rumors he wanted to return to academia for some time. He had been dean of the Lyndon Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas before joining the Obama administration in January 2009. He also never became particularly close to Mrs. Clinton, despite having served as deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton, her husband. [MISCOM]
• US hoping for sincere NK talks within months: lawmaker
  By Kim Young-jin An opposition lawmaker said Saturday the United States is hoping to create the right conditions for dialogue with North Korea within “one or two months,” citing a conversation he had with the top U.S. diplomat in Seoul. Park Joo-sun of the main opposition Democratic Party told Yonhap News Agency that he was told as much during a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens last week. [US NK negotiations]
• Jimmy Carter: Upcoming trip to North Korea will focus on nuclear weapons, humanitarian plight
  By Associated Press, Wednesday, April 6, 4:50 PM ATLANTA — Former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday he plans to focus an upcoming trip to North Korea on trying to revive nuclear disarmament talks with the reclusive nation while seeking ways to help with the country’s humanitarian woes. Carter would not say when the trip was scheduled and the Atlanta-based Carter Center declined to comment on the plans. But U.S. government officials who were briefed on the details have said he could make the journey as early as this month. Carter said he would “try to induce the North Koreans to give up their nuclear weapons” and help the country work out a peace treaty with South Korea and the United States. But the trip will also have a humanitarian angle. [Jimmy Carter] [US NK policy]
• U.S. missing evidence to cite N.Korea as terrorism sponsor
  The Obama administration said Tuesday it has not yet found enough evidence to relist North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism. “There’s a very specific procedure, though, to designating someone as a state sponsor of terror, with specific criteria that need to be met,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. “There’s a legal process to doing that. And I’m not aware that that’s been undertaken.” Toner was responding to a bipartisan group of congressmen who last week submitted legislation to re-designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism for a series of provocations, including its torpedoing of a South Korean warship and shelling of a South Korean border island that killed 50 people last year. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and eight other congressmen on Friday submitted the bill that calls for the North‘s relisting and prohibits Washington from delisting the North unless Pyongyang apologizes for the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong incidents, pledges not to proliferate nuclear weapons and missile technologies and severs ties with the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups. U.S. officials have dismissed calls by hardliners for relisting North Korea for the Cheonan’s sinking, saying the incident is a violation of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War, but does not qualify as terrorism. [Terrorism List]
• Libya Intervention Makes It Harder to Denuclearize N.Korea
  Kang In-sun The justification of the United States, United Kingdom and France for their air strikes against Libya is that they have a responsibility to protect civilians. This is a principle whereby the international community intervenes to protect the people of a country that either fails to show the will to do it by itself or commits humanitarian crimes against them. Immediately before the allied forces started air raids on March 19, there was a risk of a massacre by the forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi against the rebel forces. When the Gadhafi forces began attacking Benghazi, the stronghold of the rebel forces, it looked like the country would be turned into a "river of blood" as Gadhafi's son Saif al-Islam warned. Citing the responsibility to protect civilians, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to enforce a no-fly zone over parts of Libya. The aim was ostensibly to avoid another nightmare like Rwanda, where the international community, failing to find proper causes and timing for intervention, had to look on at the slaughter of 1 million people. But if Gadhafi had nuclear weapons, would the world community have done the same? North Korea seems to have asked itself the same question. Pyongyang said on March 22 the nuclear disarmament of Libya "turned out to be a mode of aggression whereby [the U.S.] coaxed the former with such sweet words as 'guarantee of security' and 'improvement of relations' to disarm and then swallowed it up by force." Gadhafi announced in December 2003 he was abandoning weapons of mass destruction including nuclear arms and admitted International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. Libya surrendered to the sanctions applied by the world community in the year when the U.S. attacked Iraq on the pretext of Saddam Hussein's alleged WMD program. Libya disassembled and destroyed about a dozen uranium enrichment facilities and transported 25 tons of materials including uranium to a base in Tennessee over nearly three years. That made it safe for the Western alliance to intervene. But North Korea is different. Decades of dictatorship, oppression and starvation would seem to create a situation where the international community has every responsibility to protect civilians. But will it intervene? The difference is that the North has nuclear weapons. The New York Times recently speculated that if Gadhafi had continued his nuclear development, he would have had enough nuclear warheads by now to deter a western intervention. The lessons Kim Jong-il seems to have learned from Libya are that the international community may apply the principle of protecting civilians if a country gives up its nuclear weapons, and that in that case he would have to fight a bloody war with conventional arms alone. In other words, it will become even harder to persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear arms. The turmoil in the Middle East has made denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula more difficult. [Libya] [Renege] [US NK negotiations]
• U.S. to Put Forces Under S.Korean Command in Emergency
  Seoul and Washington have agreed that the chairman of the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff will command support troops from the U.S. in case of a provocation from North Korea, a government source said Thursday. "The South Korean and U.S. militaries have recently agreed in principle that the chairman of the Korean JCS will command U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force personnel and equipment that support the South Korean military in case of various provocations from the North," the source said. The two countries are still hammering out the details. So far the South Korean military has responded North Korean provocations without U.S. military support. The South Korean JCS chairman currently exercises peacetime operational control over the South Korean troops but not over the U.S. Forces Korea. But a military source said since the North's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November last year, the South Korean JCS has persistently called for the option to mobilize USFK support, and the U.S. military agreed. It is an unprecedented measure since the U.S. military is characteristically reluctant to place troops under the command of other countries. Which U.S. troops and how many will be under the South Korean JCS chairman's command has yet to be decided. Under consideration are reconnaissance aircraft such as U-2s and E-8 Joint-Stars, artillery from the Second U.S. Infantry Division like Multiple Launch Rocket Systems and M-109 self-propelled guns, Apache attack helicopters and medevac choppers, and some U.S. Navy and Air Force personnel. The aim is to supply capacity the South Korean military lacks. Right after the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the chairmen of the two countries' JCSs met and agreed to formulate a joint response to local provocations by the North. They have since continued the consultations. [Sovereignty]
• Welcome to “Strong and Prosperous 2011: Crisis Group’s Blog on Korea”.
  One of our colleagues long ago suggested we start a blog, but we resisted. We were concerned about becoming enslaved to one, but our work brings us into contact with a wide range of problems, people, and information. We maintain close contacts and relations with scholars, government officials, diplomats, military personnel and a broad spectrum of civil society. Some of our information and “internal office commentary and analysis” are not appropriate for Crisis Group reports, policy briefings or other publications. Therefore, we’ve decided to share our thoughts and short commentary in this blog.
  Daniel Pinkston North East Asia Deputy Project Director
• U.S.-ROK Military Exercises
  Daniel Pinkston | 7 Mar 2011 The U.S. and South Korea have begun two combined military exercises. Key Resolve, a command post exercise that mostly involves computer simulations, officially began 28 February and is scheduled to last 11 days. Foal Eagle, a field exercise, also began on 28 February and will last until late April. The exercises drew the usual condemnation from North Korean authorities, as well as from some Chinese pundits and some South Korean dissident groups. The United Nations Command informed the KPA of the exercise schedule on 15 February and described them as “defensive in nature and routine”. On 27 February, the KPA representative to Panmunjom issued a statement declaring, “the exercises are aimed to ‘destroy’ the system of the DPRK” and therefore, “its army and people will go into an all-out offensive to put an end to the U.S. imperialists’ military occupation of south Korea and the anti-popular ruling system of the group of traitors”. One reason the KPA is upset with the exercises is that Pyongyang must respond when they would rather focus resources on the economy as the leadership has promised the DPRK will become a “strong and prosperous country” by 15 April 2012 [Joint US military] [MISCOM]
• Rethinking Economic Engagement with North Korea
  By Bradley O. Babson Now is a good time to rethink strategies for economic engagement with North Korea. Recent requests for food aid from the North and the report from a U.S. NGO Needs Assessment Team paint a picture of deteriorating food security due to harsh weather conditions and continued systemic failures. The UN humanitarian appeal for 2011 is being updated by a special assessment now underway. These developments raise for fresh debate the merits of renewing humanitarian aid following a vacuum of international response to the convulsions of internal economic changes inside North Korea over the past year, with China standing out as the glaring exception. The failure of Pyongyang’s policies to dampen the role of markets and reassert socialist management system practices, and its inability to temper inflationary forces in the economy, stand in contrast to the proclamations of improving the lives of ordinary people and becoming a “strong and prosperous country” by 2012. Recent announcements of Cabinet changes made to better plan and manage economic development projects and foreign investment and trade initiatives signal openness to new ideas and relationships. But there is no evidence that the North Korean leadership is ready to embrace markets and pursue the economic policy reforms that will be needed to nurture a growing role for markets. [US NK policy] [Aid weapon]
• Time for a comprehensive, proactive North Korea policy
  Jack Pritchard Last year I was privileged to co-chair the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force Report, “ U.S. Policy Toward the Korean Peninsula.” One of the Task Force’s observations was that there was “significant risk that (the administration’s) ‘strategic patience’ will result in acquiescence to North Korea’s nuclear status as a fait accompli.” Several months have transpired since the report was published in June 2010 and “strategic patience” continues. That is not to imply that U.S. policy should change in reaction to bad behavior by North Korea, but rather it is meant to suggest that we need an active policy to prevent proliferation and move us closer to denuclearization. [US NK policy][[Strategic paralysis]
• Delegates from NK, U.S. agree to solve problems via dialogue
  BERLIN, March 30 (Yonhap) -- A North Korean high-ranking diplomat said Wednesday that delegates from North Korea and the United States have reached an agreement to solve their ongoing problems through dialogue and negotiations in an unofficial meeting held here. "Both sides have agreed that concerns (over North Korea's nuclear issue) should be resolved through dialogue and negotiations, not confrontation," said Ri Gun, director general of the North American affairs bureau of North Korea's foreign ministry. "(Delegates from the two countries) have seriously discussed each other's opinions and have shared various views." His remarks came as he prepared to depart Berlin's Tegel Airport, ending his a week-long trip to Berlin to attend a seminar hosted by the Aspen Institute, a U.S. think tank, to exchange opinions with some former U.S. officials on reopening the six-party talks.
• Trapped in a Devil’s Bargain
  By Erich Weingartner Christopher! My white knight in shining armor! What have you done, my champion of reason? For years I have admired you from afar, engaged in battles against irrationality and iniquity! Tell me you haven’t abandoned your quest! Tell me you haven’t succumbed to the notion that reason and compassion have no place in geopolitics! I’m old enough to know better, but there’s a hidden region of my brain (right next to the amygdala) where I still maintain a private pantheon of heroes and role models. That’s where my image of Christopher resided. Until recently, that is. It’s very painful when one of my idols falls off their pedestal. If only it were as easy to distinguish good from evil in real life as it is in vintage Wild West movies, where the good guys wear white hats and the bad guys wear black. Alas, reality wears camouflage. Black can turn out to be good; white can turn out to be evil. Like brilliant white snow in a spring thaw, Christopher’s image has turned a slushy shade of gray. Though I have never met him, my admiration for Christopher Robert Hill dates back to his role in the Dayton Accords [US NK Negotiations] [Sanctions] [Collapse]
• Food for thought in North Korea
  Officials in Seoul face a choice: Whether or not to use starvation as a weapon to bring down the regime to its north.
  Christopher R Hill
  Last Modified: 06 Mar 2011 11:02 GMT A North Korean soldier looks at his South Korean counterpart, across the demilitarised zone. After torpedoes and shells, food aid could be the next weapon used [GALLO/GETTY]
  Meet any Korean of a certain age, and you will learn about barley season, which begins in February and stretches through the cold months of early spring - until the first of the winter barley crop is harvested. Few South Koreans remember those straitened months anymore, but for North Koreans, hunger in the countryside during this time of year is very real. In past years, South Korea has been the primary external source of food, through either direct food assistance - for the immediate problem - or deliveries of fertiliser. But this year, with rising impatience and anger in South Korea toward the North Korean regime, the food and fertiliser is in doubt. And some analysts in Seoul believe that a dicey political succession in Pyongyang, combined with food shortages in the countryside, could prove too much for the North Korean regime to handle. The past 12 months have seen some of the most outrageous North Korean behaviour in decades. In March 2010, a North Korean submarine torpedoed a South Korean ship on the high seas, killing 46 sailors – and sinking any prospect of an early resumption of negotiations to implement North Korea's 2005 commitment to eliminate all its nuclear programs [US NK Negotiations] [Sanctions] [Collapse] [Aid weapon]

• North Korea Suggests Libya Should Have Kept Nuclear Program
  By MARK McDONALD Published: March 24, 2011 SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean statement that Libya’s dismantling of its nuclear weapons program had made it vulnerable to military intervention by the West is being seen by analysts as an ominous reinforcement of the North’s refusal to end its own nuclear program. North Korea’s official news agency carried comments this week from a Foreign Ministry official criticizing the air assault on Libyan government forces and suggesting that Libya had been duped in 2003 when it abandoned its nuclear program in exchange for promises of aid and improved relations with the West. Calling the West’s bargain with Libya “an invasion tactic to disarm the country,” the official said it amounted to a bait and switch approach. “The Libyan crisis is teaching the international community a grave lesson,” the official was quoted as saying Tuesday, proclaiming that North Korea’s “songun” ideology of a powerful military was “proper in a thousand ways” and the only guarantor of peace on the Korean Peninsula. [Renege] [NK US policy] [US global strategy]
• Japan Earthquake Mission Reduces Scale of Korea-U.S. Drills
  The 97,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan will probably not take part in annual joint Korea-U.S. exercises after all due to Friday's earthquake in Japan. The Reagan was expected to lead a fleet of Aegis destroyers and cruisers in the exercise dubbed "Foal Eagle" from Wednesday, a military source said Sunday. But the Reagan, and its sister ship the USS George Washington of the Seventh U.S. Fleet were urgently dispatched to areas hit by the earthquake for rescue and relief operations. This image provided by the U.S. Navy shows the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan en route to provide assistance in Japan following Friday's massive earthquake and tsunami. /Reuters-Newsis The exercise will likely be downscaled. Some 10,500 U.S. troops were expected to participate in this year's drill, with about 6,000 aboard the USS Ronald Reagan and about 300 crewmen of each Aegis destroyer. And some of the U.S. marines stationed in Okinawa who were expected to take part will also likely be sent to help rescue operations for earthquake victims. "As of now, the participation of the USS Ronald Reagan has become unclear, but there is no change in the other parts of the exercise plan," a spokesman for the Combined Forces Command said. The drills continue until April 30. [US Joint military]
• Kim Yong Nam Meets President and CEO of AP
  Pyongyang, March 11 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly, Friday met and had a talk with Thomas Curley, president and chief executive officer of the Associated Press of the United States, and his party at the Mansudae Assembly Hall. Director General of the KCNA Kim Pyong Ho and officials concerned were on hand.
• Seoul Has a Duty to N.Korean Orphans
  An estimated 20,000 North Korean children are orphaned and adrift in other countries because their parents died while escaping the North or because they were abandoned by their North Korean mothers and fathers from third countries, mainly China. Only 100 of them have been brought to South Korea and recognized so they can receive medical and educational benefits. Neither South Korea nor the countries of their fathers are interested in caring for them. Meanwhile the U.S. Senate has introduced for two straight years a bill seeking to help Americans adopt these stateless orphans. Han Sang-man (66), who was adopted by an American when he was orphaned during the 1950-53 Korean War, said, "It's my mission to get these North Korean orphans to meet a nice American family like I did." Han created a foundation to support the cause and is active in efforts to bring North Korean orphans to the U.S.
• Call for Korean Americans to Meet with N.Korean Relatives
  U.S. Senator Mark Kirk has written to the South Korean ministries of foreign affairs and of unification asking for Korean Americans to be included in reunions of families separated by the Korean War, Radio Free Asia said Tuesday. Kirk also played a leading role launching a Congressional commission to support the cause.
• No Action in S.Korea About N.Korean Orphans
  U.S. Senator Richard Burr on Feb. 28 introduced the North Korean Refugees Adoption Act calling for a comprehensive strategy on adoption of North Korean orphans abroad by American couples. "Developing a plan to help these children connect with loving families within the United States is something members on both sides of the aisle can agree upon," the Republican senator said. Not only Republican but also Democratic senators have signed the bill. The act is the second of its kind. The last one was simultaneously filed in the Senate and the House of Representatives early last year by Republican Representative Ed Royce and Sen. Sam Brownback to step up humanitarian support for North Korean orphans adrift in third countries and promote adoptions in American homes. [Manipulation]
• Korea to speed up deployment of spy drones, stealth fighters
  Korea's military will bring forward its planned deployment of high-altitude spy drones and stealth fighter jets to increase its surveillance capability and bolster deterrence toward North Korea, a military source said Tuesday. Seoul asked Washington last year to sell it the U.S.-made RQ-4 Global Hawk spy planes and expects to receive final approval for the planned purchase from the U.S. Defense Department in June, the source said on the condition of anonymity. [Arms sales] [Military balance]
• New Stage in US Use of Financial Sanctions as Strategic Weapon? Levey Departs
  Jan. 31, 2011:Update: Feb. 5, 2011 (see below) Stuart Levey, who helped put the US Treasury at the center of US national security strategy and policy-making during a career that spanned the Bush and Obama administrations, has announced his retirement. The policy-making legacy he leaves behind, central to the enhanced unilateral use of financial and economic sanctions against "rogue" states by the Bush and Obama administrations, underscores the need for a broader understanding of the ways in which US global policy functions. Specifically, at a time when the US faces costly failures on the battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, and growing social unrest across the Middle East and Africa, its hidden financial weapons retain their near mystical power to coerce recalcitrant nations. "Near mystical" is appropriate, because the combination of a lack of detailed public information about the damage sanctions are inflicting on countries like Iran and North Korea and the overwhelming yet unquestioning bipartisan support in Washington for sanctions makes these instruments of coercion poorly understood. [Sanctions] [Toolkit] [IAI]
• U.S. Scientists Reach Out to North Korean Counterparts
  Universities from both nations cooperate on computer science project Students from universities around the world, including North Korea, compete in the annual International Collegiate Programming Contest.By Daniel Gorelick Staff Writer Chicago — Even though the United States and North Korea maintain no diplomatic ties, a collaboration between students at Syracuse University in New York and Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang (KUT) might be the beginning of a scientific relationship between the two nations. [Education]
• Lockheed Martin, Boeing lock horns over FX-? plan
  By Lee Tae-hoon Two of the world’s largest aerospace and defense companies based in the United States have begun a fierce battle in Korea over what would be the biggest arms-procurement deal ever in the country. The fight between Lockheed Martin and Boeing was sparked following Seoul’s recent move to jumpstart the stalled plan to purchase a fleet of advanced fighter aircraft with an additional budget of up to 10 trillion won ($8.96 billion). Under a procurement project, code-named FX, Korea has been seeking to replace its aging combat aircraft with some 120 high-end fighter jets since 1988. The ambitious project, however, suffered major setbacks due to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2008 global financial crisis, resulting in the Air Force only purchasing half of its original target so far. Now, Seoul is losing its patience in the face of growing military threats from North Korea and its neighboring countries’ aggressive pursuit to develop stealth combat aircraft. Russia has successfully test-flied its own Sukhoi T-50 stealth fighter in early 2010, China staged a successful maiden flight of its indigenous stealth jet J-20, while Japan is following in their footsteps by working on its own stealth fighter, ATD-X Shinshin. Air Force officials say the two most viable candidates for the FX-III project are Boeing’s F-15 Silent Eagle (SE) and Lockheed Martin’s F-35A Lighting II, as other foreign jets have yet to prove their capabilities and pose a risk of high maintenance costs. [Arms sales]
• ‘NK jams GPS signals to disrupt Korea-US drills’
  North Korea recently jammed GPS signals in South Korea in an apparent bid to disrupt Seoul's annual military drills with U.S. forces, government sources said Sunday. GPS signals in Seoul and nearby cities, including Incheon and Paju, were temporarily disrupted on Friday afternoon, causing mobile phones and certain military equipment in the area to malfunction, the sources said. "My understanding is that errors were detected in a very few equipment within the telecom industry," a defense official said. "Some measurement equipment in artillery units was also affected but only very slightly." The jamming signals are thought to have come from vehicle-mountable devices at military units north of the inter-Korean border. Former Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said in October that he had intelligence that the communist regime had imported from Russia such devices capable of jamming GPS signals. "The jamming signals came sporadically every five to 10 minutes," an intelligence official said, adding that North Korea was likely testing its imported devices. Defense and intelligence officials said they suspect the jamming was aimed at disrupting the annual Key Resolve military drills between South Korean and U.S. forces, which started four days before the malfunctioning incident. [Joint US military] [Cyberwar]
• NK developing weapons to neutralize U.S. military dominance: Gates
  WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- North Korea, China and Iran are developing weapons to neutralize the global military dominance the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of the Cold War, the chief U.S. defense official said Friday. "One of the ways that spectrum will broaden is with the emergence of high-end asymmetric threats," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to a transcript released by the Pentagon. [Asymmetry] [Military balance]
• U.S. Not Seeking Regime Change in N.Korea
  The U.S. is not seeking regime change in North Korea but believes a change in the North's behavior is a prerequisite for any improvement in bilateral relations, the special representative for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth, said on Tuesday. "We do not regard regime change as the outcome of our policy, but we do regard a change in regime behavior as necessary to any fundamental improvement in the overall relationship," he told a Senate hearing. [Regime change] [US NK policy] [Spin] [Strategic paralysis]
• New Commander for U.S. Forces Korea Named
  General James Thurman General James Thurman has been nominated to replace Walter Sharp as commander of the U.S. Forces Korea. Thurman must undergo a Senate hearing and formal appointment by U.S. President Barack Obama before taking office in June or July.
• North Korea: Lessons from Egypt
  By Andray Abrahamian A Former President and a Grand Bargain that Worked. For two years the United States, South Korea and Japan have intermittently talked of an all-or-nothing deal with North Korea on the nuclear standoff, which President Lee Myung Bak has called a “Grand Bargain.” Egypt’s peace overtures to Israel in the late 1970s are the role model for such a bargain. However, President Anwar El Sadat was prepared to take risks at that time that none of the major actors in today’s Korean stalemate can afford to imitate. Neither will we see North Korea repeat the kind of popular uprising that brought down Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. This leaves a painful, piecemeal engagement approach as the only option for change. [US NK policy]
• War with North Korea would be...
  [Bizarre]
• Gen. Thurman named new USFK commander: Gates
  WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon on Tuesday announced the nomination of Gen. James Thurman, commander of Army Forces Command, as the new commander of U.S. Forces in Korea. "I will recommend General James Thurman, currently the commander of Army Forces Command, to be the next commander of United States Forces Korea, replacing General 'Skip' Sharp who will retire at the end of his tour," Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters. Gen. Walter "Skip" Sharp replaced Gen. Burwell Bell in 2008 as the USFK commander.
• US urges NK to improve ties with S. Korea before 6-way talks' resumption
  WASHINGTON -- The United States Tuesday urged North Korea to improve ties with South Korea before any resumption of the six-party nuclear talks, deadlocked for years over the North's missile and nuclear tests and other provocations. [US NK policy] [Capture]
• North Korea threatens to attack South Korea, US
  By HYUNG-JIN KIM The Associated Press Sunday, February 27, 2011; 1:39 AM SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea threatened Sunday to attack South Korea and the United States, as the allies prepared to start annual joint military drills - maneuvers Pyongyang says are a rehearsal for an invasion. The North has routinely issued such war rhetoric against South Korea and the U.S. The latest warning, however, came nearly three weeks after the rival Koreas failed to reach a breakthrough in their first dialogue in months. [US joint military] [Inversion]
• U.S. Aircraft Carrier to Participate in Joint Drills
  The 97,000-ton nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and Aegis destroyers and cruisers of the Seventh U.S. Fleet are participating in annual joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises. The drills, dubbed "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle," began Monday and continue until April 30. In time with the start, the North Korean military reportedly put coastal artillery units and naval units on the western coast north of the Northern Limit Line on special alert, and ordered other military units to maintain combat readiness. [US joint military] [Buildup]
• Why the Focus of Korea-U.S. Military Drills Is Changing
  This year's joint South Korea-U.S. military drills are to change significantly at Washington initiatives (sic). U.S. joint chiefs of staff chairman Michael Mullen told his South Korean counterpart Lee Sang-eui at a regular meeting in Seoul in October 2009 that exercises preparing for an emergency in North Korea are needed, and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp, too, called for a change in the framework of the drill dubbed "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle." [US Joint military] [OPLAN5029] [Capture]
• Korean studies field continues to expand in U.S.
  A recent trend has been the expansion beyond language and culture to political studies By Kwon Tae-ho, Washington Correspondent At Encina Hall on the campus of Stanford University in the United States, around twenty Korean and U.S. scholars and politicians held a serious debate over North Korea starting at 8 a.m. last Thursday. This seminar, titled “DPRK 2012,” was held by Stanford’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center to commemorate the tenth anniversary of its Korean studies program. The debate, which lasted until 5 in the afternoon, was close in character to a North Korea seminar held by a Washington think tank.
• KPA Mission Statement on US-S. Korea Joint Military Exercises
  Pyongyang, February 27 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet warmongers are finally launching the DPRK-targeted Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military maneuvers in disregard of the national agreement and the Armistice Agreement. [Joint US military]

• New US envoy dismisses ambassador speculation
  Source: Global Times [08:37 February 23 2011] Comments By Li Ying The newly appointed deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in China, Robert S. Wang, denied Tuesday the possibility of him being the successor to current Ambassador Jon Huntsman, amid rising media speculation. "The possibility of becoming the next ambassador is zero," Wang said at his first press conference in Beijing. "I may be acting for a while, but there will be a new ambassador coming here as soon as possible." "It is too important a relationship to leave it to someone like me, and we need somebody who has stature, power and good connections," Wang added, with a hefty tongue-in-cheek. Wang, who is a career foreign service officer, arrived in Beijing last month when Huntsman tendered his resignation, effective April 30. Speculation was circling as to whether Wang could be the first Chinese- American to become US ambassador to China. Obama's 2009 pick of Huntsman for the Beijing post was seen as a political masterstroke, potentially taking a possible rival out of the 2012 election. Huntsman, a moderate voice in the Republican Party, met with several former political advisers in the US in December to discuss a potential White House run, according to Newsweek magazine. [US China] [Domestic]
• US dismisses bilateral dialogue with NK: State Dept.
  WASHINGTON -- The United States Tuesday dismissed any bilateral dialogue with North Korea on easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, urging the North to first improve ties with South Korea. "Right now we're focused on inter-Korean dialogue," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. "Obviously, we have long supported dialogue between North and South Korea." Crowley was responding to the report that North Korea has asked for defense ministers' talks with the U.S. through the North Korean mission in the United Nations in New York. [Bilateral] [Capture] [Strategic paralysis]
• Starving N. Korea begs for food, but U.S. has concerns about resuming aid
  By Chico Harlan Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, February 19, 2011; 2:33 PM TOKYO - North Korea recently took the unusual step of begging for food hand-outs from the foreign governments it usually threatens. Plagued by floods, an outbreak of a livestock disease and a brutal winter, the government ordered its embassies and diplomatic offices around the world to seek help. The request has put the United States and other Western countries in the uncomfortable position of having to decide whether to ignore the pleas of a starving country or pump food into a corrupt distribution system that often gives food to those who need it least. [Aid weapon] [Sanctions]
• S.Korean Spy Chief 'in Secret Washington Trip'
  National Intelligence Service Chief Won Sei-hoon reportedly met secretly with CIA Director Leon Panetta and other officials in Washington last week. Won visited at a time when the CIA was closely watching the Middle East, where massive popular protests forced the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine. Diplomatic sources on Wednesday speculated Won's visit to Washington could have had something to do with an inter-Korean summit. They said he may have needed to brief U.S. officials on clandestine talks between Seoul and Pyongyang.
• N. Korea's nukes, ballistic missiles pose serious threat to US: Clapper
  WASHINGTON -- North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles pose a serious threat to the United States, the chief U.S. intelligence official said Wednesday. "North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs also pose a serious threat, both regionally and beyond," National Intelligence Director James Clapper told a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing. "Pyongyang has signaled a willingness to re-engage in dialogue, but it also craves international recognition as a nuclear weapons power, and it has shown troubling willingness to sell nuclear technologies." The chief spy's remarks are in line with U.S. military leaders. [Threat]
• S.Korea, U.S. Must Proceed with Caution in Shifting Strategy
  South Korean and U.S. forces have decided to shift the focus of the annual "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" joint military exercises from a full-scale war with North Korea to preparing for contingencies in the North and local provocations. Around 10 years ago, the two allies began to factor in a possible collapse of the North Korean regime among potential threats. The U.S. proposed to the Kim Dae-jung administration that they do something about that possibility, and in 1999, a conceptual plan was devised. It then wanted to develop it into an operational plan containing specific plans for troop mobilization and deployment, but the Roh Moo-hyun administration rejected the idea for fear of agitating North Korea. [OPLAN 5029] [US joint military]
• U.S. Scraps Budget for Promoting Democracy in N.Korea
  The U.S. State Department cut the entire budget for promoting democracy in North Korea from a 2012 budget proposal submitted to Congress on Monday. Since 2008, the department allocated US$2.5-3.5 million a year to the Economic Support Fund to support organizations working for democratization and human rights there, but it did not allocate a penny to the fund this year. "Many government agencies are cutting their budgets, and so is the State Department," said a diplomatic source in Washington. "It has drastically cut funds for other countries such as the Philippines as well." But Radio Free Asia quoted a State Department official as saying it is possible that Washington will keep supporting the North through an emergency relief fund. [Subversion]
• U.S. and S.Korea to launch Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise
  The drill has remained highly criticized by N.Korea, and has resulted in suspended inter-Korean military communications » Kim Jong-chol, the second son of Pyongyang leader Kim Jong-il, attends a concert by world-renowned guitarist Eric Clapton in Singapore, as captured by the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS). Kim, dressed in black pants and a T-shirt, was accompanied by some 20 men and women at a concert hall in Singapore on Feb. 14, two days before his father’s birthday, according to KBS. (KBS broadcast captured by Yonhap News Agency) By Kwon Hyuk-chul, Staff Writer The Combined Forces Command (CFC) announced Tuesday that South Korea and the United States plan to conduct the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercise, an annual drill held to prepare for a total war on the Korean Peninsula, from Feb. 28 to March 10. Parts of the drill regarding sudden changes in North Korea, such as regime change or proliferation of North Korean nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), have reportedly been strengthened in comparison to last year. [Takeover] [US joint military]
• Two Tracks to Peace and Security in Northeast Asia
  By James Goodby and Markku Heiskanen
  February 15, 2011 James E. Goodby, former US Ambassador and Special Representative for Nuclear Security and Dismantlement and Affiliate of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, and Markku Heiskanen, former Finnish diplomat who is currently Senior Associate of the Asia Institute in Daejeon, South Korea, suggest a two-track approach for dealing with the North Korean nuclear program. First, a North-East Asia Energy Development Organization should be formed to provide multilateral “nuclear fuel services” if the DPRK “re-commits to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)” and confirms the “dismantling of its nuclear weapons program.” Second, the ROK and DPRK should “start negotiations… to define definitively the frontiers between the two states” and eventually establish a peace treaty between the two Korean states. [US NK policy]
• S.Korea-U.S. Drill to Prepare for Regime Collapse in N.Korea
  South Korea and the U.S. will stage an annual joint military drill in late February and early March to prepare for a sudden change in North Korea and local provocations. Until last year, the drill dubbed "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" was meant as preparation for a full-scale war with the North. The drill is to cover politically and diplomatically sensitive scenarios including a civil war in the North in case of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's death and a failure of his heir Jong-un to seize control, and Chinese troops marching across the Apnok (or Yalu) River. The decision to change the nature of the massive annual exercise means a revised assessment of military threats, government sources said Monday. The previous "Key Resolve/Foal Eagle" drill followed an operational plan that envisioned the urgent dispatch of large U.S. troop reinforcements and equipment to Korea, carrying out counterattack operations up to an area north of Pyongyang, and bringing down the North Korean regime in case of an invasion of the South. But this year's drill follows a contingency plan for sudden change in the North. It covers six scenarios. englishnews@chosun.com / Feb. 15, 2011 08:51 KST [Takeover] [Joint US military]
• Officers 'Baffled' by New Focus of Korea-U.S. Joint Drill
  South Korean military officers were baffled in a briefing last week by the sudden change in focus of the South Korea-U.S. joint annual drill which begin late this month. Due to military confidentiality, they were only informed of details of the exercise without full explanations of the revised conceptual changes of the drill. Until last year, the drill envisioned a full-scale war with North Korea, but this year's exercises envisage a sudden change in the North and local provocations. The previous drills focused on the urgent dispatch of large U.S. troop reinforcements and equipment -- 690,000 troops, about 160 warships including five aircraft carrier fleets, and about 2,500 aircraft -- to the Korean Peninsula, marching up to an area north of Pyongyang, and bringing down the regime. But the upcoming drill will follow on a contingency plan that envisions six scenarios for sudden change in the North. Sources say the conceptual plan, numbered 5029, has become a concrete operational plan including troop mobilization and deployment. It covers civil war sparked by a failed transition of power to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's son Jong-un or a coup after Kim senior's death; instability caused by public riots; insurgents' seizure or smuggling of weapons of mass destruction; a mass exodus of North Koreans; a massive natural disaster; and kidnapping of South Korean citizens in the North. The two militaries will also practice dealing with Chinese troops that could march into the North at the regime's request if a civil war should break out. The South Korean and U.S. governments are mulling plans to bring such situations under control by forming a UN peacekeeping force consisting of South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan, and Russia in efforts to quell opposition from China in case of a sudden change in the North. Many members of the U.S. Army 20th Support Command stationed in Maryland will participate in the upcoming drill. They have been taking part in WMD-related drills since 2009. Some 150 of them participated in 2009, 350 in 2010. [Takeover] [OPLAN5029] [China confrontation]
• South Korea, US to stage joint war games
  By Lee Tae-hoon South Korean and U.S. troops will hold another annual joint military drill on the peninsula from Feb. 28 to March 10, the Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) announced Tuesday. The 11-day Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercise will involve about 12,000 U.S. troops stationed here and overseas, along with 200,000 South Korean troops, a CFC spokesman Kim Young-kyu said. Key Resolve is a command-post drill using computer-based simulations to respond to any potential contingency that could arise on the peninsula. Foal Eagle, which runs concurrently, is a joint and combined field training exercise focused on ground maneuvers, air, naval, expeditionary and special operations forces. “We are exercising alliance actions to a number of realistic scenarios beyond defeating a conventional attack,” said Gen. Walter Sharp, the CFC commander and head of some 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. [Takeover] [US Joint military]
• US supercarrier to join drills with S. Korea in Feb.
  South Korean and U.S. forces will kick off their annual joint drills late this month to practice defending the South, with a massive U.S. aircraft carrier taking part, a government source here said Tuesday. The peninsula-wide joint drills, which will last through mid-March, come amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea's two deadly military attacks last year that killed 50 South Koreans. It will be the first time in two years that a U.S. supercarrier participates in the annual Key Resolve/Foal Eagle exercises, the source said on the condition of anonymity. The allies have yet to officially announce the drills. [Joint US military] [Buildup]
• Six Party Talks: The Least Bad Alternative
  By Mike Chinoy Christopher Hill and other top negotiators at the sixth round of Six Party Talks in Beijing, September 30, 2007. (Photo: Xinhua) Christopher Hill, the Bush administration’s point man for negotiating with North Korea, recently told an audience at Stanford University that because the North had lied about its uranium enrichment capability –to him and others–“there was absolutely no value” in restarting the six-party talks in the absence of any North Korean commitments to fulfill its obligations. Under current circumstances, Hill expressed skepticism about the value of the six-party process in securing the complete denuclearization of North Korea.[i] Coming at a time when intensive diplomatic activity is underway to see if the negotiations can be resumed, such doubts from an official so closely associated with the Talks raise serious questions about what the earlier rounds of talks did and did not accomplish, and what might be achieved if they do resume. [US NK policy] [Renege]
• WikiLeaks Reveals South Korean Hopes, Not North Korean Realities
  By Leon V. Sigal Please note: this article contains excerpts of WikiLeaks cables. Press coverage of the WikiLeaks cable traffic between Seoul and Washington has taken many claims about North Korea at face value. Yet the cables disclosed so far may shed less light on North Korea than they do on South Korea’s policy toward the North under President Lee Myung Bak. In a break with his predecessors’ so-called sunshine policy of engagement with North Korea, Lee sought to put pressure on North Korea in the belief that it would make Pyongyang more pliable, if not cause its collapse. [SK NK policy] [Lee Myung-bak]
• Iran, NKorea are Americans' least favorite lands
  The Associated Press Friday, February 11, 2011; 7:46 PM NEW YORK -- Americans are not too keen on Iran and North Korea, are all right with Canada and Britain, and are thinking better thoughts about France, according to Gallup's annual World Affairs poll, released Friday. Iran and North Korea have been the two lowest-rated countries in the poll every year since 2004. This year they tied at the bottom with only 11 percent favorability ratings, according to the poll. [public opinion]
• Could Tom Hanks's face superimposed on an animal's body possibly be art?
  By Melissa Bell Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 11, 2011; 6:10 PM Here's Tom Hanks's face - grinning, slightly goofy, those super-emotive eyes. You could say it's a face that inspires trust or, at the least, a certain comforting familiarity. Hanks's body - well, that's something else entirely. It's the body of a bear. Or a penguin. Or a galloping horse. Welcome to "Tom Hanks is Lots of Animals," a single-subject Tumblr blog that manages to be both hilarious and soothing at the same time. (If you don't believe that's possible, take a look .) The single-subject blog, which focuses on one niche topic, has been around in some form for years. But with the advent four years ago of the Tumblr Web site, which offers an easy template for creating quick, highly visual blogs, it may have reached a new pinnacle.
  Other Tumblrs use the form for biting social commentary. "Kim Jong Il Looking at Things" is hugely popular. Every few months, North Korea releases images in the media of its nearly 70-year-old communist leader looking at factories, schools, parades, you name it. The Tumblr blog presents these images with literal commentary: "looking at bottled water," "looking at pigs," and "looking at the wall." The viewer is left trying to explain the unexplainable: Why is Kim Jong Il looking at these things? Why is he always surrounded by a coterie of suited men? What is he attempting to tell the world? The Tumblr - without ever being overt or crass - devastatingly mocks the North Korean leader's attempt to control his image. In similar fashion, then-NPR commentator Juan Williams's remarks that "people who are in Muslim garb" made him nervous inspired the Tumblr "Pictures of Muslims Wearing Things. " [Bizarre]
• Romney rips Obama at CPAC
  By Dan Balz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, February 11, 2011; 11:56 AM Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney opened Friday's CPAC convention session with a sharp attack on President Obama, accusing the president of dithering on the economy and naivete on foreign policy.
  He questioned the administration's policies on Iran, Afghanistan, North Korea and Russia. "I surely hope that at some point in the near future, the president will finally be able to construct a foreign policy, any foreign policy," he said. [US global strategy]
• Korean, U.S. Troops in Afghanistan Plan Joint Drill
  Meanwhile, the source said the people responsible for Tuesday's attack may not have been an organized terrorist group. "Judging from information gathered from local police and other agencies, the force responsible for the latest attack against the Provincial Reconstruction Team is not believed to be linked to the Taliban or other terror organizations," he said. As a result of the attack, the government has decided to indefinitely postpone the official opening of the base scheduled for next Monday. [Tribute] [Global insurgency]
• Hu-Obama Summit: Implications for Managing North Korea
  Posted on Thursday, January 27, 2011 by Scott A. Snyder U.S. President Barack Obama looks on as Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks during a joint press conference in the East Room at the White House in Washington, January 19, 2011. (Kevin Lamarque/Courtesy Reuters) Both North and South Koreans appear to have had disproportionately high expectations in the run-up to last week’s Hu-Obama summit, judging from their reluctant willingness to edge toward tension reduction and dialogue following the November 23rd Yeonpyeong Island artillery shelling and high tensions surrounding South Korea’s live-fire exercises on December 20th. In anticipation of potential improvements in Sino-U.S. coordination, North Korea launched a diplomatic charm offensive during the first two weeks of January. South Korea finally responded shortly following the Hu-Obama summit with proposals for inter-Korean military talks and talks to address nuclear issues. The Sino-U.S. Joint Statement provided a push to the two Koreas by calling for “sincere and constructive inter-Korean dialogue” and by explicitly mentioning enriched uranium as an item that should be on the agenda of renewed Six Party Talks, but the joint statement also exposes clear limits to Sino-U.S. agreement on how to approach North Korea. [China NK] [US China]
• Rockets Pound Korean Base in Afghanistan
  The base of a Korean military unit in Charikar, Afghanistan was attacked by rocket-propelled grenades apparently fired by Afghan insurgents at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, but nobody was hurt. The base was to officially open next Monday. The attack on the Provincial Reconstruction Team came about seven hours after Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin secretly visited the base, prompting speculation that his movements had been watched. [Tribute]
• New U.S. Military Strategy Focuses on Asia
  The U.S. Defense Department predicts that America will face bigger challenges in the Asia-Pacific region due to the emergence of China and India and North Korea's nuclear program. The forecast come in the revised National Military Strategy released Tuesday. [China confrontation] [US global strategy]
• USFK Chief Explains Threat from N.Korean Special Forces
  Gen. Walter Sharp North Korea's 200,000-strong special forces are divided into 60,000 troops assigned to special missions and 140,000 light infantry troops, the commander of the U.S Forces Korea told South Korean lawmakers Tuesday. Gen. Walter Sharp was speaking in a meeting with the National Assembly's Defense Committee. [Military balance][Intelligence][Threat]
• What Kind of Threat Do N.Korea's Special Forces Pose?
  Pundits were intrigued Tuesday by claims from the commander of the U.S. Forces Korea that North Korean special forces troops consist of 60,000 specialized troops and 140,000 light infantry soldiers. The South Korean government's 2010 Defense White Paper mentions that North Korea beefed up its special forces from 180,000 to 200,000 but does not elaborate on their makeup. [Military balance] [Intelligence]
• Defectors chosen for US leadership training program
  By Kim Young-jin Three North Korean defectors living in the South have been selected for a prestigious U.S. government leadership exchange program, Voice of America (VOA) reported Tuesday. Run by the State Department, the International Visitor Leadership Program facilitates short-term visits to the United States for “current and emerging leaders” in various fields for professional development opportunities. Kang Cheol-hwan, widely acclaimed for his prison memoirs, “The Aquariums of Pyongyang,” and head of the North Korea Strategy Center, was among those selected. He previously visited the White House during the George W. Bush administration. Kang Ryong, president of the New Korea Youth Network and university student Park Yeong-man rounded out the list. It marked the third time the U.S. government has invited North Korean defectors to participate in the program, which runs for around three weeks and takes participants to various cities. “In North Korea, I was trained to believe that the U.S. was the enemy,” Park told VOA. “Now that I’m participating in this training program in the U.S., it feels a bit strange. Personally, I really want to learn about American culture.” According to the State Department, hundreds of incumbent and former heads of government have participated in the program since it was established in 1940. Participants are nominated annually by American foreign service officers at U.S. embassies worldwide. [Subversion] [Takeover]
• Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement: The Investment Chapter
  Marty Hart-Landsberg* | February 3, 2011 [Originally written January 26, 2011] President Obama has said that the U.S. needs to compete more effectively for exports. That is why he is calling on Congress to ratify U.S. free trade agreements with Korea, Columbia, and Peru. In the public back and forth about these free trade agreement most of the arguments are about whether the designated tariff reductions mandated by the agreements will produce jobs for U.S. workers. In fact, there is little reason to believe that they will. But, more importantly, little attention has been focused on the fact that these free trade agreements contain many chapters that have far reaching implications beyond employment numbers. [FTA]
• Is Obama about to go wobbly on North Korea?
  By Michael J. Green Feb 4, 2011 After campaigning on the untenable promise that he would meet with leaders like Kim Jong Il without preconditions, President Obama has actually approached North Korea with a firmness that sometimes eluded the Bush administration in its last year. The Obama administration has strengthened trilateral security coordination with Japan and South Korea; implemented tough UN Security Council sanctions against the North after its nuclear tests; and rebuffed Chinese pressure for emergency Six-Party Talks in the wake of Pyongyang’s unprovoked attacks on South Korea. Given the North’s escalating provocations and nuclear cheating and Beijing’s dangerous complacency, this is the only strategy that has a prospect of deterring further belligerency and reversing the incentives the North sees in proliferation on the peninsula and beyond. [US NK policy] [Bilateral] [MISCOM]
• US "Engagement" Policy Slashed--Rodong Sinmun
  Pyongyang, February 6 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun, a major newspaper of the DPRK, terms "engagement" advocated by the U.S. a synonym for aggression, war and interference. In a bylined article on Sunday, the newspaper says: The "engagement" policy, one of the methods employed by the U.S. authorities, reveals their intention to control all other countries and regions and make the world move under the U.S. direction by interfering in their matters.
• North Korea: A 30 Year View
  Maud Easter* | January 28, 2011 [Originally posted on TimesUnion.com, January 7, 2011] Thirty years ago this fall I was in Pyongyang, North Korea, talking to the Foreign Minister Kim Young Nam. I was part of a small delegation from the American Friends Service Committee, the first American non-sectarian group to visit North Korea since the Korean War. In 1980, the US government refused to talk directly with North Korea and would not give visas to any North Koreans to come here. Then, as now, tensions were high on the Korean peninsula. We wanted to learn how North Korea saw the situation and what common ground we might encourage the US government to explore. On our return we met with representatives of the US National Security Council and the State Department. Although the US did slowly begin contact with North Korea in the years after that, American efforts have been incredibly erratic, making promises to the North during negotiations (such a supplying a safer type of reactor for power generation and other energy assistance) that were not been fulfilled and which triggered angry responses from the North. Sadly, two important lessons we learned in 1980 about how North Korea sees its situation have not yet been recognized as essential to reducing the threat of military conflict. [US NK policy] [Peace efforts] [Rebuff]
• Neglected Questions on the “Forgotten War”: South Korea and the United States on the Eve of the Korean War1
  Mark E. Caprio The breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s prodded open the archival doors of once closed regimes releasing interesting information on Soviet-North Korean-Chinese relations during the Cold War. Documents released from these archives contributed new evidence to enrich our understanding of old questions.2 One such question concerns the origins of the Korean War. Documents from these archives demonstrate an active correspondence between the three communist leaders in Northeast Asia—Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il Sung—regarding the planning and orchestration of this war fought primarily among the two Korean states, the United States, and China.3 This new evidence has encouraged scholars to reformulate fundamental views of this war, particularly its place in Cold War history. [Korean War origins]
• North Korea Witness to transformation
  Blog by Marcus Noland and Stephen Haggard [MISCOM]

• Northeast Asia Changes in Military Structure
  Pyongyang, January 28 (KCNA) -- Northeast Asia is undergoing a change in the military structure. From the beginning of the new century the United States has concentrated its effort on gaining control of the region where it has vital interest. As part of the effort, the United States has bolstered its military presence in the region. It has invested 12.6 billion dollars in the expansion of its Guam military establishment, the largest-ever investment in military installations in the western Pacific region since the end of the Second World War. The United States has tightened up military alliance with Japan and south Korea, reinforcing its forces in the region. Many U.S. battleships, including nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and nuclear attack means have been deployed on the Korean peninsula and its vicinity. Japan has already made public a "mid-term program for defense capabilities adjustment" envisaging an investment of 276 billion dollars in the military in five years, a sign that Japan's defense capabilities will be boosted sharply. South Korea and Japan are also seeking military cooperation. The defense ministers of south Korea and Japan held talks on January 10 and agreed to have regular consultations for a military agreement and push ahead with the conclusion of agreements on supply of military equipment and comprehensive security of military information. If the two sides have the agreements, they will be able to share military information and closely cooperate in supply of fuel, food and other war materials. Some countries' moves to cope with the U.S.-Japan-south Korea military tieup draw public attention. Russia plans to stage largest-ever military exercises in the Far East in 2011 and boost its military existence in the region. In recent years China has been equipped with latest-type arms to increase its military capabilities. The change in the military structure of Northeast Asia is widely viewed as a sign of another cold war. [US Global strategy] [Arms race]
• Pentagon Sees N.Korea as Rising Threat
  The U.S. Defense Department believes North Korea will become a "direct threat" in the next few years. Commenting on Defense Secretary Robert Gates' remark that North Korea is "becoming a direct threat to the United States" during his visit to China some two weeks ago, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Wednesday, "By that he doesn't mean at this very moment. But given their pursuit of both the nuclear weapons and their ballistic-missile capabilities, that he sees them being a direct threat not within five years, but sooner than that." "And that's of real concern to us," Morrell added. "That's why we worked with the Chinese, with the Japanese, with others, to try to impress upon the North that they've got to...cut out this provocative behavior, the destabilizing behavior, and they've got to seriously re-evaluate their pursuit of nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles." The spokesman also commented on news reports that U.S. President Barack Obama told his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao that the U.S. would redeploy U.S. troops in Asia unless China applies pressure on the North. "Over the long-term lay-down of our forces in the Pacific, we are looking at ways to even bolster that, not necessarily in Korea and Japan, but along the Pacific Rim, particularly in Southeast Asia," he said. [Threat] [China confrontation] [US NK policy]
• Stuart Levey departs
  By Jennifer Rubin Stuart Levey, who headed the Treasury Department's sanctions programs aimed at Iran and other rogue regimes and reconceived how economic sanctions could be applied, is retiring. Former staff and those who know him well tell me the stated reason is the real one -- six and a half grueling years is enough, and the time has come for him to move on. Conservatives and liberals, whether supportive or critical of the strategy behind economic sanctions, uniformly praise him. A senior Senate staffer intimately involved in Iran policy e-mailed me upon Levey's resignation: What Stuart has done is totally transformational. He basically rewrote the book on sanctions and economic warfare -- discovering that the U.S. had massively more leverage than anyone before imagined. It's not just Iran. It's North Korea and Al Qaeda too. The guy is an American hero. [Sanctions][Toolkit] [IAI]
• Senior U.S. Diplomat in Seoul to Discuss N.Korea's Uranium Program
  James Steinberg James Steinberg, the U.S. deputy secretary of state, arrived in Seoul on Wednesday to brief senior Foreign Ministry officials including Minister Kim Sung-hwan on the latest U.S.-China summit and discuss the question of taking North Korea's uranium enrichment program to the UN Security Council. [LWR] [UNUS]
• Kim Jong Il's Missiles
  As Obama dithers, North Korea is only getting more dangerous. It's time to cut a deal.
  BY JOEL WIT | JANUARY 20, 2011 During his recent trip to Asia, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates as good as admitted that the Obama administration's policy of strategic patience on North Korea has failed. Despite Washington's efforts to convince Pyongyang to alter its bad behavior through measures like sanctions, the danger has only grown. And now, just over the horizon -- in addition to the potential threat of nuclear technology exports -- Gates believes, we may be facing a North Korea able to fire nuclear-armed missiles at the United States. All of this, according to the secretary, means that, "There is some urgency to proceeding down the track of negotiations and engagement." But wait. Even with the secretary's tacit admission, whether there will be real movement toward diplomatic engagement with Pyongyang remains uncertain. Washington has been caught between its own fixation that the North show it is "serious" before negotiations even begin and a South Korea that still seems to be clinging to strategic patience. The result has been a Gordian knot of preconditions for resuming talks that even the most ardent expert would be hard-pressed to figure out. [US NK policy] [Sequencing] [Engagement]
• Boeing facing fiercer competition from Airbus
  Boeing Korea CEO Patrick Gaines By Lee Hyo-sik Boeing, one of the world’s leading airplane manufacturers, is facing growing competion from its archrival Airbus in Korea’s commercial aviation market, with Korean Air and Asiana Airlines buying more planes from the European firm in recent years. The Chicago-based aerospace company used to be the sole supplier of not only military, but also commercial aircraft to Asia’s fourth largest economy, capitalizing on close economic and political ties between Korea and the United States. But domestic airlines are increasingly moving toward the France-based Airbus for supplies of new airplanes. For instance, Asiana Airlines, one of the country’s flagship carriers, recently chose the A380 as its next generation aircraft.
  “It is true that we have purchased more airplanes from Airbus in recent years because they operate more efficiently, compared to those produced by Boeing. Also, the A380 and A321 aircrafts are more price-competitive,” an Asiana Airline spokesman said. [Decline]
• Containment or Engagement in 2011
  Paul Liem* | January 18, 2011 [Originally written January 8, 2011, for the Korean Quarterly] In the 1940s George Kennan, U.S. diplomat and scholar, coined the phrase "containment" as an alternative to the more hawkish goal of "rolling back" communism. Soviet expansion should be countered and "contained" with pro-West political and economic alliances, he believed. Even long after Kennan felt it had come to be misinterpreted as a military doctrine and in spite of Nixon's policy of détente beginning with China in the early 1970s the concept of containment continued to influence U.S. cold war policy. This is particularly true of U.S policy towards Korea, where the free-market and socialist worlds rub shoulders at the DMZ. Today, the term "reign-in," however, is more commonly used to describe containment, in relation to North Korea. [US NK policy] [Engagement]
• DPRK “Collapse” Pathways: Implications for the Energy Sector and for Strategies Redevelopment/Support
  Special Report, January 18, 2011 Peter Hayes and David F. von Hippel This paper originally presented at the conference "The Korea Project: Planning for the Long Term," sponsored by the Korean Studies Institute, USC, and Korea Chair, CSIS. Held at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, August 20-21, 2010. I. Introduction Peter Hayes, Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute, and David von Hippel, Nautilus Institute Senior Associate, write, "Whether precipitated by war, coup, or simply continuing slow economic decline, it is incumbent on the international community to help to provide services and support to stabilize North Korea in the unlikely event of outright collapse. Fortunately, many of the measures that would be needed are the same as should be undertaken in the non-collapse pathways. Among the many likely needs of the North Korean population following a collapse—food, clean water, heath care, and economic development among them—the need to promptly provide the population with reliable and demonstrably improving access to energy services (heat, light, mechanized transportation, and so on) will be a key to stabilizing the country, meeting other post-collapse needs, and readying the North for eventual smooth (one hopes) integration with South Korea." [Collapse] [Takeover] [Bizarre]
• Eyesight to the blind
  By Peter Lee It has been announced that North Korea will be a central issue during President Hu Jintao's state visit to the United States this week. This is not because of the intrinsic importance of the impoverished, barely nuclear power. It is because North Korea is the place where two competing visions of North Asia - China's and the United States' - conspicuously collide. In the US view, North Korea is one of the final battlefields of the Cold War - the inspiration for a league of capitalist democracies to band together to oppose proliferation and aggression. North Korea also serves as a useful stalking horse for anxieties about another communist state, China, while giving the US, South Korea and Japan a reason to unite and arm themselves without directly confronting Beijing.
• Eyesight to the Blind on North Korea
  I have an article up at Asia Times on North Korea as the pivot point for competing U.S. and Chinese ideas of the North Asian security order. Asia Times’ crack editors titled it Eyesight to the Blind . Not sure what that’s about, unless they are referring to the fact that I haven’t seen other commentators making my point: that the U.S., ROK, and Japan are trying to assert a apply Free World vs. Communists template to guide relations with China and North Korea, while China wants to break this system down as a Cold War relic, and replace it with a series of bilateral relations. North Korea is China’s wedge against the alliance: by asserting the continued viability of North Korea (with Chinese support, natch), it is declaring that a US/ROK/Japan tie-up can’t solve the Nork problem and is not an effective paradigm for North Asian security as a whole.
• U.S., China in Tug-of-War Over Korean Affairs
  Korean affairs were one of the toughest issues for U.S. and Chinese officials in drafting a joint statement for U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao on Wednesday morning. Kurt Campbell, the U.S. assistant secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Cui Tiankai, the Chinese vice foreign minister, tried to fine-tune the wording of the joint statement in Washington until 2 a.m. that day, eight hours before the two presidents met. There was such a wide gap in views that the resulting statement is now exceptionally vague. A diplomatic source said, "This is a warning that the two countries will repeat the same argument in discussions at other forums like the UN Security Council." [US NK policy] [China confrontation]
• Limits on Missiles Seriously Hamper S.Korea's Defense
  South Korean and U.S. officials have reportedly begun talks to revise a bilateral accord that limits the range of the South's ballistic missiles to 300 km and caps their payload capacity at 500 kg. The government says South Korea's ballistic missiles should have a range of at least 1,000 km and the payload ceiling should be lifted to 1 ton to bring all of North Korea within range from the southern coast. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will accept the proposal.
• Kim Jong-il Visits Missile Factory Ahead of U.S.-China Talks
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il recently inspected what is believed to be the regime's main missile facility located in the northwestern part of South Pyongan Province. According to Japan's Sankei Shimbun, citing U.S. intelligence agencies, the facility produces engines for tanks and missiles, as well as torpedoes like the one used to attack the South Korean warship Cheonan. Analysts say Kim's move is aimed at delivering a threatening message to its neighbors and the U.S. ahead of Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip to Washington this week. [Bizarre]
• Obama, Hu call on NK to stop provocations
  The United States and China Wednesday called on North Korea to stop provocations and abide by its denuclearization pledge. Speaking at a joint press conference at the White House with Chinese President Hu Jintao, U.S. President Barack Obama said, "I told President Hu that we appreciated China's role in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula. And we agreed that North Korea must avoid further provocations. We agreed that the paramount goal must be complete denuclearization of the peninsula." ,BR> "President Obama and I exchanged views on major international and regional issues, including the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Iranian nuclear issue, climate change and others," Hu said. "China and the United States will enhance coordination and cooperation and work with the relevant parties to maintain peace and stability on the peninsula, promote denuclearization of the peninsula, and achieve lasting peace and security in Northeast Asia." [Media]
• Seoul, Washington Discuss Limits on S.Korean Missiles
  Seoul and Washington have started talks to revise a bilateral accord that limits South Korea's ballistic missile range to 300 km. "The two sides have recently started talks on the revision of the missile accord because there is now some consensus between them," a government source said. "The talks are still in their initial stage, so it remains to be seen how much we can increase the range and payload weight." The accord, signed in 1979, was revised once before in 2001. It limits the range of South Korea's ballistic missiles to 300 km and their payload weight to 500 kg, preventing Seoul from matching the range of missiles to those North Korea has been developing. Seoul proposed the revision talks to Washington after the North tested a long-range ballistic missile in April 2009. But U.S. military leaders including U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp are against a revision. South Korean military and some experts stress the need to increase the range to more than 1,000 km, which would bring all of North Korea within reach from the south coast, and the payload weight to more than 1 ton. The North has deployed ballistic missiles with a maximum range of 3,000 to 4,000 km warfare ready, but South Korean ballistic missiles, such as Hyunmu and ATACMS, have the range of a mere 165 to 300 km. [US SK relations] [Capture] [US dominance] [Missiles] [Military balance] [Spin]
• U.S. 'Could Strike N.Korea's Long-Range Missile Bases' Walter Sharp
  Commander of the U.S. Forces Korea Gen. Walter Sharp has warned of North Korea's long-range missiles and said they must be destroyed if they pose too much of a threat to America. Speaking on U.S. public channel PBS on Thursday, Sharp said, "What we have to be prepared to do is to be able to, number one, deter. But if deterrence doesn't work, be prepared to respond." Asked if the U.S. has the capability to destroy North Korean missile bases, he said, "The alliance has that... capability to be able to do that." By "respond," he apparently meant the U.S. would strike North Korean missile bases directly.
• Handling Tensions on the Korean Peninsula
  On Escalation in Korea By Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action Article January 13, 2011 CPA Contingency Planning Memorandum No. 10 Author: Paul B. Stares, General John W. Vessey Senior Fellow for Conflict Prevention and Director of the Center for Preventive Action Publisher: Council on Foreign Relations Press Release Date: November 2010 DOWNLOAD THE FULL TEXT OF THE MEMORANDUM HERE (107K PDF)Appendix: Korean Peninsula Clashes (202K PDF) Overview Further provocations by North Korea as well as other dangerous military interactions on or around the Korean peninsula remain a serious risk and carry the danger of unintended escalation. Moreover, changes underway in North Korea could precipitate new tensions and herald a prolonged period of instability that raises the possibility of military intervention by outside powers. This Center for Preventive Action Contingency Planning Memorandum by Paul Stares analyzes potentially dangerous crises that could erupt in Korea due to the atmosphere of recrimination and mistrust that exists between North and South; the possibility of provocative, domestically driven North Korean behavior; and the potential for a troubled succession process in Pyongyang. Stares concludes that the United States has a strong and abiding interest in ensuring that another Korean war not be ignited and provides recommendations to reduce the risk of unwanted military escalation on the Korean peninsula. The Author Paul B. Stares is General John W. Vessey senior fellow for conflict prevention and director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations. [Clash] [MISCOM]
• Talking to North Korea
  Published: January 13, 2011 After two years of threats and attacks, North Korea may be pulling back from the brink. Or not. North Korea’s leadership is so erratic — it’s not even clear who is in charge right now — that it is impossible to tell. There are a few hopeful signs. On Monday, the North formally invited South Korea to talks on economic ties. On Wednesday, for the first time in seven months, the North used a diplomatic hot line to call the South. The North’s main patron, China, has also been pushing for a resumption of the six-party talks that the big powers and North Korea’s neighbors say are intended to end the North’s nuclear program. (The North walked out of the last round in 2008.) North Korea has a long history of making promises, collecting economic rewards and then failing to deliver — or manufacturing crises and demanding more payoffs in return for calming tensions. The United States, South Korea and Japan are understandably reluctant to get fooled again. But recent events, including the shelling of a South Korean island, have been so alarming that the Obama administration has now decided to nudge the South back to bilateral talks [US NK policy] [Bilateral] [Strategic paralysis] [Overtures]
• Gates Says N.Korea Could Be a Threat to U.S. Within 5 Years
  U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says North Korea will likely have a missile that can reach the United States within five years, and his talks in Beijing this week were aimed in part at getting China to help put the Pyongyang government "on a different path." Gates wants North Korea to declare a moratorium on further testing of its most dangerous weapons. [Threat] [MISCOM]
• Rodong Sinmun Calls for Confidence-building between DPRK and US
  Pyongyang, January 11 (KCNA) -- It is the master key to settling the present situation for the United States to drop its stance hostile to the DPRK and put an end to the DPRK-U.S. military confrontation. Rodong Sinmun Tuesday says this in a bylined commentary. It goes on: Nothing is more pressing and urgent than to ensure peace on the Korean Peninsula. It is the best way for settling issues to build confidence between the DPRK and the U.S. It is necessary to conclude a peace treaty between the DPRK and the U.S. in order to terminate the state in which they are technically at war, the root cause of the hostile relations between them. [Overtures][NK US policy]
• Gates Warns of North Korea Missile Threat to U.S.
  Pool photo by Larry Downing Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met with President Hu Jintao of China in Beijing on Tuesday. By ELISABETH BUMILLER and DAVID E. SANGER Published: January 11, 2011 BEIJING — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates warned Tuesday that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile, and said that, combined with its expanding nuclear program, the country “is becoming a direct threat to the United States.” Mr. Gates is a former director of the C.I.A., and his statement, officials said, reflected both a new assessment by American intelligence officials and his own concern that Washington had consistently underestimated the pace at which the North was developing nuclear and missile technologies. [MISCOM] [Threat]
• Averting War in Northeast Asia: A Proposal
  Mel Gurtov While the United States and South Korea consider whether or not to accept North Korea’s call for an “unconditional” return to the Six Party Talks (6PT) or China’s call for multilateral negotiations, Northeast Asia is sliding in the direction of deepening conflict that could lead to war. China-Japan relations, which had been warming since the departure of Koizumi Junichiro, and especially since the victory of the Democratic Party of Japan in 2009, are again in a deep freeze over disputed territory. One consequence is a reorientation of Japan’s defense strategy southward, in the direction of the Senkakus (Diaoyutai). Washington is encouraging that shift, as well as closer military cooperation between Japan and South Korea. North-South Korea relations are very tense as the result of the Cheonan incident, the North’s artillery barrage against a small South Korean island, and revelations of a modern North Korean uranium enrichment plant—all coming in the wake of the Lee Myung Bak administration’s almost complete reversal of his predecessors’ engagement policies. And China-US relations are increasingly contentious, going beyond the longstanding differences over currency valuation and human rights to include a host of security matters. Even though China-Taiwan relations have improved, U.S. naval activity in the Pacific has picked up, with a number of exercises conducted alone and with allies leading some Chinese analysts to conclude that containment is again prominent on the U.S. policy agenda. And both China and the United States are beefing up their weapons capabilities relevant to the Taiwan Strait. [Peace efforts]
• U.S. Shifts Toward Talks on N. Korea
  By MICHAEL WINES and MARK LANDLER Published: January 6, 2011 BEIJING — On the heels of a North Korean plea for negotiations to end the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, Obama administration envoys central to stalled six-party talks met Thursday with their Chinese counterparts, and one said he was hopeful that serious talks on North Korea would begin soon. The comment, by Stephen W. Bosworth, the special representative for North Korea policy, underscores a shift in the American approach to North Korea, away from two years of what the administration called “strategic patience” marked by steadfast refusal to engage with the North. [US NK policy] [Media] [Strategic paralysis]
• Two Koreas And U.S. Militaries Lower Alert: Report
  By REUTERS Published: January 7, 2011 Sign In to E-Mail . Filed at 2:18 a.m. ET SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean and U.S. forces have downgraded their defensive alert against the North based on intelligence that Pyongyang has relaxed the standby status of military units on the west coast, a news report said on Friday. The North Korean units, including artillery bases likely to have been involved in the shelling of a South Korean island on November 23, had been on special standby but now appear to be on routine operations, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. "We're looking at whether these steps are linked to the conciliatory gestures coming from the North with its offer for talks," Yonhap quoted the government source as saying. South Korea's defense ministry and an official at the Combined Forces Command declined to confirm the report. "We do not discuss intelligence matters," the official said. Last year, tension reached some of its highest levels since the 1950-53 Korean War when a South Korean navy ship was sunk by a torpedo attack which Seoul blamed on the North, and the North bombed Yeonpyeong island in November. The incidents, and threats of retaliation from both sides of the border, briefly rattled financial markets. Some analysts said the risk of a broader conflict intensified, though full-scale war remains unlikely. South Korea's Chief of Naval Operation Kim Sung-chan told local reporters on Friday it and the U.S. military will double the scale of combined anti-submarine drills this year, including those in waters near the disputed sea border with the North, Yonhap reported [Overtures] [Rebuff] [Buildup]
• US envoy says he had productive talks on Koreas
  PHOTOS Previous Next A top U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth speaks to the press following his talks with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Kenichiro Sasae at the Foreign Ministry in Tokyo, Friday, Jan. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa) (Junji Kurokawa - AP) A top U.S. envoy for North Korea, Stephen Bosworth arrives at the Foreign Ministry for talks with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Kenichiro Sasae in Tokyo, Friday, Jan. 7, 2011.(AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa) (Junji Kurokawa - AP) By TOMOKO A. HOSAKA The Associated Press Friday, January 7, 2011; 1:28 AM TOKYO -- A U.S. envoy said he had productive discussions with Japanese officials Friday about the crisis on the Korean peninsula, ending a week of meetings in three countries on ending tensions between North and South Korea. Stephen Bosworth, Washington's special envoy for North Korea policy, met with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Kenichiro Sasae for about 30 minutes. He arrived in Tokyo after holding similar talks in Beijing and Seoul.
• Analysis - Volatility and Opportunity in 2011 on the Korean Peninsula
  By Abraham Kim (ak@keia.org) and Jack Pritchard (jp@keia.org) January 5, 2011 Last year was a momentous year for the Korean Peninsula. As the world worked its way out of the global and financial crisis of 2008-2009, South Korea demonstrated its global leadership at the Seoul G-20 Summit. The work that went into the preparations and execution of the G-20 summit showcased Korea’s growing economic prowess and its potential to be a major player in reformulating the financial underpinnings of the global economy. The year also reminded us of the persistent uncertainty surrounding North Korea’s future and the fragility of the peninsula’s stability. Looking ahead, despite recent calls by both Korean governments for a reduction in tensions, Pyongyang’s brinkmanship will likely carry on in the coming year. Meanwhile, the international community’s frustration with Beijing will continue to run high as China remains deeply divided with the U.S., South Korea and Japan over how to respond to North Korea’s provocations. One silver lining for a potentially volatile year ahead is the steady strengthening of the U.S.-Korea relationship and the emerging security situation building momentum for the ratification of the much anticipated U.S.-Korea free trade agreement. The episodes of North Korean military aggression in 2010 reminded us that while the start of the Korean War was now 60 years behind us, inter-Korean tension and Pyongyang’s treachery still persist today [US NK policy] [MISCOM][Strategic paralysis]
• U.S. Ambassador Feels Heat from WikiLeaks
  Kathleen Stephens WikiLeaks has put U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Kathleen Stephens in an awkward situation since among the thousands of diplomatic telegrams that have been divulged the number sent by her is especially large and the content very detailed. Among those who find themselves in the hot seat with her are Chun Young-woo, the presidential secretary for foreign affairs and national security, who made comments about Chinese diplomats' perception of North Korea, and Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, who talked about her meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Former Chinese ambassador to Seoul Cheng Yonghua has also ended up with egg on his face as a result of talking to Stephens over dinner, where he offered a frank evaluation of North Korea's botched currency reform. [WikiLeaks]
• 'S-N talks must precede NK deals'
  By Kim Young-jin South Korea and the United States agreed Wednesday that North Korea must prove its genuine intent to denuclearize and engage with the South before multilateral denuclearization talks can resume. [Sequencing] [US NK policy]
• ‘US skeptical on NK's calls for unconditional dialogue’
  The United States on Wednesday expressed skepticism (sic) about North Korea's proposal for unconditional dialogue with South Korea to ease tensions, saying Pyongyang must first apologize for recent provocations and show commitment for denuclearization, Yonhap News Agency reported in a dispatch from Washington. [overtures] [US NK policy] [Spin]
• Big changes coming to Obama's Asia team
  Wednesday, January 5, 2011; 8:13 PM Big changes coming to Obama's Asia team Several senior Obama administration Asia officials are scheduled to either leave government or move to new jobs within the bureaucracy in the coming months, as the White House tries to hit the reset button on U.S.-China relations. The two top Obama administration officials responsible for driving Asia policy have been Jeffrey Bader, the National Security Council's senior director for Asia, and Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Although Campbell is generally seen as more hawkish on China than Bader, the two close friends have worked together from day one. [Chins confrontation]
• The Luxury Homes of the N.Korean Elite
  Satellite images show that there are more than 70 luxury residences and villas for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the ruling clique, Radio Free Asia reported on Tuesday. The U.S.-funded radio station quoted satellite photo analyst Curtis Melvin as saying the villas are concentrated in Yongsong District in Pyongyang, Sinuiju, Wonsan, Hamhung, and Hoechon. They are typically a hybrid of Korean and Western-style buildings in thick forest with lakes and manicured gardens. Some 20 residential complexes in Pyongyang, Sinuiju, Wonsan, Hyesan, Kanggye, Mt. Myohyang, Hungnam, and Sinchon even have exclusive train stations. Most of Kim Jong-il's own residences are surrounded by walls and security checkpoints, and trains stations are sometimes inside the compounds, Melvin said. The paranoid leader has never used airplanes and preferably travels by special armored train. South Korean intelligence speculate that Kim has as many as six exclusive trains with a total of about 90 cars and 19 train stations. Kim owns up to 33 villas in the mountains or on the beach across North Korea, they believe. The Daily Telegraph last Saturday reported the chronically impoverished country is spending upwards of US$150 million building luxury residences for Kim's son and heir Jong-un in Pyongyang and near a hot springs area in North Hamgyong Province. [Media] [intelligence]
• U.S. envoy urges serious negotiations with N. Korea
  » Stephen Bosworth, U.S. representative for North Korea policy, answers questions from reporters at Incheon International Airport about the resuming of six party talks, Jan. 4. (Photo by Kim Tae-hyung) Stephen Bosworth, US special representative for North Korea policy, arrived at Incheon International Airport Tuesday and told reporters that serious negotiations must be at the heart of any strategy to deal with the communist nation. “We look forward to being able to launch those at a reasonably early time,” he added. Bosworth said he plans to spend more time listening to the other member countries’ views on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program. He met with South Korean chief nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-lac and is scheduled to meet with Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan before flying to Beijing for the second leg of his trip. ]Agency] [US NK policy]
• No time to 'engage' North Korea
  By Jennifer Rubin Posted at 12:26 PM ET, 01/ 4/2011 Former United Nations ambassador and potential 2012 presidential contender John Bolton writes in the Wall Street Journal: President Obama's North Korea policy has come to an entirely predictable dead end. Having for two years correctly resisted resuming the six party talks on the North's nuclear-weapons program, Mr. Obama is now pressuring South Korea to do just that. This is a significant mistake. It would have been bad enough had Mr. Obama simply picked up where the Bush administration left off in January 2009, but restarting the talks now will signal weakness and indecisiveness. Rather than resume six-party talks, Bolton advises: We should thoroughly isolate North Korea by denying it access to international financial markets, ramping up efforts to prevent trade in weapons- related materials and pressuring China to adhere to existing U.N. sanctions resolutions. Opening North Korea to foreign commerce to benefit its near-starving population, as some advocate, is utterly fanciful. If the regime had ever cared about its people, they wouldn't be in such dire straits. We should also dramatically expand preparations for Kim [Jong Ill]'s inevitable demise It is time, he posits, to make Korean unification our goal. [US NK policy] [Takeover] [Buildup ][Nuclear weapons]
• North Korea: Not the Time for Talks
  Restarting negotiations after the recent deadly attack on South Korea will be seen as a sign of weakness..
  ».BY JOHN BOLTON President Obama's North Korea policy has come to an entirely predictable dead end. Having for two years correctly resisted resuming the six party talks on the North's nuclear-weapons program, Mr. Obama is now pressuring South Korea to do just that. This is a significant mistake. It would have been bad enough had Mr. Obama simply picked up where the Bush administration left off in January 2009, but restarting the talks now will signal weakness and indecisiveness. Since Mr. Obama's inauguration, Pyongyang has detonated its second nuclear device and launched two unprovoked military attacks—torpedoing a South Korean naval vessel last March ... [US NK policy] [Takeover] [Buildup]
• US urges NK to take concrete steps for denuclearization before talks
  The United States Monday called on North Korea to take concrete steps toward its denuclearization before (sic) reopening the six-party nuclear talks, which have been stalled for more than two years over the North's provocations, Yonhap News Agency said. [Sequencing] [US NK policy]
• U.S.' N.Korea Envoy Travels to Asia
  U.S. special envoy for North Korea will travel to South Korea, China and Japan this week. The State Department said in a statement Sunday that Ambassador Stephen Bosworth will visit the three countries from Monday to Friday. Washington's special envoy for six-party talks, Sung Kim, will accompany him. Bosworth is scheduled to arrive in Seoul on Tuesday and travel to Beijing the next day. He will continue on to Tokyo on Thursday. The State Department says he will meet with senior government officials in all three cities to discuss the "next steps on the Korea Peninsula." Tensions on the Korean peninsula reached a critical level after North Korea's November artillery attack on a South Korean island. South Korea also blames the North for the sinking of its warship, the Cheonan, in March, which killed 46 crewmen. North Korea abandoned six-party nuclear disarmament talks last year, but has recently signaled it wants to return to the negotiating table. The United States, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan are also parties to the aid-for-disarmament talks.
• Kim Jong-il hides himself underground for fear of US F-22 Raptors
  North Korean leader Kim Jong-il hid himself in an underground bunker for nine days during the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercise off the west coast from Nov. 28 to Dec. 1 last year for fear of F-22 Raptors of the U.S. Air Force, the Joongang Sunday magazine reported. The F-22 Raptor is a fifth-generation supermaneuverable fighter aircraft equipped with stealth technology. The U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington participated in the joint exercise. [Assassination] [US Joint military] [Buildup] [Media] [Military balance]

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