ROK and Inter-Korean relations
April 2016
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Iran Urges WMD-Free Korean Peninsula
News ID: 1064678 Service: Nuclear
May, 02, 2016 - 15:37
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani voiced the country’s support for peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula with elimination of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
“Iran favors peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula, and we are basically opposed to production of any weapons of mass destruction,” the Iranian president said at a high-profile ceremony in Tehran on Monday, attended by his South Korean counterpart.
“It is our demand that the world be free from weapons of mass destruction and nukes, particularly in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East region,” he said, adding that security in both regions is necessary for the expansion of bilateral relations.
[Iran]
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Iranian President Slams N.Korean Nuke Program
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Monday distanced his country from North Korea and its nuclear program.
"We want changes on the Korean Peninsula and we are, in principle, opposed to any nuclear development,” Rouhani told reporters in Tehran. "Our basic principle is that there should be no nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula or in the Middle East."
Rouhani did not name North Korea or Israel, but it was clear he had them in mind.
He was speaking in a press conference with President Park Geun-hye, who arrived earlier in the day as the first Korean president to set foot in the country and the first female leader of a non-Muslim nation to visit Tehran.
[Iran] [Media]
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Park-Khamenei meeting adds pressure on NK
By Yi Whan-woo
President Park Geun-hye and Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have agreed to bolster bilateral relations for regional peace and security in a much-touted meeting before Park wrapped up her three-day visit to Tehran, Tuesday.
The meeting, held Monday, is expected to deal another blow to North Korea's nuclear program in addition to the first-ever South Korea-Iran summit hours earlier.
The meeting is significant as Iran's ruling system combines theocracy with republicanism, and Khamenei, who is also a spiritual leader, wields far more power than Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the country's parliament.
In North Korea, the late Kim Il-sung was the country's only leader to meet Khamenei in May 1989 when the latter visited Pyongyang as the Iranian president.
In a meeting with Park, Khamenei did not mention North Korea and its nuclear program.
But he called on resolving issues on terrorism and insecurity around the globe, saying: "I hope South Korea and Iran can cooperate to bring peace and stability."
[Iran] [Media] [Heading]
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Seoul Warns It Will Ramp Up Cross-Border Propaganda
Seoul will step up its propaganda broadcasts at the border if North Korea conducts another nuclear test, it warned Thursday.
"If the regime crosses the line with another nuclear test we'll step up measures that the regime finds uncomfortable" such as propaganda broadcasts, a senior official here said.
The military wants to broadcast for longer and sharpen the messages. They were a regular feature at the border until an agreement in 2004, and Seoul resumed them last year after a box-mine attack in the demilitarized zone, suspended them again at North Korea's urging, and resumed them again after the North latest nuclear test.
[Escalation]
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NIS Denies Abducting N.Korean Waitresses
All 20 North Korean waitresses in a restaurant in Ningbo, China wanted to defect to South Korea early this month, but seven decided not to come because of their families back in the North, the National Intelligence Service here said Wednesday.
The NIS was defending itself in the National Assembly's Intelligence Committee against North Korean claims that it abducted them.
The seven decided not to join their defecting colleagues at the last minute, the NIS said.
The seven were paraded before CNN in Pyongyang recently, where they claimed the defection was an abduction orchestrated by South Korean authorities.
But the NIS said the 13 others left China on their own using their valid North Korean passports.
The spy agency said many North Korean restaurants in China and other countries have closed as customers kept away amid international sanctions against the North
[Election defection] [NIS]
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One “last lullaby” as a pieta is unveiled as apology to Vietnam War victims
Posted on : Apr.28,2016 16:27 KST
Former comfort women Lee Yong-su clasps her hands as she kneels after placing flowers in front of a scale of the pieta statue for victims of the Vietnam War in front of the Franciscan Education Center in Seoul, Apr. 27. (by Kim Tae-hyeong, staff photographer)
Statue to be erected in Vietnam as a symbol of contrition for war-era massacres by South Korean soldiers
A scale model for a so-called “Vietnam pieta” was unveiled on Apr. 27 next to a comfort women statue in front of the Franciscan Education Center in Seoul.
With a Vietnamese name meaning “last lullaby,” the 1.5-meter-high statue shows a mother cradling a baby in her arms. Actual bronze pieta statues based on the model are erected in Jeju’s Gangjeong village and the Binh Hoa area of Binh Son, a district in Vietnam’s Quang Ngai Province. The works by sculpting couple Kim Seo-kyung and Kim Woon-kyung - also creators of the comfort women statue - are meant to express condolences for the lives lost in the Vietnam War.
“When you commit a wrong, you must apologize,” said 88-year-old comfort woman survivor Lee Yong-su as she placed a purple flower in the hand of the young girl statue and bowed her head before the pieta.
[Vietnam] [War crimes] [Park Chung-hee]
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NIS directed right-wing groups pro-government propaganda activities
Posted on : Apr.26,2016 16:12 KST
Intelligence agency has a long history of being co-opted to push the government’s right-wing agenda
Amid growing allegations about the source of funding for the Korea Parent Federation and its pro-government demonstrations, a prosecutors’ investigation had turned up evidence that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has been effectively orchestrating the activities of conservative groups since the administration of former president Lee Myung-bak (2008-2013). The evidence shows that the NIS has been involved not only in political advertisements that conservative groups have run in newspapers but also in their plans to hold one-person protests and to hand out pamphlets.
In a hearing on Apr. 25 in the trial of former NIS director Won Sei-hoon, the main culprit in the NIS online comment case (where the agency attempted to manipulate public opinion ahead of the 2012 presidential election), the prosecutors said that “An agent surnamed Park who was on the NIS’s psychological warfare team supported and supervised right-wing conservative organizations and right-wing youth organizations.” The case, which was reversed and remanded, is being tried by criminal division No. 7 at the Seoul High Court, under Hon. Kim Si-cheol.
[NIS] {NGO]
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Poorest of the poor: defectors lured to demonstrations by pocket money
Posted on : Apr.25,2016 16:52 KST
Members of the Korea Parent Federation and other conservative groups hold a protest against the Sewol sinking victims’ families outside Yeongdeungpo Police Station in Seoul, Sept. 19, 2014. Some of them were North Korean defectors who were paid to participate. (Yonhap News)
Conservative groups take advantage of North Korean defectors’ poverty to mobilize them for political demonstrations
“What would I do if I stayed at home?”
Na Yeong-sik, a North Korea defector who came to South Korea about 10 years ago, made the remark as he recalled what had happened in 2014.
During the summer of that year, Na attended a demonstration that was held in front of the KBS building in Seoul’s Yeouido neighborhood. Demonstrators were protesting what they described as “malicious coverage” of a lecture by Moon Chang-geuk, then a nominee for prime minister, in which KBS allegedly took Moon’s words out of context. (During the lecture, Moon had said that “Japan’s colonization of South Korea was the will of God.”)
[Defectors] [Manipulation] [Rightwing]
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Support for Pres. Park and ruling party hits lowest point since taking office
Posted on : Apr.23,2016 17:04 KST
President sees her support drop even in traditional conservative strongholds, while liberal People’s Party gets highest rating since forming
President Park Geun-hye enters the 2016 National Strategy Meeting at the Blue House in Seoul, Apr. 22. (Blue House photo pool)
President Park Geun-hye’s approval rating plunged ten percentage points in the past week, dropping to under 30% and tying the low for her term.
At 30%, support for the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) was also at its lowest since the Park administration took office in February 2013. Meanwhile, support for the opposition People’s Party jumped to 25%, its highest level since its February establishment.
[Park Geun-hye] [Public Opinion]
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Seoul rejects N. Korea’s offer of family meetings for defected restaurant staff
Posted on : Apr.23,2016 17:00 KST
Offer comes after seven waitresses who didn’t defect gave an interview to CNN in Pyongyang
In connection with a group defection to South Korea of 13 North Korean employees at the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, a city in China’s Zhejiang Province, North Korea’s Red Cross said on Apr. 22 that it would allow their’ family members in North Korea to visit Seoul to see them, but the South Korean government rejected this proposal.
On Friday, Ri Chung-bok, chair of the North Korean Red Cross’s central committee, sent a message to Kim Sung-joo, president of South Korea’s Red Cross, in which he accused South Korea of “kidnapping, abducting and detaining” the 13 workers. “Once again, we gravely notify you that we have agreed to send their family members to Seoul by way of Panmunjeom in line with their earnest request,” Ri said in the message.
This message appears to be the next in a sequence of actions that began with an interview with CNN on Apr. 21 by the other seven staff members of the Ryukyung Restaurant, who have returned to North Korea. During the interview, the former waitresses contended that the restaurant manager and a South Korean businessperson had deceived their colleagues on the orders of the South Korean government and had planned and carried out the trip to South Korea.
Immediately after this interview, North Korea issued a statement by the spokesperson of the North Korean Red Cross’s central committee that said, “The North Korean employees must be given a public press conference right away so that they can receive the fair judgment of public opinion. In line with the family members' ardent appeals, we will send them to Panmunjeom, or even to Seoul if need be, so that they can meet their children directly."
In a government position statement issued on Friday afternoon, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said, “The group defection of the North Korean overseas restaurant staff took place completely according to their own free will. We cannot accept the request for a family meeting included in the notification made in the name of the chairman of the central committee of North Korea’s Red Cross.”
By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter
[Election defection]
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New Spying Scandals: Future Probability or Fact?
Konstantin Asmolov
At the time of the ongoing inter-Korean crisis, we can draw attention to one of its aspects: how the South has been actively fanning the fears of new terrorist or spy scandals, which are apparently about to break out. This time it is not about cliche “Pyongyang hackers” but the activities of North Korean spies.
According to the international Korean radio and a number of other sources, “amid increasing international pressure on Pyongyang, there are concerns about the safety of citizens of the Republic of Korea during their stay in the area of Chinese-North Korean border”. It turns out that in recent years, the Chinese border city of Dandong has seen an upturn in media activities concerned with changes in NK after the adoption of the anti-North Korean resolution by the UN Security Council. Meanwhile, according to the intelligence services, the North is planning kidnappings and provocations against members of the South Korean media and religious leaders. “According to one North Korean defector, who formerly served in the border division of the KPA,” the work of journalists collecting all sorts of information about NK is being constantly monitored by the military of the North. He also noted that “the NK intelligence agencies hire Chinese citizens to spy on Korean journalists whose security may be threatened. For example, it is believed that the citizens of the Republic of Korea Kim, Jeong-wook and Kim Guk Ki, that are being held by the North, were actually kidnapped. In this regard, the Government of the Republic of Korea calls on journalists and religious leaders located in the vicinity of the Chinese-North Korean border to exercise caution.
[Espionage]
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North Korean restaurant staff speak out from Pyongyang for first time
Posted on : Apr.22,2016 21:46 KST
Choe Hye-hong, who had been a waitress at Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, speaks to CNN in an interview about her 13 colleagues that defected to South Korea.
In a group interview, waitresses who didn’t defect say group defection was organized by manager, with S. Korean government help
In connection with a group defection to South Korea of 13 North Korean employees from the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, a city in the Zhejiang Province of China, seven women who said they had worked at the same restaurant gave a group interview to CNN in Pyongyang in which they said that the manager had tricked them and taken their coworkers to South Korea.
These remarks were part of an exclusive interview that CNN featured on its website. CNN interviewed Choe Hye-hong and six other female employees in their 20s at the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang on Apr. 21.
On Apr. 7, South Korea's Unification Ministry officially announced on Apr. 7 that the 13 employees of the Ryukyung Restaurant had "defected in a group of their own free will," and this is the first time that the remaining North Korean employees have come forward to explicitly refute this story.
In a statement that the spokesperson of the central committee of the North Korean Red Cross issued immediately after the CNN report, North Korea criticized the defection as "a wicked kidnapping, abduction and forced defection."
"The North Korean employees must be given a public press conference right away so that they can receive the fair judgment of public opinion," North Korea said. "In line with the family members' ardent appeals, we will send them to Panmunjeom, or even to Seoul if need be, so that they can meet their children directly."
[Election defection]
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Many former firms at Gaeseong in crises of closure
By Choi Sung-jin
The concerns about mass bankruptcies of businesses that operated in the now-closed Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) are becoming a reality.
According to the council of GIC companies, 120 out of the total 123 businesses that operated there until its shutdown in February have since suffered combined losses of 815.2 billion won ($713.2 million) – 568.8 billion won in fixed assets and another 246.4 billion won in liquid assets.
The council officials said some 50 firms that had made most of their products at the inter-Korean factory park or whose entire manufacturing facilities were there appear to be experiencing crises of insolvencies. Except for about 10 relatively large companies listed on the stock exchange, most of the others should be seen in similar situations, they added.
By most appearances, up to 70 of the GIC companies will have to close their businesses before long if the current situation continues, the council said. "We have yet to see a firm go bankrupt but too many of them have already suffered irreparable damages," a businessman at the council said. "The companies will first stop employing new workers and then begin to sell assets before going bankrupt."
[Kaesong] [Sanctions]
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Identity, Security, and the Nation: Understanding the South Korean Response to North Korean Defectors
By Sarah Son | April 22, 2016
by Sarah Son
The study of North Korean defectors is an area which has been growing in popularity with researchers over the last decade. In large part this has to do with novelty of meeting and learning from a people who are living testimonies of life under a regime which is so difficult to access and which has become a source of global curiosity and concern in recent years. North Korean defectors have thus been the subject of a range of studies in anthropology, psychology, migration studies, and now in international relations. These studies trace their often dangerous journeys of escape, their efforts to find and build a new life in relative freedom, and the full range of social, political, economic and other questions that this process prompts.
[Defector]
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WCC concerned by penalization of encounter between South and North Korean Christians
21 April 2016
In a letter to Park Geun-hye, president of South Korea, the World Council of Churches (WCC) expressed disappointment over sanctions and fines imposed on members of the National Council of Churches in (South) Korea (NCCK) after they participated in a dialogue encounter with representatives of the (North) Korean Christians Federation (KCF).
Penalties were imposed on Dr Noh Jungsun, Rev. Jeon Yongho, Rev. Cho Hungjung, Rev. Han Giyang and Rev. Shin Seungmin, all representatives of the NCCK Peace and Reunification Committee, who participated in a meeting with the KCF leadership in Shenyang, China, on 28-29 February this year.
In the letter, WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit recalled that the WCC has been actively engaged in promoting peace, reconciliation and reunification on the Korean peninsula for more than 30 years.
“Through such national, regional and international ecumenical commitment and cooperation, the ecumenical movement seeks to witness to the peace of Jesus Christ and to make visible the unity of the Church in a divided and conflicted world,” he wrote.
Tveit referred to the recent escalation of tensions and confrontation on the Korean peninsula, and stressed that “It is especially in this situation that encounter and dialogue is even more urgently needed.” With regard to the fines imposed on the members of the NCCK delegation, he expressed a critical standpoint:
“We do not believe that penalizing encounter and dialogue between South Korean and North Korean Christians is a necessary or effective measure for reducing tensions and advancing the cause of peace; on the contrary. Moreover, such a measure impedes and undermines the longstanding inter-church relationship on the Korean peninsula that the WCC has sought to encourage over more than three decades.”
Tveit called on the South Korean government to revoke the penalties, and appealed to President Park “not to close channels of communication and encounter, but to intensify efforts to promote dialogue at all levels.”
Expressing the hope that “the cycle of threat and counter-threat can be broken, before the threshold to catastrophic conflict is one day crossed”, Tveit asked for President Park’s leadership “away from this precipice, towards peaceful co-existence and an end to the suspended state of war.”
[Repression] [Religion] [Inter-Korean]
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Position on the Sanction of Ministry of Unification on the Reconciliation and Reunification Committee of the NCCK
April 4, 2016
The North and South relationship has been completely cut off and war clouds are hovering over the Korean peninsula due to North Korea’s fourth nuclear testing and satellite launch as well as the closing down of the Kaesung Industrial Complex and the UN Security Council Resolution 2270 on North Korea.
As an agent of peace and reconciliation, and to fulfill its commitment to peace and reconciliation, the Reconciliation and Reunification Committee (RRC) held a working-level talk with the Korean Christian Federation (KCF) Feb. 28-29 in Shenyang, China. The delegates of the RRC included the chair, Dr. Noh Jungsun, and Rev. Jeon Yongho, Rev. Cho Hungjung, Rev. Han Giyang, and Rev. Shin Seungmin. The KCF was represented by four members including the chair-person, Rev. Kang Myungchul. The talk, which had been planned since last year as a regular meeting, aimed specifically to discuss areas of exchange and cooperation between the North and South churches over the course of a year. As severe setbacks were expected regarding the North-South churches’ future cooperation if the talk was to be cancelled, the RRC, reiterating the importance of civilian exchange, appealed its strong intention to meet the KCF to the Ministry of Unification numerous times but they repeated its stance of "not allowing any sort of exchange."
However, despite the Ministry’s disapproval, the RRC participated in the talk. In this talk, the following was shared: 1. When the North-South relationship has been severed, the civil society including religions should take on the role to break the deadlock and the North and South churches should especially actively work for the nation’s peace; 2. Both KCF and NCCK affirm that war in the Korean peninsula cannot be justified for whatever reason and that any action triggering war must be denounced. The two churches convey this affirmation to their respective governments; 3. Nuclear tests, satellite launching, the shutdown of Kaesung joint industrial zone, and the UN’s resolution contribute nothing to peace in the Korean peninsula. In addition, the two churches agreed on the 2016 North-South Common Easter Prayer.
[Repression] [Religion] [Inter-Korean]
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Defectors' co-workers in the North speak out
Updated : 2016-04-21 16:39
By Lee Han-soo
Seven North Korean waitresses, who worked with the 13 women who defected to South Korea on April 11, have finally spoken to CNN.
The waitresses all worked at the same restaurant in Ningbo City, in southern China. Because the restaurant is closed the seven have returned to North Korea.
The waitresses claim the restaurant manager tricked the others into defecting.
"In mid-March our restaurant manager gathered us together and told us the restaurant would be moved to somewhere in Southeast Asia," head waitress Choe Hye-yong told CNN.
Choe said that when she realized the manager's real intention she only managed to alert a few of her colleagues.
The waitress claimed that a South Korean businessman was involved in the mass defection under orders from the South Korean government.
[Election defection]
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Tearful North Korean waitresses: Our 'defector' colleagues were tricked
By Will Ripley, CNN
Updated 0017 GMT (0717 HKT) April 21, 2016
Story highlights
South Korea announced 12 North Korean women and one man defected from a state-owned restaurant in China last week
North Korea says it amounts to a "group abduction"
CNN gains exclusive access to seven waitresses from the same restaurant who say their colleagues were tricked into leaving
Pyongyang (CNN) — The door opens and seven women walk quietly into the ornate lobby of the Koryo Hotel in Pyongyang. Their faces are expressionless. Most wear little or no makeup, black jackets, and patriotic red lapel pins.
The women, all in their 20s, represent some of the most trusted citizens in the North Korean capital. They come from good families and were chosen for the coveted assignment of working abroad to earn money for their government.
Until earlier this month, they were waitresses at a state-owned and operated restaurant in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, in southern China. Now, that restaurant is closed. And these women's lives have become extraordinarily complicated.
"We would never leave our parents, country, and leader Kim Jong Un. None of us would ever do that," said waitress Han Yun Hui, sobbing alongside her colleagues.
Last week, South Korea announced 12 North Korean women and one man defected after "feeling pressure from North Korean authorities" to send foreign currency back to their homeland, according to a South Korean government spokesman.
Related Video: Senior North Korean officer defects to South 01:49
"The workers said that they learned about the reality in South Korea through South Korean TV, soap operas, movies and (the) internet," said South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee at the time.
A spokesman for the North Korean Red Cross quickly denounced the apparent defections as a "group abduction" of North Korean employees "in broad daylight," according to KCNA -- the official mouthpiece of Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un's government.
The seven waitresses, presented exclusively to a CNN team in Pyongyang on Monday, are workers from the same Ningbo restaurant, who have since returned to North Korea. This is the first time they have spoken publicly. They claim the restaurant manager tricked the other 12 waitresses into leaving, by lying about their final destination.
"In mid-March our restaurant manager gathered us together and told us that our restaurant would be moved to somewhere in Southeast Asia," said head waitress Choe Hye Yong.
When asked if she had a message for her friends and colleagues who are now in South Korea, head waitress Choe Hye Yong made an emotional plea.
"Comrade Kim Jong Un is yearning for all of you to return. We are awaiting your return, unable to sleep or eat. Please hold on a bit longer, gain victory, and come back to our country," she said.
Still wiping away tears, the waitresses walk back through the hotel lobby to the door they came from. Their lives are forever changed. They now face the heavy burden of explaining why their friends left home and didn't come back.
[Election defection] [Media]
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Troops Practice Amphibious Tank Landing
An infantry division on Tuesday practiced crossing the Namhan River near Yeoju in Gyeonggi Province on Tuesday, using K-2 Black Panther tanks equipped with snorkels.
The amphibious tank can shorten the time for an attack as it is capable of submerging up to 4.1 m in any river, using the detachable vent device.
The K-2 is the military's next-generation main battle tank.
[Military balance] [Amphibious]
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Results of 2016 Parliamentary Elections and Future of Korea’s Domestic Policy
Konstantin Asmolov
On April 13, 2016, South Korea held the National Assembly Elections. Three hundred representatives were to be elected in 13,837 election districts, including 253 from single-seat constituencies and 47 from the party lists (on pro rata basis). The Central Election Commission reported that the voter turnout amounted to 58% (a 3.7% increase over the 2012 elections). There were no crude violations registered that could radically change the outcome of the elections. Thus, the results can be already assessed.
It is important to analyze them since the ruling Conservative Party has lost both the elections to the left-wingers and the majority in the National Assembly. Even conservatives themselves defined the results as a total political setback. The number of their seats in the Parliament dropped from 152 to 122 despite the fact that the authorities had played all their cards (including the North Korean) to heat up pro-conservative sentiment among the South Koreans.
[Election]
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[Reporter’s notebook] After election, government suddenly quiet on N. Korean group defection
Posted on : Apr.19,2016 17:10 KST
Group defection looks to have been a ploy to influence general election using the specter of North Korea
“I feel like this groundless rumor isn’t even worth responding to,” snapped Unification Ministry Spokesperson Jeong Joon-hee on Apr. 18. This was the government’s official response to North Korea’s claim that the North Korean employees who were part of a “group defection” loudly announced by Seoul had actually been “lured away and kidnapped.”
But Jeong did not offer any explanation in support of his repeated dismissal of North Korea’s claim as a “groundless rumor.”
A little over 10 days later, there has been a definite change in the government’s stance. The official briefing about the group defection that took place five days before the general election; the back-to-back background briefings by senior officials in the Unification Ministry and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, three days before the election; the factual confirmations of “high-ranking” North Koreans who had defected last year that came out two days before the election - all of this attention-grabbing behavior was not only irregular but indeed conflicted with the government‘s official policy regarding defectors.
The Blue House’s attempt to scare voters with the specter of North Korea was pathetic and showed that such tactics no longer work with voters.
[Election defection] [Election]
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High cost puts squeeze on would-be NK defectors
By Lee Jin-a
The number of North Korean defectors has decreased since Kim Jong-un took power in 2011 because the state's crackdown on the border with China has made it more expensive to escape, according to CBS No-Cut News.
Strengthening of police control near the border has pushed the cost of arranging a broker to escape from the military state to 12 million won ($10,000) a person, compared with 8 million won last year.
After escaping, defectors have to pay another 2 million won if they want to pass between China and a Southeast Asian country. The total cost of escaping from the North is estimated at up to 15 million won a person.
"Many North Koreans cannot cross the border, not because they don't want to, but because they cannot afford the cost of arranging brokers," said a director from a North Korean defector support organization in an interview with CBS. "Although most of the defectors in South Korea financially supported their families to cross the border until three years ago, the cost has now gone up too high for them to afford."
During Kim Jong-un's regime, the number of the defectors has decreased from 2,706 in 2011 to 1,276 last year. A total of 342 North Koreans entered the South from January to March this year.
[Election defection] [Media]
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After general election victory, opposition looking to next year’s presidential vote
Posted on : Apr.18,2016 16:41 KST
The leaders of the three main political parties during the Apr. 13 general elections. From left to right, the Saenuri Party, Minjoo Party of Korea, and the People’s Party.
Various parties seeking a possible election alliance to unseat the ruling Saenuri Party
Even before the shock and excitement about the outcome of the general elections on Apr. 13 have subsided, the opposition parties have already started thinking about how to handle the 2017 presidential election.
The fact that the opposition parties are moving forward so hastily despite how much time is left reflects the considerable instability of the basis for their victory in the recent election.
The first idea that is being discussed is an election alliance.
“If the opposition can field a candidate capable of fully expressing the people’s anger, we are not far from the day when there will be a change of power,” said Kim Han-gil, a lawmaker with the People‘s Party, shortly after the election.
But it will probably not be easy to make this a reality, especially since People’s Party leader Ahn Cheol-soo is strongly committed to going it alone. “If we go head to head, we can never win,” Ahn said during an interview with the press.
An election alliance may not be an effective way to gain more votes for the opposition, either. In contrast with the conventional wisdom that a divided ticket leads inevitably to defeat, the Minjoo Party of Korea won seats in the southeast right-wing stronghold Yeongnam region and the People’s Party won over conservative voters by each pursuing their own course in the election.
If the two parties immediately reunited, it is even possible that these voters could return to the fold of the Saenuri Party.
Instead, Ahn has proposed holding a two-round presidential election. Under such a system, if no presidential candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round, a second round, or runoff, would be held with the two candidates who received the most votes in the first round.
However, the Saenuri Party is adamantly opposed to revising the Public Official Election Act, and the National Assembly Advancement Act makes such a revision impossible. With all of their seats combined, the three opposition parties only have 167 of a total 300, which is not nearly enough.
Furthermore, the majority view among jurists is that instituting a two-round presidential election system would require a constitutional amendment. Thus, even if a National Assembly speaker appointed by the opposition were to use his or her authority to force a vote on a revision to the Public Official Election Act and such a revision were passed, it would likely be overturned by the Constitutional Court if the Saenuri Party filed a petition against it.
[Election]
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[Column] On peace agreement, does Kim Jong-un hold his father’s position?
Posted on : Apr.18,2016 16:37 KST
During previous discussions of peace agreement to end the Korean War, N. Korea had acceded to remaining USFK troops
The issue of a peace agreement on the Korean Peninsula is a polarizing one. Opponents claim a withdrawal of US forces following a peace agreement would lead to South Korea going communist. Proponents say a peace agreement between the US and North Korea would be a realistic and appropriate move. Peace agreements proposed by North Korea in the 1960s and 1980s were unacceptable to the South in their terms and parties - but since the 1990s Pyongyang has changed its position on both aspects.
After a military regime seized power in the South in May 1961, the North proposed an inter-Korean peace agreement conditional on a US Forces Korea (USFK) withdrawal. In Mar. 1974, it suggested a bilateral agreement with the US - perhaps inspired by witnessing the US’s direct resolution of issues with North Vietnam at the Paris Peace Accords in the early ’70s. From then until the late ’80s, North Korea maintained the position that a peace agreement should be discussed with the US and unification issues with the South.
But on Jan. 21, 1992, North Korean international secretary Kim Yong-sun made a historic proposal in New York to then-US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Arnold Kanter. Pyongyang would not demand a USFK withdrawal, Kim said; if the North and the US established diplomatic relations, the troops would be allowed to stay on the peninsula even after reunification. Having witnessed the reunification of Germany and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe in the late ‘80s and early ’90s, Pyongyang may have hoped to have the US guarantee the security of its regime, even if it meant allowing USFK’s stationing.
Yet the North continued holding the same position even in 2000, when the international climate had changed and fears of “unification by absorption” had mostly disappeared. When then-US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Pyongyang on Oct. 25 of that year after an inter-Korean summit that June 15, Kim Jong-il stressed the need for US-North Korea diplomatic relations as an extension of Kim Yong-sun’s Jan. 1992 remarks in New York. The US military, Kim said, had been “playing a role in stabilizing the political situation on the Korean Peninsula since the Cold War‘s end.”
It is worth noting that the same demands for diplomatic relations conditional on the stationing of USFK that had first been produced by the Kim Il-sung regime in 1992 were carried on in 2000 under his son Kim Jong-il. This could be seen as evidence of North Korea’s understanding of the nature of the post-Cold War international order in Northeast Asia.
The question now is whether current leader Kim Jong-un holds the same view.
[NK SK policy] [USFK] [Peace Treaty]
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'Unification could bring health crisis to Korea'
By Jung Min-ho, Kim Eil-chul
Imagine hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees are crossing the border into South Korea after their regime suddenly collapses. What would be the most urgent issue for the unified Korea?
Surveys show that most South Koreans believe the cost of unification is the biggest concern. However, according to Kim Young-hoon, former president of Korea University Anam Hospital, money may just be a secondary issue.
"President Park Geun-hye said unification would bring a bonanza, but it could instead bring a health crisis, if we are unprepared," Kim said. "Unification could bring along many lethal, infectious diseases that we are not ready to cope with. The worst part is that we know very little about such risks."
Some health risks are obvious, he said. For example, North Korea has about 110,000 tuberculosis (TB) patients, 5,000 of whom died in 2014 alone, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
"More worryingly, many of TB cases in North Korea are multi-drug resistant. This means we don't have any way to cure the highly contagious infection," Kim said.
Even today, South Korea, the fourth-largest economy in Asia, is struggling with its own fight against TB. According to the WHO, the country has the highest TB incidence rate among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
[Unification] [Health]
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Ruling Party Loses Majority
The Saenuri Party lost its a majority in the National Assembly in Wednesday's general elections for the first time in 16 years.
The new People's Party established in January fared well especially in South Jeolla Province, consolidating its position as a third force.
But the real surprise was that the Minjoo Party shrugged off internal rifts in the run-up to the elections and performed much better than expected in the Seoul metropolitan region. Saenuri won 122 out of 300 seats and Minjoo 123.
The results are seen as a thumbs-down for the Park Geun-hye administration. One key official in the ruling camp said, "The government is now set to be dragged around by the opposition, and there are no credible presidential hopefuls left."
[Election]
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Landslide Boosts Ahn Cheol-soo's Presidential Chances
Maverick IT entrepreneur Ahn Cheol-soo boosted his chances in the presidential election after his People's Party took 38 seats in the general elections on Wednesday.
Ahn won his own bid for a seat in the Nowon district of Seoul and lived up to his pledge to form a formidable third force in parliament after breaking with the Minjoo Party.
[Election] [Ahn Cheol-soo]
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Election results are a damning judgment on Park administration’s failures
Posted on : Apr.14,2016 12:13 KST
If there’s one message the South Korean public sent in the Apr. 13 general elections, it was one of harsh judgment against the Park Geun-hye administration. Not only did the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) fail to secure a majority, but it ended up with a disastrous 122 seats, yielding its spot as the number one party in the National Assembly to the Minjoo Party of Korea (TMPK), which won 123. This means the administration’s party is in the minority for the first time in 16 years. The Saenuri Party suffered an almost complete rout in Seoul and its surroundings, which may be seen as the best barometer of the popular feelings, and even lost many seats to the opposition and independents in traditional strongholds like Daegu, Busan, and North and South Gyeongsang Province.
[Election] [Park Geun-hye]
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Restaurant manager says S. Korean government involved in group defection
Posted on : Apr.14,2016 16:10 KST
A man keeps watch outside the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, China, Apr. 12. The restaurant where the 13 North Koreans who defected to South Korea worked was closed. (by Kim Oi-hyun, Beijing correspondent)
Account of manager in China differs with Seoul’s, who said 13 restaurant employees defected on their own
The South Korean government was clearly involved from the beginning in the group defection of 13 employees from a North Korean restaurant in China, the restaurant’s Chinese manager said. The manager’s account is notable since it diverges substantially from the government’s announcement that the North Korean employees defected on their own after a long period of deliberation.
“I think that the employees were getting help from someone during the entire detection process. Obviously, that was South Korea,” the Chinese restaurant manager, only identified by the letter O, told the Hankyoreh during a telephone interview on Apr. 13. The restaurant, called Ryukyung, is located in the city of Ningbo in China‘s Zhejiang Province.
The manager confirmed that three female employees had attempted to defect first before returning to the restaurant and that the 13 employees who had gone looking for them ended up going to South Korea. “It’s obvious that all of this had been worked out in advance,” O added.
When asked who had orchestrated the defection, O said that it was “clear” and “obvious” that it was the person identified by the letter H, 36, who was known as “manager” and who even held the passports of the female North Korean employees.
O also said that H had taken money from the restaurant management (including himself), with the sum amounting to 1.2 to 1.3 million RMB (US$185,000-US$200,000).
[Election defection] [NIS]
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North Korea has determined identities of restaurant workers who defected
Posted on : Apr.14,2016 16:12 KST
Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, China, where the group of 13 North Korean defectors are thought to have worked.
Seoul and Pyongyang trade harsh words over group defection, with NK saying Seoul “kidnapped” the workers
The North Korean government has determined the identities of all 13 people who recently detected from a North Korean restaurant in China, reports say. The defectors included 12 female employees and the 36-year-old manager of the restaurant (only identified by the letter H). The restaurant, called Ryukyung, is located in the city of Ningbo in China’s Zhejiang Province.
The other seven of the 20 total North Koreans who had been working at the restaurant are currently with North Korean officials in China, the Hankyoreh confirmed.
Effectively, the South Korean government’s official announcement about the group defection - which was both irregular and rushed - enabled the North Korean government to more quickly ascertain the identity of the North Korean employees than they would have otherwise.
By Apr. 12, the North Korean government had confirmed the identities of all 13 of the North Koreans working at the restaurant that the South Korean government announced on Apr. 8 had been part of a group defection, Hankyoreh reporters learned.
“The North Korean government has acquired copies of all 13 of their passports,” said a local source who is familiar with the case.
[Election defection]
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[Editorial] Something fishy with government’s announcement of defections
Posted on : Apr.12,2016 18:13 KST
The South Korean government’s actions with the recent group defection of employees at an overseas North Korean restaurant have been as strange as the incident itself. Most notable is the way the Ministries of Unification and Foreign Affairs - the two Cabinet agencies in charge of defector issues - have totally allowed themselves to play second-fiddle to intelligence organizations. The situation seems to offer some insight into the way the Park administration makes and executes its North Korea policy decisions.
[Election defection] [Park Geun-hye]
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N.Korea Accuses Seoul of Abducting Defectors
North Korea on Tuesday made its first comments on the defection of 13 North Korean restaurant workers from China by claiming Seoul "lured and abducted" them.
The North Korean Red Cross, which is in reality an organ of the state, said Tuesday, "We sternly denounce the group abduction of the citizens... as a hideous crime against its dignity and social system and the life and security of its citizens."
The North vowed to retaliate. "In case the puppet group does not send them back, it will have to pay a high price for the serious consequences to be entailed by its action," the Red Cross said.
North Korea added it is investigating how the South "dragged" its citizens to Seoul but also criticized Beijing.
Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told reporters that the defections were "completely voluntary" and said the North's accusations deserve no response.
[Defector]
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The ghost of “anti-communism” still haunts one elderly man
Posted on : Apr.13,2016 16:39 KST
Lee Dae-shik was acquitted of National Security Law charges, but the damage is already done
The past four years must have been a nightmare for Lee Dae-shik, 78, but his face was composed. “South Korean society is still controlled by a phantom,” said the white-haired elderly man.
The second division of the Supreme Court (with Hon. Cho Hee-dae presiding) recently found Lee not guilty of violating the National Security Law.
Lee spent many years as an inmate. He was sent to prison in 1971 during an investigation into an attempt to revive the Unification Revolution Party, and he was released in 1990.
[Repression] [NSL]
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NIS may have been involved in North Korean group defection
Posted on : Apr.13,2016 16:32 KST
A man keeps watch outside the Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, China, Apr. 12. The restaurant where the 13 North Koreans who defected to South Korea worked was closed. (by Kim Oi-hyun, Beijing correspondent)
Speed and process of 13 restaurant workers leaving China for S. Korea was different from typical defections
A restaurant manager known to have orchestrated a recent group defection of employees at an overseas North Korean restaurant reportedly left his co-worker wife behind in China when he arrived in South Korea.
Sources alleged that the 36-year-old manager, identified by the initial “H,” fled with 1.5 million yuan (US$232,000) embezzled from the Chinese owner he partnered with. The circumstances, along with evidence that the manager and 13 employees had long planned their flight before suddenly leaving in a hurry, are raising questions over whether the defection - the subject of a surprise announcement by the South Korean government ahead of the general elections - was a planned operation with National Intelligence Service (NIS) involvement.
[Defector] [NIS] [Overseas restaurants]
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Blue House ordered announcement of North Korean group defection
Posted on : Apr.11,2016 15:48 KST
Press conference one day after the 13 North Koreans could be intended to tout effect of sanctions
The Blue House was behind the South Korean government’s announcement that a group of employees from an overseas North Korean restaurant had defected together, the Hankyoreh confirmed. The announcement was made at a press conference on Apr. 8, just five days before the Apr. 13 general elections.
The Unification Ministry opposed the idea, citing its practice of not announcing defections in order to protect the safety of the defectors and of the family members they left behind them in North Korea, but its contention was ignored.
The announcement was largely intended to consolidate the conservative vote in the upcoming elections by emphasizing how North Korea has been shaken by the government-led sanctions, experts believe.
On Apr. 10, Hankyoreh reporters learned that the press conference about the group defection of 13 employees at an overseas North Korean restaurant had taken place on orders from the Blue House.
[Election defection] [North Wind] [Overseas restaurants] [Election]
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Ahead of election, announcement of N. Korean defection likely to have little effect
Posted on : Apr.11,2016 15:53 KST
Overseas restaurants operated by North Korea
Despite apparent attempt to give ruling party advantage, the North Korea issue has lost some political sensitivity in recent years
The South Korean government’s abrupt announcement of the defection of 13 employees from an overseas North Korean restaurant was intended to give the ruling party an advantage in the parliamentary elections scheduled for Apr. 13, analysts say. President Park Geun-hye’s aggressive emphasis on security issues in a variety of public events, meetings and speeches before the elections lends weight to this suspicion.
But these efforts are likely to have only a limited effect on the elections, many experts believe. Since 2000, the North Korea issue has lost some of its political sensitivity, and the announcement about the defection smacks more of government self-promotion than of the North Korean threat.
North Korea and the security issue have traditionally been areas that work in the favor of South Korea’s conservatives. Such issues make it possible for the government and the conservatives to claim that North Korea is endangering the national security and to ask the public for its help.
[Defector] [North Wind] [Overseas restaurants] [Election]
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Announcement of group defection contrary to government’s own policies
Posted on : Apr.11,2016 15:50 KST
Ryukyung Restaurant in Ningbo, China, where the group of 13 North Korean defectors are thought to have worked.
Details of defections are usually not announced to protect defectors’ family members in the North
The decision by the Blue House and Ministries of Unification of Foreign Affairs to share news of a group defection by employees at an overseas North Korean restaurant and attribute it to Seoul’s recent sanctions against Pyongyang contradicts the South Korean government’s own policy emphasis on protecting the human rights of North Korean defectors.
By disclosing the defections as a way of emphasizing the sanctions’ effectiveness and the North’s internal turmoil ahead of the general elections on Apr. 13, they stand to have a negative impact on family members left behind in North Korea and the safety of people still working at the overseas restaurants.
[Defector] [North wind] [Overseas restaurants]
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Cheong Wa Dae accused of votes bid over NK defectors
By Ko Dong-hwan
South Korean presidential house Cheong Wa Dae ordered a press briefing about the 13 North Korean defectors from China who arrived last Thursday to attract conservative voters for the April 13 general elections, a local newspaper said Monday.
Ministry of Unification spokesman Jeong Joon-hee told the media at the Government Complex in Seoul Friday about the defectors. But the presidential house forced the press release, despite the ministry recommending against it, according to the Hankyoreh. The ministry was concerned the press release would jeopardize the safety of the defectors' families in the North.
[Defector] [North wind] [Overseas restaurants] [Election]
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N. Korea military intelligence officer defected to S. Korea last year
A ranking North Korean military officer in charge of conducting intelligence operations defected to South Korea last year, Seoul's defense ministry said Monday, as the North's leader is tightening his grip on the regime.
A North Korean senior colonel, whose name has been withheld, defected in 2015 after working at the North's reconnaissance bureau tasked with carrying out espionage missions against the South, the ministry said.
"(The North Korean military official's defection) is a fact, but we cannot make public detailed information (about him)," Moon Sang-gyun, a ministry spokesman, said at a regular press briefing.
A source familiar to North Korean affairs said that the officer is viewed as an elite among North Koreans who have defected to the South.
"He is believed to have stated details about the bureau's operations against South Korea to authorities here," the source said.
South Korea's spy agency said last year that since taking power in late 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has had more than 70 senior officials executed in an effort to tighten his grip on the communist regime.
[Defector] [Election]
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[Analysis] Parties? unification, security and foreign affairs platforms for general elections
Posted on : Apr.10,2016 09:12 KST
Both sides running on platforms that focus more on the economy, without much talk of THAAD or inter-Korean relations
South Korea?s ruling and main opposition parties have come out with two very similar sets of pledges on the areas of unification, foreign affairs, and national security for next week?s general elections: equal emphasis on security, equal silence on the sensitive issue of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system deployment.
The positions offer a clear glimpse at their respective strategies, with the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) opting to emphasize security and the economy and the opposition the Minjoo Party of Korea (TMPK) focusing on economic democratization while seeking to draw even on security.
In terms of inter-Korean relations and the recent shutdown of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the Saenuri?s focus has been squarely on stronger and more targeted sanctions against the North. TMPK, in contrast, has actively called for reopening the complex and resuming economic cooperation as a matter for the economy, not politics.
Meanwhile, the People?s Party, established in February by Ahn Cheol-soo and Kim Han-gil, has not made any pledges at all on unification, foreign affairs, or national security. Instead, its strategy has been to stake everything on the economy issue. The Justice Party boasts a clear picture on unification and foreign policy devised after bringing on board security expert Kim Jong-dae, currently the No. 2 candidate on the ballot for proportional representation.
[Election]
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Seoul says 13 North Korean restaurant workers defect as a group
Posted on : Apr.9,2016 17:00 KST
13 North Korean workers (one man and 12 women) at an overseas restaurants who entered South Korea on Apr. 7, wearing masks to prevent their identities. This picture was provided by the Ministry of Unification, which did not specify when or where it was taken. (provided by the Ministry of Unification)
Workers reportedly say that since sanctions on North Korea, they?ve been under pressure to deliver foreign currency
The South Korean government announced on Apr. 8 that 13 employees of an overseas North Korean restaurant had entered South Korea as a group the day before.
The Unification Ministry?s decision to announce their arrival just a day after it occurred was seen as highly unusual, with some suggesting that the timing of the surprise news - five days before the parliamentary elections and a day before early voting - could have been part of an attempt to use the North Korea issue to influence voting.
[North wind] [Election][Election defection]
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Supreme Court upholds innocence of S. Koreans who traded with N. Korea
Posted on : Apr.9,2016 17:14 KST
Allegations of spying found to be unsubstantiated as key evidence of espionage was publicly available online
The Supreme Court has upheld a ruling acquitting two traders of allegedly attempting to pass GPS jammer data to North Korea in June 2012.
The verdict appears likely to cause further controversy for police and prosecutors over yet another overzealous investigation resulting in false accusations.
The Supreme Court?s second division, under Justice Cho Dae-hee, announced on Apr. 8 that it had upheld an original trial ruling finding the two businessmen - a 60-year-old surnamed Kim and a 78-year-old surnamed Lee - not guilty of violating the National Security Law.
According to the ruling text and trial proceedings, Kim and Lee were in the Chinese city of Dandong preparing for a venture trading in North Korean pine mushrooms in July 2015 when a disagreement over contractual relations resulted in their relationship going sour. Lee ended up under investigation after Kim reported him to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency security investigation squad for allegedly meeting with and receiving orders from North Korean agents.
[Repression]
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Former workers at Gaeseong call for 'real' compensation
By Choi Sung-jin
Workers of the 124 South Korean companies that operated at the now-closed Gaeseong Industrial Complex held a rally in downtown Seoul Friday, demanding the government makes "substantive" compensation for their losses.
"The government has deceived us and the public by reiterating the existing policy, such as jobless allowances, and saying as if they were some special measures," said Kim Yong-hwan, head of the Gaeseong workers' organization. "We are neither the government's property nor the scapegoat of its whimsical policy."
Faced with difficulties in making ends meet, the workers have put forth some realistic and effective ideas for compensation, but the unification ministry claimed that all those ideas would be impossible to implement under the present legal system, Kim said.
[Kaesong] [Sanctions]
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North Korean waitresses defect to Seoul
A group of 13 North Korean defectors who worked at a North Korean restaurant in a foreign country arrived in Korea, Thursday, according to the unification ministry, Friday. / Yonhap
By Yi Whan-woo
Thirteen North Koreans from a Pyongyang-owned restaurant abroad have defected to South Korea, the government said Friday.
The Ministry of Unification said one male manager and 12 waitresses arrived in Seoul, Thursday, after escaping from one of the chain of eateries operated worldwide by the repressive state.
This is the first time that North Korean employees from a state-run restaurant overseas defected en masse, according to the ministry. Citing security reasons, the government did not disclose where they were employed.
"We've seen cases of one or a couple of employees working at North Korean restaurants coming here but not this many," spokesman Jeong Joon-hee said. "They said they had a chance to learn about the true aspects of South Korea through South Korean TV news, soap operas and movies as well as via the Internet while living outside their country. They also realized the truth about Pyongyang's false propaganda."
Jeong added the government "respected the defectors' determination" and decided to accept them all on a humanitarian level.
The 13 are middle-class people back in their country with "good educational backgrounds" according to officials.
They said the defectors underwent a medical examination and all seem to be in good health.
The revelation comes amid speculation that the number of guests at the North Korean eateries abroad has dramatically decreased following Seoul's independent sanctions imposed against Pyongyang on March 8.
[Election defection]
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Global Survey Suggests Far Fewer Koreans Willing to Fight
Only 42 percent of Koreans are willing to fight if a war breaks out, according to a WIN/Gallup survey in 64 countries. The average percentage of the 64 countries was 61 percent.
Yet in a similar survey of 1,000 people by the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs in November, whopping 72.1 percent of respondents said they would be willing to fight.
The discrepancy is startling and suggests deep flaws in methodology.
WIN/Gallup polled 62,398 people over 18 years in 64 countries from September to December 2014. The Korean sample was 1,500.
Some 626 or 42 percent of Koreans said they are willing to fight, substantially trailing the 752 or 50 percent who categorically said they would not. Eight percent were undecided. The yes-figure breaks down into fifty-six percent of men and 27 percent of women.
Morocco and Fiji were the most gung-ho with 94 percent, followed by Pakistan (89 percent), Vietnam (89 percent), Bangladesh (86 percent), Azerbaijan (85 percent), Papua New Guinea (84 percent), and Afghanistan (76 percent).
In the U.S. 44 percent said they would fight for their country, another startlingly low figure in a supposedly belligerent and patriotic nation, compared to 71 percent in China. Japan had the lowest figure with 11 percent.
[Militarism] [Public opinion] [Japanese remilitarisation]
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N.Korea Demands Talks as Sanctions Bite
North Korea on Monday called for talks with the U.S. a month after the UN Security Council enforced tougher sanctions against the North following its latest nuclear test.
A spokesman for the powerful National Defense Commission complained of "unilateral sanctions" but added "preparing steps for negotiations" is a more fundamental solution than military pressure.
The spokesman said "a war of aggression" against the North "to stifle it militarily created the worst crisis in which it may make a retaliatory nuclear strike at the U.S. mainland any moment."
The Choson Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang mouthpiece in Japan, also urged Washington to negotiate with Pyongyang in order to "avoid the crisis of war and destruction."
The North added that it has grown used to sanctions and claimed the sanctions strengthened its self-reliance.
But there was a hint that the sanctions are biting. The commission likened them to the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany during World War II and added the "evil hand" of sanctions stretched deep into all corners of North Korea.
Pundits said the call for talks demonstrates the concrete impact the latest sanctions are having.
[NK US policy] [Overture]
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Politicians Are Ignoring the Biggest Threat to Their Country
North Korea fired a projectile from a multiple locket launcher last week which landed somewhere in Ryanggang Province after traveling some 200 km. If it had been aimed at South Korea, it could have landed in Seoul. The test launch came after a week of dire threats from the North to pulverize Cheong Wa Dae and proves that this would be well within its means.
Already the North has stationed more than 5,000 conventional artillery pieces along the demilitarized zone with a range of 70 km. The new artillery can hit any target in the Seoul metropolitan area. On top of that it is working very hard to miniaturize nuclear warheads so they can be fitted on a missile.
All of that means that the new artillery poses a grave threat to South Korea's security, to say nothing of its longer-range missiles, some of which Seoul's current defenses would have difficulty intercepting.
[MRL]
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S.Korean Military Under Fire Over N.Korean Missile Muddle
The South Korean military is under fire for yet another blunder after reporting that North Korea test-fired only one new surface-to-air missile last Friday instead of three.
That casts some doubt on the gaffe-prone military's readiness to defend the country against North Korean provocations.
North Korea launches surface-air-to missiles from two multiple rocket launchers in these pictures from [North] Korean Central TV and Rodong Sinmun on Saturday. North Korea launches surface-air-to missiles from two multiple rocket launchers in these pictures from [North] Korean Central TV and Rodong Sinmun on Saturday.
At around 1:30 p.m. on Friday, the military said the North fired just a single surface-to-air missile from Sondok, South Hamgyong Province into the East Sea about an hour earlier.
It added it was maintaining "a close readiness" posture in response.
But photos and footage published by the North on Saturday show that surface-to-air missiles were being fired from two mobile launch vehicles.
The military later admitted the North fired two more missiles but offered a somewhat baffling explanation.
"We said one missile because the North had fired only one missile by the time we made the announcement," a military spokesman said. "Usually we don't tell the public about many of the North's firings of surface-to-air missiles because they're defensive and thus don't pose a big threat to our country."
[Missiles] [Intelligence]
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S. Korea dismisses N. Korea call for dialogue
South Korea on Tuesday dismissed North Korea's thinly veiled call for dialogue, reiterating that the communist state must immediately stop its provocative acts and rhetoric, and take "sincere" efforts toward denuclearization.
On Sunday, Pyongyang mentioned the need for "negotiations" for the first time since the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) adopted a new sanctions resolution early last month to punish the unruly regime for its nuclear test in January and long-range rocket launch in February.
"We urge North Korea to stop its provocations and threats immediately and take a path toward denuclearization with sincerity based on the realization that denuclearization is the only choice (it should make)," an official at Seoul's Foreign Ministry told Yonhap News Agency on condition of anonymity.
"As long as the North refuses to show its willingness to denuclearize and shuns any change, pressure by us and the rest of the world will continue," he added, pointing out that the international community, "with a united voice," is calling on the North to make good on its past denuclearization commitments.
[Overture] [Rebuff]
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?Like hits of a drug? - drones and the government?s North Korea fear mongering
Posted on : Apr.3,2016 10:34 KST
Drone system development director Kim Jong-sung (far left) explains the features and capabilities of small drones crashed in South Korea, believed to be from the North, at an event to announce the interim results of the investigation, at the Agency for Defense Development in Daejeon, Apr. 11, 2014. (pool photo)
Two years ago, a few shabby drones were found crashed, leading to a national security scam
Let?s take a trip back in time two years.
It was Mar. 24, 2014, and the discovery of a crashed drone in Paju sparked an investigation by a team composed of the Defense Security Command (DSC), National Intelligence Service (NIS), and local police. The DSC served as secretary, and NIS agents agreed with its assessment that the drone showed ?nothing to raise North Korea-related suspicions.? A few days later on Mar. 28, the investigation resumed under a central joint interrogation team, this one with the NIS - which had collected the drone - as its secretary. On Mar. 31, another drone crashed on Baengnyeong Island in the West (Yellow) Sea, and the team concluded that it had been sent by North Korea to spy on the South.
Nobody at that time could have predicted what would come next: that a tiny, crudely functioning drone measuring just over one meter would trigger a furor jeopardizing the security of the Republic of Korea.
While it wasn?t reported in the media, forward units had routinely collected several North Korean drones since Sept. 2013, the time when the North first began using them intensively. Sometimes the drones were carried by currents on the seas around South Korea after failing to return home; many were found in the hills. Military units that found them typically kept them in storage - or just tossed them away. Technical analysis of the drones by the Republic of Korea Defence Intelligence Command (KDIC) had shown no particularly threatening performance features worthy of attention, and the military simply wasn?t that interested. Then-Minister of National Defense Kim Kwan-jin and the Joint Chiefs of Staff didn?t even receive a report on the NIS investigation until Apr. 2. The NIS held a monopoly on the information.
[UAV] [North Wind]
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'Let's give NK leader benefit of doubt'
By Oh Young-jin
By all appearances, the two Koreas are on a collision course over the North's undeterred ambition of becoming a nuclear weapon state.
President Park Geun-hye has gone to the point of calling for a regime change in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-un, the 33-year-old dictator in the North, has emerged as the chief anti-South propagandist, signing an order to detonate an H-bomb, in a news clip, and, in another, reviewing testing of newly developed missiles that can strike well south of Seoul. Maybe, he thinks he can afford to wait her out and talk to her successor.
Under this highly charged atmosphere, is peace possible? Or could representatives from both Koreas meet across the table? Not likely. But an Asia specialist and director of Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center said that this is high time to reach out to the North.
"Nobody with authority from the South has ever met Kim Jong-un in person, not alone knowing much about him," said Prof. Shin Gi-wook in a recent interview.
[SK NK policy] [Engagement]
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7 in 10 S.Koreans Willing to Fight in War
Seven out of every 10 South Koreans are willing to fight if a war breaks out, according to a survey.
The Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs surveyed 1,000 people over 15 in November of last year and found that 72.1 percent were willing to fight in the event of a war.
That is slightly up from 2014, when 71 percent were willing to fight, but well within the margin of error.
Older people who are much less at risk of being called up were the most gung-ho, with 83.5 percent of respondents in their 50s willing to fight, down from 86.8 percent in 2014.
Among those in their 40s, 80.4 percent were willing to fight, a big jump from 68.2 percent in 2014. The figure among 30-somethings also rose from 53.9 percent to 59.6 percent and among 20-somethings from 56.8 percent to 57 percent
[Militarism] [Public opinion] [Media] [SK Military]
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