Please see the recent rules addition: do not post the entire contents of articles.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"https://www.nknews.org/2022/11/expelled-from-chongryon-ex-member-hopes-to-unite-koreans-in-japan/
Got thumped. I just want to say that this’ll be locked and needs a subscription.note
But this article talks about an ex-Chongyron member who got disillusioned after he went to Pyongyang on one trip and saw things differently.
Edited by Ominae on Nov 28th 2022 at 10:22:35 AM
NK News as a podcast talking about Adrian Hong's involvement in raiding the North Korean embassy in Madrid and Christopher Ahn being arrested for his supposed involvement in it.
Not sure how he intended to do that, unless his group was really freaking big and ubiquitous…
NK is in this tricky situation where there’s very little hope of change from within − even if Jong-Un seems relatively less awful than his dad − but forcefully overthrowing the regime would likely only make things worse. Any shift towards democracy or at least a less oppressive one-party system would have to be very gradual, considering how thoroughly indoctrinated the population is.
North Korea's accused of covertly providing weapons to Wagner forces in Ukraine, but there's little or no evidence to back it up.
Quoting entire thing since NK News articles are always locked up (paywalled) in some way. You'll be lucky if you're able to read it entirely in one go.
The Russian paramilitary organization Wagner Group has purchased weapons from North Korea for the war in Ukraine in violation of U.N. sanctions, the U.S. said Thursday.
“The United States can confirm that the DPRK has completed an initial arms delivery to the Russian private military company known as Wagner, which paid for the equipment and currently has thousands of troops deployed to Ukraine,” U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement.
Washington accused Pyongyang of delivering “infantry rockets and missiles” to Russia as Wagner has been forced to search worldwide for arms suppliers due to sanctions and export controls.
“We assess that the amount of material delivered to Wagner will not change battlefield dynamics in Ukraine, but we are concerned that the DPRK is planning to deliver more military equipment to Wagner,” the statement added.
Apart from the Ukraine war, Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said the alleged arms sale also “contributes to instability on the Korean Peninsula” by helping to fund Pyongyang’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.
She condemned Russia for not just defending but now serving as a “partner” to the DPRK’s “unlawful and threatening behavior” with its increasing missile launches in violation of U.N. sanctions, and said that the U.S. will share information on the Wagner shipments with the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions implementation committee in the future.
National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also reportedly said that North Korea completed an “initial arms delivery” to the Wagner Group, confirming an earlier media report.
U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly backed the U.S. claims in a statement released the same day and, like Washington, labeled the sale a breach of U.N. sanctions. He noted that Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and two other individuals associated with the group are under U.K. sanctions.
“The fact that President Putin is turning to North Korea for help is a sign of Russia’s desperation and isolation,” he said. “We will work with our partners to ensure that North Korea pays a high price for supporting Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine.”
Washington first accused Russia of seeking to buy arms from the DPRK for the Ukraine war in September and asserted in November that Pyongyang had begun supplying Moscow with artillery shells by disguising shipments by sea as bound for the Middle East or North Africa. Thursday’s statement is the first time it has mentioned the Wagner Group.
The U.S. and U.K. have yet to publicly release further details or proof regarding the weapons shipments to Wagner or how they were transported, and independent observers have not been able to verify the claims.
“There is as of yet no tangible evidence of North Korean armaments in Russian hands, and evidence of trains crossing the border into Russia has been sporadic,” North Korean military capabilities expert Joost Oliemans told NK News. His blog Oryx has been monitoring weapons usage in the Ukraine war.
“Infantry rockets and missiles isn’t exactly a very specific description, though I would venture to guess that rocket-propelled grenades like the RPG-7 are implied with the former,” he said, characterizing the information so far as “vague.”
North Korea has repeatedly denied the allegations of arms sales to Russia and accused the U.S. of trying to damage its reputation. But it also asserted in September that as a sovereign state it has the right to sell weapons to other countries.
Pyongyang has yet to issue a similar denial following the latest U.S. allegations, but in a statement released Friday through the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the foreign ministry condemned a Japanese media report that claimed North Korea had shipped arms to Russia by rail last month.
“The DPRK remains unchanged in its principled stand on the issue of ‘arms transaction’ between the DPRK and Russia which has never happened,” the statement reiterated.
The ministry instead accused the U.S. of “bringing bloodshed and destruction to Ukraine” by supplying Kyiv with weapons, and praised Russia for defending “the security and territorial integrity of their country without any others’ military support.”
Edited by Ominae on Dec 22nd 2022 at 8:30:01 AM
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/05/world/asia/kenneth-rowe-dead.html
No Kum-sok aka Kenneth Rowe, an ex-North Korean Air Force pilot who defected to the US, died on December 26 at the age of 90.
He defected back then with his MiG-15, which allowed American intelligence to examine its capabilities.
Looks like a few week ago, a judge at Christopher Ahn's trial raised a legal concern for extraditing him, saying that the US and the DPRK did not "realistically" declare any ending of the Korean War.
This means that Ahn may not be extradited.
Both sides were asked to submit written arguments on the matter.
FYI, this article is locked via paywall.
Reuters posted news on a North Korean balloon that was in South Korean airspace. It wasn't taken out though.
Channel 4 (UK) has a documentary on the pro-DPRK Koreans living in Japan (Zainichi).
There's one scene where the reporter was allowed to go to Chongyron (The defacto DPRK embassy in Japan).
There's two interesting comments that I found before/after watching the whole thing:
As a South Korean, I totally understand their historical backgrounds, but I can't understand their attitudes. They can choose Japan if they want to live in their birthplace without risking anything. They can move to South Korea if they want a Korean nation without risking to lose their daily quality of life. Or they can even move to North Korea if they do really believe in the propaganda. Yet they refuse to choose anything, staying in Japan without following the rules of the society they are in. Yes, it's perfectly fine to make voices against racism or the ongoing discrimination on the Zainich Kankokujin/Chousenjin (In-Japan Koreans) groups in Japan. However, right always comes together with duty. In my opinion, if you're living in New York, you should respect the values of the American people. If you're in Paris, you should respect the way the French people live. Likewise, if you're in Tokyo, you should respect the standards the Japanese people follow. The past colonial crimes of the Great Britain in the Middle East cannot justify the modern day Muslim terrorists trying to enforce Sharia within the British Isles. If you refuse to be a part of a society, you cannot and should not expect the society to pick you a part of itself. This is not a history problem, but a matter of mutual respect.
Therefore, while I also do have large grudges over Japan regarding the colonial history, I'm on the side of Japan for this problem. In my opinion, they are just indecisive... if not selfish.
I think this shows the mental gymnastics anyone can do, the willingness to deride the lived experience of others.
For these school operators, the amount of cognitive dissonance you have to exude to ignore the very real human rights abuses is astounding. The ease with which they deride the old lady who went back to and lived in North Korea for 40 years, long than any of them have, is fascinating.
The far-right nationalists ignore the multitude of human rights abuses Imperial Japan conducted especially during the lead-up to and during WW 2. They have the old Imperial flag on their drinkware, just casually, which reminds me of people in the United States who are quick to wave the Confederate Flag, while ignoring the awful institutions of racism and slavery the Confederacy stood for.
I would encourage each of these groups to listen carefully to the history of North Korea and Japan before being so quick to fervantly support either, they are both nationalists and are quick to forget how each country has their faults people have absolutely every right to be upset about.
It is sad, because both the ultra-nationalists and the school groups want the same thing, belonging, but they make it harder for each other to find that by blaming and attacking each other so viciously.
Edited by Ominae on May 5th 2023 at 4:14:17 AM
I don't know if that's the same one I saw a couple of years ago but even if its a different one it sounds like it had the same framing issues like the one I saw.
It treated the Chongyron as the be all and end all of Zainichi experience. It ignores the Mindan
which is associated South Korea and the larger of the two organisations or those who are of Korean descent who are Japanese citizens (Romi Park
being my go to example)
I'm assuming that most news videos centering on Chongryon are made since North Korea's been upping their missile tests. Dunno if Mindan made the news or anything lately. And yeah, the Zainichis maybe aren't always in those videos unless they happen to be involved in anti-North Korean activities like talking to reporters and joining protests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North-South_differences_in_the_Korean_language
In vocabulary, the main difference is that South Korean dialect has a lot more English borrowings.
Edited by Smeagol17 on May 6th 2023 at 3:00:32 PM
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66240928
North Korean soldiers at the DMZ are holding up Private 2nd class Travis King after he crossed. He’s supposed to return to the US and face disciplinary action for assault charges, but was able to get away from it.
Of all the countries to run off and go AWOL in...
It's not like this guy is unaware of the current political situation or just how dangerous North Korea is, especially since he's US Army. And from what I'm gathering the worst he would be facing in the United States would be a Court Martial and dishonorable discharge for getting into a bar fight and causing property damage in South Korea, not murder or anything worse. Seems like the dude was just plain terrible at making decisions, or held some really strange political beliefs if rationalizing North Korea as a safe haven ever made sense.
my guess is that Travis King is either...
- an idiot
- trying to defect to "Best" Korea
- had a psychotic break
- or though that Atomic Holocaust was both inevitable and that North Korea was somehow the safest place to be when the nukes start flying (might tie into A or C).
