Topic: North Korea (Superthread)

[Rifleman62]

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/26/otto-warmbiers-parents-open-up-about-sons-torture-by-north-korea-are-terrorists.html

Otto Warmbier's parents open up about son's torture by North Korea: 'They are terrorists' (Video at link)

Extract:

“So what we pictured, because we’re optimists, is that Otto would be asleep and maybe in a medically induced coma and then when our doctors here would work with him and he’d get the best care and love that he would come out of it," she said during the first interview the couple had given since their 22-year-old son died.

The reality of Otto’s injuries were much worse than the Warmbiers could ever imagine.

“We walked over to the plane, the engines are still humming, they had just landed…when we got halfway up the steps we heard this howling, involuntary, inhuman sound,” Fred said. “We weren’t really certain what it was.”

When they spotted their son, they found Otto on a stretcher, jerking violently, producing the terrifying cries.

“Otto had a shaved head, he had a feeding tube coming out of his nose, he was staring blankly into space, jerking violently,” Fred said. “He was blind. He was deaf. As we looked at him and tried to comfort him it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged his bottom teeth.”

He added: “North Korea is not a victim, they are terrorists. They purposefully and intentionally injured Otto.

[Retired AF Guy]

Worked for Argentina... till they actually invaded the falklands, North Korea knows it would be national suicide if they launched an attack, I don't think any of their provocations that happened back in the late 00's would fly now, pretty sure if one round crosses the DMZ, hell will come down on the north.

NK has being getting away with provocations (including mass murder) for so long, they may believe they have nothing to fear about any retaliations.

[tomahawk6]

North Korean freighter caught with crates of 30,000 RPG's by Egyptian customs.The buyer was Egypt. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/national-security/a-north-korean-ship-was-seized-off-egypt-with-a-huge-cache-of-weapons-destined-for-a-surprising-buyer/2017/10/01/d9a4e06e-a46d-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html

Last August, a secret message was passed from Washington to Cairo warning about a mysterious vessel steaming toward the Suez Canal. The bulk freighter named Jie Shun was flying Cambodian colors but had sailed from North Korea, the warning said, with a North Korean crew and an unknown cargo shrouded by heavy tarps.

Armed with this tip, customs agents were waiting when the ship entered Egyptian waters. They swarmed the vessel and discovered, concealed under bins of iron ore, a cache of more than 30,000 rocket-propelled grenades. It was, as a United Nations report later concluded, the "largest seizure of ammunition in the history of sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea."

[Thucydides]

One possible end game is China taking over the DPRK:

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-north-korea-military-intervention-by-bill-emmott-2017-09

A ‘China First’ Strategy for North Korea
Sep 4, 2017 BILL EMMOTT
Donald Trump has chided China for failing to take responsibility for its dangerous neighbor. But America's president should be careful what he tweets for: If China launched a military invasion of North Korea, it could work – and China would gain greater strategic parity with the US in East Asia.

LONDON – Most pundits agree that the least bad way to deal with North Korea’s nuclear saber rattling is a continued combination of tight containment and aggressive diplomacy. Fewer, however, have recognized that the least bad military option – the one implied by US President Donald Trump’s insistence that China take responsibility for its dangerous neighbor – is a Chinese invasion, or regime change forced through China’s threat to launch one.

This outcome, which would sharply shift East Asia’s strategic balance in China’s favor, is not as unlikely as most people think. In fact, its very plausibility is one reason why it needs to be taken seriously, including by Chinese military planners. In Trumpian terms, this is a “China First” option that could help “Make China Great Again.”

Any military intervention, Chinese or otherwise, would carry huge risks. But before dwelling on them, consider what a successful Chinese intervention would achieve. For starters, it would put North Korea right where the country’s post-Korean War history suggests it belongs: under a Chinese nuclear umbrella, benefiting from a credible security guarantee.

Mao Zedong used to say that his country and North Korea were “as close as lips and teeth” – a fitting description, given Chinese troops’ role in averting an American victory in the Korean War. But while Japan and South Korea have remained close allies of the United States during the six decades since then, hosting US bases and sheltering under US nuclear protection, China and North Korea have drifted ever further apart.

As a result, China has little control over its neighbor and purported ally, and probably scant knowledge of what is going on there. It could, it is true, tighten the existing siege on North Korea by cutting trade further and blocking energy supplies. But this might achieve little beyond pushing Kim Jong-un’s cloistered regime to look for support from its other neighbor, Russia.

If, as is commonly assumed, North Korea wants some sort of credible security guarantee in exchange for curtailing its nuclear program, the only country capable of providing it is China. No American promise would remain credible beyond the term of the president who gave it, if even that long.
 
So if China were to combine threats of invasion with a promise of security and nuclear protection, in exchange for cooperation and possible regime change, its chances of winning over large parts of the Korean People’s Army would be high. Whereas a nuclear exchange with the US would mean devastation, submission to China would promise survival, and presumably a degree of continued autonomy. For all except those closest to Kim, the choice would not be a difficult one.

China’s strategic gains from a successful military intervention would include not only control of what happens on the Korean Peninsula, where it presumably would be able to establish military bases, but also regional gratitude for having prevented a catastrophic war.
No other action holds as much potential to make Chinese leadership within Asia seem both credible, and desirable, especially if the alternative is a reckless, poorly planned US-led war. What China needs, above all, is legitimacy, and intervention in North Korea would provide it. Successful use of hard power would bring China, to borrow the distinction coined by Harvard’s Joseph S. Nye, huge reserves of soft power.

But now to the 64 billion renminbi question: Could it work? We can’t know the answer for sure, and any military intervention carries great risks. The Chinese armed forces are now well equipped, but lack comparable battlefield experience. Their inferior opponents have leaders who might be prepared to use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, if they did not simply accept Chinese terms and surrender.

What we can say with near certainty is that a Chinese land and sea invasion, rather than an American one, would stand a better chance of avoiding Kim’s likely response: an artillery attack on the South Korean capital, Seoul, which lies just a few dozen miles south of the demilitarized zone. Why would North Korea slaughter its southern brothers and sisters in retaliation for a Chinese invasion that came with a promise of continued security, if not autonomy?

Moreover, while the Kim regime’s nuclear restraint could hardly be taken for granted, China would be a less likely target than the US for North Korean missiles. Were a Chinese military option to be contemplated seriously, some intelligence and missile-defense collaboration with the US might be worth exploring. Given the risks, it would be hard for the US to refuse.

This scenario may well never happen. But it is so logical that the possibility of it should be taken seriously. It is, after all, China’s best opportunity to achieve greater strategic parity with the US in the region, while removing a source of instability that threatens them both.

[Thucydides]

The info OPS campaign agains the DPRK. How well it is working is a mater of debate, but the Americans have certainly changed things up from decades of talk and appeasement:

http://observer.com/2017/10/donald-trump-threats-corner-north-korea/

Trump’s North Korea Threat-Theater Is Working
By Austin Bay • 10/10/17 6:30am
   
The heated rhetorical exchanges between Washington and Pyongyang have once again fired public interest in Korean war scenarios and the Korean information war.

Obvious truth tends to die in Beltway media darkness, but The Washington Post finally noticed the intent and utility of the Trump administration’s orchestrated information warfare operation, something Observer readers know I began covering in March and emphasized in August and September while mainstream media dismissed Trump as incompetent.

It’s a fair bet that one recent “scenario” article was read with interest by North Korean intelligence analysts, senior military officers with access to global media, and Kim Jong “Rocket Man” Un.

On October 7, the Voice of America published what I’ll call a double-barreled article, meaning it combined a military-political intervention scenario and an indirect (or inadvertent) sampling of Trump’s information operation.

VOA’s first barrel featured a speculative North Korea scenario written by a former Economist editor Bill Emmott and published by Project Syndicate in early September.

VOA’s second barrel highlighted a comment President Donald Trump made on October 5 following a visit to the White House by top U.S. military leaders. Trump said the visit was “the calm before the storm.” When reporters asked the president to elaborate on “the storm,” he simply said, “You’ll find out.'”

But back to Barrel One. Emmott posited a Chinese military intervention in North Korea to convince the North Korean military to remove the Kim regime. Emmott wrote:

“Whereas a nuclear exchange with the U.S. would mean devastation, submission to China would promise survival, and presumably a degree of continued autonomy. For all except those closest to Kim, the choice would not be a difficult one.

China’s strategic gains from a successful military intervention would include not only control of what happens on the Korean Peninsula, where it presumably would be able to establish military bases, but also regional gratitude for having prevented a catastrophic war.”

But would Beijing’s gamble work? Emmott acknowledged the risks. Though China has superior military forces “…their inferior opponents have leaders who might be prepared to use nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, if they did not simply accept Chinese terms and surrender.”

Emmott added this upside: A Chinese invasion in lieu of an American-led attack “would stand a better chance of avoiding Kim’s likely response: an artillery attack on the South Korean capital, Seoul, which lies just a few dozen miles south of the demilitarized zone.”

In June, StrategyPage.com published an analysis of China’s relationships with North Korea and South Korea and argued that a united Korea “is something China is willing to go to war over to prevent, or at least make some serious moves in that direction.” This scenario maintains the division of Korea.

On October 7 (after VOA’s article first appeared on the web), President Trump fired two tweets at North Korea.

Presidents and their administrations have been talking to North Korea for 25 years, agreements made and massive amounts of money paid……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

…hasn't worked, agreements violated before the ink was dry, makings fools of U.S. negotiators. Sorry, but only one thing will work!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2017

To put it colloquially, The Donald continues to mess with Rocket Man.

Several months ago, Trump decided to give North Korea a relentless dose of its own threat-theater bombast. Trump seeds his threat-theatrics with customized belittling designed to rattle an imperious autocrat (e.g., Crooked Hillary, Little Rocket Man). Trump is conducting an information warfare operation, and one Kim Jong Un and his regime have not confronted, especially one executed by an American president. Trump didn’t undermine Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he tweeted that Tillerson was “wasting his time” negotiating with North Korea. That drama was “good cop, bad cop,” with the goal of rattling Kim. Nor does Trump undermine Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. That noted, at times it must astonish (and perhaps please) Mattis that this is the first time in his professional life he’s played the good cop.

Moreover, Trump’s information warfare operation isn’t all verbal theater, good cop-bad cop kabuki and tweetkrieg. The U.S. and its allies back the verbal assaults and tweets with shows of powerful and credible military force.

Trump’s information operation appalls mainstream media, despite the Washington Post’s belated and singular epiphany. Media geniuses continue to miss its point. The information warfare operation sends the message “hey dummy, it’s different.” It forces the Kim regime to recognize the geo-strategic situation has changed in ways that the regime did not expect and cannot control. Strategic patience is really over, Rocket Man. That’s Trump’s message and the Kim regime and North Korean military are its critical audiences, not the sideshow of mainstream media.

Which brings us back to VOA’s double-barreled article. VOA is U.S. government-funded and overseen by an independent agency.

VOA is editorially independent but is tasked with presenting a “balanced” view of issues. As its Wikipedia page notes, VOA radio broadcasts influence foreign public opinion, and I assume that holds true for its website. I doubt anyone in the Trump administration told VOA to write the October 7 article. From an editorial point of view, its newsworthiness alone justifies publishing it. Nevertheless, when juxtaposed, the article’s two barrels frame a choice for North Korea: Chinese intervention and survival versus Madman Trump’s war of annihilation. I’ll wager there are North Korean intelligence analysts and senior military officers who will read it that way and read it as a message. Kim Jong Un’s information warfare advisers certainly will.

Why, Kim might conclude it’s time to purge intelligence analysts and kill a few more senior military officers. Would Beijing read that as a sign of instability? Stay tuned.

[Colin P]

No more Kimgeld 

[daftandbarmy]

The info OPS campaign agains the DPRK. How well it is working is a mater of debate, but the Americans have certainly changed things up from decades of talk and appeasement:

http://observer.com/2017/10/donald-trump-threats-corner-north-korea/

"There isn't a more profitable undertaking for any country than to declare war on the United States and to be defeated." Tulley Bascombe, The Mouse that Roared

[Thucydides]

Interviews with defectors from the DPRK: (Part 1)

http://nationalpost.com/news/world/from-the-preschooler-to-the-bean-trader-and-the-drug-dealer-life-in-north-korea-under-kim-jong-un

Washington Post
Anna Fifield
November 18, 2017
4:26 PM EST
Last Updated
November 19, 2017
9:22 AM EST

“In North Korea, life only gets better if the state helps you. But these days, the state doesn’t help. We’re on our own.”

– The bride, now 23, from Hyesan. Escaped from North Korea in May 2017.

When Kim Jong Un became the leader of North Korea almost six years ago, many North Koreans thought that their lives were going to improve. He offered the hope of generational change in the world’s longest-running communist dynasty. After all, he was so young. A millennial. Someone with experience of the outside world.

But the “Great Successor,” as he is called by the regime, has turned out to be every bit as brutal as his father and grandfather before him. Even as he has allowed greater economic freedom, he has tried to seal the country off more than ever, stepping up security along the border with China and stepping up the punishments for those who dare to try to cross it. And at home, freedom of speech, and of thought, is still a mirage.

In six months of interviews in South Korea and Thailand, The Washington Post talked with more than 25 North Koreans from different walks of life who lived in Kim Jong Un’s North Korea and managed to escape from it. In barbecue restaurants, cramped apartments and hotel rooms, these refugees provided the fullest account to date of daily life inside North Korea and how it has changed, and how it hasn’t, since Kim took over from his father, Kim Jong Il, at the end of 2011. Many are from the northern parts of the country that border China – the part of North Korea where life is toughest, and where knowledge about the outside world just across the river is most widespread – and are from the relatively small segment of the population that is prepared to take the risks involved in trying to escape.

Some parts of their stories cannot be independently verified because of the secretive nature of the regime, and their names have been withheld to protect their family members still in North Korea. They were introduced to The Post by groups that help North Korean escapees, including No Chain for North Korea, Woorion and Liberty in North Korea.

But in talking about their personal experiences, including torture and the culture of surveillance, they recounted the hardships of daily life under Kim Jong Un’s regime. They paint a picture of a once-communist state that has all but broken down, its state-directed economy at a standstill. Today, North Koreans are making their own way, earning money in an entrepreneurial and often illegal fashion. There are only a few problems in North Korea these days that money can’t solve.

As life inside North Korea is changing, so too are people’s reasons for escaping.

Increasingly, North Koreans are not fleeing their totalitarian state because they are hungry, as they did during the 15 or so years following the outbreak of a devastating famine in the mid-1990s. Now, they are leaving because they are disillusioned.

Market activity is exploding, andwith that comes a flow of information, whether as chitchat from traders who cross into China or as soap operas loaded on USB sticks. And this leads many North Koreans to dream in a way they hadn’t before.

Some are leaving North Korea because they want their children to get a better education. Some are leaving because their dreams of success and riches in the North Korean system are being thwarted. And some are leaving because they want to be able to speak their minds.

A NEW KIM AT THE HELM

Korean Central News Agency – Dec. 19, 2011 – “Standing at the forefront of the Korean revolution is Kim Jong Un, great successor to the revolutionary cause of Juche [self-reliance ideology] and outstanding leader of our party, army and people.”

The meat delivery guy, now 23, from Undok. Escaped in 2014:

“Kim Jong Un came to power the same year I graduated from high school, and I had very high hopes for him. I heard that he’d studied abroad in Switzerland. I thought he was going to be very different from his father.”

The young mother, now 29, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014:

“I could see how young he was, and I hoped that maybe things were going to get better. We were given some rations through our neighborhood association – we even got meat and fish – at the time he took over.”

The preschooler, now 7, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014:

“I remember how fat he was. He had a very fat face like a pig.”
– – –

As the regime started preparing for Kim’s succession, it put out a song that everyone in the country was made to learn, called “Footsteps.” The idea was that Kim was following in the footsteps of his father and would lead the country into a glorious future.

The money man, now 43, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2015:

“We heard the song ‘Footsteps’ and we were told to memorize it so [we] knew that he was going to be the leader after Kim Jong Il. We were told how great he was, that he could ride a horse when he was 5 years old and shoot a gun when he was 3. Of course we didn’t believe these things, but if you laughed or said anything, you’d be killed.”

The university student, now 37, from Sariwon. Escaped in 2013:

“I was in my second year at the university when this person was introduced to us as our new leader. I thought it was a joke. Among my closest friends, we were calling him a piece of s—. Everyone thinks this, but you can only say it to your closest friends or to your parents if you know that they agree.”

The drug dealer, now 46, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014:

“I created some kind of fantasy in my mind about Kim Jong Un. Because he was so young, I thought he was going to open North Korea’s doors, but after he took power and I lived three years under him, life became harder.”

MONEY TALKS

In theory, North Korea is a bastion of socialism, a country where the state provides everything, including housing, health care, education and jobs. In reality, the state economy barely operates anymore. People work in factories and fields, but there is little for them to do, and they are paid almost nothing. A vibrant private economy has sprung up out of necessity, one where people find ways to make money on their own, whether through selling homemade tofu or dealing drugs, through smuggling small DVD players with screens called “notels” over the border or extracting bribes.

The university student:

“North Korea technically has a centrally planned economy, but now people’s lives revolve around the market. No one expects the government to provide things anymore. Everyone has to find their own way to survive.”

The hairdresser, now 23, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2016:

“I had to drop out of teachers college when I was 19 because my father became ill so I needed to work. I started doing people’s hair at my house. All the women wanted perms. I charged 30 [Chinese] yuan for a regular perm or 50 yuan for a perm with better products. But it was still hard to make money. [Thirty yuan is about $4.50.]”

The farmer, now 46, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014.

“We lived in the city center, but we rented some land in the foothills of the mountains and grew corn there. During planting and harvest season, we would wake up at 4 a.m. and walk three hours to reach the farmland. We’d take a little break for lunch or a snack, then work until 8 p.m. before walking home again. Doing the weeding was the hardest because we had to get rid of them by hand. And we’d buy beans from the market and make tofu that we’d sell from our house. Our profit was less than 5,000 won [60 cents at the black market rate] a day. But because the bean price fluctuates, sometimes we were left with nothing at all.”
– – –

North Koreans first learned how to be entrepreneurs during the famine, when they had to make money to survive. While men had to continue to show up for work in dormant factories, women would turn corn into noodles and keep a little for themselves but sell the rest so they could buy more corn for the following day. Homeless children would steal manhole covers to sell as scrap metal. Markets began to appear and took hold. North Koreans used to joke you could buy everything there except cats’ horns.

These days, you can probably buy cats’ horns, too.

The bean trader, now 23, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2014:

“I had an aunt in Pyongyang who sold beans in the market there. I would buy what she needed from various farmers and get it to her. I’d pay people to pack up the beans into sacks, pay porters to take them to the station, get them onto the train. You have to smooth the way with money. My uncle is in the military, so his position provided protection for my aunt’s business. Of course, my aunt was the main earner in the house. It’s the women who can really make money in North Korea.”
– – –

Tens of thousands of North Koreans now work outside the country, in lumber yards and garment factories and on construction sites, in China, Russia and other countries, earning foreign currency. Generally, two-thirds of their pay goes to the regime, and they’re allowed to keep the rest.

The construction worker, now 40, from Pyongyang. Escaped in 2015:

“I wanted to earn money for my family and buy a house, so I paid $100 to bribe my way into an overseas construction job. I was sent to St. Petersburg. We lived at the construction site and would work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., or sometimes until midnight in the summer, then we’d go back to our dormitory to eat. We worked seven days a week, but we could finish early on Sundays – 7 p.m. – and that was nice. My whole purpose for being there was to make lots of money and go home proud of my achievement. I still remember the first time I got paid. It was 1,000 rubles. When I finished work at 10 p.m., I went to the store and saw that a bottle of beer was 27 rubles. I thought, wow I’m rich.”
– – –

As the economy and the rules that govern it change, there are more and more gray areas that can be exploited. That means that illegal trade and activity have blossomed, too.

The drug dealer:

“I did so many things that I wasn’t supposed to do. I worked as a broker transferring money and connecting people in North Korea with people in South Korea through phone calls. I arranged reunions for them in China. I smuggled antiques out of North Korea and sold them in China. I sold ginseng and pheasants to China. And I dealt ice [methamphetamines]. Officially, I was a factory worker, but I bribed my way out of having to go to work. If you don’t operate this way in North Korea, you have nothing.”

The doctor, now 42, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2014:

“The salary for doctors was about 3,500 won a month. That was less than it cost to buy one kilogram of rice. So of course, being a doctor was not my main job. My main job was smuggling at night. I would send herbal medicine from North Korea into China, and with the money, I would import home appliances back into North Korea. Rice cookers, notels, LCD monitors, that kind of thing.”
– – –

From the biggest cities to the smallest villages, there is now some kind of market building where people can sell their wares and keep their profits. Some are state-run, some are state-sanctioned, some are ad hoc. The markets have been retroactively legalized by the regime.

Money is now needed for nearly everything – even for the parts of communist life that the Kim regime crows about providing, like housing and schooling. Bribery and corruption have become endemic, undermining the regime by loosening controls and creating incentives that may not always be in line with Kim’s priorities.

The farmer:

“Technically, you don’t have to pay to go to school, but the teachers tell you that you have to submit a certain amount of beans or rabbit skins that can be sold. If you don’t submit, you get told off continuously, and that’s why students stop going to school. The kids are hurt just because the parents can’t afford it.”

The young mother:

“I used to pay the teachers at my daughter’s school so they would look after her better than others. I would give them 120,000 won at a time – that’s enough to buy 25 kilograms of rice – twice a year. If you don’t pay the teachers, they won’t make any effort.”

The fisherman, now 45, from Ryongchon. Escaped in 2017:

“I lived through all three Kims, but our life was not getting any better for any of us. We all have to pay for Kim Jong Un’s projects, like Ryomyong Street [a residential development in Pyongyang]. We had to contribute 15,000 North Korean won per household [more than four months’ salary] to the government for that street.”

The drug dealer:

“My main business was selling ice. I think that 70 or 80 percent of the adults in Hoeryong city were using ice. My customers were just ordinary people. Police officers, security agents, party members, teachers, doctors. Ice made a really good gift for birthday parties or for high school graduation presents. It makes you feel good and helps you release stress, and it really helps relations between men and women. My 76-year-old mother was using it because she had low blood pressure, and it worked well. Lots of police officers and security agents would come to my house to smoke, and of course I didn’t charge them – they were my protection. They would come by during their lunch break, stop by my house. The head of the secret police in my area was almost living at my house.”
– – –

[Thucydides]

Part 2:

The ability to make money, sometimes lots of money, through means both legal and illegal has led to visible inequality in a country that has long touted itself as an egalitarian socialist paradise. This could be a potential source of disruption. Bean traders and drug dealers and everyone in between have the prospect of making a decent living. Those working only in official jobs, whether they be on a state-owned ostrich farm or in a government ministry in Pyongyang, earn only a few dollars a month and get little in the way of rations to supplement their meager salaries.

The rich kid, now 20, from Chongjin. Escaped in 2014:

“Skating rinks opened in 2013, and rollerblading became a really big thing. Rich kids had their own rollerblades. We’d carry them slung over our shoulders as we walked to the rink – it was a status symbol, a sign that you have money. I bought my rollerblades at the market. They were pink, and it cost 200 Chinese yuan. That’s the same price as 30 kilograms of rice. It’s unthinkable for poor kids.”

The construction worker:

“There were long periods where we didn’t get paid. I once went for six months without getting any salary at all. We lived in a shipping container at the construction site. We were given rice and cabbage and one egg per person per day, and we had an electric coil in our container that we could cook on. We needed some protein because our work was so hard, so we started buying pigskin at the market because it was cheap. Washing was like a special occasion. But if you went to the bathhouse, you would miss out on work. Once I didn’t bathe for two months. We didn’t think anything of it. It was just the way we lived.”

The rich kid:

“Cellphones are a big thing. To be able to afford a smartphone, you had to come from a rich family. Of course, there were some poor kids at my school, but I didn’t hang out with them. I had an Arirang smartphone that cost $400. When boys came up to talk to me, I’d check out their phone. If they had one of those old-style phones with buttons, I wasn’t interested.”
– – –

The markets are the distribution point not just for goods, but also for information. Chatter, rumors, illicit foreign media.

The farmer:

“Women make their living in the market, and while they’re sitting there at the stalls, they talk. So the market is a great place to learn about the outside world.”

The phone connector, now 49, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2013:

“I watched lots of [smuggled] movies and soap operas on USB sticks from the market. I would plug them into my TV. Vendors who are selling ordinary things like batteries or rice or whatever, they hide the USBs inside under the counter. When you go into the market you say to the vendors: Do you have anything delicious today? That’s the code. USBs are also good because they are so easy to hide, and you can just break them if you get caught.”

The fisherman:

“In the past, if you watched Chinese movies on USBs you were okay. You got put in a labor camp only if you were caught with South Korean or American movies. But now, under Kim Jong Un, you get sent to a labor camp if you’re caught watching Chinese movies, too. The police and the security services and government officials live better these days. The more people they catch, the more money they earn.”

The teenage prisoner, now 22, from Hyesan. Escaped in 2013:

“I loved the way that women were being cherished. North Korea is a very male-oriented society, men never bother about taking care of women. And I liked to look at their fancy cars and houses.”

The accordion player, now 25, from Hamhung. Escaped in 2015:

“My mom worked in the market selling home appliances, so she had a way to get DVDs. I watched Chinese, Indian and Russian movies, and lots of South Korean soap operas. I thought that if I got to South Korea, I could do anything I wanted.”
– – –

It is impossible to overstate the pervasiveness of the personality cult surrounding the Kims in North Korea. Founding President Kim Il Sung, his son Kim Jong Il and his grandson, the current leader, Kim Jong Un form a kind of holy trinity in North Korea. There is no criticizing them or questioning the system – at least not without risking your freedom and the freedom of your entire family. Your life itself could be at stake.

The preschooler:

“I learned songs about the general and about the Kim family and how great Kim Il Sung was.”

The elementary schoolgirl, now 7, from Ryongchon. Escaped in 2017:

“We got gifts on Kim Jong Un’s birthday: candy and cookies and gum and puffed rice. I was so grateful to him for giving me all these sweets. We would stand up in class and say, ‘Thank you, General Kim Jong Un.’ “

The university student:

“We had ideological education for 90 minutes every day. There was revolutionary history, lessons about Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un. Of course, they taught us about why we needed nuclear weapons, and they would tell us that we needed to make sacrifices in our daily lives so they could build these weapons and protect our country, keep the nation safe. I was so sick and tired of hearing about all this revolutionary history, I was so sick of calling everyone ‘comrade.’ I didn’t care about any of that stuff.”

The young mother:

“Everybody knew that Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un were both liars, that everything is their fault, but it’s impossible to voice any opposition because we are under such tight surveillance. If someone is drunk and says Kim Jong Un is a son of a *****, you’ll never see them again.”

The doctor:

“It’s like a religion. From birth, you learn about the Kim family, learn that they are gods, that you must be absolutely obedient to the Kim family. The elites are treated nicely, and because of that they make sure that the system stays stable. But for everyone else, it’s a reign of terror. The Kim family uses terror to keep people scared, and that makes it impossible to stage any kind of social gathering, let alone an uprising.”

The construction worker:

“We had education sessions when we would go back to the main building and into a big room where there were portraits of the leaders. Everyone had to bow and buy bunches of flowers to lay in front of the portraits. There would be a speech by the boss, who was a party member. We would hear about how Kim Jong Un had done this and this and that [he] was working so hard for the party and for the nation and for the people. I believed it up until the Kim Jong Un era, but this exaggeration was just too much. It just didn’t make sense.”

The money man:

“Every month there was special instruction about Kim Jong Un. It came down from Pyongyang to the neighborhood associations. We were told that Kim Jong Un wanted to know everything so that he could take proper care of everyone, help everyone. Nobody believed this because if Kim Jong Un knew we had no electricity and were eating corn rice [imitation rice made from ground corn], why wasn’t he doing anything about it?”

[Thucydides]

Part 3:

The bean trader:

“There was this story going around that Kim Il Sung had asked Kim Jong Un to get him an apple. Kim Jong Un asked for a shovel because he wanted to bring the whole tree. It was the kind of joke that the secret police would create. Instead of just doing top-down teaching, they would also create stories like this [about devotion to the regime] because they thought that their propaganda would circulate better as rumors and would seem more convincing.”

– – –

North Korea operates as a vast surveillance state, with a menacing state security department called the Bowibu as its backbone. Its agents are everywhere and operate with impunity.

The regime also operates a kind of neighborhood watch system. Every district in every town or city is broken up into neighborhood groups of 30 or 40 households, each with a leader who is responsible for coordinating grass-roots surveillance and encouraging people to snitch.

The young mother:

“People in each neighborhood association are always checking up on each other. If one family seems to be living better than everyone else, then all the neighbors try to find out how they are making their money. Everybody is sensitive because if someone seems to be living well, then people get jealous of that house. Nobody has to be asked to bring that wealthy family down and make sure that this wealthy family loses their money. When you see a family lose their house, that feels good. That’s why it’s important not to show off how wealthy you are.”

The farmer:

“Of course I thought about the outside world, but if you say, “I want to go to China or South Korea,” then it can be reported by an informant to the security services. You can think it, but you can’t say it. You never know who is going to snitch on you. We often heard and saw how Chinese people had money because Chinese people used to come to North Korea to sell things, so we thought it would be nice to live there.”

The rich kid:

“There were youth leaders who would patrol around, looking for things that we weren’t supposed to be doing. If you were wearing jeans or skinny pants, or if you had a manicure or your hair was too long, you would get in trouble. They would sometimes check your phone to see if you had any South Korean songs. I got busted for this, but I got out of it by buying them a box of 20 bottles of beer.”


.
– – –

For those who ran afoul of the regime in ways that money could not solve, the punishment could be harsh.

Those accused of economic crimes – which could involve any kind of private enterprise – are sent to prisons and often made to do hard labor, such as building roads by hand. But those accused of being traitors to the nation, a broad category that includes questioning the Kim family or its system, end up in political prison camps where they have to work in mines and receive almost no food. It is not unusual for three generations of a “traitor’s” family to end up in these concentration camps under North Korea’s guilt-by-association system.

The teenage prisoner:

“When I was 16, I was staying at my grandma’s house and there was a banging on the door late at night. Two secret police officers took me to the police station and asked me: ‘Where are your parents?’ I told them I didn’t know. It turned out that they had gone missing and I suspected that my mom’s business associates, when they realized this, planted a whole lot of stuff on her, said that she was the mastermind behind this big smuggling operation. The police yelled at me: ‘You’re just like your mother. You probably have fantasies about China, too.’ They slapped my face about five times.”

The phone connector:

“The first time I went to prison, I had been caught helping people make phone calls to their relatives in South Korea. I was sentenced to four months’ hard labor, building a road on the side of a mountain that they said we needed in case there was a war. The men did the digging and the women had to carry rocks and soil.”

– – –

Escapees from North Korea’s gruesome political prisons have recounted brutal treatment over the years, including medieval torture with shackles and fire and being forced to undergo abortions by the crudest methods. Human rights activists say that this appears to have lessened slightly under Kim. But severe beatings and certain kinds of torture – including being forced to remain in stress positions for crippling lengths of time – are commonplace throughout North Korea’s detention systems, as are public executions.


The teenage prisoner:

“I was interrogated again by the secret police, and they wanted to know about my mother’s business. They were slapping me around the face again. They always go for the face. I was beaten severely that time. They pushed me so hard against the wall that I had blood coming from my head. I still get a headache sometimes. While I was there they made me sit with my legs crossed and my arms resting on my knees and my head always down. If you move at all or if you try to stretch your legs out, they will yell at you and hit you. I had to stay like that for hours on end.”

The money man:

“In 2015, a money transfer went bad – the woman I’d given the money to got caught and she ratted on me – and I was put in detention. I spent two months there. I wasn’t treated like a human being – they beat me, they made me sit in stress positions where I couldn’t lift my head. Two times they slapped my face and kicked me during interrogation, but I was not beaten up badly. Maybe because I was not a nobody, maybe they feared that I knew someone who could get back at them.”

– – –

Starvation is often part of the punishment, even for children. The 16-year-old lost 13 pounds in prison, weighing only 88 pounds when she emerged.

The teenage prisoner:

“We got up at 6 a.m. every day and went to bed at 11 p.m., and in between we would be working the whole time, shoveling cement or lugging sacks, except for lunch. Lunch was usually steamed corn. I was too scared to eat. I cried a lot. I didn’t want to live.”

The phone connector:

“Even though we were working so hard in prison camp, all we got to eat was a tiny bit of corn rice and a small potato. By the time I got out, I was so malnourished I could hardly walk.”

– – –

It is this web of prisons and concentration camps, coupled with the threat of execution, that stops people from speaking up. There is no organized dissent in North Korea, no political opposition.

The drug dealer:

“If you make problems, then your whole family gets punished. That’s why people don’t want to make any trouble. If I get punished for my wrongdoing, that’s one thing. But it’s my whole family that would be put at risk if I did something. North Koreans have seen that Kim Jong Un killed his own uncle, so we understand how merciless he can be. That’s why you can’t have an uprising in North Korea.”

The university student:

“The secret to North Korea’s survival is the reign of terror. Why do you think North Korea has public executions? Why do you think they block all communications? Why do you think North Koreans leave, knowing that they will never see their families again? It shows how bad things are. All our rights as people have been stripped away.”

The phone connector:

“If you speak out against the system, you will immediately be arrested. And if you do something wrong, then three generations of your family will be punished. In 2009, I heard there was a going to be some kind of coup launched in Chongjin and that all of the people involved were executed. When you hear about cases like this, of course you’re scared. So instead of trying to do something to change the system, it’s better just to leave.”


In this June 16, 2017, photo, North Korean students use computer terminals at the Sci-Tech Complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP Photo/Wong Maye-E
– – –

Some people do leave, but not that many. It’s incredibly risky and logistically difficult to get around the border guards and the barbed wire. Unknown thousands cross into China each year. Some remain in China, almost always young women who get sold to poor Chinese men in the countryside who can’t get a wife any other way. Some get caught and sent back – to certain imprisonment.

The repatriated wife, now 50, from Nampo. Escaped for the last time in 2016:

“I had lived in China for 20 years, but someone must have reported me. I was sent back to North Korea, and I spent two and a half years in a prison camp. [After she had left once more for China], I knew I couldn’t be repatriated again. I thought that it would be the end of my life.”

– – –

But each year, a thousand or so North Koreans make it to South Korea. In the 20-odd years since the famine, only 30,000 North Koreans have made it to the southern side of the peninsula.

During the late 1990s and the early 2000s, almost all the North Koreans who fled were escaping out of hunger or economic need. But the explosion of markets has improved life for many. Today, more people are leaving North Korea because they are disillusioned with the system, not because they can’t feed their families.

The accordion player:

“I was ambitious. I wanted to be a party member and enjoy all the opportunities that come with that. My dream was to make lots of money and be a high-ranking government official. Family background means so much in North Korea, but I had family in China and I realized that this would stop me from being able to follow my dreams. I left because I didn’t have the freedom to do what I wanted to do.”

The bean trader:

“I wanted to progress in life, I wanted to go to university, but because my mother had defected to China, it looked like I wouldn’t be able to go any further. It looked like I would be stuck in North Korea where I was. I could have moved, lived, no problem, but I felt like I didn’t have any future in North Korea. That’s why I decided to leave.”


In this July 27, 2013, file photo, North Korean soldiers carrying packs marked with the nuclear symbol turn and look towards leader Kim Jong Un during a military parade in Pyongyang, North Korea. AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File
The meat delivery guy:

“We were told in school that we could be anybody. But after graduation, I realized that this wasn’t true and that I was being punished for somebody else’s wrongdoing. I realized I wouldn’t be able to survive here. So for two years I looked for a way out. When I thought about escaping, it gave me a psychological boost.”

The doctor:

“I hoped to work abroad as a doctor in the Middle East or Africa. But to work overseas you have to pass security screening to make sure you’re ideologically sound and aren’t going to defect. That’s a problem that money can’t solve and that’s where I got blocked. I was very angry, very annoyed. I cursed our society. I am a very capable person, and I was a party member, but even I couldn’t make it.”

The construction worker:

“I worked for three and a half years, but I made only $2,000 during that time. We were allowed to work overseas for five years maximum, and I was hoping to save $10,000 and return home proud. I realized it wasn’t going to happen, so I started looking for a chance to escape.”

The university student:

“I was so disgusted with the system. I didn’t have freedom to speak my mind, or to travel anywhere I wanted, or even to wear what I wanted. It was like living in a prison. We were monitored all the time by our neighborhood leader, by the normal police, by the secret police. If you ask me what was the worst thing about North Korea, I’d say: Being born there”

The bride:

After graduating from high school, she worked in the cornfields for two years but just sat at home after that. So when she heard that her friend had been sold to a Chinese man as a wife, she asked to be introduced to the broker so that she could be sold, too. At least she’d be able to earn money in China. She has just arrived in South Korea.

The meat delivery guy:

Because his mother was a “traitor” who had defected to South Korea, he was blocked from going to college or joining the military. Instead, he was put to work doing manual labor with criminals and low-lifes, for almost no salary. He made money by delivering meat from his father’s butchery to local restaurants. He is now a university student in South Korea.

The young mother, now 29, from Hoeryong. Escaped in 2014:

She came from a good family background, but her father was violent. She married young, to a truck driver, and they lived comfortably in North Korea. But her aunts lived in the South, and they told her she should bring their sister, her mother, to them. So she defected with her husband and their two daughters, a 4-year-old and a 1-month-old. She is now an office worker in South Korea.

The preschooler:

She doesn’t remember much of her life in North Korea, just her friends from preschool and a few songs that they used to sing. She is now in elementary school in South Korea.

The money man:

He had been a border guard but bribed his way out. He then started working as a money transfer broker, moving cash from families in China or South Korea to relatives in North Korea, all for a hefty fee. But one day a deal went bad when a customer in North Korea was caught with a large amount of Chinese currency and turned him in. He now works at a factory in South Korea.

The university student:

He came from an ordinary family but had big dreams. He kept thinking about escaping to China and becoming successful, doing a job that he found rewarding. One day his parents told him he should chase his dreams. So he did. He is now a reporter in South Korea.

The drug dealer:

After bribing his way out of his factory job during the famine, he got involved in all sorts of illegal activities, from smuggling antiques to selling ice, a methamphetamine, in both China and North Korea. He is now a construction worker in South Korea.

The hairdresser:

She had been at teachers college but had to quit when she was 19 to earn money for the family after her father became sick. She started doing hair at her house, but then got an opportunity to work at a restaurant in China and earn much more. So off she went, with a broker. But she discovered there was no restaurant. Instead, she was sold to a Chinese man for $12,000. She has just arrived in South Korea.

The farmer:

After her husband defected, she had to make ends meet. She made tofu from scratch, grew corn in a plot of land several hours’ walk from her home and raised pigs in her yard. It was hard to make ends meet, but it became even harder when she hurt her back and struggled to work. She still has a bad back and cannot work in South Korea.

The bean trader:

He came from a privileged family and lived well, until his grandfather got in trouble with the regime and his mother defected. So he worked as a trader, sourcing beans and sending them to his aunt, who would sell them at the markets in Pyongyang. He is now a university student in South Korea.

North Korean soldiers fired 40 shots at defector as he fled across border. He made it out alive
Kim Jong Un’s North Korea is – cautiously – going online
Inside North Korea’s propaganda machine: They hate Japan and the U.S. — but love the Queen
The construction worker:

He worked and bribed his way into a construction job in Russia, a potentially lucrative posting. But despite working long hours, he often went months without being paid. Watching South Korean television opened his eyes to the lies of North Korea. He now works in South Korea.

The doctor:

He worked at a hospital in Hyesan and was a member of the Workers’ Party. He dreamed of being sent to the Middle East or Africa, where he could make much more money. But he was blocked from leaving. He now works as a doctor at a hospital in South Korea.

The fisherman:

He earned a good living, fishing for a state company and using his access to China to smuggle goods across the river. But his exposure to Chinese capitalism and South Korean radio broadcasts made him want to escape. He has just arrived in South Korea.


In this May 5, 2015, file photo, a man uses his smartphone in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korean officials have unveiled a mobile-friendly online shopping site. Ever so cautiously, North Korea is going online. AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, File
The rich kid:

She was a high school student, the daughter of a successful businessman who was flourishing in the emerging private economy. She wanted for nothing. She is now a university student in South Korea.

The phone connector:

Using her Chinese cellphone, she worked arranging phone calls between North Koreans and relatives on the outside, either in China or South Korea. But she got caught and was forced to do hard labor in prison. She was caught a second time but paid a huge bribe to get off. She fled before she was caught again. She now works in South Korea.

The teenage prisoner:

She was a high school student and was staying with her grandmother in another city when the rest of her family suddenly escaped to China, apparently because one of her mother’s business deals went bad. She was imprisoned, tortured and made to do hard labor. She is now a university student in South Korea.

The accordion player:

She volunteered for the military as a way to improve her prospects in North Korea. She hoped to become a member of the Workers’ Party and be the mayor of her city one day. But she was thwarted from advancing because she had family in China. She is now a university student in South Korea.

The elementary:

She loves pink and a doll she was given after escaping North Korea. She’d never owned a doll before. She has just arrived in South Korea.

The repatriated wife:

She escaped to China during the famine and had been living with a Chinese man. They have two children. But in 2014, she was repatriated to North Korea and spent 2 1/2 years in a prison camp. When she was released, she escaped again but this time didn’t stop in China. She has just arrived in South Korea.

[Thucydides]

Why China may be forced to intervene:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/20/china-must-denuclearize-north-korea/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpBMFl6STBNREJoTmpFMSIsInQiOiJpTFJmVHhmMmZwYkh2bUlmVE9Yck9zWnV2cWQ2NFlrSGErUFgyeFhcL2lySzNwa0JTcWR4XC9NSHRUTVBxZ3lcL012Q0hsaU0zUTZXSnl6d3ZCV3JXclNXZmxPN0pRdHVudnpxZ0FCSUw5d3RuYVpGU0YyY1hVUEU5ekEyUjJmbWxOcCJ9

No choice for China
By Daniel Gallington - - Monday, November 20, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:

If China doesn’t decide to intervene and essentially “denuclearize” North Korea — and soon — the Pacific region will “nuclearize” itself, in reaction to China’s inaction and the growing North Korean nuclear threat.

In short, the People's Republic of China doesn’t really have a choice in the matter; it must take down the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s various nuclear weapons and related programs. President Trump’s decision Monday to re-list North Korea as a state sponsor of terror adds weight to the exigency.

Affecting the timing of China’s decision, however, will be the following very critical calculus: Which Asian countries may likely develop nuclear weapons and how long would it take?

In reverse order, how long would it take?

The answer to this might shock some: If one imagines the complete “nuclear fuel cycle” — to include nuclear weapons development — as 100 points on a scale, then 95 to 98 points could be associated with a “peaceful” nuclear program. Only the last few notches in the fuel cycle are needed for actual weapon development.

So, virtually any Asian or Pacific country with nuclear reactors or a nuclear power program, could probably produce a nuclear weapon if it was properly motivated, in other words, if it felt sufficiently threatened by North Korean nuclear weapons.

Which Asian-Pacific countries might consider such a step?

First of all could be countries that, in fact, had nuclear weapons programs at one time or another. This would include South Korea and Taiwan, for sure, and perhaps some others.

Recently, there has even been editorial comment in Australia that it should seriously consider a nuclear weapons program to address the emerging nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile threat from North Korea. Australians certainly have the nuclear material and technology for such a program, should they decide they need it.

Second, most any Asian country that has a nuclear reactor or reactors might well consider adding on the “last steps” to the nuclear fuel cycle, and thereby producing the nuclear materials necessary for a weapons program. Japan, for example, could become a nuclear power very quickly.

Next question: Tactically, should the Chinese delay their action to shut down North Korea’s nuclear weapons program until they can “get something for it” in some kind of structured negotiations with the United States, similar to the past Six-Party talks?

Probably not. This because the U.S. strategic build-up in Asia will likely continue regardless of diplomatic discussions, if any; and likewise, those countries with existing nuclear infrastructures will likely continue thinking about nuclear weapons programs. This because the past negotiations with and/or about the North Korean nuclear program have served only as diplomatic cover for Pyongyang to continue its covert weapons programs. Accordingly, diplomacy does not seem a vehicle for reliable resolution.

Ironically perhaps, if and when China takes down the North Korean nuclear weapons program in a credible way, it could expect to see an immediate reduction in the current U.S. strategic response and build-up in Asia and the Pacific. Likewise, countries that were “on the edge” for beginning their own nuclear weapons programs could likely back down from them.

However, China must act quickly, and must act unilaterally to halt the North Korean nuclear weapons program in order to reverse the massive U.S. strategic responses and build-up in Asia.

Should the Chinese realize that, albeit indirectly, North Korea has become a threat to them? For sure, the reactions by the United States and other Asian countries to the North Korean nuclear weapons programs cannot be in the best interest of China, and they have to know this by now. Finally, do we really care how the Chinese solve the problem as long as they solve it? I really don’t think so.

• Daniel Gallington served through 11 rounds of bilateral negotiations in Geneva as a member of the U.S. Delegation to the Nuclear and Space Talks with the former Soviet Union.

[tomahawk6]

Ghost fleet washes ashore in Japan.Boats of dead North Koreans are washing up along Japan's shores.This isnt new but the numbers are . The theory is that the dead are North Korean soldiers turned fishermen. This week Japanese police have arrested North Korean fishermen for stealing generators from isolated huts.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/f9a4567c-80b6-3332-8a58-db7a36464a4d/ss_boats-full-of-dead-people.html

Fishermen arrested.

https://japantoday.com/category/crime/Police-arrest-3-N-Korean-fishing-boat-crew-for-theft

[tomahawk6]

As if the threat of nukes isnt enough,NK may have the means to wage biowar but the intel agencies have detected a weaponization program - yet.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/microbes-by-the-ton-officials-see-weapons-threat-as-north-korea-gains-biotech-expertise/2017/12/10/9b9d5f9e-d5f0-11e7-95bf-df7c19270879_story.html?utm_term=.34cbee902e54

Five months before North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006, U.S. intelligence officials sent a report to Congress warning that secret work also was underway on a biological weapon. The communist regime, which had long ago acquired the pathogens that cause smallpox and anthrax, had assembled teams of scientists but seemed to be lacking in certain technical skills, the report said.

“Pyongyang’s resources presently include a rudimentary biotechnology infrastructure,” the report by the director of national intelligence explained.

[Inspir]

Wrong thread

[Fabius]

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson have announced that Canada
will host a meeting in Vancouver on 16 January to discuss a diplomatic way forward with respect to the North Korean
 nuclear weapon and ICBM programs.

From my reading of various articles and press releases the diplomatic solution seems to be strictly ever increasing economic
 sanctions, which honestly seems rather dubious as a stick to convince the North Koreans that it’s in their interest to give up
 their two programs. I wonder what if any carrot is being offered or considered and if it actually means anything to the North
Koreans.

If I try to think like North Korea, there is no way that I am giving up either of my two programs unless I have some very
concrete iron clad guarantees regarding the integrity of my sovereignty and the security of my regime.  As North Korea I have
 seen too many other countries attacked by the US or others and I see my strength as the only thing holding anyone off, why
would I want to give my strength away to the potential or perceived actual enemy?

If my programs are aimed at ensuring my sovereignty and survival as a country and regime (at least in my North Korean mind
if nothing else) what can the international community and the US specifically offer to guarantee those things and alleviate the
fear and insecurity that drives me to feel the need for those systems? 

Maybe as a start point an actual peace treaty to replace the current ceasefire agreement?  I don’t know.

[tomahawk6]

There has been another "defector" that crossed into the ROK. ROK troops fired on the North Korean soldiers that were tracking the "defector". Of course it could be an agent with orders to kill the wounded defector. Who knows.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/another-north-korean-soldier-makes-a-mad-dash-across-the-dmz-1513820797

SEOUL—A North Korean soldier defected across the demilitarized zone into South Korea Thursday morning, the fourth such incident this year, according to the Defense Ministry in Seoul.

The defector is “junior ranking,” a ministry spokesman said, declining to reveal additional details about the soldier, including his name and rank. He defected across the border at about 8 a.m. Thursday, at an undisclosed point on the northwestern portion of the inter-Korean border, the spokesman said.

South Korean authorities are investigating the defector’s motivation.

[jollyjacktar]

Interesting story about what NK citizens might think of Canada.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/world/what-north-koreans-know-about-canada-nation-and-destiny-1.4542647

[jollyjacktar]

Infiltrating NK one USB at a time.

https://youtu.be/jKINA-ikgE4

[Thucydides]

New long article in "The National Interest", which suggests that China may well have reasons to curb the DPRK sooner rather than later. Full article posted in the long articles thread, and a link to the article itself:

Doomsday: Why We Must Prepare for the Coming Collapse of North Korea

https://army.ca/forums/index.php/topic,127523.0.html

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/doomsday-why-we-must-prepare-the-coming-collapse-north-korea-24709?page=show

[jollyjacktar]

South Korea are saying that Kim J and the Donald are going to meet.  NK say they're giving up their bad ways with things that go boom.

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/world/kim-jong-un-and-donald-trump-to-meet-says-south-korea-1.4568583

Interesting times.

[tomahawk6]

This will be the usual Nork rope a dope.They wont be giving up their nuke program.

[YZT580]

I can't recall their ever asking for a direct meeting the the U.S. president before though

[Loachman]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/north-korea-talks-trump-strategy-should-be-ambitious/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=180209_G-File&utm_term=GFile

Three Out-of-the-Box Options on North Korea

By Nicholas Grossman

March 9, 2018 6:30 AM   

After the Olympics, South Korean envoys met directly with Kim Jong-un in North Korea - itself a small diplomatic breakthrough - to head off increasing tensions over joint American–South Korean military exercises scheduled for April. Kim surprised them by proposing talks with the United States and putting North Korea’s nuclear program on the table, backing this up with a promise to suspend nuclear and missile testing while the negotiations go on.

That’s big. Not that we should take Kim at his word - I doubt North Korea will give up its nuclear weapons - but his openness to diplomacy is a positive development, especially when accompanied by a voluntary testing freeze.

The United States should take this unexpected opportunity to think outside the box, perhaps making a grand proposal of its own.

Why would North Korea negotiate now? One possibility is that Trump’s version of Nixon’s “madman theory” yielded some success.

As many analysts have noted, the costs of attacking North Korea are prohibitively high: There would be thousands of South Korean fatalities within minutes, before U.S. air power could stop them, followed by a prolonged confrontation with potentially millions more casualties; at worst, a great power such as China might come to the North’s defense. The U.S. wouldn’t shy away if North Korea started a war, but these risks are sufficient to deter America from firing first. The Kim regime knows all this, which reduces its incentives to acquiesce to demands. It has been under sanction for years, but has managed to stay in power while advancing its missile and nuclear capabilities.

But if Trump could convince North Korea (and China) that he might be crazy enough to attack, Kim would be more willing to make concessions. Trump has issued a series of threats, on Twitter and elsewhere, that go far beyond what his predecessors did. He’s ordered additional forces to the region, such as three carrier groups conducting exercises in the waters between South Korea and Japan in November 2017, in a powerful show of force. And in January 2018, Trump interviewed North Korea expert Victor Cha for U.S. ambassador to South Korea - but the nomination fell through over Cha’s opposition to a pre-emptive strike.

This heightened risk of American attack gives Kim motivation to negotiate.

[Colin P]

One theory I saw is that they think that NK will get China to host to the meetings and then they can claim any success, furthering their diplomatic muscles.

[Thucydides]

Dilber creator Scott Adams should be putting up a post titled "I told you so". He has been blogging about the DPRK and seems to have been able to follow President Trump's thought process or game plan:

https://www.nysun.com/national/dilbert-scoops-them-all-on-inside-story-of-trump/90212/

‘Dilbert’ Scoops ’em All On the Inside Story Of Trump Korea Talks
By IRA STOLL, Special to the Sun | March 12, 2018

Give “Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams the Pulitzer Prize for commentary. He deserves it for understanding and explaining all along what’s been going on with President Trump and North Korea, in a way that the coastal establishment elites missed because of their blinding contempt for Trump.

For those who haven’t been following the political commentary of Mr. Adams, it’s worth going back and reading.

In an April 12, 2017, blog post headlined “The North Korea Reframe,” Mr. Adams wrote about how Mr. Trump had reframed North Korea as a challenge to China.

“President Trump has said clearly and repeatedly that if China doesn’t fix the problem in its own backyard, the USA will step in to do what China couldn’t get done,” Mr. Adams wrote. “See the power in that framing? China doesn’t want a weak ‘brand.’...His reframing on North Korea is pitch-perfect. We’ve never seen anything like this.”

Mr. Adams followed up with an April 17, 2017, post headlined “How To Structure a Deal With North Korea.” He suggests giving North Korea “a story to save face.” He went on, “In persuasion language, you need to give North Korea a ‘fake because.’ They probably already want peace, but they don’t have a good public excuse for why they would cave to pressure and settle for it. Giving them something that has little value but can be exaggerated to seem like it has great value becomes the ‘fake because.’”

In a July 5, 2017, post, “Solving the North Korea Situation,” Mr. Adams wrote about the possibility of shifting from a win-lose framework on such a deal to a win-win framework, including a “100-year deal” leading to reunification.

In a July 31, 2017, post, headlined “People Keep Telling Me To Stop Blogging About North Korea,” Mr. Adams wrote, “My critics have been extra vocal lately in saying I should stop writing about North Korea because I have no expertise in that area. So I decided to talk about North Korea some more.”

In a September 5, 2017, post, Mr. Adams wrote, “in Kim Jong Un I suspect we have a negotiating partner who understands all dimensions.... we are also closer than we have ever been to a permanent solution.”

And in a January 3, 2018, post Mr. Adams rebutted critics who called President Trump’s tweet about having a bigger nuclear button than North Korea “crazy.”

Mr. Adams wrote, “what is missed in the hysterics over wording is that President Trump and Kim Jong Un are negotiating personally, albeit in public. And I think it is safe to say both players know they are being over-the-top with their trash-talk. The odds of a nuclear miscalculation based on anything said so far is effectively zero.”

He went on, “while it might look to many observers as two crazy leaders heading for a nuclear showdown, to me it looks like two colorful characters who probably have a weird kind of respect for each other.”

A January 17, 2018, Mr. Adams post headlined “How North Korea Can Become Switzerland of the East” noted, “Kim Jong Un went to school in Switzerland. He knows it as a country that gets just about everything right and does it without a traditional army.”

Mr. Adams hasn’t posted about North Korea on his blog, at least so far as I can tell, since President Trump earlier this month accepted a North Korean offer of direct talks. But if Mr. Adams does write something, an accurate headline might be, “I told you so.”

The Trump-North Korea talks could end inconclusively, or even dangerously, so the story isn’t over yet. On the basis of what’s happened so far, though, it certainly looks like Mr. Adams was correct. Mr. Trump’s tactics, rather than leading to war, have brought the North Koreans to the bargaining table.

Compare Mr. Adams’ take to elite opinion. As recently as February 1, in an editorial headlined, “Playing With Fire and Fury on North Korea,” the New York Times editorial board said, “It’s hard to come away from the State of the Union address without a heightened sense of foreboding about President Trump’s intentions toward North Korea. The signs increasingly point to unilateral American military action....

“Mr. Trump seemed to be building a case for war on emotional grounds... such words were in line with his history of bellicosity toward North Korea... Last year he threatened to answer North Korean provocations with fire and fury ‘the likes of which this world has never seen before.’... Mr. Trump’s preoccupation with military action and refusal to seriously pursue a diplomatic overture to North Korea are foolhardy.”

If anyone’s “foolhardy” here, it’s not Mr. Trump, but the Times editorial writers, who apparently hate Mr. Trump so much that they couldn’t see the truth of what Scott Adams had been writing for nearly a year. Part of the point of journalism is to explain to readers what’s really happening rather than stoking false, anxiety-provoking (if click-generating) fears or “foreboding.” By that standard, on the evidence so far, Mr. Adams has done a far better job on the North Korea story than the Times has.

Whatever power the Pulitzer committees have, individual readers have a power, too. That is to treat “elite” commentary with the skepticism it deserves, and to keep an eye out for outside-the-box thinkers such as Mr. Adams. If the fears about war with North Korea were unwarranted, maybe the fears about a Trump-tariff-provoked trade war are also phony, and there, too, presidential rhetoric and actions are being used in a fashion more calculated than reckless. At least it’s worth keeping an open mind about the possibility.