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Quotes of the Day:
"As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is end to our troubles."
– Bertrand Russell
"If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful adn we prefer the pleasures of illusion."
– Aldous Huxley
"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance."
– George Bernard Shaw
1. Trump picks Alex Wong for deputy national security adviser
2. Kim Jong Un’s Message to Trump: We’re Not Interested
3. North Korea warns US of stoking tensions and bringing countries to brink of ‘nuclear war’
4. How Xi’s Korean peninsula warning highlights Beijing’s political headache from all sides
5. Does North Korea Really Execute People for Watching South Korean Videos?
6. Inside the South Korean Weapons Factory That Could Supply Kyiv
7. Trump squeeze coming for vulnerably sandwiched South Korea
8. Russia responds as North Korean troops accused of sexual assault in Kursk
9. K2 Black Panther Is the Tank Every Army Wants
10. Ukraine is being hit with a surge of attacks using North Korean missiles. Western components help make it possible
11. Sweden's new ambassador to N. Korea presents credentials, resumes diplomatic operations
12. U.S. assesses N. Korea is prepared for 7th nuke test, awaits 'only a political decision': official
13. N. Korea condemns U.S. military drills, warns potential escalation could trigger real war
14. S. Korea commemorates sacrifices of 2 Marines in 2010 N. Korean artillery attack
15. Quick Take: North Korea’s Coverage of Russian War Against Ukraine
16. S. Korea not to attend Sado memorial amid controversy over Japan's pick for gov't representative
17. Exclusive: Audit finds Moon administration leaked THAAD details to China, civic groups
18. North Korea warns US of thermonuclear war
1. Trump picks Alex Wong for deputy national security adviser
Alex is a good man. He will be able to provide sound Korea advice to Mike Waltz and POTUS.
Trump picks Alex Wong for deputy national security adviser
By Reuters
November 22, 2024
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-picks-alex-wong-deputy-national-security-adviser-2024-11-23/
WASHINGTON, Nov 22 (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Friday that he has choosing former State Department official Alex Wong to serve as deputy national security adviser.
Wong, who served as deputy special representative for North Korea during the first Trump administration, "helped negotiate my Summit with North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un," Trump said in a statement.
Trump also chose Sebastian Gorka to serve as White House senior director for counterterrorism, saying he had more than 30 years of national security experience.
Reporting by Jasper Ward; editing by Costas Pitas\
(LEAD) Trump picks ex-N. Korea policy official as his principal deputy national security adviser | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 23, 2024
(ATTN: RECASTS 2nd para; ADDS details in paras 5-9)
By Song Sang-ho
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- U.S. President-elect Donald Trump named Alex Wong, who was engaged in working-level nuclear talks with North Korea during his first term, as his principal deputy national security adviser amid expectations he could seek to reengage with Pyongyang after returning to office.
Trump issued a statement on his decision to appoint Wong, who served as the deputy special representative for North Korea and the deputy assistant secretary for North Korea in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the State Department when he was in office.
The personnel choice came amid speculation that Trump could move to revive his personal diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in an effort to complete the unfinished business of addressing the recalcitrant regime's worsening nuclear quandary.
This file photo, taken Feb. 12, 2020, shows Alex Wong walking inside the Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul. (Yonhap)
"As Deputy Special Representative for North Korea, he helped negotiate my Summit with North Korean Leader, Kim Jong Un," Trump said. "Alex also led the State Department's efforts to implement the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy."
When he was in office, Wong was the No. 2 negotiator in denuclearization talks with North Korea. He led a U.S.-led campaign to address the North's nuclear and missile conundrum, including sanctions enforcement, counterproliferation and steps to curb and prevent the regime's illicit cyber activities.
Observers said that Trump's selection of Wong for the White House post raised the prospects of the incoming president looking to resume dialogue with the North, though it remains uncertain whether Pyongyang would accede to any diplomatic overture from Washington when it has a growing military partnership with Moscow.
During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly boasted about the "love letters" from Kim and his personal ties with him. He also said that "getting along" with the North Korean leader is a "good thing."
In a photo book published in September, Trump said that his summitry with Kim during his presidency showed that "real change" was "indeed" possible, portraying it as "honest, direct and productive."
Trump had three in-person meetings with Kim, including the first-ever summit between the two countries in Singapore in 2018. Since the no-deal summit in Hanoi in 2019, any meaningful nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have been stalled.
Wong received his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he was the managing editor of the Harvard Law Review and an editor of the Harvard International Law Journal. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Pennsylvania.
He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and served as the chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a congressionally appointed panel.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 23, 2024
2. Kim Jong Un’s Message to Trump: We’re Not Interested
I will keep emphasizing this. Kim Jong Un is actually providing the opportunity for a new strategy.
President-elect Trump did something during his first term that no president had done: “He gave it a shot.” He met Kim and he offered him a future. But it was Kim Jong Un who failed to appreciate the opportunity he had. Now in his second term President Trump has the opportunity to implement new elements of policy and strategy that have never before been attempted. These include a human rights upfront approach that keeps human rights on all agendas, a sophisticated and holistic information campaign, and the support of the Korean people's pursuit of a free and unified Korea. There are few pundits who see the opportunities that both President Yoon with his 8.15 Unification Doctrine and Kim Jong Un with his new hostile policy toward the South are providing to the U.S. and ROK/U.S alliance. It is time to recognize that the only path to denuclearization is through unification. Most importantly the prevention of war and nuclear use, and the long term outcome on the Korean peninsula are important to the national security and national prosperity of the U.S.
Kim Jong Un’s Message to Trump: We’re Not Interested
North Korean dictator has fewer reasons to seek sanctions relief from the U.S. and has played down the need for disarmament talks
By Dasl Yoon
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and Timothy W. Martin
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Nov. 22, 2024 5:44 am ET
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Thursday, in a photo provided by the country’s state news agency. Photo: KCNA/AFP/Getty Images
SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appeared to rebuff the prospect of reviving his nuclear diplomacy with President-elect Donald Trump, according to his first public remarks about disarmament talks since the election.
North Korea’s state media reported Friday that the 40-year-old dictator called the U.S. a superpower that operated by force rather than a will to coexist and belittled the value that previous talks had for his cash-strapped regime.
“We have already explored every possible avenue in negotiating with the U.S.,” Kim was quoted as saying during a speech at a defense expo in the capital Pyongyang on Thursday. What has become clear, he added, is the U.S.’s “unchanging aggressive and hostile policy” toward North Korea.
Managing the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program will be one of Trump’s major foreign-policy challenges during his second term. But since Trump left office in 2021, Pyongyang has strengthened its leverage. The regime has expanded its nuclear arsenal, warded off economic collapse from Covid-19 and deepened military and economic ties with Moscow, including deploying troops for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Kim has fewer reasons to seek sanctions relief from the U.S. and has repeatedly played down the need for disarmament talks. He has grown more unwilling to disarm, rewrote his country’s nuclear doctrine to allow pre-emptive strikes and vowed to pursue a limitless expansion of North Korea’s weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is also providing Kim with things that the U.S. can’t, from diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council to sensitive military technology.
Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump have previously celebrated their relationship. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
This sets the stage for a different Kim-Trump dynamic from their first go-round. The two met face-to-face on three occasions during Trump’s first term in Singapore, Vietnam and the Korean Demilitarized Zone. They also exchanged a series of “beautiful” and “excellent” letters, as the two leaders called them. At one 2019 rally, Trump even remarked: “We fell in love.”
On the campaign trail this year, Trump suggested he could better control North Korea’s outbursts if he returned to the Oval Office. “I think he misses me,” Trump said of Kim, at July’s Republican National Convention.
“Trump may think love letters are enough, but for the past five years Kim has shown he’s determined not to lose face again,” said Hwang Ji-hwan, a professor of international relations at the University of Seoul.
Trump’s cabinet nominees signal a tough stance on Pyongyang. Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, has previously compared North Korea to a “criminal syndicate that controls territory.” Rep. Mike Waltz, Trump’s choice for White House national security adviser, has called growing ties between North Korea, China and Russia an “unholy alliance.”
During his speech Thursday, Kim accused the U.S. of sowing chaos around the world through “unscrupulous tactics” that aim to retain America’s sphere of interest globally. “We are currently witnessing the most chaotic and violent world since World War II,” Kim was quoted as saying.
Kim also vowed to accelerate production of nuclear and conventional weapons systems. The defense expo displayed Kim’s high-priority weaponry, including a satellite launch vehicle, its newest intercontinental ballistic missile, the “Hwasong-19,” and new suicide-attack drones that were recently showcased at a fiery exhibition.
But North Korea also showed off its lineup of short-range missiles and 240 mm multiple rocket launch systems—weaponry that has been provided to Russia for the war with Ukraine. In exchange, Moscow is believed to be providing Pyongyang with anti-air missiles and equipment for air-defense systems, in addition to cash payments to soldiers, South Korea’s presidential office said on Friday.
In recent weeks, North Korea has deployed more than 11,000 soldiers to fight alongside the Russians, with some already engaged in combat, the U.S. said. A senior North Korean general was recently wounded in a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Kursk region, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Delivering his remarks at the defense expo allowed Kim to flaunt North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and send the incoming Trump administration a message to steer away from a pressure campaign, said Hong Min, a senior researcher at Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank in Seoul.
“North Korea is requesting a change in attitude from the incoming Trump administration in order to make dialogue possible again,” Hong said.
Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com and Timothy W. Martin at Timothy.Martin@wsj.com
3. North Korea warns US of stoking tensions and bringing countries to brink of ‘nuclear war’
Please understand the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and understand Kim's political warfare and blackmail diplomacy. Kim wants the world afraid of the threat of nuclear war to make its political warfare blackmail diplomacy work. But he also needs this to generate the perception of the external threat to justify the suffering and sacrifice of the Korean people in the north as Kim prioritizes nuclear weapons and missiles in order to ensure his own survival.
North Korea warns US of stoking tensions and bringing countries to brink of ‘nuclear war’ - Washington Examiner
Washington Examiner · November 22, 2024
Kim claimed the U.S. had engaged in a “hostile and aggressive” policy with his country and that, as a result, the two countries had never been closer to nuclear war than now, according to reports from KCNA, North Korea’s state-run media.
“Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war,” Kim declared in his speech.
Kim also warned that his country and the U.S. had achieved everything they could regarding negotiations. He said the U.S. doesn’t want to coexist with his country but rather continue down a path of asserting its geopolitical power and influence over North Korea.
“We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States, but what we became certain of from the result is not the superpower’s willingness to coexist, but its thorough stance of power and aggressive and hostile policy toward us that can never change,” Kim said.
While tough talk and increased tensions are nothing new in the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea, the latest round of hostilities stems from the Ulchi Freedom Shield drills conducted by the U.S. and South Korea in August. Even though these drills were described as reactionary and “defensive in nature,” North Korea considered them a threat.
North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement declaring the exercises as “provocative war drills for aggression,” the Associated Press reported. As such, North Korea rationalized the drills as a reason to increase its weapons and nuclear arsenal as doing so allowed the country to “constantly maintain the balance of power for preventing a war by stockpiling the greatest deterrence.”
Additionally, in August, North Korea called for an increase of its nuclear weapons to “counter threats from the United States”. It held a ceremony marking the “delivery of 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers to front-line military units.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“Negotiations and confrontation are among our options, but we must be more thoroughly prepared to cope with the latter — this is the review and conclusion we have derived from the 30-odd years of dealing with the United States,” Kim said at the time. “The United States we are now confronting is by no means an administration that remains in power for a tenure of some years, but a hostile state that our descendants, too, will have to counter, generation after generation. This fact testifies to the inevitability of the steady improvement of our defense capability.”
Recent revelations that North Korea forged an alliance with Russia and sent troops to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war also amplified tensions between the two countries. The U.S. condemned North Korea’s decision to intervene, while North Korea responded by claiming it was another reason to increase its military weapons and nuclear arsenal.
Washington Examiner · November 22, 2024
4. How Xi’s Korean peninsula warning highlights Beijing’s political headache from all sides
This too supports Kim's political warfare strategy.
But if Xi really wanted stability he would credibly try to reign in Kim. But he either cannot or will not.
Excerpts:
While Xi signalled Beijing’s willingness to support de-escalation efforts by stressing the importance of stability during talks with South Korean and Japanese leaders, his reluctance to criticise Pyongyang highlighted the complexities of China’s diplomatic balancing act, Lee said.
This balancing act also reflected Beijing’s anticipation of a rocky road ahead, following Trump’s re-election.
“As China recalibrates its regional priorities, it appears increasingly less tolerant of North Korean provocations. However, the extent to which Beijing might leverage this stance to improve ties with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo remains an open question,” Lee said.
If the US-North Korea negotiations resume under Trump, Beijing is still likely to assert itself as a key participant, leveraging its influence over Pyongyang to reinforce its role in regional and global diplomacy, according to Lee.
“Such a move would enable China to present itself as indispensable in resolving security challenges while retaining influence over North Korea,” he said.
How Xi’s Korean peninsula warning highlights Beijing’s political headache from all sides
A statement by Xi Jinping over the volatile Korean peninsula signals China’s growing concern in the region, observers say
Shi Jiangtao
Published: 11:00pm, 21 Nov 2024Updated: 11:37pm, 21 Nov 2024
A warning issued last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping over heightened risks of instability on the Korean peninsula signals Beijing’s growing unease with the potential geopolitical turbulence ahead as former US president Donald Trump prepares for his return to the White House, observers say.
“China does not allow conflict and turmoil to happen on the Korean peninsula. It will not sit idly by when its strategic security and core interests are under threat,” Xi told outgoing US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Lima, Peru on Saturday.
Escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear provocations have made the region particularly volatile.
Observers said China was also under pressure to help rein in Pyongyang and Moscow, especially since North Korea’s deployment of troops into Russia’s war in Ukraine, while also having to deflect criticism of its close ties with both.
They added that while China sought to position itself as a “stabilising force” in the Korean peninsula, Xi’s words underlined Beijing’s concerns not only over North Korea, but also over the expanding military alliance between the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Lee Seong-hyon, a South Korean visiting scholar with Harvard University’s Asia Centre, said Xi’s statement amounted to a rare admission that tension on the peninsula was threatening China’s national interests, and carried “profound strategic implications”.
“Xi underscores Beijing’s dual objectives: maintaining regional stability and reaffirming its central role in shaping the unfolding geopolitical situation,” he said.
It was also a “subtle response” to the strengthening security alliance between the US, South Korea and Japan, according to Lee.
“Xi’s remarks reflect China’s heightened vigilance over what it perceives as a direct challenge to its regional influence,” he said.
Chinese leader Xi tells US President Biden he is ‘ready to work’ with Donald Trump
Xi’s remarks on the North Korea issue came right after his comments on Ukraine in the Chinese readout of his meeting with Biden.
The Chinese leader insisted Beijing had always been “fair and square” with its self-purported neutrality on the war, which this week marked 1,000 days.
“This deliberate pairing appears aimed at addressing US critiques of China’s ambiguous stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its ties with Pyongyang,” Lee said.
Biden condemned North Korea’s troop deployment as “a dangerous expansion of Russia’s unlawful war against Ukraine, with serious consequences for both European and Indo-Pacific peace and security”, according to the White House.
Xi’s comments could be viewed as an acknowledgement of those concerns while reiterating China’s commitment to regional stability, according to Lee.
“By connecting these two critical issues, Beijing seeks to position itself as a mediator, responding to US pressure while emphasising the interconnected nature of security challenges in East Asia and Europe,” he said.
“By emphasising stability, Beijing tempers global perceptions of its alliances with Moscow and Pyongyang while signalling disapproval of actions that might provoke broader conflict.”
Over the past decade, Chinese officials, including Xi himself, have issued similar warnings that war and chaos on the peninsula cannot be tolerated amid flaring tensions over Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear and missile tests.
North Korea’s deployment of troops has increased the chance of escalating … into a world war, but China is too careful to openly criticise North Korea
Ni Lexiong, military analyst
According to Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military analyst, when it comes to the Korean peninsula, China’s core interests are about maintaining stability, avoiding conflict and seeking denuclearisation.
However, as North Korea emerges as a de facto nuclear power, China has effectively dropped its demand for denuclearisation to keep Pyongyang close in its Cold War-style confrontation with the US and its allies.
“China’s stance has been deliberately vague and the real question is: who is causing the conflict and turmoil?” he said.
According to Ni, Beijing’s messages seem to be aimed at North Korea as well as the US and its allies in the region, notably South Korea and Japan, because from China’s perspective the threat to regional peace is coming from both sides.
While Beijing saw the US-led trilateral military pact with South Korea and Japan as a major threat to North Korea and its own regional interests, North Korea’s troop deployment clearly contradicted China’s stance on the Ukraine war, Ni said.
“Beijing has always blamed the US-led West for fuelling the war by providing weapons to Ukraine,” he said.
“I think North Korea’s deployment of troops has significantly increased the chance of escalating the Russia-Ukraine war into a world war, but China is too careful to openly criticise North Korea due to their special relationship.”
But if Pyongyang became too provocative, Beijing was likely to tighten sanctions or cooperate with other regional partners, said Stephen Nagy, a professor at International Christian University in Tokyo.
“China sees its core interest as stability in its periphery, limiting the role and the influence of the United States on the Korean peninsula, preventing expanded US-South Korean-Japanese cooperation and arguably dominating China’s direct periphery,” he said.
“It wants to distance itself from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and collaboration between Russia and North Korea, while at the same time there’s growing evidence that Beijing is facilitating Russia’s aggression against Ukraine,” he said.
Following the signing of a mutual defence treaty in June by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang has sent more than 10,000 troops to fight in Russia’s Kursk region, according to the Pentagon.
Kyiv and Washington denounced North Korea’s deployment as a “grave escalation” of the war, with the Biden administration, in an about-face, sending long-range missiles to Ukraine and Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons in response.
In a joint statement on Friday after Biden’s meeting with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, the three leaders also condemned Pyongyang’s deepening military ties with Moscow in the midst of the Ukraine war.
In a bilateral meeting in Lima on Friday, the South Korean leader called on Xi to play a “constructive role” and cooperate with Seoul to counter military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, according to news outlet Yonhap.
Yonhap said Xi, in turn, reiterated China’s desire for stability, saying China did not want to see tensions rise on the Korean peninsula.
But Shi Yinhong, a professor of international affairs at Beijing’s Renmin University of China, said it was highly unlikely Beijing would take any concrete action against Pyongyang or Moscow.
North Korea may send 100,000 troops to Russia, as Kim tells military to ‘go all out’
“For years, China has not taken any action or made statements that could be seen as pressuring or criticising North Korea. And China is unlikely to help the US and South Korea by taking action that may alienate North Korea and Russia at the moment,” he said.
Nagy also said, despite Beijing’s words, its sincerity remained in doubt due to its perceived inaction over the years to keep Pyongyang in line.
“As a result, it comes off as if Beijing is quite insincere about the insecurity that North Korea’s behaviour brings to not only South Korea, but the region broadly,” Nagy said.
“Most analysts, including myself, view China’s position on North Korea as one that sees North Korea as a useful tool to defend itself against US influence within the region, and ultimately as a potential destabilising place that can dilute US influence in the region.”
Lee, of Harvard University, also said Pyongyang’s tilt towards Moscow and its nuclear provocations had exacerbated China’s dilemma on North Korea.
While Xi signalled Beijing’s willingness to support de-escalation efforts by stressing the importance of stability during talks with South Korean and Japanese leaders, his reluctance to criticise Pyongyang highlighted the complexities of China’s diplomatic balancing act, Lee said.
This balancing act also reflected Beijing’s anticipation of a rocky road ahead, following Trump’s re-election.
“As China recalibrates its regional priorities, it appears increasingly less tolerant of North Korean provocations. However, the extent to which Beijing might leverage this stance to improve ties with Washington, Seoul and Tokyo remains an open question,” Lee said.
If the US-North Korea negotiations resume under Trump, Beijing is still likely to assert itself as a key participant, leveraging its influence over Pyongyang to reinforce its role in regional and global diplomacy, according to Lee.
“Such a move would enable China to present itself as indispensable in resolving security challenges while retaining influence over North Korea,” he said.
Shi Jiangtao
FOLLOW
A former diplomat, Shi Jiangtao has worked as a China reporter at the Post for more than a decade. He's interested in political, social and environmental development in China.
5. Does North Korea Really Execute People for Watching South Korean Videos?
Yes, we have to take human rights reporting from inside north Korea with a grain of salt. Yes, stories from some defectors like Yeonmi Park and Shin Dong-hyuk have been discredited for embellishment. But we also have to take analysis like this with a grain of salt. There is a tremendous amount of evidence of the human rights atrocities taking place every day in north Korea. The UN Commission of Inquiry has credibly documented crimes against humanity on a scale that has not been seen since World War II. We should not let analysis from people like this author undermine the need for and legitimacy of a human rights upfront approach.
Does North Korea Really Execute People for Watching South Korean Videos?
thediplomat.com
The truth is bad enough. So why have rights activists and the South Korean government been distorting and manipulating evidence to bolster a dubious claim?
By Martin Weiser
November 22, 2024
Credit: Depositphotos
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A decade ago Yeonmi Park, who fled North Korea in 2007 at age 13, claimed she had witnessed North Korea publicly execute someone for the “crime” of watching a foreign movie in the border city of Hyesan around 2002. This was later questioned by the journalist Mary Ann Jolley, who found multiple North Korean defectors who, in contrast, testified that public executions in the city had stopped years earlier. One defector laughed at the idea that North Koreans could get executed for merely watching videos. But major South Korean organizations adopted this claim, and it has faced little scrutiny since.
In 2015, when citing testimony on an execution for watching South Korean adult videos, the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), a South Korean government think tank, “forgot” to include the drug charges against the condemned. KINU quietly corrected itself a year later but never reconsidered its claim that there were executions of North Koreans for merely watching videos. The same year DailyNK alleged that several smugglers were executed for watching South Korean videos, although an equally convincing alternative explanation was that they were sentenced to death for smuggling those videos into the country. Fact-checking was also neglected after North Korea adopted the Law on Rejecting Reactionary Ideology and Culture in December 2020. DailyNK, the Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG), and the South Korean government all fraudulently claimed the law allowed executions of consumers of forbidden media.
Three times North Korean materials were leaked that proved this allegation wrong, but journalists from the BBC to NK News preferred to believe the narrative pushed by activists instead of scrutinizing the claim. DailyNK itself had acquired documents explaining the law in early January 2021, making clear that this law did not threaten video watchers with death. Only in cases of import and distribution of South Korean videos and publications, or if someone organized and promoted the group consumption of such content as a member of a criminal organization, could the death penalty be applied.
In March 2023, DailyNK released the full text of the August 2022 revision of the law, which again confirmed the punishments described in the explanatory documents, although the last the sentence of Article 27 on South Korean media, which covered the scope of the death penalty, was missing. A North Korean propaganda video publicly released in January 2024 also showed the full Article 27, again confirming media consumption alone was only punishable with prison time.
Manufacturing Legal Evidence
Despite the explicit stipulations in the law, the South Korean government and activists insisted the law’s Article 7 provided a loophole by which the death penalty could be applied to violators. DailyNK released an English translation in March 2023 and insisted the Korean term “kukhyong” in this article could only be understood as “death penalty.” It allegedly stipulated “strict legal sanctions up to and including death penalty against any citizen bringing in, viewing, and distributing reactionary ideology and culture.” The translation included in South Korea’s 2024 government report on North Korean human rights released in September also insisted it was directly referencing the death penalty.
During a press conference on the 2024 report, Kim Seon-jin, the head of the Unification Ministry’s North Korea Human Rights Record Center, told journalists that Article 7 explicitly allowed the death penalty for consuming “South Korean movies, dramas and music.” The same allegation was also made by U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk before the U.N. Security Council two weeks earlier. He claimed the law’s Article 7 authorized “severe sanctions, including capital punishment, for the offense of introducing, viewing or disseminating so-called reactionary culture. Put simply, people in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea risk death for merely watching or sharing a foreign television series.”
North Korean dictionaries, freely accessible in South Korea, have made it clear since the 1960s that the crucial term in this article has taken on a broader meaning than in the South, where it is merely a synonym for the death penalty. The term was defined as extremely severe punishment with the death penalty only named as the most prominent one, while the example sentence references a 15-year prison sentence for a revolutionary. For two decades the South Korean state has sponsored work on a joint Korean dictionary. It speaks to a certain incompetency in the Unification Ministry that it was unaware of the correct translation of this term.
Tampering With Testimony
DailyNK and the South Korean government also did not shy away from blatantly manipulating testimony by North Korean defectors to support their claim that Article 7 if the law allowed executions of video watchers. Along with its report, the Unification Ministry also released a promotional video in June. It claimed to use the testimony cited in the report, but the video significantly altered the single testimony on a public execution under the 2020 law for South Korean media that the ministry was able to acquire so far.
According to one North Korean defector, whom the BBC already interviewed in late 2023, there was an execution in April 2022 with the announced charges being consumption and sharing of South Korean songs and movies. The video only cited the charges of watching those videos, however. It also claimed the testimony stated that North Koreans in the past received only one year of “reform through labor” for this crime. But in the report the punishment was “short-term labor,” which North Korea’s criminal code defines as a short-term punishment during which no rights are revoked. This makes it in no way comparable or, for experts, confusable with the harsher punishment of reform through labor. That video also was screened at the ministry’s International Dialogue on North Korean Human Rights held at the U.S. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies in July. There Kim Seon-jin himself repeated the false claim of the video and stated the execution happened for merely watching South Korean videos.
The first public South Korean government report on North Korea’s human rights situation, released in March 2023, wanted readers to believe it provided evidence that North Koreans had been executed for merely watching South Korean videos. Several times the text spoke of executions for “watching and sharing” those videos – just like KINU and TJWG did to claim they had evidence for death sentences for video watchers.
Apparently, even South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol fell victim to this linguistic charade by his own administration. He first repeated the official phrase of “watching and sharing” in his English speech before the U.S. Congress in April 2023, but the next day during his speech at Harvard University he claimed the report included testimony on executions of movie watchers. To make matters worse, those who listened to his Congress speech – ranging from journalists to even the live interpreter hired by the South Korean government – already had understood the claim in this way.
After the full text of the law was released in March 2023, the editor-in-chief of DailyNK, Lee Sangyong, also began to alter testimony, mostly reported on by DailyNK, to fit his claim of executions for video watchers. In a text published by 38 North and at two public events he cited several reports on executions that he claimed were conducted under the 2020 law, including four cases with charges allegedly being merely consumption or possession of forbidden media. One of the four was described as the execution of a military official for “distributing a file containing world news” in English or containing “world news and street scenes” in Korean.
But the title of the original DailyNK report stated that the officer in question had distributed “impure edited content” (pulsun pyonjibmul), which Article 27 lists next to publications, movies, and documentary footage as media types banned from being brought into the country or distributed under threat of death. It is unclear if “impure” here means adult or South Korean content, but Article 29 of the law would have allowed similar punishments for pornography.
Another citing execution for listening to Radio Free Asia for a decade happened weeks before the law was actually adopted. The law does not even include explicit punishments for listening to U.S. or South Korean broadcasts targeting North Koreans. This also disqualified another execution in June 2023 for tuning into TV broadcasts created by the South Korean government with the sole aim to be aired into North Korea.
The last of the four cases of executions for media consumption Lee described as the execution of a high-ranking military official for watching South Korean videos, leaving out the fact that his possessions were seized as well. This would only be possible under the law if he received gains through his illegal acts, like selling the videos as well. More likely he was sentenced under the broad definition of “anti-state crime” under the criminal code, which comes with the combined punishments of death and seizure of property.
Reached for comment, Lee told The Diplomat, “When North Korea first enacted its ‘Reactionary Thought and Culture Rejection Law’ in late 2020, the section on South Korean content (Article 27) specified the death penalty. However, when the law was revised in August 2022, this was changed to ‘life sentence with forced labor.’”
He continued:
That said, in North Korea, the “words” or “directives” of the Supreme Leader often take precedence over written law. There are reports from inside the country that suggest executions are still carried out, particularly in cases involving corruption among high-ranking officials or large-scale distribution of banned content. So while enforcement typically begins with detection and crackdown procedures specified in the law, execution remains a possibility through these alternate channels. This kind of arbitrary interpretation is common in North Korea, and may also be part of a strategy to maintain an atmosphere of fear.
TJWG also claimed it received testimony on executions for video watching in three different reports since 2017 and distorted testimony to fit this narrative. The New York Times wrote the NGO’s 2021 report collected evidence on seven executions for watching or sharing K-Pop, while NK News claimed watching South Korean videos was the “top reason” for executions. But all this was apparently incorrect, without the NGO bothering to intervene.
When I pressed the NGO to disclose its evidence in August 2023, founder and chief executive Hubert Younghwan Lee admitted that the NGO had identified only a single execution for watching South Korean videos, while “some” of the other six executions were for distributing and “some” came with the combined charge of watching and sharing. He also disclosed that the crucial execution for their claim was a case of a group watching adult videos – information that the NGO had intentionally left out of its reports. Its 2019 report had cited the charge that led to this very execution of five men as “watching South Korean videos with women” and vaguely claimed that interviewees spoke of executions for watching “South Korean media of various kinds.” This case would have been construed in North Korea either as facilitating and organizing prostitution or, as also defined as capital offense in the 2020 law, as organizing group consumption of pornography.
Conclusion
It is surprising the length to which activists and the South Korean government have gone to back up a false claim that watchers of South Korean videos are threatened with death in North Korea. The evidence is already sufficient to argue that video watchers receive long prison sentences and distributors are executed. This is already shocking, and could have been turned into a convincing campaign of criticism against the North.
But instead, critics insisted on pushing a sensationalist narrative in the hope of further mobilizing public sentiment against North Korea. For activists, this could mean increased funding; for the government, a chance to rally the public behind their hardline North Korea policy. The tendency of South Korean conservatives to bend or break the truth when it comes to North Korea is well known and it is surprising that even major media outlets preferred to ignore the numerous red flags in these claims.
During his inauguration speech in 2022, the South Korean president lamented that “truth is oftentimes bent out of shape and grossly distorted due to conflicts between nations.” He appears utterly unaware that his administration’s human rights campaign against the North has become a major example of this.
Authors
Guest Author
Martin Weiser
Martin Weiser is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Korean Studies at Free University Berlin. He holds an MA in political science from Korea University, Seoul, and has researched North Korea’s human rights policy and laws since 2013.
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6. Inside the South Korean Weapons Factory That Could Supply Kyiv
Excerpts:
Seoul has long harboured ambitions to join the ranks of the world's top arms exporters -- aiming to be the fourth-largest, behind the US, Russia and France -- something that is now possible, industry research indicates.
It has already sold 155mm artillery shells to Washington -- but with a "final user" agreement in place meaning the United States would be the military that uses the munitions.
Experts have said this allows the United States to then provide their own shells to Kyiv.
Hanwha's other weapons offer that could shift the balance of war in Ukraine is its Chunmoo guided missile system, experts said.
"With a maximum range of 290 km (180 miles), Chunmoo can strike targets in Pyongyang if launched from the border area in the South," said Choi Gi-il, professor of military studies at Sangji University.
"What Ukraine urgently needs to turn the war in its favour are offensive weapons like Chunmoo missiles and K9 howitzers, capable of inflicting significant damage on the enemy," Choi added.
"If North Korea's direct involvement in the war escalates, (Seoul) may consider sending lethal weapons, in addition to defensive ones."
Inside the South Korean Weapons Factory That Could Supply Kyiv
Domestic policy prevents Seoul from sending weapons to conflict zones. However, since its spy agency accused North Korea of sending soldiers to aid Moscow, South Korea warned it may change its stance.
by AFP | November 22, 2024, 8:55 am
kyivpost.com · by AFP · November 22, 2024
South Korea War in Ukraine Top News
Domestic policy prevents Seoul from sending weapons to conflict zones. However, since its spy agency accused North Korea of sending soldiers to aid Moscow, South Korea warned it may change its stance.
by AFP | November 22, 2024, 8:55 am
A part of Chunmoo multiple rocket launcher is seen at Hanwha Aerospace factory in Changwon on November 21, 2024. Longstanding domestic policy bars Seoul from providing weapons into active conflict zones, but ever since its spy agency accused the nuclear-armed North last month of sending thousands of soldiers to help Moscow fight Kyiv, South Korea has warned it might change course. (Photo by JUNG YEON-JE / AFP)
At the outskirts of a South Korean industrial city, workers at a sprawling weapons factory were conducting final-stage testing for a newly built surface-to-air defence system that could, eventually, head to Ukraine.
Longstanding domestic policy bars Seoul from sending weapons into active conflict zones, but ever since its spy agency accused the nuclear-armed North last month of sending thousands of soldiers to help Moscow fight Kyiv, South Korea has warned it might change course.
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If so, likely top of the list for Ukraine would be the "Cheongung" -- or Sky Arrow -- air defence system, a domestically-produced Iron Dome-style interception shield that AFP saw Thursday during an exclusive tour of the Hanwha Aerospace factory in the southern city of Changwon.
As the melody of Beethoven's Fur Elise played on repeat over the in-house speaker, veteran welders worked on huge cylinders that will become part of the inceptor system, which is defensive in nature -- although Hanwha also produces an attack-focused variant.
"The Cheongung system can be thought of as similar to the US Patriot missile system," said senior manager Jung Sung-young at Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea's largest defence contractor.
Ukraine is reliant on Western air defence systems, particularly Patriots, to protect itself from Russian missile barrages -- and has been calling for more deliveries.
Washington said in June it would prioritise deliveries to Kyiv, ahead of other countries that have placed orders.
Other Topics of Interest
Kyrylo Budanov claims Russian soldiers were briefed on where to locate mass graves before the full-scale invasion and that systematic genocidal policies were in place.
But were South Korea, which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North and has maintained production of weaponry long ignored by Western arms industries, to get involved, it could potentially make a huge difference, experts say.
"As a divided nation, we have systematically established and implemented standards at the national level, from the development of these weapon systems to quality control," said Jung.
"The quality, capability and manufacturing supply chain of our products is sufficiently competitive compared to those of other countries," he added.
Whether -- or how -- South Korea decides to help Ukraine directly depends on "the level of North Korean involvement", President Yoon Suk Yeol said earlier this month, adding Seoul was "not ruling out the possibility of providing weapons."
If South Korea were to supply arms, the initial batch would be defensive in nature, Yoon said.
- Combat ready -
To fend off the steady barrage of missiles that have targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure and civilian areas, Kyiv urgently needs more air defences, Han Kwon-hee of the Korea Association of Defence Industry told AFP.
"Counteroffensives require stability in the rear zones, which is why Kyiv has also conducted drone attacks within Russia, including Moscow," Han explained.
"They will help Ukraine hold off Russia's offensives by intercepting drones and missiles flying deep into their territory," he said -- a huge boost for Kyiv, alongside the recent US move to let it use long-range American missiles against targets inside Russia.
The South has remained combat-ready since its 1950-53 war with the North ended in a truce, and while Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea's largest defence contractor, was once seen by analysts as retrograde for its focus on land weapons, it is now in high demand.
AFP saw a wide range of weaponry moving along assembly lines at the company's sprawling Changwon factory, from infantry armoured vehicles to surface-to-air missile systems designed to intercept incoming missiles.
The heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe have heavily benefited the South Korean company, which saw its on-year operating profit soar over 450 percent in the latest quarter to $343.3 million.
It has signed major arms deals with countries such as Poland and Romania, including the export of K9 Howitzers and Chunmoo missile systems.
- Weapons exports -
Seoul has long harboured ambitions to join the ranks of the world's top arms exporters -- aiming to be the fourth-largest, behind the US, Russia and France -- something that is now possible, industry research indicates.
It has already sold 155mm artillery shells to Washington -- but with a "final user" agreement in place meaning the United States would be the military that uses the munitions.
Experts have said this allows the United States to then provide their own shells to Kyiv.
Hanwha's other weapons offer that could shift the balance of war in Ukraine is its Chunmoo guided missile system, experts said.
"With a maximum range of 290 km (180 miles), Chunmoo can strike targets in Pyongyang if launched from the border area in the South," said Choi Gi-il, professor of military studies at Sangji University.
"What Ukraine urgently needs to turn the war in its favour are offensive weapons like Chunmoo missiles and K9 howitzers, capable of inflicting significant damage on the enemy," Choi added.
"If North Korea's direct involvement in the war escalates, (Seoul) may consider sending lethal weapons, in addition to defensive ones."
7. Trump squeeze coming for vulnerably sandwiched South Korea
Excerpts:
And for all the excitement about Korea’s startup scene, the chaebol-heavy business climate leaves limited economic oxygen for enterprises to thrive.
At the same time, Korea now has an economic speed problem on its hands. China, for all its troubles, has been speeding up Asia’s economic clock — and increasingly so.
China continues to invest big in dominating the future of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aerospace, renewable energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics and green infrastructure.
As China’s production capabilities increase, Korea is having a harder and harder time keeping pace with the region’s top export power and revamping its policy mix accordingly.
If the Yoon administration understands this challenge, it’s not saying — or articulating a clear strategy to meet the moment.
Missing the fact that things are ticking faster and faster outside its walls explains why Japan Inc has such a hard time adapting to rapidly shifting global dynamics. Korea must do a better job keeping an eye on the time.
With Trump versus China set to slam Asia two months from now, when Trump takes office, Seoul won’t have a moment to waste.
Trump squeeze coming for vulnerably sandwiched South Korea - Asia Times
Export-dependent Korea will be among Asia’s biggest losers of Trump’s blanket 20% tariffs and an all-out US-China trade war
asiatimes.com · by William Pesek · November 22, 2024
SEOUL — The Bank of Korea rarely finds itself at the center of the global economic discourse.
Yet the team led by Governor Rhee Chang-yong is on the front lines of the two biggest 2025 imponderables: the experience of the US and Chinese economies and their respective markets.
Of course, Donald Trump’s return to the White House ensures these two giants will collide, perhaps creating a third unknown: a huge trade conflict the likes of which the globe has never seen before.
Still, domestic considerations in both Washington and Beijing are already putting Rhee’s BOK on the spot. In flux are the odds of a US Federal Reserve rate cut at its November 28 policy meeting — odds that are falling by the day.
Looked at one way, the case for a Fed easing move is buttressed by signs US employment growth may be slowing and that China’s property crisis continues to generate deflation.
Korean inflation, meanwhile, is holding well below the BOK’s 2% target. As the Korea Development Institute, a state-run think tank, puts it: “tightening of monetary policy through interest rate hikes appears to have been effective in curbing high inflation since 2022.”
Yet Rhee’s decision is complicated by trends at home, particularly near-record household debt levels.
“The central bank faces a challenging situation of slower domestic demand and inflation below target, which typically calls for rate cuts,” says Ashok Bhundia, an economist at the Institute of International Finance. “However, concerns about financial stability due to high household leverage complicate the decision.”
Bhundia’s bottom line is that “delaying the next rate cut will allow more time for evaluating the incoming US administration’s policy agenda and its potential impact on global trade, which would affect Korea’s growth and inflation outlook for 2025.”
That agenda could change things drastically as Trump 2.0 hits the ground running with 60% or more tariffs on China. And as Trump’s team slaps 20% blanket, across-the-board levies on all goods globally.
Trump’s cabinet picks — including Robert Lighthizer, former and likely future trade czar — are mulling moves to devalue the dollar. This effort might happen unilaterally via aggressive intervention in currency markets or with another “Plaza Accord” gambit.
The reference here is to a 1985 pact to weaken the dollar versus the yen. It was forged by the top industrialized nations at New York’s Plaza Hotel, which Trump owned for a time. Trump also wants to reduce the Federal Reserve’s independence, giving his White House influence over interest rate decisions.
In August, Trump said “the Federal Reserve is a very interesting thing and it’s sort of gotten it wrong a lot.” He went on to say that “I feel the president should have at least say in there, yeah. I feel that strongly. I think that, in my case, I made a lot of money. I was very successful. And I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve or the chairman.”
This is more the stuff of China than a Group of Seven central bank.
In the past, Trump has talked about defaulting on government debt. In 2016, while running for president the first time, Trump said this about US government debt: “I would borrow, knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal. And if the economy was good, it was good. So therefore, you can’t lose.”
Remember that Trump as a businessman declared bankruptcy six times. The Trump 1.0 White House mulled cancelling debt held by Beijing amid trade tensions. With the US national debt twice the size of Chinese GDP, it’s easy to see why that could cause a financial earthquake of historic proportions.
China, meantime, is juggling dueling crises in property, local government finances, high youth unemployment, rising in-person protests and weak retail sales. All this has Beijing adding fiscal and monetary stimulus to its mix.
It’s a concern, though, that “China’s response to deflationary challenges remains cautious,” says Jonathan Garner, an equity strategist at Morgan Stanley. This is even before Trump arrives to make giant trade wars great again.
How Rhee balances Korea’s current challenges with what’s to come in 2025 — whatever that might be — is an open question. And one that could matter far beyond decisions made at BOK headquarters in downtown Seoul.
Korea’s sizable, open and trade-reliant economy often serves as a weathervane for global inflection points. That’s why Korea’s “sandwiched” reality these days is raising more than a few red flags.
This predicament was arguably coined in 2007 by then-Samsung Group head Lee Kun-hee. At the time, Lee described Asia’s fourth-biggest economy as sandwiched between wealthy Japan and low-cost China.
Now, though, Korea is caught in the middle of something of a quadruple-decker sandwich. It’s squeezed between a Japan that’s raising rates, a China that’s slowing and an imminent “Trump trade” causing extreme dollar volatility.
Economists eyeing policy choices agree that a case could be made for the BOK to ease next week but also to wait until January.
As Capital Economics economist Shivaan Tandon puts it, recent Korean data “was somewhat encouraging as it suggests that the worst is probably over for domestic demand.”
Others are less sanguine. Dave Chia, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, thinks soft third-quarter GDP results are “concerning and could lead to South Korea missing the BOK’s 2024 GDP growth target of 2.4%.”
Seoul, though, must accelerate moves to batten down the hatches as the Trump vs Xi brawl begins. Though China is the immediate target, Korea Inc will suffer serious collateral damage.
A blanket global US tariff of 20% would be disastrous for Korea, which generates 40% of gross domestic product (GDP) via exports. Then there’s how the Trump revenge tour might imperil key Korean industries, not least autos.
Trump has threatened 100% taxes on all Mexican-made vehicles. If Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol doesn’t agree to big trade concessions, Trump might widen those levies to include Korean vehicles. Japanese autos, too.
Korea Inc might try to placate Trump the same way Japan did from 2017 to 2021: upping investment in the US to keep the peace.
“If tariffs get raised, the first alternative firms can consider will be raising direct investment and on-site production,” Korean Trade Minister Cheong In-kyo tells Reuters. “There are ongoing investments already, and there is a possibility that investment could accelerate, followed by an increase in US-bound exports by small and medium-sized parts manufacturers.”
Cheong added that Seoul also would step up trade diplomacy efforts. “We can only respond to the new administration’s policy,” Cheong noted. “Nevertheless, we will make efforts for trade to remain smooth, with not only the United States but also China.”
In 2023, Korea’s trade surplus with Washington hit a record $44.4 billion, Seoul’s biggest imbalance anywhere. That’s unlikely to go unnoticed in Trump World.
With his approval rating around 20% at the halfway point of his five-year term, it’s not clear how much latitude Yoon has to cave in to Trump’s demands for trade concessions.
And what if, as many believe, Trump’s real goal with tariffs is to force China into a “grand bargain” trade deal? On the one hand, this might be good news for Korea if it avoids the financial carnage sure to come with a new trade war. But on the other, a US-China deal might leave Korea on the outside looking in.
Politically, being left out of a US-China deal could be just as bad for Yoon’s support rate as the economic hit from Trump’s tariffs.
Then there are the ways China might retaliate, including driving the yuan lower. Xi could always impose a manufacturing tax that slams Apple, Walmart and other top US companies.
Beijing could also dump large blocks of its $770 billion of US Treasury securities. Yes, the surge in US debt yields would boomerang back on China. But Xi might calculate the US would lose more as a plunging dollar devastates the stock market and Washington’s borrowing costs soar.
Korea — and the Kospi stock index — would be in the crossfire more than most export-driven economies. These risks and others explain why Rhee’s staff at the BOK may be dreading 2025. Yoon’s administration, too, as its lack of urgency in implementing vital reforms comes back to haunt it.
Unfortunately, Yoon is but the latest Korean leader to win power pledging a supply-side Big Bang only to fall short.
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Over the last 15-plus years, Korean government after government got sidetracked by political squabbling and short-term concerns. Rather than recalibrate growth engines to increase competition and productivity, leader after leader turned to the BOK to paper over economic cracks.
If only Yoon’s predecessor Moon Jae-in had put some notable wins on the scoreboard to rein in the family-owned conglomerates, or chaebols, towering over the economy. Moon talked a great game of pivoting toward “trickle-up economics,” but achieved little.
The same went for Park Geun-hye, president from 2013 to 2017. Korea’s first female leader promised to build a more “creative economy” and reduce the economic power of chaebols.
She pledged to make space for startups to generate economic energy from the ground up as opposed to the top down. Park, too, achieved little.
Before her, Lee Myung-bak, president from 2008 to 2013, had his own bold plan to generate 7% growth and make Korea one of the seven largest economies via disruptive reforms. It was all talk.
Korea can’t get the last 15 years back to implement bold policies to level playing fields, increase productivity, empower women and encourage young entrepreneurs to take big risks.
And for all the excitement about Korea’s startup scene, the chaebol-heavy business climate leaves limited economic oxygen for enterprises to thrive.
At the same time, Korea now has an economic speed problem on its hands. China, for all its troubles, has been speeding up Asia’s economic clock — and increasingly so.
China continues to invest big in dominating the future of semiconductors, electric vehicles, aerospace, renewable energy, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, robotics and green infrastructure.
As China’s production capabilities increase, Korea is having a harder and harder time keeping pace with the region’s top export power and revamping its policy mix accordingly.
If the Yoon administration understands this challenge, it’s not saying — or articulating a clear strategy to meet the moment.
Missing the fact that things are ticking faster and faster outside its walls explains why Japan Inc has such a hard time adapting to rapidly shifting global dynamics. Korea must do a better job keeping an eye on the time.
With Trump versus China set to slam Asia two months from now, when Trump takes office, Seoul won’t have a moment to waste.
Follow William Pesek on X at @WilliamPesek
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asiatimes.com · by William Pesek · November 22, 2024
8. Russia responds as North Korean troops accused of sexual assault in Kursk
The deployment of the north Korean People's Army is going to be a case study in Russian, north Korean, civil society, NGO and Ukrainian psychological operations.
Excerpts:
The Kursk regional office of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry denied that a teacher from Moscow had recently been the victim of a "crime" in the western region, where Western intelligence assessments said North Korean troops were helping the Russian army fight off a monthslong cross-border raid by Ukraine's armed forces.
The ministry's statement on Tuesday described the rumors as "false information," and was followed the next day by a response from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. In a post on VKontakte, one of the country's largest social media platforms, the university in Moscow said the widespread reports on Telegram were "fake."
Reports by multiple Russian-language news sites this week carried a screenshot resembling an official statement on the university's website, which purportedly accused a group of intoxicated North Korean soldiers in Kursk of sexually assaulting a faculty member who had been dispatched to provide interpretation services.
Russia responds as North Korean troops accused of sexual assault in Kursk
Newsweek · by John Feng · November 21, 2024
ByContributing Editor, Asia
A Russian government ministry and a public university said separately this week that online reports alleging sexual assault by North Korean soldiers near the front lines of the Ukraine war were unfounded.
The Kursk regional office of Russia's Internal Affairs Ministry denied that a teacher from Moscow had recently been the victim of a "crime" in the western region, where Western intelligence assessments said North Korean troops were helping the Russian army fight off a monthslong cross-border raid by Ukraine's armed forces.
The ministry's statement on Tuesday described the rumors as "false information," and was followed the next day by a response from the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia. In a post on VKontakte, one of the country's largest social media platforms, the university in Moscow said the widespread reports on Telegram were "fake."
Reports by multiple Russian-language news sites this week carried a screenshot resembling an official statement on the university's website, which purportedly accused a group of intoxicated North Korean soldiers in Kursk of sexually assaulting a faculty member who had been dispatched to provide interpretation services.
The incident, which Newsweek could not independently verify, was alleged to have taken place in the village of Kromskie Byky, 10 miles from the front lines of Ukraine's raid into the region, and about 20 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border.
The accusations were made in a recorded statement showing the alleged female victim, with the footage accompanying the written account in online reports.
However, the Russian university said members of its Korean language department had not been sent to Kursk to provide translations.
A Ukrainian Roshel armored infantry vehicle travels on the road from Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region to the border with the Kursk region in western Russia on August 15. Russia has recaptured some territory in Kursk... A Ukrainian Roshel armored infantry vehicle travels on the road from Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region to the border with the Kursk region in western Russia on August 15. Russia has recaptured some territory in Kursk since Ukraine’s surprise raid, but fighting in the border region continues for a fourth month. Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images
"There are only two Korean language teachers in the philological faculty. The voice in the video, as well as the physique, does not match any of the teachers," the state university said.
It also shared a Russian news report denying the presence of North Korean military personnel in Russia.
The Russian Internal Affairs Ministry and the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia did not immediately respond to written requests for comment before publication.
A month since South Korea first disclosed that tens of thousands of Kim Jong Un's soldiers were being sent to fight in the Russia-Ukraine war, Seoul said Pyongyang has also transferred howitzers and rocket launchers to Moscow, in addition to millions of rounds of artillery shells.
South Korea's National Intelligence Service said around 11,000 North Korean soldiers are now stationed in Kursk as the war approaches its third full year.
Dmytro Ponomarenko, Kyiv's top diplomat in Seoul, said recently that North Korea could deploy up to 15,000 troops in Kursk and send a similar number to the Russian-occupied Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
At a regular briefing on Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh did not confirm reports that the U.S. had permitted Ukraine to launch U.S.-supplied weapons into Russian territory. However, she said Kim Jong Un's forces would be legitimate targets.
"[W]e've said very clearly that the introduction of DPRK soldiers into the fight, especially when it comes to Ukraine's sovereignty, means they are a fair game in that fight," Singh said, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
North Korea's embassy in Beijing and the Russia's Foreign Ministry could not be reached for comment.
Newsweek · by John Feng · November 21, 2024
9. K2 Black Panther Is the Tank Every Army Wants
K2 Black Panther Is the Tank Every Army Wants
The National Interest · by Peter Suciu · November 21, 2024
What You Need to Know: Peru is modernizing its military with significant investments in South Korean defense technology. This includes replacing its outdated fleet of Soviet-era T-54/55 tanks with South Korea's K2 Black Panther main battle tanks, which are highly adaptable to Peru’s diverse terrain.
-The K2 features advanced suspension, an automatic loader, and a powerful 120mm smoothbore gun.
-Peru also plans to co-develop submarines and other naval vessels with Hyundai Heavy Industries and is considering the acquisition of KF-21 Boramae and FA-50 Fighting Eagle light fighters from South Korea, as well as Sweden's JAS-39 Gripen, to replace its aging Mirage 2000, Su-25, and MiG-29 aircraft.
Peru to Replace Soviet-made Tanks With South Korean K2 Black Panther
The South Korean K2 Black Panther main battle tank (MBT) was developed to operate in the Korean Peninsula's hilly terrain. That was likely a selling point for the Peruvian military, which has sought to replace its aging fleet of around 300 T-54/55 series tanks that Lima first acquired in the early 1970s.
Though those tanks have received significant upgrades in the past five decades, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has shown that the Cold War-era T-55 is no match against modern armor.
It is unclear what options Peru may have considered, but this week South Korean defense contractor Hyundai Rotem announced that it signed a strategic defense agreement with the South American nation at the Asia Pacific economic summit in Lima. The Peruvian military had previously closed a deal for 90 of the South Korean-made K808 White Tiger wheeled armored personnel carriers.
The K2 Black Panther Tank is Ideal for Peru
Peru has varying terrain that includes a flat coastal region as well as a rugged mountainous interior, where the K2 could be well suited.
The Black Panther is equipped with a unique suspension system, which can be contorted into a variety of positions. For cross-country performance, the suspension is raised, providing the K2 greater ground clearance, while on roads, the suspension is lowered, hugging the ground for better speed. In addition, the K2 can "lean," "sit" or "kneel" to provide the main gun better maneuverability in hull-down positions. When leaning backward, the K2 can raise its main gun to target low-flying aircraft or to better target more highly elevated targets.
The K2 Black Panther MBT has a crew of three including a commander, gunner, and driver. The MBT's main armament is a Rheinmetall 120mm L/55 smoothbore gun, produced under license in South Korea and equipped with a domestically-designed automatic loader – which can ensure the loading of projectiles on the move including when on uneven surfaces.
Peru's Military Build Up
Lima has sought to modernize its military, and in another deal announced its state-owned Servicios Industriales de la Marina (SIMA) would co-develop four submarines for the Peruvian Navy with aid from Hyundai Heavy Industries. The new boats will replace the German-made subs that were also acquired in the 1970s.
In addition, a new frigate, two amphibious warship ships, and at least five other vessels will be built for the South American nation's navy through its partnership with the South Korean firm.
The Peruvian Air Force has also announced it could purchase up to two dozen South Korean KF-21 Boramae and FA-50 Fighting Eagle light fighter jets. However, South Korea may not be the only nation that could supply Lima with fighters.
As previously reported, Sweden's Saab has offered its JAS-39 Gripen multirole fighter.
The supersonic, multi-role fighter jet is capable of air combat and air-to-ground operations, while it can operate from austere facilities, including remote roads turned into temporary runways. It can also carry a variety of advanced munitions.
It is unclear whether Lima will adopt both the South Korean and Swedish aircraft, but it currently operates around a dozen French-produced Dassault Mirage 2000 fighters, along with a handful of aging Soviet-era Sukhoi Su-25 (NATO reporting name Frogfoot) and Mikoyan MiG-29 (NATO reporting name Fulcrum) fighters.
Author Experience and Expertise: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
Image Credit: Creative Commons and/or Shutterstock.
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10. Ukraine is being hit with a surge of attacks using North Korean missiles. Western components help make it possible
Ukraine is being hit with a surge of attacks using North Korean missiles. Western components help make it possible | CNN
CNN · by Daria Tarasova-Markina, Lauren Kent, Nick Paton Walsh, Victoria Butenko · November 23, 2024
'House of horrors': Investigators discover what's inside North Korean missile after deadly strike
02:54 - Source: CNN
Kyiv, Ukraine CNN —
Ukraine has been hit by a surge in Russian ballistic missile attacks, about a third of which used North Korean weapons that can only fly because they run on Western circuitry, obtained despite sanctions, according to Ukrainian military officials.
Russia has fired about 60 North Korean KN-23 missiles at Ukraine this year, according to a Ukrainian defense official. That accounts for nearly one in three of the 194 ballistic missiles fired so far in 2024, a CNN tally of attacks publicly acknowledged by Ukraine’s air force shows.
August and September saw a spike in ballistic missile attacks, when Ukraine first publicly detailed the use of the KN-23.
“We see that since the spring, Russia has been using ballistic missiles and attack drones much more to strike Ukraine. And less use of cruise missiles,” the acting head of communications of the Ukrainian Air Force, Yuriy Ignat, told CNN.
These less-sophisticated missiles are part of North Korea’s growing support to Moscow, which also includes about 11,000 North Korean soldiers deployed to Russia’s Kursk region.
As the expanding role of the North Korean missiles becomes clear, Ukrainian officials have given CNN rare access to fragments from the wreckage of the weapons, which show the apparent extent of US- and European-made or designed circuitry in their guidance systems.
Investigators at Kyiv’s Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise examine the debris of KN-23 missiles that Russia has used to attack Ukraine.
CNN
Crucial components used in the North Korean missiles are produced by nine Western manufacturers, including companies based in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, according to a recent report by Ukraine’s Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), a civil society organization. Some parts of the KN-23/24 missiles they analyzed were produced as recently as 2023, suggesting a swift delivery pipeline to North Korea.
CNN was shown around one warehouse where Ukrainian government investigators comb through the debris, searching for small details that offer clues about the production of these deadly weapons.
The warehouse was full of damaged drones and burned missile parts. In different buildings, hundreds of microchips were carefully separated into folders named for various weapons used by Russia – “Shahed,” “Iskander,” and “KN-23.”
It’s a somber site, as investigators are keenly aware the components were salvaged from the rubble of buildings where lives were lost. Strikes using North Korean missiles have killed at least 28 people and injured 213 this year, the Ukrainian prosecutor general told CNN.
Ukrainian investigators found evidence that crucial components used in the North Korean missiles are produced by at least nine Western manufacturers. CNN has blurred portions of this image.
CNN
“Everything that works to guide the missile, to make it fly, is all foreign components. All the electronics are foreign. There is nothing Korean in it,” said Andriy Kulchytskyi, head of the Military Research Laboratory of Kyiv’s Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise.
“The only thing Korean is the metal, which quickly rusts and corrodes,” he added.
A Ukrainian Defense Intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said their investigations are hampered by the damage to the missile fragments, but it’s still possible to determine that “the vast majority of components are Western components. Probably 70% are American, from well-known companies […] They also use components made in Germany and Switzerland.”
A report released earlier this year by the UK-based investigative organization Conflict Armament Research, or CAR, found that 75% of components in one of the first North Korean missiles used to attack Ukraine were from US-based companies.
Sanctioned goods move though China
There is no reliable information on how exactly the components make their way into North Korea, according to weapons-tracing experts. But all signs to point to China as the likely conduit, experts say.
“We have successfully traced some of those components, and the last known custodians are Chinese companies,” said Damien Spleeters, deputy director of operations at CAR, which works to independently document diverted weapons. That means Chinese firms bought the components from manufacturers and a series of intermediaries.
“The diversion rarely happens at the plant that makes the components,” he told CNN.
CAR has a policy of not “naming and shaming” specific manufacturers because there is no evidence the firms deliberately shipped the parts to North Korea.
“Some parts of these components may be actually fake and made in China,” said Victoria Vyshnivska, a senior researcher at NAKO. “But we cannot be 100% sure,” she added, as the companies in question often failed to respond to questions.
One manufacturer was able to provide NAKO with evidence that a low-value electronic component found in a North Korean missile was counterfeit.
Meanwhile, Vyshnivska said, some other manufacturers are choosing not to pursue better control of their exports, as more detailed record-keeping and company audits would incur costs. “It’s ignorance that is sometimes, maybe, driven by money,” she told CNN.
A view of damaged residential buildings outside of Kyiv following a Russian attack using two KN-23 ballistic missiles on August 18, 2024.
Danylo Antoniuk/Anadolu/Getty Images
CAR and others consider that middleman distribution companies – not manufacturers – are the primary issue.
There are more than 250 companies whose components have been identified in North Korean missiles, according to CAR. But the majority of those electronics are sold to five main distributors, which are all based in the United States and Canada. CAR is urging policymakers to focus more effort on regulating those distribution companies.
The US Commerce Department has already stepped up its targeting of entities and shell companies that have shipped sanctioned goods to Russia and Belarus.
Ukrainian officials argue the poor enforcement of the sanctions regime by Western nations is one major issue.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president’s commissioner for sanctions policy, said he was hopeful the incoming Trump administration would seek greater control over the illicit trade.
Firefighters work at the site of a Russian missile strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine November 21, 2024. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk region/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. DO NOT OBSCURE LOGO.
State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Reuters
Related article Putin says Russia launched a new missile in Ukraine. Here’s what we know
“No manufacturers’ entities have been held responsible for any of these supplies yet,” he told CNN. “We think that if any of these … manufacturers would be held responsible for the quantity of microelectronics found, say, in Russian missiles hitting Ukraine, (they) would really, really start to do more in that regard.”
That echoes the sentiment of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which earlier this year slammed US manufacturers for not doing enough to vet potential buyers, despite having adequate “resources, funding, and knowledge.”
“Our findings reveal a distinct disinterest in evaluating and improving corporate compliance practices and particularly, monitoring those distributors, the middlemen,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in September.
Components also continue to be diverted to Iran and to Russia directly, according to the Ukrainian intelligence official.
“Russia uses Western components in the whole segment of both lethal weapons and reconnaissance drones,” the Defense Intelligence official told CNN, noting that the downing of one of Russia’s heavy drones, the “Okhotnik,” revealed it was primarily made from American components. “We also need to do the appropriate work to close these supply channels,” he said.
CNN · by Daria Tarasova-Markina, Lauren Kent, Nick Paton Walsh, Victoria Butenko · November 23, 2024
11. Sweden's new ambassador to N. Korea presents credentials, resumes diplomatic operations
Sweden's new ambassador to N. Korea presents credentials, resumes diplomatic operations
The Korea Times · November 22, 2024
By Kim Hyun-bin
The newly appointed Swedish Ambassador to North Korea Andreas Bengtsson officially commenced his duties on Thursday by presenting his credentials to North Korean officials. This marks a significant step as Sweden becomes the first Western country to reopen its embassy in Pyongyang since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Swedish Ambassador to North Korea Andreas Bengtsson / Courtesy of Embassy of Sweden website
According to the Korean Central News Agency, Bengtsson handed over his credentials, sent by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, during a ceremony at the Mansudae Assembly Hall. The credentials were received by Choe Ryong-hae, the chairman of the Standing Committee of the Supreme People's Assembly, who was acting on behalf of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Following the credential presentation, Choe engaged in discussions with Bengtsson.
North Korea reopened its borders in August 2023 but initially limited embassy operations to a select group of pro-North countries, including China, Russia, Mongolia and Cuba. Sweden's move to reestablish its diplomatic presence is seen as a significant development in Western diplomatic efforts in North Korea.
Bengtsson arrived in Pyongyang in September, continuing Sweden's long-standing diplomatic relationship with North Korea, which dates back to 1973 when Sweden became the first Western nation to establish formal diplomatic ties with the isolated country. Over the years, Sweden has not only provided consular services for American citizens in North Korea but has also played a mediating role between North Korea and the United States.
Sweden's diplomatic efforts have included notable actions such as assisting in the repatriation of U.S. soldier Travis King, who crossed into North Korea without authorization in July last year. Additionally, Stockholm was the venue for working-level negotiations between North Korea and the U.S. in 2019.
In preparation for the reopening of its embassy, Sweden has been actively engaging with North Korean officials. In February, Bengtsson, then the designated ambassador, visited North Korea and met with the Chinese Ambassador to North Korea Wang Yajun, among other diplomatic activities.
The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang is one of the first embassies in North Korea, opening in 1975. Sweden was the only Western country with uninterrupted diplomatic representation in the city until 2001.
The Korea Times · November 22, 2024
12. U.S. assesses N. Korea is prepared for 7th nuke test, awaits 'only a political decision': official
What actions are we prepared to take when the test is conducted?
We should not be afraid to use information effectively and to our advantage but simple condemnation is insufficient.
(LEAD) U.S. assesses N. Korea is prepared for 7th nuke test, awaits 'only a political decision': official | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 23, 2024
(ATTN: ADDS photo, South Korean ambassador's remarks in last 5 paras)
By Song Sang-ho
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- The United States believes that North Korea is prepared for a possible seventh nuclear test while awaiting 'only a political decision" to go ahead, a senior U.S. official said Friday, warning another nuclear experiment would mark a "grave" escalation of regional tensions.
Alexandra Bell, deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control, deterrence and stability, made the remarks, reiterating America's "ironclad" security commitment to South Korea and its denuclearization objective for the Korean Peninsula.
"The United States assesses that the DPRK has prepared its Punggye-ri test site for its potential seventh explosive nuclear test, awaiting only a political decision to move ahead," Bell said during a forum hosted by The Korea Society. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"Such a test would constitute a grave escalation of tensions in the region and present a security risk to the entire world," she added.
Alexandra Bell, deputy assistant secretary of state for arms control, deterrence and stability, speaks during a forum hosted by The Korea Society in Washington on Nov. 22, 2024 in this photo captured from The Korea Society YouTube account. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Bell criticized Pyongyang's weapons tests this year, including that of a new Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), as a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.
"Each missile launch (and) each nuclear saber-rattling speech is an indication that the DPRK is determined to advance its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs, underscoring the clear need to further grow and adapt our alliance with the ROK to better prepare to defend against potential attacks, including nuclear employment," she said, referring to South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.
"It goes without saying that the U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea remains ironclad and our goal remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."
She also reiterated the allies' warning to Pyongyang that any nuclear weapons attack by the North against the South will be met with a "swift, overwhelming and decisive" response.
Bell underscored "remarkable progress" in the work of the Nuclear Consultative Group (NCG), the allies' key nuclear deterrence body launched last year as part of joint efforts to strengthen "extended deterrence," America's commitment to using the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear arms, to defend its Asian ally.
A fourth NCG session will take place in Washington in early December, according to her. Bell represents the State Department at the NCG.
"In fact, the NCG's tremendous progress has been commended and endorsed by Presidents Yoon and Biden, including the completion of the U.S.-ROK guidelines for nuclear deterrence and nuclear operations on the Korean Peninsula," she said.
At the forum, South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Cho Hyun-dong also mentioned the North's readiness to carry out another nuclear test, as he pointed out that the situation in East Asia remains a "tinderbox," with Pyongyang's "untethered" aggressiveness having the potential for "incitement at any time."
"In the case of North Korea, their antagonistic stance shows no sign of abating," he said.
"Beyond their traditional provocation and the recent release of multiple trash-filled balloons across the DMZ, they launched an ICBM merely days before the U.S. election -- a strategic provocation that, though not unexpected, signals the likelihood that they are ready to conduct another nuclear test anytime."
Noting the presidential transition in Washington, he expressed confidence for the future of the Seoul-Washington alliance.
"It is clear that even with the expected changes, our alliance will remain strong and continue to thrive," he said.
South Korean Ambassador to the U.S. Cho Hyun-dong speaks during a forum hosted by The Korea Society in Washington on Nov. 22, 2024 in this photo captured from The Korea Society YouTube account. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
sshluck@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · November 23, 2024
13. N. Korea condemns U.S. military drills, warns potential escalation could trigger real war
Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations.
N. Korea condemns U.S. military drills, warns potential escalation could trigger real war | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · November 23, 2024
SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Saturday strongly condemned the United States for conducting joint military drills and deploying military assets to the Korean Peninsula, warning that such actions could escalate into an actual war at any time.
The chief of the Information Office of the Ministry of National Defense issued a statement, denouncing the trilateral Freedom Shield exercises, which included South Korea and Japan, as well as the recent arrival of a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine at a major naval base in South Korea.
"We strongly warn the U.S. and its followers hostile towards the DPRK to immediately stop the hostile acts of further causing provocation and instability that can drive the military confrontation in the Korean peninsula and its vicinity into a real armed conflict," according to the English-language statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency.
DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
South Korea, the U.S. and Japan wrapped up their three-day trilateral Freedom Edge exercise in international waters south of South Korea's southern island of Jeju on Nov. 15. On Monday, the 6,000-ton USS Columbia entered South Korea's naval base in Busan.
The statement further said, "U.S. military moves targeting the DPRK can lead to a real war situation anytime."
The chief also said it is the constitutional duty of North Korea to take self-defensive measures to protect the security environment of the state and maintain the strategic stability and balance of strength in the region.
Warships of South Korea, the United States and Japan, including the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, the South's ROKS Seoae Ryu Seong-ryong destroyer and Japan's JS Haguro destroyer, take part in the trilateral Freedom Edge exercise in international waters south of South Korea's southern resort island of Jeju on Nov. 13, 2024, in this file photo provided by the South's Joint Chiefs of Staff the following day. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
khj@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · November 23, 2024
14. S. Korea commemorates sacrifices of 2 Marines in 2010 N. Korean artillery attack
Remember that this military action along with the sinking of the Cheonan were supposed to enhance the credibility of Kim Jong Un as a military leader.
S. Korea commemorates sacrifices of 2 Marines in 2010 N. Korean artillery attack | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · November 23, 2024
SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Marine Corps chief vowed Saturday to never forget the sacrifices of two Marines killed in a 2010 North Korean artillery attack on a western border island.
Lt. Gen. Kim Kye-hwan, who doubles as the command's head, made the remarks during an annual ceremony marking the 14th anniversary of the attack on Yeonpyeong Island near the western inter-Korean sea border, which killed two Marines and two civilians.
"The freedom and peace we enjoy today are thanks to the dedication and sacrifices of the heroes who shed their blood and sweat to protect our nation," Kim said during the event at Daejeon National Cemetery in Daejeon, some 140 kilometers south of Seoul.
He further emphasized that the ceremony was a solemn reminder of their ultimate sacrifice and a pledge to continue safeguarding the western border islands with unwavering strength and determination.
The exchange of artillery fire came on Nov. 23, 2010, after the North shelled the front-line island. It marked the North's first attack on a civilian area in the South since the 1950-53 Korean War.
Marines pay silent tribute during a ceremony at Daejeon National Cemetery in Daejeon, some 140 kilometers south of Seoul, on Nov. 23, 2024, to mark the 14th anniversary of North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island near the western maritime border. Two Marines and two civilians were killed in the surprise attack. (Yonhap)
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Han-joo · November 23, 2024
15. Quick Take: North Korea’s Coverage of Russian War Against Ukraine
Quick Take: North Korea’s Coverage of Russian War Against Ukraine
https://www.38north.org/2024/11/quick-take-north-koreas-coverage-of-russian-war-against-ukraine/?utm
Published Nov 22, 2024 at 11:01 AM EST
Updated Nov 22, 2024 at 12:38 PM EST
Source: Rodong Sinmun
In a speech at a Korean People’s Army conference on November 15, Kim Jong Un said the United States was “sustaining their [its] military assistance to Ukraine” and claimed “the United States and other Western countries are using Ukraine as a shock force in the war against Russia.” This speech was carried for both domestic and external audiences. Kim’s unusual, but not unprecedented, direct reference to the Russia-Ukraine war offers a good opportunity to review how North Korean propaganda outlets have handled this topic since the war began.
North Korea has taken two widely different approaches to the coverage of the war, depending on the audience.[1] Outlets targeting external audiences were quick and decisive in reporting on the war and siding with Russia. By contrast, domestically oriented media were first observed to mention the Ukraine situation in March 2023, more than a year after the war began.[2] North Korea became more forward-leaning in its domestic coverage of the war as its relationship with Russia continued to deepen.
North Korea’s cautious and more calibrated approach to the war in Ukraine vis-à-vis the domestic public indicates sensitivities surrounding the topic. In that vein, it should be no surprise the country’s domestic media, unlike its external websites, remain silent on the extent of North Korea’s role in the war.
External Versus Domestic Coverage
External outlets reacted within days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Two days after the invasion, the Foreign Ministry website carried a bylined article blaming the United States and supporting Russia’s position on Ukraine. An official Foreign Ministry statement reiterated this same line two days later. North Korean external platforms, led by the Foreign Ministry website, have since carried articles and statements consistent with Russia’s position on Ukraine, including North Korean Foreign Ministry officials’ press statements directly voicing support for Russia. Pyongyang’s quick and decisive support for Russia’s war against Ukraine is in line with one of the earliest signs of its foreign policy reorientation in August 2021, when the Foreign Ministry website started to regularly carry reports and articles introducing or supporting Russian positions on international and foreign policy issues.
Domestic media’s first observed reference to the war in Ukraine was in a party daily article on March 30, 2023 citing the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s claim that the United States was encouraging the “Ukrainian crisis” for economic benefits. Domestic media have since published news reports, articles, and commentaries that aligned with Russia’s position on Ukraine and were critical of the United States and the West.
Domestic media coverage of the war in Ukraine has increased since March 2024, shortly after the Foreign Ministry indicated, based on the foreign minister’s trip to Russia in January 2024, that Putin would be visiting Pyongyang and a new treaty would be signed. It was also after this announcement that domestic media started to provide more details about the war and carry Foreign Ministry statements on the war in Ukraine, which had hitherto been reserved for external websites. Choe Son Hui’s Russia visit in January 2024 seems to have given North Korea greater confidence in its relationship with Moscow, prompting it to give clearer signals domestically on its position on the war.
That notwithstanding, domestic media refrained from directly voicing support for the war. In two instances, they indirectly acknowledged North Korea’s support for Russia’s “special military operation” by citing Putin (July 2023) or Russia (January 2024). Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2024, however, was a turning point. In a departure from past practice, a party daily editorial explicitly voiced “full support and encouragement for the special military operation against Ukraine” on the day of Putin’s scheduled arrival in Pyongyang. In his talks with the visiting Russian vice defense minister the following month, Kim Jong Un himself expressed “strong support for and firm solidarity with” Russia on “the special military operations in Ukraine,” echoing the same promise he made during the summit with Putin.
- [1]
-
There are two broad categories of North Korean propaganda outlets: domestic and external. Domestic outlets refer to official media targeting the people inside North Korea, such as the central radio and television stations and newspapers. They do not include the “Third Broadcast,” a nationwide cable radio network that cannot be accessed from the outside, or lectures and other propaganda materials disseminated inside North Korea that are not carried by the country’s official broadcast or print media. External outlets refer to various North Korean-operated websites, including the Foreign Ministry website and social media platforms. Because ordinary North Koreans do not have access to Internet websites and social media, these outlets target audiences abroad, including South Korea. North Korea targets different audiences to maintain policy flexibility or shield certain audiences from sensitive information while voicing or even reinforcing its message to intended recipients. For more information, see Rachel Minyoung Lee, “Understanding North Korea’s Public Messaging: An Introduction,” in Understanding North Korea (paper series, National Committee on North Korea and the Wilson Center’s Hyundai Motor-Korea Foundation Center for Korean History and Public Policy, 2022), 9-10, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/media/uploads/documents/FINAL-NCNK-WWC-RMLee-UnderstandingNorthKoreasMessaging.pdf.
- [2]
- The author surveyed North Korea’s top two newspapers, the party daily Rodong Sinmun and the cabinet daily Minju Joson, using the Korean Press Information Database at dprkmedia.com. Although a search on the database will show that Rodong Sinmun’s first mention of the war in Ukraine was on February 28, 2022 (“우크라이나사태 《미국의 강권과 전횡에 근원》/조선외무성 홈페지에 게재된 연구사의 글”), the PDF file of the Rodong Sinmun hardcopy for February 28, 2022 shows that the report was not published.
16. S. Korea not to attend Sado memorial amid controversy over Japan's pick for gov't representative
(2nd LD) S. Korea not to attend Sado memorial amid controversy over Japan's pick for gov't representative | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · November 23, 2024
(ATTN: ADDS FM Cho's remarks from news channel interview in paras 8-13)
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea said Saturday it will not attend a memorial ceremony in Japan honoring forced labor victims, including Koreans, from an old Japanese mine complex, amid controversy over Tokyo's decision to send a senior official with hard-line views on history to the event.
The decision, made just a day before the planned ceremony, came after Tokyo said Thursday that Akiko Ikuina, a parliamentary vice minister at Japan's foreign ministry, will attend the ceremony as the government representative.
The announcement further stoked doubt about Japan's sincerity in fulfilling its pledge to hold the event to honor the victims, because Ikuina has visited the Yasukuni Shrine, where war criminals are enshrined.
"We have decided not to attend the Sado mine memorial ceremony, scheduled for Nov. 24, taking into account various circumstances surrounding the event," the ministry said in a message to the media.
"There was insufficient time to reconcile differing positions between the diplomatic authorities of both countries, making it unlikely to reach a mutually acceptable agreement before the ceremony," it said.
The shrine, regarded as a symbol of Japan's militaristic past, has been a source of tension, with South Korea strongly opposing visits or offerings made by Japanese government officials.
Critics said her attendance at the ceremony would upset the eleven family members of the Korean victims who were planning to attend the event.
An exit of the Sado gold and silver mine complex on Sado Island in Niigata Prefecture, Japan (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said the government informed Japan this afternoon of the decision, and that it plans to hold a separate memorial event with the family members of the victims who are in Japan for the ceremony.
"Various disagreements have not been resolved, and we thought there was not enough time to resolve the differences, having only a few hours left (before the ceremony)," Cho said in an interview with MBN.
Nine of the eleven family members are already in Japan, and they will pay visits to a museum and other sites related to the Sado mines, accompanied by Seoul officials, Cho said.
Despite the decision, Cho underlined the need to continue communications with Japan so that the bilateral relations will not be influenced by one single issue.
"The trilateral cooperation among Korea, the United States and Japan was established because of the improvement in the Korea-Japan relations, and Japan is well aware of the importance to strengthen it for security," Cho said.
"I believe both countries should work to ensure that no single issue like this disrupts the overall positive flow in the bilateral relations, and we plan to continue consultations with Japan in this regard," he said.
Japan has promised to host a memorial event as a condition for Seoul's consent to the location's designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Many Koreans were taken to toil at the Sado gold and silver mines during World War II, when Korea was under Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule.
Seoul has stressed to Tokyo the importance of holding the ceremony to honor the victims in a sincere manner, requesting the attendance of a high-level official, possibly at a vice minister level.
However, the lack of details about the ceremony's arrangements, even in the days leading up to the event, has sparked speculation in Seoul that negotiations with Japan may not have gone smoothly.
Recent remarks by Hideyo Hanazumi, the governor of the Niigata Prefecture organizing the ceremony, have further fueled concerns. According to Japanese media, Hanazumi said earlier the memorial is intended to report the site's UNESCO listing to the public.
The memorial ceremony is set to take place on western Sado Island, off Japan's west coast, Sunday, with officials from the organizing committee, the Sado city and central governments, and civic groups in Japan expected to attend.
elly@yna.co.kr
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en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Seung-yeon · November 23, 2024
17. Exclusive: Audit finds Moon administration leaked THAAD details to China, civic groups
This is a significant development. It is more egregious than the allegations of US spying on allies. This is what can really undermine the alliance.
Exclusive: Audit finds Moon administration leaked THAAD details to China, civic groups
Board of Audit and Inspection requests investigation of ex-national security director Chung Eui-yong and three others
https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2024/11/19/VLANUZ5JHNFGTL27ESCIWTWHVU/
By Kim Kyeong-pil,
Lee Seul-bi,
Kim Seo-young
Published 2024.11.19. 09:10
Updated 2024.11.19. 09:20
An audit by South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), revealed on Nov. 18, that the Moon Jae-in administration allegedly leaked details of U.S.-South Korea military operations related to the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system to civic groups in an effort to delay its deployment. The BAI also discovered that the administration disclosed classified information, including the operation’s name, schedule, and content, to a Chinese military attaché at the Chinese Embassy in Seoul, purportedly to further delay the system’s full deployment. After the operation was completed, the U.S. reportedly issued a strong protest to the South Korean government over the prior disclosure to China.
The THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system is deployed in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, in this file photo from May 14, 2021. /News1
Earlier this month, the BAI referred former National Security Office Director Chung Eui-yong, former Vice Director Seo Joo-seok, former Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, and former Presidential Secretary for Civil Participation Lee Ki-heon (now a Democratic Party lawmaker) to the prosecution for further investigation. They face allegations of violating the Military Secret Protection Act, abuse of power, and obstruction of duty. The BAI determined that disclosing the classified military operation details regarding the THAAD missile replacement to civic group members and foreign military officers (Chinese military officers) violated the Military Secret Protection Act. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office announced plans to assign the case to a regional prosecutor’s office after reviewing the BAI’s findings.
A group of retired generals filed a public audit request in July last year, alleging that the Moon administration intentionally delayed the environmental impact assessment required for the formal deployment of THAAD ahead of Moon’s visit to China in December 2019. The BAI, which found grounds for some of these allegations, deployed its special investigation unit in October last year and has since audited 11 government agencies, including the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, uncovering evidence of military intelligence leaks.
Graphics by Park Sang-hoon
THAAD, developed by U.S. defense contractor Lockheed Martin, is a key missile defense system designed to counter North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile threats. It consists of radar, missile batteries, and surface-to-air interceptors. China has strongly opposed its deployment in South Korea, arguing that the THAAD radar could potentially detect Chinese ballistic missile launches early, thereby disrupting the strategic nuclear balance between the U.S. and China.
In 2016, under President Park Geun-hye, South Korea and the U.S. agreed to deploy THAAD in South Korea, and it was temporarily set up at a golf course in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province in April 2017. Following protests by local groups claiming that THAAD’s radar emissions could pose health risks, both governments decided to conduct a small-scale environmental impact assessment. However, after Moon took office in May 2017, he ordered a review of the plan and, in July, announced that instead of the small-scale assessment, which would take six months, a general environmental impact assessment lasting over a year would be conducted before deciding on THAAD’s permanent deployment.
Residents and anti-THAAD activists clash with police as they attempt to block the entry of construction equipment into the Seongju THAAD base, in this file photo from Oct. 22, 2020. /Yonhap News
But the Moon administration did not form the required evaluation committee for the general environmental assessment during its five-year term. Despite the U.S. submitting a project plan for the assessment in February 2019, the South Korean government failed to establish the committee, which was mandated by law to include government officials, residents’ representatives, and experts, and did not proceed with the necessary procedures. Defense Ministry documents later revealed that Cheong Wa Dae officials under Moon had delayed the committee’s formation ahead of Moon’s visit to China in December 2019. The BAI suspects that this delay was intentional to postpone THAAD’s permanent deployment.
18. North Korea warns US of thermonuclear war
This is what Kim wants us to focus on. (and the Korean people in the north as well)
North Korea warns US of thermonuclear war
Newsweek · by Maya Mehrara · November 22, 2024
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accused the U.S. of contributing to increasing global tensions that could escalate into a "most destructive thermonuclear war," according to the state news agency Korean Central News Agency.
While speaking at a military exhibition in Pyongyang, he emphasized that the Korean peninsula has never been at greater risk for nuclear war, and prior negotiations with Washington have only made clear the U.S.' "aggressive and hostile" policy toward North Korea.
The statements come amid escalating tension between the U.S. and Russia as well as global backlash Kim has received for deploying more than 10,000 North Korean soldiers to the front lines in Russia in its ongoing war against Ukraine.
Newsweek reached out to the embassy of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea for comment via email. Newsweek also reached out to the White House press secretary and President-elect Donald Trump's transition team for comment via email outside normal business hours.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks at the opening ceremony of a defense exhibition on November 22. Kim warned the U.S. that tensions between the two countries could lead to thermonuclear war. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks at the opening ceremony of a defense exhibition on November 22. Kim warned the U.S. that tensions between the two countries could lead to thermonuclear war. Uncredited, KCNA via KNS/Associated Press
"The Korean peninsula has never been under such a critical situation as the present, in which there is a growing likelihood of a most destructive thermonuclear war breaking out amid the acutely dangerous confrontation between the belligerents," Kim said.
"We already did everything possible in the bilateral negotiations with the United States, and what we were eventually convinced of was not the superpower's will to co-exist with us but its domineering stand and unchangeably aggressive and hostile policy towards the DPRK."
In a joint statement with the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the High Representative of the European Union, the U.S. spoke out against the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the increasing military cooperation between the DPRK and Russia, including the DPRK's export and Russia's unlawful procurement of DPRK ballistic missiles in breach of multiple UN Security Council resolutions (UNSCRs), as well as Russia's use of these missiles and munitions against Ukraine," they said in the statement on the State Department's website.
"DPRK soldiers receiving or providing any training or other assistance related to the use of ballistic missiles or arms is a direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions 1718, 1874 and 2270. We are also deeply concerned about the potential for any transfer of nuclear or ballistic missile-related technology from Russia to the DPRK in violation of the relevant UNSCRs. We urge the DPRK to stop providing assistance to Russia's war of aggression.
"We reaffirm our unwavering commitment to support Ukraine as it defends its freedom, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. We are working with our international partners for a coordinated response to this new development."
U.S. relations with North Korea have not improved during Joe Biden's presidency, as his administration has reached out to Pyongyang multiple times with no response.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has accused North Korea of "unlawful and reckless missile launches, including the launch of a long-range ballistic missile over Japan in October" and added that the U.S. was deepening its trilateral cooperation with the Republic of Korea to "deter and, if necessary, defend against aggression."
North Korea has not commented on Trump's reelection since his victory. He was the first U.S. president to visit the country in 2019 after meeting Kim for the first time a year earlier.
During his first term and after, Trump said that he "largely solved" the tension between the U.S. and North Korea and emphasized that he got along well with Kim.
Trump has also said that he believes Kim would "like to see" him back in office and that he misses Trump, although North Korea denied the statements.
North Korea seemed to be preparing for upcoming conflicts with the West as it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in about a year in October.
Kim has also said that he wants North Korea to develop its "strategic deterrence" to combat the U.S.' nuclear arsenal and emphasized the need to further modernize and fortify the strategic missile bases.
As for Trump's future relations with North Korea, Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at the University of Oxford, previously told Newsweek that Trump said in his rallies that he would offer to meet with Kim, but North Korea has not referred to U.S. relations during Trump's first term as fondly as the president-elect.
"Ultimately, North Korea even went as far as to make clear that irrespective of the outcome of the election, Pyongyang's worldview towards the U.S. would not change: Washington remains a 'hostile' power pursuing—with its allies—a 'hostile policy' towards the DPRK," Howell said.
Newsweek · by Maya Mehrara · November 22, 2024
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
FOR PME
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