North Korea (Superthread)

[tomahawk6]

Forced retirement at 75.

 

[CougarKing]

Typical...  :

link

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) - Flamboyant former basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday for a five-day visit, his second this year, but said he had no plans to negotiate the release of a jailed American missionary.

There had been speculation that Rodman, who met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in March, would secure the release of Kenneth Bae, who was jailed for 15 years for trying to overthrow the North Korean government.

"I'm not going to North Korea to discuss freeing Kenneth Bae," Rodman told Reuters in a telephone interview before he left Beijing for Pyongyang. "I'm just going there on another basketball diplomacy tour."

Kim, the third of his line to rule North Korea, is a basketball fan and appeared to get on well with Rodman on the earlier visit, with the two of them pictured laughing, eating and drinking together and watching an all-star basketball match.

Rodman's latest trip is being sponsored by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power. His arrival was announced on North Korean news agency KCNA, which did not provide any further details of the trip.

Wearing his trademark dark sunglasses, the 6-foot 7-inch (2.01 meter) Rodman pushed through a throng of journalists at Beijing's international airport, a common waystation for travelers to North Korea.

"I'm just trying to go over there to meet my friend Kim, the Marshal," Rodman said. "Try to start a basketball league over there, something like that."

(...)

 

[CougarKing]

The biggest single atrocity yet committed by North Korea's regime? 

National Post link

Human rights group demands inquiry into fate of 20,000 North Koreans who ‘disappeared’ from gulag

Tens of thousands of North Korean inmates of Camp No. 22, one of the regime’s most brutal labour colonies, have disappeared, according to a human rights group that is demanding an inquiry into their fate.

There are fears that up to 20,000 may have been allowed to die of disease or starvation in the run-up to the closure of the camp at the end of last year.

The suspicion has emerged after a report by the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) detailing the situation in penal colonies as Kim Jong-un consolidated his power after taking over from his father, Kim Jong-il who died in 2011. The Washington-based organization gleans information from defectors, including former guards and the occasional survivor of a prison camp, as well as examining satellite imagery.

It focused much of its attention on Camp 22, a vast compound sprawled across 770 square miles, making it larger than London. The report discloses that two camps have been closed in the past year but that 130,000 individuals are still being held in penal labour colonies.

“Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime,” the report states. “They are deemed ‘wrong-thinkers,’ ‘wrongdoers,’ or those who have acquired ‘wrong knowledge’ or have engaged in ‘wrong associations.’ “

Detainees are “relentlessly subjected to malnutrition, forced labour, and to other cruel and unusual punishment,” the report says, with thousands more forcibly held in other detention facilities.


"This is an atrocity requiring much closer investigation,"

(...)

 

[Rifleman62]

For the first time, the inmates of Camp 22 had fresh meat to supplement their daily ration of grass. The next day all had soup.

I would not put it pass them.

 

[57Chevy]

                                  Article shared with provisions of The Copyright Act

North Korea Appears to Restart Plutonium Reactor
The New York Times

WASHINGTON — New satellite photographs showing steam emerging from a newly reconstructed nuclear reactor in North Korea suggest that the country may be making good on its promise to resume the production of plutonium for its small nuclear arsenal, six years after it reached an agreement with the Bush administration to dismantle the facility.

The discovery of the activity at the Yongbyon complex, the centerpiece of North Korea’s nuclear program, was reported by the U.S.-Korea Institute, at Johns Hopkins University, which follows the North’s nuclear program closely.

article continues at link

 

[CougarKing]

Pyongyang preparing for another round of brinksmanship?  :

Defense News

SEOUL —New satellite images suggest North Korea tested a long-range rocket engine last month, a US research institute said Monday.

While the exact engine type could not be identified, possibilities included the second stage of the Unha-3 Space Launch Vehicle or the second or third stage engine of a much larger rocket under development, the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University posted on its 38 North website.

Analysis of before and after satellite photos indicated the test had taken place sometime between Aug. 25 and 30 at the North’s Sohae satellite launching station, the post said.

Sohae was the base for the successful launch of the Unha-3 rocket in December — an event condemned by the West as a disguised long-range ballistic missile test that violated UN resolutions.

The UN Security Council tightened sanctions against North Korea after the launch — and then again after the North’s missile test in February.

Separate satellite images analyzed by the US-Korea Institute last month showed that North Korea has embarked on a major new construction program at Sohae.

The building work included what could be a possible new launch pad for testing mobile ballistic missiles.

 

[Nemo888]

The biggest single atrocity yet committed by North Korea's regime? 

National Post link

Not even close. During the height of the famine Vietnam owed a large amount of money to NK. They offered to pay the NK's in rice, but NK demanded it be paid in armaments. Estimates put famine deaths at around 2.5 million.

If you are curious what would happen if we ran out of oil that is exactly what happened to NK. When the pumps that ran on petrol allowed the coal mines to fill with water everything collapsed in a matter of months.

 

[CougarKing]

And the cycle of North Korean brinksmanship begins again...

Yawn...

Unless Kim Jong Un is still REALLY upset about not getting ski lifts from Switzerland.  :

Reuters

North Korea puts army on alert, warns U.S. of 'horrible disaster'
SEOUL | Mon Oct 7, 2013 7:42pm EDT

(Reuters) - North Korea said on Tuesday its military would be put on high alert and be ready to launch operations, stepping up tension after weeks of rhetoric directed against the United States and South Korea, who it accuses of instigating hostility.

Reclusive North Korea has often issued threats to attack the South and the United States but has rarely turned them into action. Such hostile rhetoric is widely seen as a means to perpetuate its domestic and international political agenda.

In the latest outburst, a spokesman for the North's military warned the United States of "disastrous consequences" for moving a group of ships, including an aircraft carrier, into a South Korean port.

"In this connection, the units of all services and army corps level of the KPA received an emergency order from its supreme command to reexamine the operation plans already ratified by it and keep themselves fully ready to promptly launch operations any time," the spokesman said, referring to the Korean People's Army (KPA).

(...)

 

[JesseWZ]

"In this connection, the units of all services and army corps level of the KPA received an emergency order from its supreme command to reexamine the operation plans already ratified by it and keep themselves fully ready to promptly launch operations any time," the spokesman said, referring to the Korean People's Army (KPA).

Huh?

You mean like most professional armies do as a matter of course?

 

[a_majoor]

Funny story on CTV newschannel today: NK is opening a luxury ski resort and tourists are welcome.

Do serving NATO personnel get discounts, attractive hosts and hostesses along with free drinks? 

 

[CougarKing]

Another change in North Korea's chain of command...

Kim Kyok Sik, North Korea's Hardline Military Chief, Replaced By Ri Yong Gil

SEOUL, South Korea -- SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea has replaced its hard line military chief just a few months after his appointment, the latest in an ongoing reshuffle of top personnel that analysts say is meant to solidify ruler Kim Jong Un's grip on power.

The name of new military chief, Ri Yong Gil, was revealed Thursday in a Korean Central News Agency dispatch listing top officials who accompanied Kim Jong Un to the mausoleum housing his father and grandfather.

Ri replaces Kim Kyok Sik, the former commander of battalions believed responsible for attacks on South Korea in 2010 that killed 50 people. It was only in May that state media dispatches first identified Kim as the military's general chief of staff.

(edit)

Nearly half of about 220 top government, Workers' Party and military officials have been replaced since Kim took power, according to Seoul's Unification Ministry.

More at...

The Huffington Post

 

[Edward Campbell]

HELP University in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has awarded an honorary doctorate to Kim Jong-Un according to this story.

Philip J Crowley tweets that he doubts it was for was for economics or the humanities.  :nod:

 

[CougarKing]

Perhaps one of their faulty Cold-War era torpedoes spun around and hit the ship that launched it?

Defense News

North Korea Reports Warship Sank; Number of Dead Unknown

SEOUL — A number of North Korean sailors were killed when a warship sank during “combat duties” last month, a state newspaper has reported in an unusual admission by the secretive state.

The North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun gave no figures for the number of dead. But photographs of gravestones in Saturday’s website edition suggested about 15-20 may have died.

The paper showed solemn-faced leader Kim Jong-Un laying flowers at a cemetery specially created for victims of the incident, who “met heroic deaths while performing their combat duties”.

The report gave no details of how the sailors on a ship identified as “submarine chaser no. 233” had died. It did not say where the cemetery was located.

After hearing of the incident, Kim ordered a search to retrieve all the bodies and gave detailed instructions on construction of the cemetery and gravestones, the paper said.

South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper said Monday that two North Korean warships sank last month during an exercise off the eastern port of Wonsan, killing scores of sailors.

Quoting a military source, it said the ships were a Hainan-class 375-ton submarine chaser and a 100 to 200-ton patrol boat.

“The Hainan-class submarine chaser probably sank because it’s old. It was built in China in the 1960s and the North bought it in the mid-70s,” the source was quoted as saying.

North and South Korea have remained technically at war since the Korean conflict ended in an armistice in 1953.

While the North’s military totals more than one million personnel, much of its equipment is aging.

Seoul accused Pyongyang of sending a submarine to sink a South Korean warship in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives.

 

[tomahawk6]

As the ship was involved in war games,speculation is that somehow depth charges blew up causing the ship to sink.Viewing the headstones it appears that many of the officers were killed.

 

[OldSolduer]

His barber needs a few lessons.

 

[CougarKing]

Yikes.

Defense News

South Korea: North Developing EMP Weapons

SEOUL — South Korea’s spy agency said Monday that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament that the North had purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own versions.

EMP weapons are used to damage electronic equipment. At higher energy levels, an EMP event can cause more widespread damage including to aircraft structures and other objects.

The spy agency also said the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un sees cyberattacks as an all-purpose weapon along with nuclear weapons and missiles, according to lawmakers briefed by the NIS.

The North is trying to hack into smartphones and lure South Koreans into becoming informants, it said.

It has collected information on where South Korea stores chemical substances and oil reserves as well as details about subways, tunnels and train networks in major cities, it said.

The spy agency also said North Korean spies were operating in China and Japan to distribute pro-Pyongyang propaganda.

North Korea is believed to run an elite cyber warfare unit of 3,000 personnel.
(...)

 

[tomahawk6]

A non-nuclear EMP would affect a small area.On the other hand a nuclear EMP would have a devastating effect over a wide area.

 

[Hudyma]

EMPs in general are a scary thing.  We are so dependent on electronics for everything (from warfare to life support in a children's hospital), a weapon like this would be devastating.

 

[CougarKing]

Along with the recent news about North Korea's reported focus on developing EMP weapons, this should prove unsettling.

Defense News

SEOUL — North Korea is making progress on an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a first-generation nuclear warhead to the continental United States, a leading US think-tank said Tuesday.

The closely followed 38 North website of the Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute argued that ICBM mock-ups seen at recent military parades in Pyongyang were “less fake” than originally believed.

Numerous experts had widely ridiculed the models of the North’s road-mobile KN-08 ICBM seen in 2012 and July this year, with at least one respected aerospace engineer labeling them technically preposterous and a “big hoax.”

An analysis posted by 38 North disagreed, saying they were consistent with the ongoing development of a missile with a limited intercontinental ability using only existing North Korean technology.

“Elegant or not,” the mockups suggest an ability to assemble components and technologies to produce missiles with theoretical ranges of 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles) to more than 11,000 km.

“Almost all of the configurations examined would be able to deliver a light, first-generation nuclear warhead at least as far as Seattle,” it said.

The analysis was co-written by non-proliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and aerospace engineer John Schilling.

(...)

 

[tomahawk6]

Until such time as the North could launch 50 ICBM's or more the US ABM defenses will be hard to penetrate - unless a detonation could be achieved in the atmosphere.