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A video from Syria shows the testimony of a soldier who said Assad’s forces shot at him when he defected after refusing to kill unarmed civilians in the Damascus area. Meanwhile, Syrian secret police and soldiers have arrested 1,000 people in the past two days and have surrounded the city of Banyas.

His name is Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi but he was given the codename “Curveball” prior to the Iraq War. He played a significant role in convincing US authorities, including Colin Powell, that Saddam had biological weapons capabilities. Of course we’ve known since 2005 that claim wasn’t true, but now Curveball is admitting he made up claims of mobile weapons labs in order to get the US to topple Saddam. The Guardian has produced an exclusive video, here is a bit of the English transcript: I did that for a number of reasons. Firstly because of my people, the Iraq people…Saddam...

NK Defector to Head to S.Korea Write 2010-12-14 17:57:11 Update 2010-12-14 18:38:32 Japan’s Kyodo News says a North Korean defector will come to South Korea. Quoting a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees official, Kyodo News said that an interpreter for the North Korean military secretly entered eastern Russia in September. It said the Russian government turned down his request for asylum and that South Korea will accept him. The North Korean defector testified that he was an interpreter for Russian relations for high-ranking North Korean military officials. He reportedly said he defected due to difficulties under the Kim Jong-il regime.

Top Russian spy defects after betraying U.S. ring By Thomas Grove Thomas Grove 21 mins ago MOSCOW (Reuters) – The head of Russia's deep cover U.S. spying operations has betrayed the network and defected, a Russian paper said on Thursday, potentially giving the West one of its biggest intelligence coups since the end of the Cold War. The newspaper, Kommersant, named the man as Colonel Shcherbakov, and said he was responsible for unmasking a Russian spy ring in the United States in June whose arrests humiliated Moscow and clouded a "reset" in ties with Washington. The betrayal would make Shcherbakov...

Former North Korean Soldiers Vow to Overthrow Kim Family Rule Steve Herman | Seoul 09 September 2010 A new organization in South Korea, claiming it includes more than 100 former North Korean military members, vows to end Pyongyang's government and unify the Korean peninsula. The North Korea Peoples Liberation Front also says it has support from current members of the communist state's military, but political analysts are skeptical. Exit 3 of Seoul's Singil subway station seems an unlikely place to begin a revolution. But 75 people who say they are former North Korean soldiers and other defectors gathered there to...

More Middle-Class N.Koreans Defect There appears to have been a shift in the profile of defectors fleeing North Korea since a botched currency reform late last year. Before the reform, most of the defectors were so poor that they did not care whether they would be killed if they were caught fleeing the North. But since the currency reform, more middle-class North Koreans have been fleeing the North, a South Korean security official speculated. A North Korean source on Tuesday said the currency reform alienated many people from the regime, and the spread of South Korean pop culture through videos...

WASHINGTON -An Iranian scientist sought refuge in the Pakistani Embassy compound and asked to go home, an apparent defection gone wrong that could embarrass the U.S. and its efforts to gather intelligence on Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program. Iran — and at one point, scientist Shahram Amiri — claimed the CIA had kidnapped him; the U.S. said Tuesday that nothing of the sort happened. Amiri disappeared while on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia in June 2009, surfacing in videos but otherwise out of sight until the latest bizarre twist in the case. "Mr. Amiri has been in the United States...

Ted Kennedy's KGB Correspondence By Kevin Mooney on 6.22.10 @ 6:08AM Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's self-serving, secret correspondence with Soviet agents during the height of the Cold War included proposals for collaborative efforts designed to undermine official U.S. policy set by Democratic and Republican administrations, KGB documents show. With the media now reporting on the late senator's just released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file, now is an opportune time for a more expansive investigation into Kennedy's KGB contacts. The agency took a keen interest in a 1961 "fact-finding" trip the Massachusetts Democrat took to Mexico and other parts of...

Defector Celebrates 6 Years of Free North Korea Radio Free North Korea Radio in Seoul on April 20 celebrated its sixth anniversary in an event that brought together the leaders of some of about 30 defector organizations in South Korea for the first time. Kim Sung-min (49), the president of Free North Korea Radio, said, "For the past six years, we've been working toward the day when we return to Pyongyang" after the nation is reunified. Kim Sung-min Kim Sung-min Kim majored in poetry at college. After graduation, he worked as a writer in the Army. He came to South...

Folks, several weeks to a couple of months ago, someone here on FR posted a link (within a thread) to a short video of North Korean defector Shin Dong-Hyuk. Mr. Shin grew up in a North Korean concentration camp - his parents were prisoners and he was born into the camp.I'm trying to locate that link to the video, but cannot seem to find the thread it was on. All of the other videos I can find of him on-line are too long to use for what I need (presentation). Any help on finding that thread and link is greatly...

In connection with the breaking news out of South Korea, here is a Korean language map from South Korean daily conservative newspaper Chosun Ilbo, showing the land and air routes the potential assassins (two males; highly trained) took from North Korea under orders from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, until they were arrested in the South. Will post other breaking news as it comes in. No photographs have emerged yet of the two arrested and or whether weaponry was found on their persons.

North Korean who shopped for dictators goes public By VERONIKA OLEKSYN, Associated Press Writer 14 mins ago VIENNA – A North Korean colonel who spent two decades going on European shopping sprees for his country's rulers said Thursday the late dictator Kim Il Sung lived in luxury while many people struggled to survive in his impoverished communist nation. Kim Jong Ryul, who spent 16 years under cover in Austria, also described how the "great leader" and his son and successor Kim Jong Il spent millions pampering and protecting themselves with Western goods — everything from luxury cars, carpets and exotic...

N.Korean executed for calling S.Korea: report SEOUL (AFP) – A North Korean has been publicly executed for using a mobile phone to tell a defector friend in South Korea about living conditions in the communist state, a rights group said Thursday. The man identified only as Jung was executed in late January after security officials discovered a Chinese mobile phone in his home, said the Seoul-based Open Radio for North Korea. It said Jung, a munitions worker in the northeastern port of Hamhung, confessed under torture that he had mentioned rice prices and living conditions.

January 25, 2010 Nimble Agencies Sneak News Out of North Korea By CHOE SANG-HUN SEOUL — For a journalist who helped break one of the biggest stories out of North Korea in the past year, Mun Seong-hwi keeps an extremely low profile. The name he offers is an alias. He does not reveal what he did in North Korea before his defection in 2006, aside from mention of a “desk job,” in order to protect relatives left behind. He also maintains a wall of secrecy around his three “underground stringers” in North Korea, who he says do not know he...

2010/01/11 12:04 KST U.S. envoy calls N. Korean human rights conditions 'appalling' SEOUL, Jan. 11 (Yonhap) -- U.S. embassies abroad have been instructed to provide easy access to all North Korean defectors seeking asylum in the United States or elsewhere, the special U.S. envoy on North Korean human rights said Monday. Robert King, who succeeded the United States' first-ever representative on North Korean human rights six weeks ago, said the situation in North Korea was "appalling," calling the communist North one of the worst violators of human rights. "It is one of the worst places in terms of lack of...

COLUMBUS, Ohio — A U.S. House hopeful says a former top Romanian spy who defected to the United States in the1970s has endorsed him in a closely watched northeast Ohio race. The campaign of Paul Schiffer said Monday that Ion Pacepa (YON' puh-CHEP'-uh) is backing the Republican in this year's election because he believes Democrats are turning America into a socialist dictatorship like the one he escaped.

/begin my excerpts Picketing N. Korean Defector Bumping Face-to-Face into N. Korean Ambassador Ma Young-ae, N. Korean defector and artist, now residing in U.S. and heading (Christian) N. Korean Refugee Mission, was picketing with Choi Eun-chol, the (mission's) administrative manager, in front of N. Korea's Mission at U.N.. They were urging the International Criminal Court to indict Kim Jong-il, when they met face-to-face with (N. Korean) Ambassador (to U.N.) Shin Sun-ho. When she confronted him, he and his assistant gave her a brief look and headed for U.N. Headquarter. She followed them, with a new sign board saying, "Kim Jong-il,...

North Korean Defectors Puzzled, Moved by Roh Funeral By Kurt Achin Seoul 29 May 2009 South Korea's emotional farewell to former President Roh Moo-hyun brought much of the country together - including Koreans who were not born in the South. For North Koreans who have defected to South Korea, the outpouring of public emotion brought back memories of an earlier life - and reminders of how different their new life is. North Koreans who have begun a new life in the South were alongside their fellow Koreans in Friday's tearful mass gathering in Seoul. About 15,000 North Koreans now live...

N.Korea's Kim too selfish to start war -defectors Thu May 28, 2009 2:20am EDT (For full coverage of the North Korean crisis, click [nN25330519]) By Jack Kim ANSEONG, South Korea, May 28 (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is likely basking in the patriotic fervour whipped up by his nuclear test but is too worried about his own well-being to start a war, North Korean defectors said on Thursday. Poverty, famine and political oppression have driven tens of thousands of North Koreans over the border to seek a better life. "Why did they have to do it again? If...

North Korean Painter Brushes Away Taboos About Kim Jong Il By Kurt Achin Seoul 16 April 2009 North Korea's recent rocket launch and its reappointment of Kim Jong Il as military chief are reminders to the world of the North Korean leader's potential ability to threaten regional security. But one North Korean refugee is giving the world a look at Kim Jong Il in a much less austere light. The face of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il - not waving at the masses from a balcony, but lying on his back in a hospital bed. "Kim Jong Il is...