Free Republic

North Korea's food shortage is expected to further worsen this year, as the communist state's grain output in 2009 is believed to have fallen from the previous year, a government official in Seoul said Wednesday. The North is estimated to have produced 4.1 million tons of grain last year, a drop of about 200,000 tons compared to 2008, the Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The amount falls about 1.3 million tons short of what the impoverished country needs this year to feed its 24 million people, the official said. The North produced 4.3 million tons in 2008....

North Korea yesterday threatened to take military action against South Korea for “anti-republic attempts to topple” the North Korean regime. Issued jointly by the Ministry of People’s Security and the National Security Agency, the threat came on the same day that the two Koreas discussed resuming suspended tours to Mount Kumgang and Kaesong north of the border. The two North agencies threatened to “mercilessly pulverize” those who attempt to damage the North’s national security by mobilizing all its troops and security forces. The statement criticized the South Korean Navy’s efforts to defend the Northern Limit Line, the disputed maritime border...

LOS ANGELES — Robert Park is back home with his family after spending 43 days in the hands of the North Koreans for entering the communist nation intent on urging a change in its leadership. The 28-year-old Korean-American missionary was greeted by his parents and brother at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving Saturday evening from Beijing. He flew to the Chinese capital from Pyongyang after North Korea announced Friday he would be freed. North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency quoted Park as saying he was ashamed of the "biased" view he once held of the country. Park said...

A rocket launched by Iran on Wednesday was made in the North Korean style, a South Korean expert claims. Chae Yeon-seok, a former president of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute, said Thursday the rocket engine, as publicized by the state-run IRNA news agency, seems to be the same as North Korea's Rodong missile, though Tehran claims it was made with indigenous technology. Iran successfully tested the satellite rocket Kavoshgar-3 on Wednesday. It has four engines tied up together with a thrust of 128 tons. "The Safir-2 launched by Iran last year had one engine for Rodong missiles, which have a...

China is telling North Korean leaders to deal with their economic problems, before they have to confront a widespread rebellion. China apparently sees North Koreas' best hope is to cut a deal with the West, to disarm and get massive food and economic aid. If North Korea does not listen to China, the Chinese are apparently not willing to come up with the needed aid themselves, but will tighten border controls, and hope for the best if North Korea collapses into disorder and civil war. The currency exchange two months ago did a great deal of economic and political damage....

China is telling North Korean leaders to deal with their economic problems, before they have to confront a widespread rebellion. China apparently sees North Koreas' best hope is to cut a deal with the West, to disarm and get massive food and economic aid. If North Korea does not listen to China, the Chinese are apparently not willing to come up with the needed aid themselves, but will tighten border controls, and hope for the best if North Korea collapses into disorder and civil war.

A competition between military leaders to show the most loyalty toward North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may have been behind the North’s firing artillery shells near the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea last week. But that may not have been the only motive. Kim Jong-il reportedly gave the go-ahead for the North’s military to fire shells and it’s possible the move was meant as a saber-rattling display intended to gain leverage with the United States. “It is highly likely that the reclusive nation’s excessive devotion to its leader led to the shooting,” a high-ranking South Korean defense official...

South Korea said Friday it had deployed advanced weapons-tracking radar systems on islands near its disputed Yellow Sea border with North Korea following last week's artillery barrages by the North. Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told lawmakers the AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder systems had been set up on Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong islands. "A few days ago, deployment of anti-artillery radar systems was completed," the minister was quoted as saying by Yonhap news agency. The system is designed to determine where incoming artillery and rocket fire originated, to allow for a possible counter-attack. After declaring two "no sail" zones, the communist state last week...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Friday it will release U.S. religious activist Robert Park, arrested in December for illegally entering the country in a journey to raise awareness about Pyongyang's human rights abuses. "The relevant organ of the DPRK (North Korea) decided to leniently forgive and release him, taking his admission and sincere repentance of his wrong doings into consideration," the state KCNA news agency said.

South Korea has been digging into North Korean weapons smuggling efforts, and has found an elaborate, and widespread network of organizations and people that make it all work. What gave South Korea an opportunity to penetrate this web of deception was the recent seizure of an Il-76 transport carrying 40 tons of North Korean weapons. The weapons laden Il-76 jet transport seized in Thailand last December turned out to be the third such aircraft to pass over Thailand recently. U.S. intelligence has been tracking cargo transports flying out of North Korea, and an increasing number of these flights take the...

Visiting North Korea some years ago, I was lucky to have a fairly genial "minder" whom I'll call Mr. Chae. He guided me patiently around the ruined and starving country, explaining things away by means of a sort of denial mechanism and never seeming to lose interest in the gargantuan monuments to the world's most hysterical and operatic leader-cult. One evening, as we tried to dine on some gristly bits of duck, he mentioned yet another reason why the day should not long be postponed when the whole peninsula was united under the beaming rule of the Dear Leader. The...

North Korea is expected to deploy a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching parts of the United States in the next decade, despite two long-range missile flight-test failures, according to the Pentagon's ballistic-missile defense review. The review report, made public this week, concluded that missile threats from several states, including Iran, Syria, China and Russia, are growing "quantitatively and qualitatively," and it outlined Pentagon plans for silo-based and mobile anti-missile systems to counter them. On North Korea, the report disclosed for the first time the U.S. intelligence estimate of when Pyongyang will be able to reach the technically challenging threshold of...

The head of North Korea's secret treasury, which is known as Room 39, has been fired according to reports. Kim Dong Un was replaced by his deputy, Jon Il Chun, according to Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, citing anonymous sources. Room 39 is one of the rogue state's most covert organisations, with a brief to obtain foreign currency for Kim Jong-il's personal funds. The money, according to analysts, is used by Kim to buy the loyalty of his top officials and maintain control of the country. The department is believed to run a series of business ventures that may...

Additional U.S. ground forces may not be able to arrive in South Korea in time in case of an emergency situation in North Korea due to America's heavy commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan, senior U.S. officials said Wednesday. "We could not get the Army units required for South Korea into South Korea on the time line required by the plan," Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. "That's not to say they wouldn't get there. It's just that they wouldn't get there as quickly because of the commitments that we have in Iraq...

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders Wednesday that he would keep North Korea off of a list of state sponsors of terror. Obama said in a leader to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the president of the Senate -- technically Vice President Joe Biden -- that he had concluded that the government of North Korea "does not meet the statutory criteria to again be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism." North Korea was removed from the state sponsor list in the waning days of President George W. Bush's time in office. Bush, who had labeled the nation a...

Before currency reform, food price in Pyongyang and Chongjin (in old denomination per kg) Between Sept. and Nov., 2009, rice: 1800~2400 won, corn: 800~1100 won After currency reform, rice price in Pyongyang and Chongjin (in new denomination per kg) date rice pricein new won contributing factor Dec.2009 1st ~ 9th  20~ 25 government institutes currency reform1 new won = 100 old won 10~15th  30~ 45 price in new currency would not settle properly, and price rises 20~30th  50~ 60 Public Security impose ban on the use of foreign currency on Dec. 28; price rises Jan.2010  1st~5th  80~120 price doubled...

North Korea 'struggling against civil unrest' The revaluation of the won has led to rampant inflation and civil disorder Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor The North Korean dictatorship is struggling to contain civil unrest and runaway inflation caused by a drastic revaluation of its won currency, which is threatening new food shortages in the already hungry nation, according to reports in South Korea. /snip Agents of the People’s Safety Agency (PSA), which is conducting a so-called “Fifty Day Battle” against illegal enterprise, were reported to have been attacked and driven away as they sought out market activity in the city...

North Korea has temporarily designated two more areas near the western maritime border with South Korea as "naval firing zones," raising the possibility of further artillery shelling in the Yellow Sea, informed sources said Wednesday. During a government-ruling party meeting held at the National Assembly, officials from the Defense Ministry briefed lawmakers that the communist country has designated an additional four-day naval firing period for the two zones effective from Feb. 5, according to sources privy to the meeting. "It is possible that the North may show further provocations considering the redesignation of the naval firing zone," the official said....

Violence in N.Korea as hunger woes mount: reports AFP February 3, 2010, 1:15 am SEOUL (AFP) - Angry North Koreans have attacked security agents as hunger woes mount following a crackdown on free-market trade, according to reports on Tuesday from groups in Seoul with contacts in the communist state. Social unrest and riots have flared since a shock currency revaluation by Pyongyang last November worsened shortages of food and other goods for an increasingly desperate population, they said. /snip "Therefore, people are taking revenge on agents, since they feel so desperate that regardless of their actions, they will die," the...

shipment of weapons from North Korea seized by Thai authorities last month were headed for Iran, according to a confidential report the Thai government sent to a U.N. Security Council committee. Thai authorities seized more than 35 tons of arms from a cargo plane they said had come from North Korea, and arrested its five crew members after the aircraft made an emergency landing at a Bangkok airport in December. The report to the Security Council's North Korea sanctions committee, seen by Reuters on Saturday, said the shipment included rockets, fuses, rocket launchers and rocket-propelled grenades. The cargo plane departed...

An American citizen who illegally recently entered North Korea reportedly told the North authorities that he came to the communist country because he "hates capitalism" and expressed desire to serve in the North Korean military, a South Korean major daily said on Saturday. Citing an unnamed North Korean source, the Donga Ilbo said the American citizen, whose identity has yet to be known, said he said he did not "want to become a cannon fodder in the capitalist military," and "wants to serve in the North Korean military."

The unnamed 28-year-old reportedly arrived from China on Monday, defecting to the north for ideological reasons according to North Koreans who spoke to the conservative Dong-A Ilbo daily newspaper, based in Seoul. "I came here because I did not want to serve as a cannon fodder in the capitalist military," the American was quoted as saying. "I want to serve in the North Korean army." American State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the report was being investigated but said there was no information on the man's name, occupation, or the circumstances in which he entered North Korea. The American...

South Korea's military is considering positioning a weapon-locating radar system on islands near the Yellow Sea border, in a bid to better monitor artillery firing by North Korea, a lawmaker who was briefed on the plan said Friday. In a meeting with lawmakers of the National Assembly defense committee, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said that the military will push to deploy artillery hunting radars, called TPQ, on Baengnyeong Island and Yeonpyeong Island just south of the western inter-Korean sea border, Rep. Kim Hak-song who chairs the committee said.The radar system is capable of detecting hostile artillery by tracking projectiles in...

The communist country carried out live fire exercises from Wednesday through to Friday, firing hundreds of shells into the ocean just north of the sea border. "Today, there has been no artillery fire" by the North near the sea border, a defence ministry spokesman told AFP. North Korea has declared two no-sail zones that straddle the disputed maritime border, effective until March 29, raising tensions on the Korean peninsula. "We're keeping a close watch over the North as it may launch ground-to-ship missiles near the sea border or carry out other provocative acts," an unidentified military official was quoted as...

A second US citizen who was detained by North Korea for crossing the border has sought political asylum in the communist state, a South Korean newspaper said Saturday. snip He crossed the border near the city of Tumen in northeast China into North Korea's Onsong County on Monday, the daily said. "I came here because I did not want to serve as a cannon fodder in the capitalist military. I want to serve in the North Korean army," the American was quoted as telling North Koreans, according to the daily. However his identity including his name and occupation remained unknown,...

If there's one sure way to infuriate the North Koreans, it's to talk of "regime collapse" and "contingency planning". As far as Pyongyang is concerned, such speculation is proof positive of United States-led plotting of a "pre-emptive strike". Against this background, one should not be surprised if the North Koreans see a study conducted by Rand Corporation analyst Bruce Bennett and Dartmouth College scholar Jennifer Lind as the most conclusive evidence to date that the planning is in an advanced stage. Considering Rand's contracts with the U.S. defense establishment, one has to perceive the study as a scenario for an...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea has informed the United States it is holding a second U.S. citizen, the State Department said on Friday. "We haven't been informed by the North Korean government that it is holding an American citizen who allegedly entered North Korea from China on January 25," U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters.

No one should imagine that American missionary Robert Park is getting the same relatively benign treatment at the hands of his North Korean "hosts" as the two American women who were held in the North for 140 days last year.

(LEAD) N. Korea restarts artillery firing near western sea border: official SEOUL, Jan. 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Thursday resumed firing artillery shells toward a South Korean island near the inter-Korean maritime border in the Yellow Sea, a defense official in Seoul said. North Korea began to shoot toward the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong from 8:15 a.m., with all the shells landing in the North's own waters north of the Northern Limit Line (NLL), the Seoul official said, requesting anonymity as he was unauthorized to speak to media.

North Korea fires more artillery: report (2010-01-27) (Reuters) - SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea fired more artillery in the direction of a disputed naval border with South Korea on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency said, hours after the rivals had an initial exchange that stoked regional security tensions. North Korea said the earlier firing was part of routine military drills and it would fire more into the waters that were inside its territory.

SNIPPET: SEOUL, Jan 27, 2010 (AFP) - South Korea's spy agency said Wednesday it had issued an alert against cyberattacks aimed at stealing data from government networks. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) did not say whether North Korea was responsible. Open Radio for North Korea, a Seoul-based group specialising in the North, said the latest attack was led by Pyongyang, which runs elite hacker units. The NIS said its alert was heightened "from normal to concern" on Monday after a massive inflow of overseas hacking attacks. The attacks were aimed at stealing data from government and other state networks, it...

More so than in most other places, modeling and simulation are critical to training in Korea. Units in Korea do not have access to live combat training centers such as those found in the United States and Europe. Large-scale maneuver training areas, for example, are limited. Environmental and political restrictions severely limit training and traffic congestion curtails the ability of units to get to training areas. Modeling and simulations are a cost-effective means of overcoming these obstacles. Exercise Key Resolve is an annual training event that is designed to ensure that the Combined Forces Command (CFC) is ready to defend...

SEOUL (Reuters) - North and South Korea exchanged artillery fire near their disputed sea border on Wednesday, the second time in three months the rivals have clashed and briefly sending prices down on jittery Seoul financial markets. Analysts doubted the latest clash would escalate and saw it more as an attempt by Pyongyang to stress the instability on the Korean peninsula and press home its demand for a peace deal that would open the way to international aid for its ruined economy. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North fired artillery shots from land toward the South but...

North Korea has announced a shipping exclusion zone off part of its west coast, a South Korean military official said Tuesday, a move which in the past has sometimes preceded missile test-launches. The official confirmed to AFP that the North had banned shipping from an area in the Yellow Sea but gave no details. Yonhap news agency said Seoul was watching to see if there were any preparations for a missile launch. The agency, quoting an unidentified Seoul military official, said the communist state declared a "No sail" zone south of the disputed sea border between the two countries. The...

North Korea's military declared a no-sail zone off its west coast, including waters around South Korea's border islands, in an indication that it is ready to fire missiles into the South's territorial waters. The North's navy warned ships from sailing in designated waters along the maritime border, a move that preceded previous missile test-launches, defense officials in Seoul said Tuesday. The warning went into effect Monday and it to last until March 29. The no-navigation zone covers an area 2.5 miles south of the Northern Limit Line, an inter-Korean maritime border demarcated by the United Nations after the 1950-53 Korean...

SEOUL (Reuters) – North and South Korea on Wednesday exchanged what appeared to be artillery fire near a disputed sea border with the South off the west coast of the peninsula, Yonhap news agency reported government officials as saying. South Korea's presidential Blue House said both sides were firing into the air and there were no casualties, according to Yonhap. It has called a meeting of top national security officials. The rare exchange of fire rattled markets, with Seoul's main stock exchange extending losses and the won wiping out early gains against the dollar. North Korea on Tuesday declared a...

SEOUL, Jan 27 (Reuters) - South Korea has returned fire after North Korea shot several artillery rounds into waters near a disputed sea border with the South on Wednesday, Yonhap news agency reported an unnamed military source as saying. North Korea on Tuesday declared a no-sail zone in the waters off its west coast, according to media reports in the South. (Reporting by Jon Herskovitz and Jack Kim; Editing by Jonathan Hopfner)

Iran has acquired surface-to-air missiles modified with chemical weapons. Western intelligence sources said Iran has acquired modified SA-2 air defense systems from North Korea. They said Pyongyang has converted the SA-2 from a surface-to-air to a surface-to-surface missile. "The North Koreans took an old clunky SAM system and turned it into a tactical non-conventional missile with excellent accuracy," an intelligence source said. The sources said Iran was believed to have acquired the converted SA-2 in 2008. The system has been deployed along the Iranian coast near Qatar in what has become escalated regional tension. The heritage SA-2, a 1950s-era Soviet...

North Korea threatened war Sunday after South Korea warned of launching a pre-emptive strike if the North was preparing a nuclear attack — the latest salvo in a battle of rhetoric despite signs of improved cooperation across the militarized frontier. The North's military said it would take prompt and decisive military action against any South Korean attempt to violate North Korea's dignity and sovereignty and would blow up major targets in the South, including its command center. "Our revolutionary armed forces will regard the scenario for 'pre-emptive strike,' which the South Korean puppet authorities adopted as a 'state policy,' as...

Beneath a lavish palace used by the North Korean supreme leader, the interior of Mount Baekdusan has been excavated and can store helicopters and fighter jets that can take off from a nearby airfield, according to the military analysis experts of the Kanwa Information Centre's Hong Kong bureau. "This whole region is historically significant to the entire regime because this is where Kim Il-Song, Kim's father, staged his guerrilla campaign against the Japanese during the occupation in the early decades of the last century," said Andrei Chang, author of the report. "We believe this would be the last place that...

Japanese researchers announced their discovery that the North Korean Taepodong 2 missile that was tested last April, was eight times more accurate than the Taepodong 1 that was tested in 1998. No precise figures were given, but it's likely that accuracy for the Taepodong 2 is several hundred meters (the radius of the circle the missile warhead is likely to land in). North Korea has been working on Taepodong 2 for over a decade. The earlier model Taepodong 1, launched in1998, went about 1,500 kilometers. A 2006 Taepodong 2 test barely got off the ground before crashing. Last Aprils test...

South Korea's defense chief called Wednesday for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea if there is a clear indication the country is preparing a nuclear attack. The comments, made as the two sides held a second day of talks on further developing their joint industrial complex in the North, were likely to draw an angry reaction from Pyongyang, which recently issued its own threat to break off dialogue with Seoul and attack. South Korea should "immediately launch a strike" on the North if there is a clear intention of a pending nuclear attack, Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said at a...

As expected, North Korea now demands that sanctions be lifted and a peace treaty with the United States be negotiated and signed, before there can be any resumption of talks about North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The U.S. quickly turned this down, and told North Korea to start negotiating, or else they can starve in the dark. Another demand, that South Korea dump "North Korea Collapse Contingency Plans" before negotiations resume between the two Koreas was dismissed by South Korean officials. North Korea has been making that demand for years. The demands are always ignored, and North Korea always moves...

Think Tank Predicts Kim Jong-il's Death in 2012 North Korean leader Kim Jong-il may not survive the year 2012 and massive unrest is likely to follow his death, the state-run Korea Institute for National Unification speculates. A military coup, riots, massacres and a massive exodus could follow Kim's death, KINU said in its report. It is rare for a state-run South Korean think tank to go into such detail in forecasting changes in North Korea in a publicly issued report since such speculation is a red rag to Pyongyang. On Friday, North Korea's powerful National Defense Commission vowed a "sacred...

In South Korea, the Ministry of Defense has got its new Cyber War Center operational . In addition to this military Cyber War unit, South Korea is forming a cyber police force to help protect commercial and government organizations from hackers. The new organization is part of the National Intelligence Service (South Korea's CIA) and hired 3,000 Internet security experts. These agents work with victims of Internet crime, coordinating the use of other government agencies to catch the hackers, and develop improved security. All of this is in response to the growing number of Internet based attacks coming from North...

North Korea has threatened to stop dialogue with South Korean authorities following Seoul's adoption of a contingency plan in case of instability in North Korea. "The South Korean authorities must clearly realize that until they sincerely apologize for criminal actions against our republic, they will be fully excluded from all talks and dialogue on improving relations between the North and South, and ensuring peace and security on the Korean Peninsula," the North Korean Defense Commission said in a statement Friday as quoted by Korean Central News Agency. On Thursday, South Korean media reported that Seoul had adopted a plan to...

01-09-2010 21:52 Kim Jong-il Determined to Feed His People North Korea's paramount leader Kim Jong-il is reportedly determined to realize his father's will, which he has so far failed to achieve: feeding the people. "I am resolute in my determination to enhance people's living standards in the shortest possible time so that they don't have to envy the life of people in other countries," he said, according to a North Korea's official Web site, Uriminjokkiri. Kim's father, Kim Il-sung, was a famous guerilla fighter against the Japanese colonial occupiers and founded the nation. Kim Il-sung left a will that called...

Two U.S.-based scientists said Sunday they've located the site of North Korea's second nuclear test last year more precisely than ever before, pinpointing it just 2 kilometers off the place where the first test was conducted in 2006. Lianxing Wen, a geophysics professor at the State University of New York in Stony Brook, and his graduate student, Hui Long, located the epicenter of the second nuclear test on May 5 last year with a margin of error of only 140 meters, compared with 3.8 kilometers achieved by the U.S. Geological Survey. "We locate the 2009 test at 723 meters north...

South Korean diplomats and intelligence agencies believe that North Korea began developing a uranium nuclear bomb shortly after it signed a treaty, in 1994, to halt development of a plutonium bomb. When the new uranium program was discovered in 2002 (largely because a North Korean defector pointed it out for US spy satellites), North Korea basically said, "so what?" To the northerners, their secret program was based on a different technology (enriched uranium gas diffusion, apparently bought from Pakistan) that was not covered by the plutonium agreement. The 1994 treaty was very generous for the north. In addition to six...

/begin my translation N. Korean Tank Unit Engaged in Mock Attack on S. Korea While Kim Jong-il Watching N. Korean leader Kim Jong-il watched the training exercise by a battalion of 105th Tank Division(full name is longer,) according to the Jan. 5 report of N. Korea's Central TV. The pictures show such markings as "Honam Express Way" "Cholla Namdo" (mock S. Korean road signs.) The marking next to the tank says, "Central Express Way: Chunchon to Pusan 374km" Below two tanks passing by, there is another marking, barely legible, saying, "Honam Express Way..." /end my translation