Free Republic

Japan has acted to further tighten restrictions on cash flowing to Pyongyang following the North's torpedo attack on a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors There are some 600,000 ethnic Koreans in Japan, many of whose ancestors were forcibly repatriated by Japan's wartime military as slave laborers during Tokyo's 1910-1945 occupation. Of these, about 200,000 are pro-Pyongyang Koreans affiliated with the Chongryon organization, while the rest favor the South. Many Chongryon members run coin-operated gambling parlors equipped with slots and pachinko machines. The North Korean regime has demanded residents in Japan who have relatives in the North to send...

N. Korea calls on U.N. to investigate Japan for human rights abuses (Kyodo) _ North Korea has written letters to the United Nations calling for a human rights investigation into Japan's treatment of Koreans resident in Japan, the official Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday. "The DPRK permanent representative at the United Nations sent letters to the U.N. secretary general and the president of the U.N. General Assembly on July 6 as regards the Japanese authorities' evermore pronounced suppression of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon)," KCNA said. DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name,...

Chongryon asset fraud suspects may have faked investors (Kyodo) _ Disgraced former intelligence chief Shigetake Ogata's aborted 3.5 billion yen deal to buy the head office of the pro-Pyongyang Korean residents group Chongryon may have been based on a fictitious investment scheme planned from the beginning, investigative sources said Monday. Koji Kawae, a former bank official arrested with Ogata last Thursday on suspicion of fraud in connection with the deal, has told prosecutors he was instructed by Ogata to "pretend" to be looking for investors to finance the transaction, the sources said. Ogata, a 73-year-old prosecutor-turned-lawyer who formerly headed the...

North Korea says Japan unfit for nuclear talks By Reuters Sunday July 1, 09:30 PM SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea accused Japan on Sunday of trying to disband a pro-Pyongyang group of ethnic Koreans and said Tokyo's "dastardly" behaviour casts doubts whether it is fit to sit at six-way talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programme. North Korea has previously discredited Japan's role at the six-way talks, which also group South Korea, Russia, China and the United States, but agreed in a February nuclear disarmament deal to work on improving ties with Tokyo. A Tokyo court in June cleared the way for...