North Korea

[JohnnyRico]

Chinese jet in near miss with North Korean missile

Shenyang-bound flight missed shot by minutes, but could have been hit on rocket’s descent

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 05 March, 2014, 6:52pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 05 March, 2014, 11:13pm

Agencies in Seoul

A China Southern Airlines airplane carrying 220 passengers passed through the trajectory of a North Korean rocket (seen on the news in Seoul above). Photos: AP, Reuters

A China Southern Airlines aircraft carrying 220 passengers passed through the trajectory of a rocket launched seven minutes earlier by North Korea, a South Korean official said.

Flight CZ628 was headed to Shenyang in Liaoning province after taking off from Narita airport in Japan when North Korea fired the missile at 4.17pm on Tuesday, South Korean defence ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

The jet was flying over international waters at an altitude of 10,000 metres at 4.24pm when it crossed the trajectory of the missile, which reached a height of 20 kilometres, Kim said.

"The rocket could have hit the plane on its way down," Kim said. "North Korea had not given any warning. It was an unexpected and immoral act that goes against international norms."

He said the ministry had notified China through "certain channels" of the closeness of the trajectory of the missile and the passenger jet.

The North Korea missile launches coincide with joint US-South Korean military drills that the Kim Jong-un regime has denounced as a rehearsal for war. The missile launches began on February 21, disrupting a period of easing tensions between the two Koreas highlighted by the first reunions in more than three years of families divided by the 1950-1953 war.

South Korea's Defence Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok. Photo: EPA

North Korea fired seven short-range missiles into the sea yesterday, including four that the South Korean defence ministry estimated flew more than 150 kilometres, far enough to reach its capital Seoul.

The rockets hit their targeted areas off the eastern coast "precisely", the official Korean Central News Agency said, citing a North Korean military spokesman it did not identify.

In the report, the military spokesman said North Korea had the right to launch rockets in self-defence and would not abandon its nuclear deterrent for the sake of dialogue.

All North Korean troops were on "special alert" in response to the joint US-South Korean drills that began on February 24, senior South Korea defence ministry official Kim Kwang-woo said at a parliamentary defence committee hearing yesterday.

He said the North was also continuing construction at its long-range missile launch site.

Addressing the same committee in Seoul, South Korean Defence Minister Kim Kwan-jin said the North's tests were clearly meant to be provocative.

"Our military is closely monitoring for additional launches," Kim said. "It's difficult to predict North Korea's actions. I don't exclude the possibility of the North conducting additional long-range missile launches or a nuclear test," he said.

However, he said that there were no signs a nuclear test was imminent.

South Korea diverted its commercial airplanes to avoid collisions before the North launched long-range rockets in 2012. However, Kim said short-range launches like those conducted on Tuesday could not be predicted.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang called on all sides to exercise "calm and restraint" to avoid any further escalation of tensions.

China Southern Airlines' public relations department did not respond to requests for comment on the flight yesterday.

Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse

 

[JohnnyRico]

Sanctions probe into gifts taken to North Korea by Dennis Rodman

PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 05 March, 2014, 11:17pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 05 March, 2014, 11:17pm

Reuters in New York

Dennis Rodman

A group of United Nations sanctions experts has been investigating former basketball star Dennis Rodman over gifts he took to North Korea.

While the UN Panel of Experts, an independent body that monitors compliance with the UN's North Korea sanctions regime, did not explicitly accuse Rodman of violating the ban on luxury goods, it suggested his actions may have represented a breach of international restrictions.

On his latest trip to North Korea in January, Rodman was accompanied by other former National Basketball Association players for an exhibition game in Pyongyang. He sang Happy Birthday to Kim Jong-un at an event marking what was believed to be the leader's 31st birthday.

"Media reports … corroborated by the panel indicate that among items taken by Dennis Rodman and his party during their visits were sporting goods from various countries, five bottles of vodka (United States) taken by Rodman and one bottle of whiskey (Ireland)," the report says.

The report also refers to other gifts, including "two whiskey glasses and one whiskey decanter (Ireland), and a Mulberry handbag (United Kingdom) taken by Paddy Power, a company based in Ireland".

The former basketball star's trips had previously been financed by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power, although it has since withdrawn its backing. Rodman used his first visit in 2013 to promote his own vodka brand.

There is a ban on the export of luxury goods to North Korea under sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in response to Pyongyang's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests and several missile launches.

On his most recent visit, an agitated, drunken Rodman gave an interview to CNN suggesting that Kenneth Bae, an American missionary imprisoned in North Korea, was responsible for his own fate.

Rodman checked himself into a substance abuse rehabilitation centre shortly after returning from North Korea

 

[JohnnyRico]

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[JohnnyRico]

Powerful N.Korean Hardliner Resurfaces on TV

chosun / Mar. 07, 2014 11:21 KST

North Korea's state-run TV on Wednesday broadcast footage showing military politburo chief Choe Ryong-hae, suggesting that rumors of his imprisonment were exaggerated.

In this screen grab from [North] Korean Central TV, military politburo chief Choe Ryong-hae (back) accompanies leader Kim Jong-un at an artillery firing competition believed to have taken place after Feb. 23.

Choe was seen walking behind leader Kim Jong-un with a visible limp.

Though considered the new power behind the throne since the execution of Kim's uncle Jang Song-taek, Choe had been rumored to be behind bars after he was absent from major events in recent weeks.

 

[JohnnyRico]

North Korean No 2 reappears, quashing purge rumours

Speculation about leadership changes in Pyongyang have intensified following execution of Kim Jong-un’s uncle Jang Song-thaek in December

PUBLISHED : Friday, 07 March, 2014, 3:07pm
UPDATED : Friday, 07 March, 2014, 4:08pm

Agence France-Presse in Seoul

Choe Ryong-hae. Photo: Xinhua

North Korea’s state media published photos on Friday of Vice Marshall Choe Ryong-hae, quashing intense speculation that the man seen as the number two to paramount leader Kim Jong-un had been purged.

Choe Ryong-hae (left) is seen in a picture in the Rodong Sinmun. Photo: SCMP Pictures

The photo showing Choe accompanying Kim on an inspection of an air force unit on Thursday ran on the front page of the ruling Workers’ Party official newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun.

It was Choe’s first public appearance since February 16 – an unusually long absence for such a senior figure and one which triggered numerous reports that he had been purged.

Speculation about changes in the top leadership in Pyongyang has intensified following the execution in December of Kim’s uncle and political mentor, Jang Song-thaek.

Like Choe now, Jang had been seen as the unofficial number two in the hierarchy when he fell from grace.

Reports that Choe had been purged first surfaced in the South Korean media, which cited sources as saying he had been arrested and detained by the North’s Military Security Command (MSC).

“This underscores the risks involved in putting out news stories based on wild rumours which are fed by unidentified sources located far away from Pyongyang,” Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the Sejong Institute in Seoul said on Friday after Choe’s photo was published.

But the closely followed website NK Leadership Watch, noted that Choe’s reappearance did not necessarily mean the reports of his arrest by the MSC were completely erroneous.

“In the past, senior cadres have been held by the security services for interrogation – intended to serve as a warning to the cadre and his cohort – then eventually returned to their former positions,” it said.

The fact that Choe was not seen at a number of key events in the past three weeks, could suggest he has lost his place in Kim’s inner circle.

 

[JohnnyRico]

TV Show Features Women Who Escaped North Korea

AssociatedPress
Published on Mar 8, 2014

<iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/2RCVt7IbLHA?rel=0" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="560"></iframe>

A popular South Korean television show plays host to some very unusual guests - North Korean defectors.

"Now On My Way to Meet You" is a part talk, part talent show that features attractive women who fled the North in search of a better life. (March 8)

 

[JohnnyRico]

North Koreans vote in parliament 'election' that may offer clues to shifts in power

Election of representatives to the Supreme People's Assembly doubles as national head count with the turnout above 90 per cent

PUBLISHED : Sunday, 09 March, 2014, 12:47pm
UPDATED : Monday, 10 March, 2014, 10:32am

Agence France-Presse in Seoul

Voters line up to cast ballots to elect deputies to a new national legislature in Pyongyang. The official turnout for the election in 2009 was put at 99.98 per cent. Photo: AP

North Koreans have voted in a pre-determined election for a rubber-stamp parliament - an exercise that usually doubles as a national head count and may offer clues to any power shifts in Pyongyang.

The vote to elect representatives for the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA) was taking place as scheduled, the state-run KCNA news agency said, adding that voter turnout was 91 per cent as of 2pm yesterday.

Those who are ill or infirm and cannot travel to polling stations are casting votes at special "mobile ballot boxes", it added.

"Overjoyed" voters rushed to polling stations across the country from early in the morning, the news agency claimed, adding many danced and played music on the street in praise of the leader, Kim Jong-un.

The North's state TV showed hundreds of people across the country clad in brightly coloured traditional dresses dancing in circles on the street.

State-run media have in recent weeks stepped up propaganda to promote the election, with a number of poems produced to celebrate voting under titles including The Billows of Emotion and Happiness and We Go To Polling Station.

Apart from the physical casting of votes, there is nothing democratic about the ballot. The results are a foregone conclusion, with only one approved candidate standing for each of the 687 districts.

It was the first election to the SPA under the leadership of Kim, who took over the reins of power on the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011.

And like his father before him, Kim stood as a candidate - in constituency number 111, Mount Paektu.

Koreans have traditionally attributed divine status to Mount Paektu and, according to the North's official propaganda, Kim Jong-il was born on its slopes.

Elections are normally held every five years to the SPA, which only meets once or twice a year, mostly for a day-long session, to rubber-stamp budgets or other decisions made by the ruling Workers' Party.

The last session in April 2013 adopted a special ordinance formalising the country's position as a nuclear weapons state - a status that both South Korea and the United States have vowed not to recognise.

Kim Jong-un

The real interest for outside observers is the final list of candidates or winners - both lists being identical.

Many top Korean officials are members of the parliament, and the election is an opportunity to see if any established names are absent.

It comes at a time of heightened speculation over the stability of Kim's regime.

Kim has already overseen sweeping changes within the North's ruling elite.

"It's a chance to see who might be tagged for key roles under Kim Jong-un," said Professor Yang Moo-jin of the University for North Korean Studies.

"The list of names can also point to what, if any, generational changes have been made and what policy directions Kim Jong-un might be favouring," Yang said.

In the absence of any competing candidates, voters are simply required to mark "yes" next to the name on the ballot sheet.

"Let us all cast 'yes' votes," said one of many election banners that state TV showed being put up in the capital Pyongyang.

And they do. The official turnout at the last election in 2009 was put at 99.98 per cent of registered voters, with 100 per cent voting for the approved candidate in each seat.

For the North Korean authorities, the vote effectively doubles as a census, as election officials visit every home in the country to ensure all registered voters are present and correct.

"At any other point in the year, family members of missing persons can get away with lying or bribing surveillance agents, saying that the person they are looking for is trading in another district's market," said New Focus International, a defector-run website dedicated to North Korean news.

"But it is during an election period that a North Korean individual's escape to China or South Korea becomes exposed," it said.

Ahn Chan-Il, a defector who heads the World Institute for North Korea Studies in Seoul, said the crackdown was undermining the accuracy of the census, with many local officials not daring to report people missing from their neighbourhood.

"Otherwise, they would find themselves in trouble as it's their responsibility," Ahn said.

 

[JohnnyRico]

Kim Jong-un’s little sister revealed to the world in ‘election day’ stunt

PUBLISHED : Monday, 10 March, 2014, 12:10pm
UPDATED : Monday, 10 March, 2014, 12:10pm

Agence France-Presse in Seoul

Kim Yo-jong walks behind her older brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, as they arrive to cast their ballots for the election of a deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly at the Kim Il-sung University of Politics. Photo: AFP

The younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has made an official debut of sorts, consolidating the grip on power of the ruling Kim dynasty’s third generation.

Kim Yo-jong, believed to be 26, accompanied her elder brother to a polling station on Sunday when North Korea held stage-managed elections to its rubber stamp parliament.

It was not her first appearance. She was shown on state television in 2011, tearfully standing next to Kim Jong-un as they attended the funeral of their father and former ruler Kim Jong-il.

Since then she has occasionally been seen accompanying her brother on his “field guidance trips”.

Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, casting her ballot for the election of a deputy to the Supreme People's Assembly at the Kim Il-sung University of Politics. Photo: AFP

Sunday’s outing was different as she was, for the first time, officially listed by her name and as a “senior official” attending the voting function along with several top party and army luminaries.

State TV footage showed Kim in a black skirt suit, walking closely behind her brother and casting her vote into a ballot box.

Her precise position was not detailed, but she is believed to be the events director in Kim Jong-un’s Secretariat Office.

In 2012, Kim Yo-jong was seen on state TV riding a white horse - a common propaganda symbol associated with the Kim family - with her aunt, Kim Kyong-hui.

As Kim Jong-il’s sister, Kim Kyong-hui was an enormously powerful and influential figure who was given the rank of a four-star general.

Together with her husband, Jang Song-thaek, she was seen as the power behind Kim Jong-un’s throne, until the young leader had Jang purged and executed last year.

Ahn Chan-il, head of Seoul-based World Institute for North Korea Studies, said Kim Yo-jong was being groomed to play the same supporting role as her aunt.

“Kim Jong-un and Kim Yo-jong will work in a similar way as their father and Kim Kyong-hui did in securing the future of the Kim dynasty,” Ahn said.

“And Kim Kyong-hui will eventually leave official life as part of the power shift within the family,” he said.

Kim Kyong-hui, 67, has barely been seen in recent years, with reports that she was seriously ill and had sought hospital treatment overseas.

The Kim family has ruled the country for more than six decades with an iron first wrapped in a pervasive personality cult.

 

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[Boba Fett]

North Korea using ‘sophisticated means’ to avoid UN sanctions: report

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 3:47pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 3:47pm

Reuters in Seoul

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visting the Kim Il-sung University of Politics. Photo: AFP

North Korea has developed sophisticated techniques to circumvent UN sanctions, including the suspected use of its embassies to facilitate an illegal trade in weapons, a United Nations report said.

It said North Korea was also making use of more complicated financial countermeasures that made the isolated country’s purchase of prohibited goods more difficult to track.

The report, compiled by a panel of eight UN experts, is part of an annual accounting of North Korea’s compliance with layers of UN sanctions imposed in response to Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programmes. The panel reports to the UN Security Council.

“From the incidents analysed in the period under review, the panel has found that (North Korea) makes increasing use of multiple and tiered circumvention techniques,” a summary of the 127-page report said.

It said North Korean embassies in Cuba and Singapore were suspected of organising an illegal shipment of fighter jets and missile parts that were seized on a North Korean container ship in Panama last July.

Panama seized the Chong Chon Gang ship for smuggling Soviet-era arms, including two MiG-21 jet fighters, under thousands of tonnes of sugar. After the discovery, Cuba acknowledged it was sending “obsolete” Soviet-era weapons to be repaired in North Korea and returned to Cuba.

The North Korean embassy in Singapore could not be reached for comment while it was after hours in Cuba.

Chinpo Shipping, a shipping firm that the report said was “co-located” with the embassy in Singapore, acted as the agent for a Pyongyang-based company that operated the vessel, and North Korean diplomatic personnel in Cuba arranged the shipping of the concealed cargo.

A receptionist for Chinpo Shipping, reached by telephone, said the head of the company in Singapore was not available to comment.

The report also showed North Korea had gone to great lengths to obfuscate the origin of its merchant shipping fleet, and fostered a complicated corporate network outside the international financial system that it used to purchase both banned and permitted goods.

Under the UN sanctions, North Korea is banned from shipping and receiving cargo related to its nuclear and missile programmes. The importation of some luxury goods is also banned, along with the illicit transfer of bulk cash.

The panel cited an example of an “unusually complex” transaction involving a contract by Air Koryo, the national carrier, to purchase new aircraft in 2012.

It said 109 payments were structured through eight Hong Kong-registered companies, which asserted they were trading partners of Air Koryo and were wiring funds they owed it.

The purchase of civilian aircraft is not prohibited under UN sanctions, but some of the companies appeared to have been recently formed shell entities, the report said.

 

[Boba Fett]

Beijing urged to get tough with North Korea over missile near miss

A former senior officer in the PLA says the government has been too soft with Pyongyang after an airliner passed through the trajectory of a missile launched by its military

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 4:06pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 4:06pm

Zhang [email protected]

Viewers in South Korea watch a television report last week about the missile launch. Photo: AP

A former senior officer in the PLA has urged the government to take a tougher stance with North Korea after reports that a mainland airliner passed through the trajectory of rocket launched minutes earlier by Pyongyang.

Lieutenant-General Wang Hongguang, the former deputy commander of the Nanjing Military District Command, made the remarks in an article he wrote in the Global Times, which is controlled by the Communist Party newspaper the People’s Daily.

“North Korea’s military apparently ignored that a Chinese civil aircraft was approaching the danger zone, but still launched the rocket. Our authorities must not sit tight on this,” said Wang.

A South Korean defence ministry spokesman said last week that a China Southern Airlines aircraft flying from Japan to Shenyang in Liaoning province, carrying 220 passengers, crossed the trajectory of a missile fired by North Korea on March 4.

The jet was flying over international waters at an altitude of 10,000 metres and the rocket had been fired seven minutes earlier, spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing, Qin Gang, expressed Beijing’s displeasure last week.

“China will certainly verify the situation with the relevant party and convey our concern,” he said.

Lieutenant-General Wang said in his article that Beijing’s response had been too soft.

“It’s not appropriate to use such played-down wording. Instead, [they] must harshly criticise North Korea and ask them to promise no repeat of similar incidents,” he wrote.

Diplomatic analysts have suggested that China, a key ally of North Korea, has become concerned about the unpredictability of Pyongyang’s actions, including the execution of leader Kim Jong-un’s uncle last December.

Wang wrote another article in a magazine linked to the People’s Daily last October, saying North Korea’s nuclear programme posed a threat to China’s security.

 

[MasterYoda]

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take care my apprentice

 

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