Tag: North Korea

I am sure Ms. Stephens feels like she is doing something positive, but in my opinion she is just enabling the Kim regime to receive tourism dollars that ultimately goes to funding their nuclear and missile programs that threatens regional peace:

When British traveler Zoe Stephens, 30, decided to tour North Korea for the first time in 2017, she didn’t think she would be doing it for a living.

“I went to North Korea as a tourist first, pretty much the same way as everyone else. I realized it’s nothing like what the media says,” she told The Korea Herald. She said “the real North Korea” took her by surprise and charmed her.

“So I decided that I wanted to start doing tours to show everyone what the media wasn’t showing — the human side to North Korea.”

Since then she has visited North Korea more than two dozen times, staying as long as a month at a time until the pandemic shut down the borders. She eventually began working as a tour guide for a Beijing-based company Koryo Tours, which mainly offers travel programs to North Korea.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but Ms. Stephens claims she has free access to go around the country and take pictures. However, I doubt they are taking her to the labor camps and firing squads. Keep that in mind every time someone tells you how great North Korea is to visit.

This is interesting because it is very rare for a North Korean Soldiers to defect across the DMZ like this. It causing officials to wonder if Seoul’s newly started propaganda broadcasts might be having an effect:

A North Korean soldier crossed the border into South Korea early Tuesday in the latest defection amid Seoul’s propaganda campaign in response to Pyongyang’s s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

The South Korean military detected the soldier from north of the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas in the eastern section of the border and conducted an operation to help him arrive in the South.

The North Korean, wearing a military uniform, is believed to have walked southward through a path located near the Donghae road along the east coast — one of the two rare roads connecting the two Koreas where the North has installed mines and removed street lights. (….)

The defection came just 12 days after a North Korean resident defected to the South by crossing the neutral zone of the Han River estuary located west of the inter-Korean land border.

It also came as South Korea has been conducting full-scale anti-Pyongyang broadcasts, including news and K-pop music, daily through its border loudspeakers since mid-July in response to the North’s repeated launches of trash-carrying balloons.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is what President Yoon recently had to say about North Korea’s gray zone attacks:

President Yoon Suk Yeol called for bolstering readiness against North Korea’s “gray zone” provocations and hybrid warfare as South Korea and the United States kicked off their annual joint exercise on Monday. (…….)

Yoon warned that the North might seek to create social instability through violence, propaganda and agitation at the early stages of a conflict.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but isn’t Yoon basically describing the Korean left? Violence, propaganda, and agitation is what they specialize in.

Goats may be one of the few things that Russia sends to North Korea that doesn’t violate UN sanctions, not that they care about UN sanctions in the first place:

 Russia’s agriculture safety watchdog has approved the shipment of 447 goats to North Korea after reviewing related veterinary and sanitary conditions, according to its website, amid deepening cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow.

After veterinary inspection, 432 female and 15 male goats were sent to a North Korean trading company in the first batch of exports of live animals to the North, according to a statement posted on the website of Russia’s Rosselkhoznadzor on Friday.

The shipment was intended to be delivered from Russia’s Leningrad region to North Korea’s border city of Rason, it said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear if Kim Jong-un wants something he will get it despite the sanctions on North Korea:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un appears to be using a new model of a Mercedes-Benz SUV in a move snubbing international sanctions banning North Korea’s imports of luxury items.

Photos carried by the Korean Central News Agency on Saturday showed a black Mercedes-Benz SUV on a special train that Kim used to visit flood-hit areas of Uiju County in the northwestern province of North Phyongan last week.

The SUV is presumed to be the top-class model of the face-lifted Mercedes-Maybach GLS 600 4MATIC that was launched in April in South Korea. The price tag started at 279 million won (US$204,000).

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a low cost provocation that North Korea could probably keep doing indefinitely to keep the pressure on the Yoon administration over the propaganda balloon launches:

North Korea launched balloons presumed to be carrying trash toward South Korea again Saturday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, marking a resumption after more than two weeks.

The JCS said it detected the launches, noting the possibility of the balloons traveling toward the northern part of Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul despite winds blowing in northern and northeastern directions.

It warned the public of falling objects and not to touch the balloons if discovered, requesting they report them to the military or police.

North Korea has launched more than 3,600 trash balloons since May 28 in a tit-for-tat move against balloons carrying anti-Pyongyang leaflets flown by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea. Pyongyang last sent the balloons on July 24.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This should not be really surprising that North Korea has rejected international flood aid. The international community should not have been offering it anyway because if North Korea has money to build nuclear weapons and ICBMs they can provide their own disaster relief:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has pledged to bring victims of recent heavy downpours to the capital city of Pyongyang to take care of them without outside help, state media said Saturday.

Kim made a two-day trip on Thursday and Friday to Uiju County in the northwestern province of North Pyongan to meet flood victims staying at a temporary shelter and offered support, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. 

He announced “an emergency system” to bring children, the elderly, disabled soldiers and mothers in North Pyongan, Jagang and Ryanggang provinces to Pyongyang to provide support in the next two to three months until the reconstruction and repair of their homes are completed, saying about 15,400 people could be brought to the capital city.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

North Korea has enough money to build nuclear weapons, ICBMs, and a space program; I am sure they can find funding if they wanted to provide aid to these flood victims. Additionally if the ROK did provide aid how could they monitor it is actually going to the flood victims and not the military?:

South Korea on Thursday proposed providing humanitarian aid to North Korea over damage from the recent downpours in its northern border areas along the Amnok River, as the North is believed to have sustained huge casualties.

The unification ministry said it is willing to urgently support the North Korean flood victims with the necessary supplies from a humanitarian and fraternal perspective through the Korean Red Cross.

“We are ready to discuss the items, scale and method of support with the North Korean counterpart. We expect North Korea’s swift response,” said Park Jong-sul, secretary general of the Korean Red Cross, expressing his “deep sympathy” for the victims.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.