North Korea says/does surprising and alarming thing - Page…

On September 10 2016 11:54 LegalLord wrote:
If I were the Chinese government I would also oppose a major, often not-so-friendly military power establishing a missile defense system a short distance from my country.

On September 10 2016 11:54 LegalLord wrote:
If I were the Chinese government I would also oppose a major, often not-so-friendly military power establishing a missile defense system a short distance from my country.

North Korea’s elite are outwardly expressing their discontent towards Kim Jong-un and his government as more outside information trickles into the isolated nation, the country’s former deputy ambassador to London has said.

Thae Yong-ho defected to South Korea in August last year and since December has been speaking to media and appearing on television to discuss his defection and his life as a North Korean envoy.

“When Kim Jong-un first came to power, I was hopeful that he would make reasonable and rational decisions to save North Korea from poverty, but I soon fell into despair watching him purging officials for no proper reasons,” Thae said during his first news conference with foreign media on Wednesday.

“Low-level dissent or criticism of the regime, until recently unthinkable, is becoming more frequent,” said Thae, who spoke in fluent, British-accented English. “We have to spray gasoline on North Korea, and let the North Korean people set fire to it.”

Thae, 54, has said publicly that dissatisfaction with Kim prompted him to flee his post. Two university-age sons and his wife defected with him.

North and South Korea are technically still at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. The north, which is subject to UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes, regularly threatens to destroy the south and its main ally, the US.

Thae is the most senior official to have fled North Korea and entered public life in the south since the 1997 defection of Hwang Jang-yop, the brains behind the North’s governing ideology, Juche, which combines Marxism and extreme nationalism.

The modern North Korean system had “nothing to do with true communism”, Thae said, adding that the elite had watched with unease as countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and the former Soviet Union embraced economic and social reforms.

Thae has said more North Korean diplomats are waiting in Europe to defect to South Korea.

North Korea still outwardly professes to maintain a Soviet-style command economy, but for years a thriving network of informal markets and person-to-person trading has become the main source of food and money for ordinary people.

Fully embracing these reforms would end Kim Jong-un’s rule, Thae said. Asked if Kim’s brother, Kim Jong-chol, could run the country, Thae was sceptical.

“Kim Jong-chol has no interest in politics. He is only interested in music,” Thae said. “He’s only interested in Eric Clapton. If he was a normal man, I’m sure he’d be a very good professional guitarist.”

SEOUL, South Korea — China said on Saturday that it was suspending all imports of coal from North Korea as part of its effort to enact United Nations Security Council sanctions aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program.

The ban takes effect on Sunday and will last until the end of the year, the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a brief statement posted on its website on Saturday. Chinese trade and aid have long been a vital economic crutch for North Korea, and the decision strips North Korea of one of its most important sources of foreign currency.

Coal has accounted for 34 percent to 40 percent of North Korean exports in the past several years, and almost all of it was shipped to China, according to South Korean government estimates.

The ban comes six days after the North Korean test of a ballistic missile that the Security Council condemned as a violation of its resolutions that prohibited the country from developing and testing ballistic missile technology.

In the test, North Korea claimed that it had successfully launched a new type of nuclear-capable missile. It said its intermediate-range Pukguksong-2 missile used a solid-fuel technology that American experts say will make it harder to detect missile attacks from the North.

In the resolution it adopted in November in response to the North’s fifth and most powerful nuclear test, the Security Council said that North Korea should not be allowed to export more than 7.5 million metric tons of coal a year or bring in more than $400 million in coal sales, whichever limit is met first. It was unclear whether that cap has already been reached for this year.

Officials of the United States and its allies, including President Trump, have suggested that China, North Korea’s principal economic patron, should be more aggressive in enforcing sanctions. But while it does not approve of the North’s weapons program, China has also been seen as reluctant to inflict crippling pain on North Korea, for fear that it might destabilize its Communist neighbor.

In April, China announced that it would ban coal imports from North Korea as part of the United Nations’ efforts to squeeze the country’s ability to raise funds for its nuclear and missile programs. But it allowed exemptions for coal imports for “livelihood” reasons, and deliveries continued.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not comment on the suspension after it was announced on Saturday. Calls to the ministry’s press officer were not answered. On Friday, the Chinese minister of foreign affairs, Wang Yi, said at a conference in Munich that the United Nations sanctions of North Korea “must continue to be strictly implemented.”

But Mr. Wang also argued that only renewed negotiations would offer any hope of curtailing North Korea’s nuclear weapons development. China has hosted six-party talks — including itself, South Korea, North Korea, the United States, Japan and Russia — aimed at a negotiated settlement of the North Korean nuclear standoff. But those talks have stopped since 2009, and there seems little hope of them restarting anytime soon.

“This situation cannot continue,” Mr. Wang said, “because the ultimate outcome may be intolerable to all sides.”

Last year, China imported 22.5 million metric tons of coal from North Korea, an increase of 14.5 percent on the amount in 2015, according to Chinese customs statistics. In December, China imported about 2 million tons of North Korean coal. Mysteel, a Chinese industrial analysis firm, estimated that under the limits imposed by the sanctions, the coal quota would be used up by April or May. In 2015, China’s cumulative imports of North Korean coal reached 7.5 million metric tons by May.

The coal suspension also followed the assassination of Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half brother of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, on Monday at an airport in Malaysia. The Malaysian authorities are continuing to investigate the case. South Korean officials have suspected North Korean involvement in the killing of Mr. Kim, who had been living in Macau, the Chinese gambling enclave.

Some analysts have speculated that the killing may have infuriated Beijing because Mr. Kim was considered a pro-Chinese candidate to replace Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, should the current government in North Korea fall.

Some analysts have speculated that the killing may have infuriated Beijing because Mr. Kim was considered a pro-Chinese candidate to replace Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, should the current government in North Korea fall.

On September 10 2016 14:48 saocyn wrote:


so south korea are not on friendly terms with north korea, did we make friends with south korea just ally with a not-so-friendly military power near the north?

honestly this is what disgusts me and fuels the propaganda in the west against the chinese. In fact a majority of americans are using their discontent in news with china to actually direct it at asian americans, which sadens me.
China is not the enemy, just because we owe them a fuck ton of money does mean we should get butt hurt about it.
we're actually more indebt now to japan than any other country, i don't see why no one is up in arms about that.
and from that little document of koreans no longer considering china an ally, maybe just maybe....did it ever occur to you that perhaps china used their influence as a major player and ally to NK to perhaps deescalate the tension created?
why would North korea then publicly declare their discontent if china was out to get us? they already got us, we're in debt. who would kill off or attack the people who continually have to pay them back, and are in fact a large reason why they have major businesses? we literally make the majority of things in that country.

there's alot of bigotry in wanting to do business with china and have them provide goods to us on a large scale just to say they're the enemy and they're out to get us.

as far as north korea goes, they're not bluffing. you'd be a fool to yawn at kim jong un. he's clearly a psychopath, and he didn't get his position by being some humanitarian. the guy is hell bent and passionate on firing a nuke at us at all cost, and he's been quite consistent with his progress as far as our news reporters make it out to be. i wouldn't put it over him that he made it his life mission to attack us with a nuke. from the looks of it the guy literally directs the whole countries spending and focus on this one thing, outside of having everyone else paise him on his off time. the guy is looking for countries willing to leak technological secrets, and it's actually escalating to a point where i'm not comfortable where it's getting to. i think we all live in such a peaceful time right now, i hope i can die in this world without having to witness another world war.

it honestly doesn't take an idiot to look at the first page of this forum. the guy has been at this for LONGER than 3 years, and has still not deterred about his conviction. at first i assumed the guy was bluffing to keep his image intact, but the guy is siphoning a lot of money in order to progress, even to the extent of really hard sanctions from the UN and still remains, undeterred. that alone should tell you where his stance really lies. it's not a matter of if he's going to do it, it's now a matter of when.

On February 21 2017 05:41 LegalLord wrote:
There is nothing voluntary about a weak state like the Ukraine giving up nukes under massive international pressure. Sometimes you can't keep them, pure and simple. North Korea is going to find that it's not allowed to keep nukes, no matter what.

Malaysian police investigating the murder of Kim Jong-nam say attempts were made to break into the morgue where his body is being held and have demanded to question a senior North Korean diplomat.

The announcements by police chief Khalid Abu Bakar throw further suspicion on Pyongyang over the apparent assassination of the exiled half-brother of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un.

Khalid said another man wanted for questioning and identified as Kim Uk-il was linked to North Korea’s state airline, Air Koryo. Both he and the high-level embassy official, named as Hyon Kwang-song, 44, remained in Malaysia, Khalid said.

“He’s the second secretary of the embassy ... They’re not in custody; they’ve been called in for assistance,” Khalid told journalists at a press conference.

“We knew there were attempts by someone to break into the hospital mortuary. We had to take precautions. We will not allow anyone to tamper with the mortuary,” the Malay Mail quoted him as saying.

He added that investigators knew who had made the attempted break-in but that there was “no need for me to tell you”.

Kim Jong-nam, who lived most of his life outside his home country, died from a seizure en route to hospital nine days ago after complaining that a woman had sprayed chemicals on his face at Kuala Lumpur international airport.

Malaysian authorities have arrested four people: a Vietnamese woman, an Indonesian woman, a Malaysian man and a North Korean man.

Khalid said police “strongly believed” four suspects who fled Malaysia on the day of Kim’s death had gone to the North Korean capital.

The detained Indonesian woman has said she was duped into playing a role in the killing, believing she was part of a television comedy prank.

But Khalid disputed that on Wednesday, saying the suspects were “trained” and had even practised the attack at different public places, including a major mall in downtown Kuala Lumpur.

“Yes, the two female suspects knew that the substance they had was toxic. We don’t know what kind of chemical was used,” he said. Samples from an inconclusive autopsy were sent away for lab tests.

“They used their bare hands,” he said, adding that they were instructed to wash their hands afterwards.

The killing has led to a diplomatic altercation between North Korea and Malaysia, which until now was one of the few countries keeping open relations with Pyongyang.

The North Korean embassy issued a statement on Wednesday demanding the release of its arrested citizen, Ri Jong-chol, and saying that the two women, who are not North Korean nationals, are “innocent” and should be also be freed.

North Korea’s ambassador, Kang Chol, was summoned by the Malaysian foreign ministry on Monday after he accused police of deception.

On February 21 2017 05:41 LegalLord wrote:
There is nothing voluntary about a weak state like the Ukraine giving up nukes under massive international pressure. Sometimes you can't keep them, pure and simple. North Korea is going to find that it's not allowed to keep nukes, no matter what.