Official North Korean Thread

North, South Korea agree to official talks

North and South Korea agreed in principle Thursday to hold their first official talks for years, signalling a possible breakthrough in cross-border ties after months of escalated military tensions.

A surprise offer from Pyongyang proposed discussions on a range of commercial and humanitarian issues from reopening a joint industrial complex to resuming cross-border family reunions.

The South replied within hours, with the Unification Ministry saying it viewed the offer "positively" and would announce a date, venue and agenda later.

"We hope that South and North Korea can build trust through this opportunity," the ministry added.

Analysts welcomed the development but some advised caution, saying the precise nature and agenda of the dialogue might create insurmountable sticking points.

"I think this is an attempt by the North to seize the initiative, but it's premature to say whether the offer is likely to lead to a sincere dialogue," said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

Official contacts between Seoul and Pyongyang have been essentially frozen since South Korea accused the North of torpedoing one of its warships in March 2010 with the loss of 46 lives.

April and May this year saw tensions soar to worrying levels as the North, angered by joint South-US military drills and UN sanctions imposed after its nuclear test in February, threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

The situation has calmed in recent weeks, with both sides circling warily around the idea of opening some sort of dialogue.

The North's proposal, carried in a statement from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK), said the venue and date for talks "can be set to the convenience of the South side".

Initial subjects for discussion would be the Kaesong joint industrial zone, which was closed at the height of the recent tensions, and the resumption of cross-border tours to the North's Mount Kumgang resort, the CPRK said.

Humanitarian issues such as reuniting family members separated after the 1950-53 Korean War could also be discussed.

The CPRK said a positive response would see the North consider rolling back measures it took when relations went into a tailspin in April, including restoring a cross-border hotline.

South Korea had already offered working-level talks on Kaesong and Seoul is likely to be wary of agreeing to a much wider-ranging agenda.

While President Park Geun-Hye has spoken of the need for dialogue, she has made it clear -- with US backing -- that substantive talks would require the North to show commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

Pyongyang has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear deterrent is not up for negotiation.

"There could be some trouble in setting the agenda, and it's natural to doubt North Korea's sincerity," said Paik Hak-Soon, an analyst at the Sejong Institute think-tank in Seoul.

"But this a typically strategic change of direction by the North, which puts the ball in the South's court and I think it presents a genuine opportunity," Paik said.

The Kaesong complex, established inside North Korea in 2004, was the most high-profile casualty of the recent tensions.

Born out of the "Sunshine Policy" of inter-Korean reconciliation initiated in the late 1990s by South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung, Kaesong was a crucial hard currency source for the impoverished North, through taxes and revenues and its cut of workers' wages.

Operations at the complex ground to a halt after the North pulled all its 53,000 workers out in early April. The South withdrew its managers and officials soon afterwards.

The Mount Kumgang resort, developed by the South's Hyundai Asan company, opened in 1998 as a symbol of reconciliation. It once earned the North tens of millions of dollars a year.

But Seoul suspended tours by its citizens after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean housewife there in July 2008. In response the North scrapped a deal with Hyundai Asan and seized its properties there.

Hundreds of thousands of family members were separated by the Korean War, and the last temporary reunions, arranged by the two Koreas' Red Cross authorities, took place in 2010.

Nearly 80,000 people in the South alone are on the waiting list for reunions should they be resumed.


Source : Sapa-AFP /pk
Date : 06 Jun 2013 08:56
 
I don't trust them NK guys.



Maybe the red wedding is still too fresh in my mind.
 
Two Koreas Strike Cautious Accord on High Level Talks

North and South Korea reached Monday a patchy agreement to hold a high-level meeting in Seoul, following marathon talks aimed at rebuilding trust after months of soaring tension and threats of nuclear war.

Sunday's preparatory talks, held in the border truce village of Panmunjom where the armistice ending the 1950-53 Korean War was signed, were the first between the two rivals for more than two years.

In a sign of the trust deficit that remains six decades after the armistice agreement, they dragged on deep into Monday morning as the two sides struggled to agree a framework for a more substantive dialogue.

They concluded by settling for a two-day meeting in the South Korean capital beginning Wednesday, but with some confusion over precisely who would attend and what topics would be discussed.

"Both sides issued separate statements on the outcome of discussions after failing to narrow differences over the level of chief delegate and agenda," the South's Unification Ministry said.

Agreed topics for discussion in Seoul included the future of the Kaesong joint industrial complex that the North effectively shut down as the recent military tensions between the historic rivals peaked.

The resumption of South Korean civilian tours to the North's Mount Kumgang resort and reunions between families divided since the Korean War will also figure, the separate statements said.

Sunday's talks came about after an unexpected reversal from North Korea, which suddenly dropped its default tone of high-decibel belligerence and proposed opening a dialogue.

South Korea responded swiftly and positively by offering a meeting in Seoul between its Unification Minister and his North Korean counterpart, which Sunday's talks in Panmunjom were meant to set up.

The two Koreas have not held ministerial talks since 2007.

In the end, it was unclear who exactly would attend, with the North and South statements vaguely alluding to "authorities" with ministerial-level responsibilities.

"Inter-Korean talks have always been like this -- pretty opaque with lots of ups and downs, and ins and outs," said Yang Moo-Jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

"The Seoul meeting will probably go ahead, but in the past North Korea has often delayed or cancelled talks at the last minute over some procedural matter," Yang said.

The move towards dialogue has been broadly welcomed -- given the threats of nuclear war that were being flung around in April and May -- but there is some general scepticism about Pyongyang's intentions.

Some analysts have suggested the North is paying lip-service to the idea of talks to coincide with the weekend summit between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping.

China, the North's sole major ally and economic benefactor, has been under US pressure to restrain its neighbour and has pushed Pyongyang to engage in dialogue rather than seek confrontation.

The commercial nature of the Kaesong and Mount Kumgang projects, which both sides have agreed to address in Seoul, offers some scope for relatively pragmatic discussion.

Kaesong and Mount Kumgang were both significant sources of scarce foreign currency for North Korea, which is squeezed by UN sanctions imposed over its nuclear weapons programme.

Operations at Kaesong were suspended after the North withdrew its 53,000 workers from the South Korean plants there in early April.

Seoul suspended tours to Mount Kumgang after a North Korean soldier shot dead a South Korean tourist there in July 2008.

"They might discuss other issues as well, but this conservative administration in Seoul clearly wants to keep the official agenda tightly focused," said professor Yang.

South Korean President Park Geun-Hye took office in February with a promise of greater engagement with Pyongyang.

But she remains adamant that substantive dialogue on wider issues can only take place if the North shows some tangible commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programme.

North Korea has been equally emphatic in declaring its nuclear deterrent is not up for negotiation.

It was the North's nuclear test in February -- and subsequent UN sanctions -- that triggered the recent crisis, which saw Pyongyang threaten both the South and the United States with pre-emptive nuclear strikes.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mjs
Date : 10 Jun 2013 03:53
 
Crackdown Filling North Korean Prisons with Defectors

North Korea's prison population has swelled in recent years with those caught fleeing the country under a crackdown on defections by young leader Kim Jong Un, according to defectors living in South Korea and researchers who study Pyongyang's notorious network of labor camps and detention centers.

Soon after he succeeded his father as North Korean leader, Kim is believed to have tightened security on the country's borders and pressured Pyongyang's neighbor and main ally, China, to repatriate anyone caught on its side of the frontier. In interviews with The Associated Press and accounts collected by human rights groups, North Koreans who have managed to leave the country say those who are caught are sent to brutal facilities where they now number in the thousands.

"They are tightening the noose," said Insung Kim, a researcher from the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights who gets to interview most defectors soon after their arrival in South Korea. "This is to set an example to the North Korean people."

The plight of those caught fleeing the North was highlighted last month when nine young North Koreans were detained in Laos, a key stop along a clandestine escape route through Southeast Asia that had previously been thought safe. Instead, the Lao government turned them over to Pyongyang. While the high-profile nature of their repatriation might offer them some protection, human rights group fear for them.

"Forced repatriation from China is a pathway to pain, suffering, and violence," according to "Hidden Gulags," an exhaustive 2012 study on the prison camp system based on detailed interviews with defectors. "Arbitrary detention, torture and forced labor are inflicted upon many repatriated North Koreans."

In 2003, Park Seong-hyeok, then 7, and his parents were arrested trying to reach Mongolia from China and sent back to North Korea. He ended up at a prison in the northern city of Chongjin, where he was packed in with other kids, some of them homeless children rounded up off the streets.

They were blindfolded each day and forced to clear land for agriculture, he said. If they refused, they were beaten.

"I couldn't even tell whether I was alive," Park said. "We were provided five pieces of potato a day, each about the size of a fingernail. "

After a few months, he managed to escape after his uncle bribed the guards. With the help of relatives, he made it to South Korea, where he now attends a special school for North Korean defectors. But he assumes his parents, who he has not seen in 10 years, remain imprisoned in the North.

In the 18 months since Kim took power, any hopes the 20-something ruler would usher in a new era of human rights reforms have been squelched. Instead he has overseen a campaign to lock down the borders and pressure the North's neighbor and main ally, China, to repatriate defectors.

Defectors pose a particular threat to the Pyongyang regime, human rights groups say, because of the stories they tell the world about the plight of the North Korean people, and the information and money they send back in.

North Korea considers those who leave the country to be guilty of treason and subject to up to five years of manual labor. In addition, the penal code states if the nature of the defection is "serious" - taken by most researchers to mean if the defector gets the help of South Korean or American Christian missionary groups as opposed to trying to reach China for work purposes - the defector risks an additional charge of anti-state activities that could mean life in prison or even death.

North Koreans considered hostile to the government can spend the rest of their life, along with their families, in one of at least five sprawling labor camps or colonies that encompass fields, factories, mines and housing blocks. Modeled on the Soviet Gulag system, the areas are chosen for their natural barriers, such as mountains and rivers, their remoteness, and their access to natural resources like wood and coal, according to human rights groups.

Defectors may end up in those camps, but are typically held first in other detention facilities close to the border, just as brutal but more resembling traditional penitentiaries, according to human rights groups. Still, at least one labor camp, Yodok, now has a special section for those repatriated from China that houses thousands of inmates, according to Kang Cheol-hwan, a former inmate there.

Kang, who recounted his experiences at the camp in the book "The Aquariums of Pyongyang," said his information came from contacts in the North. He currently heads a foreign-funded campaigning and advocacy group aimed at spreading democracy in North Korea.

Estimates of the current prison population range from 100,000 to 200,000.

One human rights activist said based on his interviews, would-be defectors now account for about 5 percent of the total inmate population. He didn't give his name because the estimate was based on his own research and is not the official data of his organization. Insung Kim of the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights cites a "five-fold rise" in the number of detained defectors over the last 10 years.

"When people get caught, a car comes to their house in the middle of the night and takes them away," said a recent defector, a 17-year-old who asked his name not to be used out of fear relatives in the North might be targeted. "And they don't come back."

The boy, also a student at the defector school in South Korea, worked as a street lookout for his father, who organized the smuggling of money and people across the Chinese border. He fled with his family in 2012 after word got out about the nature of the family business.

"The monitoring has got more intense, there are more patrols," he said of security along the border.

Figures provided by the South Korean government appear to support numerous accounts by smugglers, defectors and people living along the border that security has been tightened. In 2009, 2,929 defectors made it to South Korea. Last year, 1,509 did, the lowest number since 2005.

The government said there had been no sign of positive change in human rights inside North Korea since Kim Jong Un came to power. "From defector accounts, it appears prison camps are still being operated, and control on society, including the flow of information, is toughening," it said in a statement.

Despite ever more detailed and consistent testimony by defectors and sharper satellite images of the prison camps, there is still little the international community can do to press for change inside a country that has consistently shown no willingness to engage on human rights issues. The government refuses to allow outsiders access to detention facilities to check conditions, and denies the existence of political prison camps altogether.

The United States' main focus is on getting Pyongyang to resume international talks about giving up its nuclear weapons program. Most other governments believe increased contact with the regime and its people- not sanctions or threats - is the best way to improve conditions. The United Nations will in July begin a high-level commission of enquiry into human rights in North Korea, but few expect Pyongyang will allow U.N. researchers access to the country, let alone the camps.

"The U.S. government can't do much of anything," said David Hawk, a veteran human rights researcher and author of the "Hidden Gulag" report. "If North Korea wants to maintain its self-imposed isolation, there is very little that the outside world can do except record the grotesqueness of the violations and condemn them."

The main source of information about the prison camps and the conditions inside is the nearly 25,000 defectors living in South Korea, the majority of whom have arrived over the last five years. Researchers admit their picture is incomplete at best, and there is reason for some caution when assessing defector accounts.

Only a tiny percentage of the defectors were themselves imprisoned or worked as guards in the camps. On their arrival in the country, all spend three months at a center run by South Korea's intelligence agency, where they are pumped for information, in part to establish whether they might be spies. It often takes several years for defectors to reach South Korea, so their information is rarely current. Some ask for money to be interviewed.

Jung Gwang-il, who fled the North in 2004 after spending three years at Yodok for alleged espionage, said prisoners were forced to grow corn, peppers and barley, and those who didn't work hard enough had their rations cut. Hunger was so intense that prisoners ate undigested seeds from the feces of other inmates, he said.

In April, they would collect the corpses of those who died over the winter, because they were unable to bury them in the frozen earth.

"To this day I still remember the smell," he said. "Death was a fact of life there."

------

Associated Press reporters Elizabeth Shim, Christina Kang and Sam Kim contributed to this report.


Source : Sapa-AP /pk
Date : 12 Jun 2013 08:36
 
S Korea Denies Blame for Scrapped Talks

South Korea rejected any blame Wednesday for the collapse of planned talks with the North, as businessmen from a closed joint industrial zone complained they were being ruined by politics.

North Korea, meanwhile, offered no comment at all on the last-minute cancellation of the dialogue, and refused to answer routine calls from South on a newly-restored inter-government hotline.

The two Koreas had initially agreed to hold their first high-level talks for six years in Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday, but the meeting was called off on Tuesday evening because of an apparent rift over protocol.

North Korea told the South its nomination of a vice minister as its chief delegate was an insult, while Seoul insisted his rank was commensurate with the official named by Pyongyang.

Asked in parliament why Seoul had not acceded to Pyongyang's request to send a minister in order to save the talks, Prime Minister Chung Hong-Won suggested times had changed.

"In the past, we have made infinite concessions to the North, but the time has come to hold talks where both sides are represented by officials of the same level," Chung said.

"I think the national pride of the Republic of Korea should also be considered," he added.

On the proposed talks agenda was the resumption of two suspended commercial projects, including the Kaesong joint industrial complex which the North shut down in April as military tensions on the Korean peninsula flared.

The association representing the 123 South Korean firms based in Kaesong appealed to both Seoul and Pyongyang to find a way back to the dialogue table as soon as possible.

"We are deeply disappointed that the talks failed to take place," association spokesman Yu Chang-Geun told reporters.

In the meantime, engineers and technicians "must be allowed to enter Kaesong to carry out maintenance work on the production facilities," Yu said.

Company owners warn that their plants will fall into permanent disrepair if they stay mothballed for much longer.

South Korea did attempt to contact the North on Wednesday, using a hotline which Pyongyang restored last week when the two sides began organising the high-level talks.

The South's Unification Ministry said it had made two routine calls on the hotline in the morning and the afternoon.

"But the North did not answer," it said in a statement.

In Seoul around 100 protestors from a right-wing civic group held an anti-North Korea demonstration during which they slashed a North Korean flag and burned an effigy of leader Kim Jong-Un.


Source : Sapa-AFP /pk
Date : 12 Jun 2013 09:45
 
South Korea issues Cyberattack Alert

South Korea has issued a cyberattack alert after government websites shut down on the anniversary of the start of the Korean War.

Officials said Monday they were still investigating whether hacking was responsible. The alert warns government and the public sector to be wary of the possibility of cyberattacks.

Multiple government websites and at least one media website were down.

The shutdown happened on the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

South Korean officials say that North Korea orchestrated a cyberattack in March that shut down tens of thousands of computers and servers at South Korean broadcasters and banks. Seoul said in April that an initial investigation pointed to a military-run spy agency as the culprit.


Source : Sapa-AP /mjs
Date : 25 Jun 2013 05:28
 
NKorea blasts SKorean Leader's Nuclear Comments

North Korea Monday slammed South Korean President Park Geun-Hye for "hurting its dignity" with her call for denuclearisation and said its atomic weapons could never be a bargaining chip.

"Park Geun-Hye let loose a whole string of provocative remarks seriously hurting the dignity and social system in the DPRK (North Korea) while visiting China," the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement through state media.

It was North Korea's first official reaction to a high-profile summit between its closest ally and South Korea during Park's four-day trip to China last week.

In China, Park called for the North's denuclearisation and described Pyongyang's policy of pushing forward economic construction together with its nuclear build-up as an unattainable goal.

"We have agreed that under any circumstances, North Korea's nuclear (weapons) are unacceptable," Park said after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The North's committee accused Park of making "so desperate efforts to garner support for South Korea that her shamelessness and disgusting nature reached the height".

"What merits a more serious attention is that Park ... dared take issue again with the DPRK's new strategic line during her trip," it said.

The committee denounced Park's remarks as "a blatant challenge to the dignity, social system and political line of the DPRK and an unpardonable grave provocation against it".

"Explicitly speaking once again, Park should clearly know that the DPRK's nukes, shield for justice and peace and treasure for the nation, can never be a bargaining chip in any case and they cannot be subject at a negotiating table no matter how vociferously the puppet group, war servants of the US, may talk about them," it said.

South Korea voiced regret over the North's statement and urged Pyongyang to exercise restraint.

"It's very regrettable," Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-Suk told reporters.

He said that for the sake of better relations, the North needs to modify what it says against the head of a country.

North Korea has shunned six-nation talks on its nuclear arsenal since late 2008. After testing an A-bomb again in February, it had severed ties with South Korea and issued apocalyptic threats as Seoul and Washington conducted joint war games.

In recent months, the North appeared to have moderated its stance.

After a proposed bridge-building meeting with Seoul failed to happen last month, Pyongyang proposed direct, high-level denuclearisation talks with Washington.

The North's offer was seen by many analysts as a bid to drive a wedge between the United States and its South Korean ally.

Washington responded by insisting that Pyongyang first demonstrate its willingness to abandon its nuclear weapons programme.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mjs
Date : 01 Jul 2013 07:15
 
NKorea restores hotline with South: Seoul Officials

North Korea on Wednesday restored its hotline with South Korea and announced it would let the South's businessmen visit a shuttered joint industrial zone, Seoul officials said.

The move came hours after dozens of South Korean firms threatened to withdraw from the zone at Kaesong in the North, complaining they had fallen victim to political bickering between the two rivals.

"The hotline was restored this afternoon after North Korea accepted our request to normalise it," a South Korean unification ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

The move followed months of high tensions and threats by Pyongyang of nuclear war.

As tensions began easing last month, the North restored the hotline across the border truce village of Panmunjom for talks on setting up a high-level meeting to discuss the fate of the zone.

But the line was switched off again after plans for the talks collapsed due to disputes over protocol.

The Kaesong estate, where North Koreans work in Seoul-owned factories, was the most high-profile casualty of the months of elevated tensions that followed the North's nuclear test in February.

Operations at the complex just north of the border ground to a halt soon after the North banned entry by the South's factory managers and other officials on April 3.

About a week later Pyongyang pulled all its own workers out.

In an unexpected change of course on Wednesday, the North sent a message to the South saying South Korean businessmen and managers would be allowed to visit the complex.

It said the businessmen could take emergency steps to avert damage to facilities and materials during the rainy season, according to a unification ministry statement.

South Korean managers could have talks with their North Korean counterparts during their trip, it said.

The North's invitation sparked speculation that it may be ready for dialogue with the South.

But South Korea responded cautiously, saying it would review the proposal and convey its response later.

"The North's offer is seen as a strategic change in its attitude, but we cannot say yet it is interested in sincere talks with the South," Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul told AFP.

The North has moderated its tough stance in recent weeks, apparently under pressure from China, but South Korea remains sceptical, he said.

Kaesong was established in 2004 as a rare symbol of cross-border cooperation, with some 53,000 North Koreans working for 123 South Korean firms in recent months.

It was an important hard currency source for the impoverished North, mainly through its cut of workers' wages.

Neither side has declared the complex officially closed despite the paralysis for the past three months, calling it a temporary shutdown.

Representatives of the South Korean companies have repeatedly urged the two sides to open talks to revive the moribund industrial park.

Of them, 46 are manufacturers of electronics and machinery parts whose facilities are especially vulnerable to humidity in the current wet weather.

"The manufacturers of machinery and electronics parts cannot wait any longer. Kaesong must be reopened... or they have to move elsewhere", Kim Hak-Kwon, who represents the 46 companies, told reporters earlier in the day.

"It has been 92 days since the complex came to a halt... our patience has been stretched beyond its limit."

Several companies have been in talks to move facilities out of Kaesong and relocate them abroad including China, Kim said.


Source : Sapa-AFP /sdv
Date : 03 Jul 2013 16:12
 
Video shows US man's life in North Korean Prison

In his first media interview since his November arrest, an American imprisoned in North Korea has told a pro-Pyongyang media outlet that he wants the U.S. to "try harder" to help him gain amnesty from a sentence of 15 years of hard labor for alleged crimes against the government.

Kenneth Bae told the Tokyo-based Choson Sinbo in a story published Wednesday that he had hoped to be out by Thursday, which is not only Independence Day but his father's 70th birthday. He said he still hopes the U.S. government will help him get released quickly.

Bae, 44, of Lynnwood, Washington, was arrested in the northeastern North Korean region of Rason and was interviewed last week at a North Korean prison where he is serving out his sentence. An American of Korean descent, Bae entered the special economic zone as a tour operator but was convicted in late April of plotting to commit "hostile acts" against the North Korean government.

He was sent in May to what North Korea calls a "special prison." Photos and video of Bae published this week by Choson Sinbo show him with his head shaven and wearing gray overalls bearing the number 103.

Bae said he wakes up at 6 every morning. He then does farm work, planting seeds and weeding, until his labor ends at 6 p.m. He gets Sundays and holidays off, he told the paper during a June 26 interview.

"People here are very considerate, so I'm not working too hard, but my health is not in the best condition so there are some difficulties," Bae said in a Choson Sinbo video shared with CNN and posted to the paper's Facebook page. It's likely he gave the interview in the presence of North Korean officials.

Choson Sinbo, which caters to Japan's pro-Pyongyang North Korean community, provided an unusual look at Bae's life inside his "special education center" cell. It is 12 square meters and has a wash basin, a desk and a television.

Bae informed his family in April he would not be allowed to appeal his sentence and urged them to lobby Washington to push for amnesty, North Korean officials have told The Associated Press.

"July 4th is my father's 70th birthday. So I was hoping that my problem will be worked out by the end of June," Bae said. "So my hope is that North Korea will forgive and the U.S. will try harder to get me out quickly. I'm asking for their help."

Washington has called for Bae's release.

"There is no greater priority for us than the welfare and safety of our U.S. citizens abroad, as I've said many times," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said in May. He urged North Korea to "grant Mr. Bae amnesty and immediate release."

However, there has been no indication that a high-profile American envoy is set to travel to North Korea to negotiate his release.

At least five other Americans have been detained in North Korea since 2009. The others were eventually allowed to leave without serving out their terms, some after clemency missions by prominent Americans, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Many in the U.S. see Bae's imprisonment as bait with which North Korea hopes to win diplomatic concessions from Washington. North Korea remains locked in a standoff with the U.S. and its allies for continuing to develop nuclear weapons despite U.N. sanctions. It launched a long-range rocket in December and conducted a nuclear test in February.

Pyongyang denies using Bae, who is known in North Korea by the Korean name Pae Jun Ho, for political purposes.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has the power to grant special pardons under the North's constitution.

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman has called on Kim to release the fellow American. The basketball player met and dined with Kim during a visit to North Korea earlier this year.

The human rights group Amnesty International has criticized Bae's lack of access to a lawyer. Pyongyang says he confessed and didn't want an attorney at sentencing.

Bae has had limited contact with the outside world. He has been visited by diplomats from the Swedish Embassy, which represents U.S. interests there because Washington and Pyongyang lack official diplomatic ties.


Source : Sapa-AP /pk
Date : 04 Jul 2013 09:13
 
Panama stops North Korean ship, says missile material found

Panama's president said Monday that a North Korean ship captain tried to kill himself after the vessel was stopped en route from Cuba and found to have suspected missile material on board.

Outlining a dramatic sequence of events, President Ricardo Martinelli said the ship was targeted by drug enforcement officials as it approached the Panama Canal and was taken into port, but a search revealed a cargo of far greater concern.

The vessel's estimated 35-man crew also rioted when police stepped aboard, according to Martinelli, who said the suspicious cargo was found within a massive consignment of sugar.

"The world needs to sit up and take note: you cannot go around shipping undeclared weapons of war through the Panama Canal," he told Radio Panama listeners.

"We had suspected this ship, which was coming from Cuba and headed to North Korea, might have drugs aboard so it was brought into port for search and inspection," on the Atlantic coast of the country.

"When we started to unload the shipment of sugar we located containers that we believe to be sophisticated missile equipment, and that is not allowed," Martinelli said.

The ship is being held and the crew are in custody.

"The captain has tried to commit suicide, and the crew rioted" during the operation, the president said.

Martinelli, who did not name the boat, said it was headed back to North Korea when stopped and taken to Manzanillo, east of the Atlantic opening of the Panama Canal, which is a major cargo distribution centre.

Cuba is the only one-party Communist regime in the Americas, and a rare ally of also-isolated Pyongyang.

The vessel "aroused suspicion by the violent reaction of the captain and the crew from Friday afternoon", Panama's Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told the radio station.

And Javier Caraballo, an anti-drugs enforcement official, said: "Until now we have not found drugs in the boat, we found military equipment."

North Korea defiantly carried out its third nuclear weapons test in February and then threatened to attack the United States, in language that was shrill even by the standards of the reclusive state.

The North has for decades had a programme to develop missiles of all types. Last December it successfully launched a three-stage rocket which placed a satellite in orbit.

Pyongyang said the operation was a peaceful scientific mission, but the launch was widely condemned as a covert ballistic missile test banned under United Nations resolutions.

It is unclear whether the North has the technology to build a nuclear warhead for a missile.


Source : Sapa-AFP /pk
Date : 16 Jul 2013 08:53
Alt: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...suspected-missile-material-through-Canal.html
 
South Korea Blames North Korea for Cyber Attack

North Korea is to blame for last month's cyberattacks on the websites of South Korean media companies and the president and prime minister's offices, a South Korean investigation concluded Tuesday.

South Korea's ministry of science said it was blaming North Korea based on analysis of codes, Internet addresses and personal computers used to launch the attacks. The attacks occurred June 25, the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War.

It is the latest of several cyberattacks in recent years that Seoul blames on North Korea. Pyongyang has denied previous claims and has accused the U.S. and South Korea of a cyberattack in March that shut down its own websites for two days.

The South Korean government-led team of investigators said the online assaults were planned for several months, and the attackers hacked file-sharing websites in South Korea to find security weaknesses.

An investigator told reporters that the attackers tried to steal personal information from the websites targeted in the June 25 cyberattacks, but it was not clear when the attempt took place. Local media reported that the personal information of millions of people was stolen from the presidential office's website and the ruling party.

Investigators managed to recover data on the hard drives that the attackers destroyed June 25 and found an Internet protocol address that was used by North Korea. They also found that the codes used in the June attacks had the same features as the codes used in the larger March 20 cyberattacks that shut down tens of thousands of computers at South Korean broadcasters and banks.

The attackers in June tried to hide their identities by destroying hard drives and disguising the Internet protocol addresses they used, the ministry said. The attackers also tried to misguide investigators by using the picture of the Anonymous group, the ministry said.

Local media reported in June that the attack was done by a global hacking collective called Anonymous. But a South Korean government official told the Associated Press at the time that the attackers could not be confirmed at the moment.

The ministry said the June 25 attacks hit 69 government and private companies' websites and servers.

Earlier this month, cybersecurity firms said the hackers behind the March attacks also have been trying to steal South Korean and U.S. military secrets with a malicious set of codes they've been sending through the Internet for years. They did not specifically blame North Korea.

Researchers at Santa Clara, California-based McAfee Labs said the malware was designed to find and upload information referring to U.S. forces in South Korea, joint exercises or even the word "secret."

McAfee said versions of the malware have infected many websites in an ongoing attack that it calls Operation Troy because the code is peppered with references to the ancient city. McAfee said that in 2009, malware was implanted into a social media website used by military personnel in South Korea.


Source : Sapa-AP /pk
Date : 16 Jul 2013 08:52
 
Cuba Says Weapons found on Ship belonged to them.

Cuba on Tuesday claimed as its own the arms found on board a North Korean ship that Panama impounded, saying the missile system parts were to be repaired and returned.

In a statement read on state television, Havana said the "obsolete" weaponry included anti-aircraft missile arrays, nine disassembled missiles and other parts, without mentioning where they were being sent.

"The agreements Cuba has signed in these areas are based on our need to maintain our defensive capacity to protect national sovereignty," the statement said.

Panama called Tuesday for UN investigators to inspect a shipment of suspected weapons parts aboard a North Korean-flagged ship as it tried to enter the Panama Canal last week.

Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted a photo of the suspected weapons cache, which experts have identified as an aging Soviet-built radar control system for surface-to-air missiles.

Panama said the contraband munitions were hidden under thousands of bags of sugar aboard the North Korean-flagged Chong Chon Gang.

Officials said if the shipment is determined to contain missile components, that could violate a UN ban on most weapons being shipped into or out of North Korea.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 17 Jul 2013 03:07
 
Hopes Fade for Joint Industrial Zone

North and South Korea will hold fresh talks Wednesday on reopening their joint industrial zone with low hopes of an early agreement following months of friction.

A fourth round of talks over the complex, a rare symbol of cooperation between the two rivals, will be held just across the border in the North and follow three failed attempts this month which all ended in deadlock.

"We'll make efforts to have sincere and substantive consultations in order to resolve pending issues", South Korea's chief delegate Kim Ki-Woong told journalists before leaving Seoul for the North.

At a meeting earlier this month, the two sides agreed in principle to reopen the estate, where 53,000 North Koreans worked in 123 South-owned factories producing textiles or light industrial goods.

But little progress has been made since then amid squabbles over which side will take responsibility for the suspension, and Pyongyang's refusal to accept Seoul's demand for firm safeguards against another unilateral shutdown.

Seoul also wants to allow foreign firms to operate in Kaesong in an apparent bid to make it more difficult for Pyongyang to shut the estate if relations worsen.

The North has called for an unconditional and quick restart, blaming Seoul's "hostile policy" for the suspension and the current deadlock in negotiations.

"They kept talking past each other. These can hardly be called negotiations but deaf arguments," Chang Yong-Seok, senior researcher at the Institute for Peace and Unification at Seoul National University, told AFP.

Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies said the fourth and fifth rounds of talks would serve as a "watershed" in attempts to rescue Kaesong, the last remaining symbol of reconciliation.

"Both sides feel pressure to produce some results before the US-South Korea joint military exercise, Ulji Freedom Guide, next month", Yang said.

The North needs to satisfy a US demand that it improve ties with Seoul before any talks with Washington.

Seoul meanwhile will be seeking to cool tensions ahead of the military exercise, which if left unchecked could smother new President Park Geun-Hye's policy of measured trust building in its infancy, Yang said.

But, he added: "Both leaders of the two sides are taking a strong hands-on approach, meddling in the talks too intrusively, leaving their delegates little room to wiggle at negotiations."

Kaesong was the most high-profile casualty of the months of elevated tensions that followed the North's third nuclear test in February, the subsequent tightening of UN sanctions and US-South Korean military exercises.

Pyongyang last Wednesday proposed separate meetings to discuss the resumption of suspended cross-border tours to its scenic Mount Kumgang resort, and the reunion of families separated since the Korean War.

But it retracted its proposal a day later after Seoul only accepted the offer of talks on family reunions while refusing to discuss the Mount Kumgang tours -- another former valued source of hard currency for the impoverished communist state.

The talks have been held at the estate in Kaesong, some 10 kilometres (six miles) inside the North.

Many of the South Korean firms with factories in Kaesong, facing millions of dollars in damages due to the shutdown, have threatened to leave the complex permanently if the suspension continues.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 17 Jul 2013 02:08
 
NKorea Demands Release of Boat and Arms held in Panama

Pyongyang demanded the release of a freight vessel found to be carrying arms from Cuba bound for North Korea, stopped in Panama when the cargo was inspected this week.

"This cargo is nothing but aging weapons which are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract," North Korea's Foreign Ministry said late Wednesday.

The shipment may violate United Nations sanctions barring the delivery of weapons to communist North Korea since 2006 in the dispute over its nuclear programme.

Cuba's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the vessel carried anti-aircraft missile systems, missile parts and two MiG-21 jet fighters out of its weapons arsenal, for servicing in North Korea.

Cuba, one of North Korea's few remaining fellow communist states, said the arms were "obsolete defensive weaponry" needing repair.

The cache was discovered Monday when the boat was inspected on suspicion of carrying narcotics.


Source : Sapa-dpa /mr
Date : 18 Jul 2013 04:46
 
Yea the captain trying to commit suicide didn't help their cause. LOL panicked. So obviously this is not legit or why would the captain freak out.

Then again as the article says it may violate the sanctions, some doubt. Hmmm interesting.
 
Koreas hold fifth round of talks over Kaesong Industrial Zone

North and South Korea began a fifth round of talks Monday on reopening a joint industrial complex, after previous meetings failed to agree on a framework for resuming operations.

Production at the Kaesong estate has been suspended since North Korea withdrew its 53,000 workers from the complex in April at the height of soaring military tensions with the South.

Working-level officials from both sides have already met four times this month to discuss the future of the complex, established in 2004 as a rare symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.

The talks have been dominated by mutual recrimination over the cause of the shutdown, and the unwillingness of either side to be seen to make any concession to get Kaesong running again.

Monday's fifth round was again held in Kaesong, which lies 10 kilometres (six miles) inside North Korea and which, prior to its shutdown, hosted 123 South Korean companies.

"We will try our best to produce results that are acceptable to South Korean people," Kim Ki-Woong, the chief of the South's three-member delegation, said before crossing the border.

The South is insisting North Korea provide guarantees to prevent any repetition of what Seoul insists was the unilateral closure of Kaesong by Pyongyang.

The North says it was not responsible, arguing that its hand was forced by hostile South Korean actions and intimidation -- in particular a series of joint military exercises with the United States.

After the fourth round of talks last Wednesday, Kim said there was "a big difference" between the parties on working out a legal framework to prevent a future closure.

The South has proposed allowing foreign firms to operate there in the apparent belief that it would make it more difficult for the North to shut down the complex at will.

North Korea wants an unconditional and early restart of operations, and both sides have accused the other of lacking sincerity in the negotiating process.

Born out of the "Sunshine Policy" of inter-Korean conciliation initiated in the late 1990s by South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung, Kaesong was a crucial hard currency source for the impoverished North through taxes and revenues, and its cut of worker wages.

The joint complex, which had survived previous inter-Korean crises, was the most high-profile casualty of two months of elevated tensions that followed a nuclear test by the North in February that sparked international condemnation.

The North initially barred South Korean access to the zone, and then pulled out its workers. Seoul withdrew the last of its nationals in early May.

South Korean managers say they have suffered production losses of around $1 billion, and have criticised North and South Korea for playing political football with their businesses.

Some have threatened to pull out of the complex permanently unless operations resume soon.

The discussions on Kaesong followed a failed attempt to initiate high-level talks in June as military tensions subsided.

The dialogue was cancelled at the last minute because of a row over protocol, with neither side able to agree on the levels of their chief delegates.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 22 Jul 2013 05:14
 
Two Soviet Era Fighter Planes found on N. Korea Ship

Panamanian authorities have found two Soviet-era MiG-21 fighter jets aboard a North Korea-flagged ship seized this month as it tried to pass through the Panama Canal after departing from Cuba.

The supersonic jets were found alongside missile and other weapons parts concealed in a shipment of sugar, in what could constitute a violation of tough UN sanctions on Pyongyang.

Cuba has claimed the shipment, intercepted earlier this month, consists of "obsolete" weapons it was sending to North Korea to be refurbished and returned.

UN sanctions experts plan to travel to Panama to inspect the shipment on August 5.

Panama's President Ricardo Martinelli said the two jets, anti-aircraft missile batteries and other parts have been found on board.

"Apparently these aircraft were in use because they had fuel, he said during a visit to the port of Manzanillo, where the boat is being unloaded.

The 35-man crew of the North Korea-flagged Chong Chon Gang have been detained and could face arms trafficking charges.

The UN Security Council has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program.

North Korea has insisted the shipment is entirely legitimate and demanded the release of the crew members.

Cuba is the only one-party communist state in the Americas and a rare ally of North Korea.


Source : Sapa-AFP /mr
Date : 22 Jul 2013 03:21
 
NKorea Halts work at long range missile site

Fresh satellite images confirm that North Korea has halted construction at a facility to launch a new generation of long-range rockets, a US research institute said Tuesday.

The building of a new launch pad, missile assembly building and launch control centre at the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground slowed and then stopped around September 2012.

"While it was expected that construction would continue this spring, new imagery indicates that work had not resumed as of late May 2013, almost eight months later," the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University posted on its 38 North web site.

The new facilities were intended to handle rockets larger than the North's Unha-3 space launch vehicle (SLV) which successfully placed a satellite in orbit in December last year.

Although tagged by Pyongyang as a purely scientific mission, that launch was seen by the international community as a disguised ballistic missile test and was punished by additional UN sanctions.

The 38 North website said it was unclear why work at the Tonghae site had been halted.

Initial speculation that it was due to construction teams being sent elsewhere to repair widespread typhoon damage now seems unlikely given the eight-month time lapse, it added.

"If work resumes, completion of the new launch facilities ... would appear to be at least a year behind the estimate of their original (2016) schedule" it said.

The website speculated that Pyongyang may have decided that one launch pad capable of handling larger rockets than the Unha -- located at the more modern Sohae facility -- was sufficient to press ahead.

"An alternative explanation is that the North may have decided to slow or even end its effort to build larger rockets," it said.

Such a step would mark a major policy change.

Despite international criticism and UN sanctions, North Korea has repeatedly made it clear that it intends to pursue a missile programme which it sees as a key component of an effective nuclear deterrent.

During the recent surge in military tensions on the Korean peninsula that followed the December rocket launch and the North's nuclear test in February, Pyongyang warned it had the ability to deliver nuclear warheads as far as the continental United States.

Most experts say such claims are exaggerated, but Washington announced in March that it was deploying new missile interceptor batteries in Alaska in order to "stay ahead" of the nuclear threat from North Korea.


Source : Sapa-AFP /pk
Date : 23 Jul 2013 08:55
 
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