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North Korea’s Second Nuclear Test Successful

May 25th, 2009

So it is apparent – North Korea’s second nuclear test was more successful than its 1st which was deemed too weak to be labelled a success.

North Korea hasn’t got much to lose – it is already sanction hit and the nuclear test would give a strong message to President Obama and the world that it means business.

North Korea previously has used situations like this as bargaining games; aid and concessions for negotiations and disarmament. The last time the US compromised with North Korea, the DPRK was left with a security guarantee (nuclear weapons), aid, and removal from the US terror list.

Seismologists recorded ‘artificial’ seismic activity equivilant to a 4.5 earthquake. International responses have been hugely condemning of the North Korean test.

Apparently North Korea also tested a missile around the same time. Perhaps that is symbolic; a nuclear test and a rocket launch, hmm?

Tags: Missile Launch, Nuclear Test, Rocket Launch
Posted in North Korea Military | 2 Comments »

North Korea and Cuba ’strengthen ties’

May 16th, 2009

North Korea's Foreign Minister Pak Ui Chun with Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez

North Korea and Cuba have signed a series of accords during the DPRK Foreign Minister’s visit to Cuba.

Pak Ui-chun and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla met on Monday and held a series of meetings however details have not been released on the content of these. Both parties have said they are happy with the discussions.

Pal also laid a wreath for Cuba’s national hero, Jose Marti.

Communist comrades North Korea and Cuba have kept friendly ties, however long distance relationships for sanction-hit North Korea are difficult due to understandable reasons.

Tags: Cuba
Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »

Kaesong’s future wrangled by North Korea’s political protests

May 15th, 2009

Kaesong's contracts have been scrapped by the North

North Korea has announced that all contracts with the South for the Kaesong Industrial Complex are to be scrapped.

Kaesong is used by over 100 South Korean companies and employs around 38,000 North Koreans, giving North Korea a major source of income and South Korea a source for local and cheap labour.

North Korea wants to decide more policies in Kaesong such as tax, etc, and this is the North’s way of protesting to the South. Sanction hit North Korea should tread carefully and must think about the economic impact that it’s fondling with Kaesong will have. It seems the free market explorations the North has dabbled with have been unsatisfactory for the communist state, which suffers chronic food shortages and one of the poorest economies in the world.

However, Kaesong is also a risk to the North’s cloak of the grim realities that are of life in North Korea, as North Korean workers are able to mix with South Korean company workers in the industrial complex – which is also apparent with the recent incident with a South Korean citizen being arrested for apparently putting the North’s political system and trying to persuade a female North Korean to defect.

Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »

Swedish Diplomat visits Americans in North Korea Jail

May 15th, 2009

The U.S. has said that two american journalists that the two arrested journalists, Euna Lee and Laura Ling, have been visited by the Swedish ambassador in Pyongyang – which comes after the U.S. has insisted on contact and fair justice for the reporters.

This will widely be seen as a good will gesture by North Korea – as all of the infrastructure is controlled by the ruling elite and something as substantial as this would be at the close attention of Kim Jong-il.

Euna and Laura were arrested on the Chinese-North Korea border, however it is rumoured that they were arrested on the Chinese side of the border after North Korean soldiers crossed over. This cannot be verified at the present stage though.

It is widely believed that North Korea will use the detained reporters as ‘bargaining chips’ to gain concessions from abroad, as it has done in the past.

Posted in General North Korea News | No Comments »

North Korea to test more Nuclear Weapons

April 30th, 2009

There's only one known nuclear test to have taken place, which was at Gilju

There has so far been one known nuclear test to have taken place, which was underground at Gilju.

North Korea Wednesday warned that it would conduct another nuclear test if the UN Security Council refused to apologise for criticising the Stalinist state’s April 5 rocket launch.

‘Unless the UN Security Council offers an apology immediately, we will be forced to take additional self-defence measures to protect the highest interests of our republic,’ a foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement cited by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Those measures would include nuclear and ballistic missile tests, it said.

After the Security Council condemned North Korea’s rocket launch, which Western powers said was a cover-up for testing a long-range ballistic missile, Pyongyang quit international talks to end its nuclear weapons programme and announced it had restarted re-processing nuclear fuel to obtain plutonium for nuclear arms.

North Korea sees nuclear weapons as a neccessary deterrence in its ideological struggle for survival in the modern world.

The last and only nuclear test North Korea attempted was widely said to have ‘failed’ because such a weak seismic reading was detected.

Posted in North Korea Military | No Comments »

Kim Jong-Un most likely Kim Jong-Il successor

April 29th, 2009

Kim Jong-Un is Kim Jong-Il's youngest son and most likely successor

Kim Jong-Un has been appointed to the National Defense Commission, which indicates that he is the most likely successor of Kim Jong-Il.

Kim Jong-Il has three sons by two women. The oldest is Kim Jong Nam who was considered his favorite until he tried to sneak into Japan using a fake Dominican passport and visit Tokyo’s Disney resort in 2001.

The middle son, Kim Jong Chol, apparently was never a favorite as Kim Jong-Il, according to his former sushi chef, thought of him as too ‘girly’.

Kim Jong-Un’s appointment means that he has most likely embarked upon vigorous training to become successor, and is expected to gain higher and higher posts.

There are no photos of Kim Jong-Un – he has never been seen in public and no bibliographies have ever been published about any of Kim Jong-Il’s sons.

Tags: Kim Jong-Il, Kim Jong-Un
Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »

North Korea ‘reprocessing’ nuclear fuel

April 25th, 2009

North Korea's Yongbyon Nuclear Plant

According to KCNA, North Korea has restarted processing fuel rods at its infamous nuclear plant.

The reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the pilot atomic power plant began as declared in the Foreign Ministry statement dated 14 April

This will enable North Korea to continue production of its nuclear weapons, which are a strategic deterrent to neighbouring threats – South Korea, USA, and Japan.

North Korea had partially dismantled the reactor last year after agreements entitled North Korea to aid in return, however both sides argue the other didn’t uphold their side.

Tags: Nuclear Fuel, Nuclear Weapons, Yongbyon
Posted in North Korea Military | No Comments »

Russia sends top diplomats to North Korea

April 23rd, 2009

Sergei Lavrov is going to Pyongyang to reinvigorate talks

Russia has sent Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to North Korea for a 2 day visit in an attempt to re-stimulate North Korea to return to international disarmament talks, which NK pulled out of not so long ago.

North Korea has recently threw out UN monitors and has said that it will work hard to improve its nuclear deterrent at whatever costs and that it’d never return to talks, according to KCNA.

Sergei Lavrov is expected to hand over a letter from Russian President Dmitri Medvedev to the North Korean leader.

Tags: Pyongyang, Russia, Sergei Lavrov
Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »

North Korea uses Kaesong as political tool against South

April 21st, 2009

Kaesong is the joint industrial project between North and South Korea

North Korea is putting the Kaesong Joint Industrial Complex at risk by using it as a political tool to put pressure on the south.

North Korea is threatening to rebuke the ’special benefits’ that it granted South Korean companies while operating in the North at Kaesong, amid high tensions in the area between North Korea and several neighbours who saw the North’s ’satellite launch’ as a threatening missile test.

A special meeting was called by North Korea with the South and 12 hours after the South’s delegation arrived in the North, the meeting was over in 22 minutes. The North said it had a ’special announcement’ to make to the South. The two sides exchanged documents detailing their current standing positions on various topics.

Meanwhile, the South demanded that North Korea release one of their citizens who was arrested while working at Kaesong. Apparently, this person spoke negatively about North Korea’s political system.

Tags: Kaesong
Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »

Americans sue North Korea over Hezbollah Rockets

April 11th, 2009

Rockets being fired by Hezbollah during the war with Israel in 2006.

30 Americans that were affected by the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war have filed a lawsuit against North Korea in an attempt to claim $100m. They believe North Korea is liable because they ‘helped build’ the weapons bunkers that were used to store Katyusha rockets.

Hezbollah fired thousands of rockets into Israel in 2006 during the war, which was sparked by Hezbollahs kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

The lawsuit cites its source as a government think-tank which made the allegations in a paper report.

North Korea is one of the poorest nations in the world and makes most of its money from arms deals.

Tags: Hezbollah
Posted in North Korea Politics | No Comments »