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Quotes of the Day:
“The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth..”
- Ezra Pound
“I cannot help, fearing that men may reach a point where they look on every new theory as a danger, every innovation, as a toilsome trouble, every social advance as a first step toward revolution, and that they may absolutely refuse to move at all.”
- Alexis de Tocqueville.
"Take anything and everything seriously except yourselves."
- Rudyard Kipling
1. Xi Jinping tells North Korea’s Kim he can make ‘greater contribution’ to ties
2. Kim Jong Un sees bigger cash-cow in Russia arms than embassies
3. Road rage: North Koreans forced to pitch in and patch potholes
4. South Korea increasingly pessimistic as North Korean arsenal expands
5. VOA [Washington Talk] “Respect for Korea’s desire for nuclear armament… “We will not shake our alliance.”
6. U.S. and South Korea Forge Stronger Cybersecurity Alliance Amid Growing AI Threats
7. Review: In 'Beyond Utopia,' the weight of North Korean oppression on its citizenry is undeniable
8. News outlets didn’t ignore Korean leaders’ historic summit. A video of the meeting is 5 years old
9. S. Korea, Thailand to hold consular talks amid complaints over immigration services for Thai nationals
10. N. Korea diversifying cybercrimes amid drop in value of cryptocurrency: report
1. Xi Jinping tells North Korea’s Kim he can make ‘greater contribution’ to ties
Is Xi competing with Putin for Kim's affection? (note a touch of sarcasm)
Xi Jinping tells North Korea’s Kim he can make ‘greater contribution’ to ties
- In a letter to Kim Jong-un, Chinese president writes that China-North Korea ties are ‘becoming stronger as time passes’, state media reports
- Xi says he will push forward relations during ‘serious and complex’ global and regional changes
Seong Hyeon Choi
+ FOLLOWPublished: 5:15pm, 2 Nov, 2023
By Seong Hyeon Choi South China Morning Post2 min
November 2, 2023
View Original
Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un pledging to make a “greater contribution” to strengthen China-North Korea relations, North Korean state media reported.
Xi made the commitment in a response to a congratulatory message from Kim last month to mark the 74th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Thursday.
In the letter dated Saturday, Xi said China and North Korea were friendly neighbours bordered by mountains and rivers, and the traditional friendship between the two countries was “becoming stronger as time passes”.
“I will push for China-North Korea relations to move forward and develop with the times amid serious and complex changes in the international and regional situation,” Xi said in the letter, according to KCNA.
“I am willing to make a greater contribution to protect regional peace, stability, development and prosperity.”
Xi also summarised China’s recent economic achievements under the leadership of the Communist Party and said he hoped North Korea would make new gains.
“I sincerely hope that the brotherly Korean people will achieve new and greater results in the cause of socialist construction under the leadership of the Workers’ Party of Korea headed by comrade general secretary.”
This is the third time this year that the two leaders have exchanged letters. They did so in April after Xi was confirmed for a third presidential term and in September, around the time of the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the North Korean government.
In a letter to Xi last month, Kim pledged to “consolidate and develop the [North Korea]-China friendly relations, which have entered a new historic period”.
The two leaders last met in person during Xi’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2019. They began communicating through letters after North Korea locked down its border due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
Xi’s latest letter came as Pyongyang closes diplomatic missions abroad, and while denuclearisation talks are stalled.
On Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin confirmed that North Korea would close its consulate general in Hong Kong, adding it to the list of diplomatic missions that Pyongyang decided to shut down along with its embassies in Spain, Uganda, and Angola.
“Each country has the right to decide to establish or abolish its consular mission abroad based on its own actual situation and needs. China respects North Korea’s decision to close its consulate general in Hong Kong,” Wang said.
On Sunday, Sung Kim, a US special representative for North Korea, held a video conference with his Chinese counterpart Liu Xiaoming, during which he stressed that all UN member states must “fulfil their obligations and fully implement” the UN sanctions regime.
South Korea’s spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, told South Korean lawmakers on Wednesday that North Korea was in the final stage of launching its third military surveillance satellite with technical help from Moscow.
In exchange, Russia was receiving large amounts of ammunition and short-range ballistic missiles to support its war in Ukraine, the agency said.
2. Kim Jong Un sees bigger cash-cow in Russia arms than embassies
Interesting idea, but Russia largess cannot long. I would think Kim would want to diversify. It could be the countries where those embassies were located are no longer as viable for regime illicit activities.
Kim Jong Un sees bigger cash-cow in Russia arms than embassies
Stars and Stripes · by Jon Herskovitz · November 2, 2023
A screen displays a broadcast of a news report featuring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Seoul Station in Seoul, South Korea, on April 21, 2020. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg)
Leader Kim Jong Un is launching his biggest scaling back of North Korea’s embassies, likely betting he can earn a larger payout in arms deals with the Kremlin than through missions suspected of sending him a cut of their alleged crimes.
While Kim’s isolated regime has ramped up its diplomatic activity with Russia, official media reports said it shuttered its embassies in Uganda and Angola in October.
Pyongyang plans to shut its consulate in Hong Kong and more than a dozen diplomatic establishments in Africa and elsewhere, according to Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper, citing a source familiar with North Korea’s internal affairs that it did not name. Its embassy in Spain is among the targeted closures, Yonhap News Agency of South Korea reported.
South Korea’s Unification Ministry believes Kim is running out of money to keep all its diplomatic facilities operating due to global sanctions draining his coffers of cash, Yonhap reported. Pyongyang currently has 47 embassies, three consulates, and three representative offices, according to the ministry.
North Korea’s embassies have occupied an unusual place in the diplomatic world with the U.S., U.K. and others accusing many of them of hatching illegal financial schemes to fund their operations, procure luxury goods for the leaders in Pyongyang and send back cash generated through nefarious means.
North Korea regularly denies any accusations made by the U.S. and its partners of wrongdoing.
The closures come as North Korea appears to have stepped up a lucrative business in sending munitions to Russia to help in its assault on Ukraine.
“The North Koreas are cost-benefit people,” said King Mallory, director of the Rand Center for Global Risk and Security. He added the embassies are marginal operations in terms of net cash flows to North Korea and less essential to Kim now than his deals with Russia.
Since August, North Korea has sent more than 1 million artillery shells for Putin’s war machine, South Korean lawmaker Yoo Sang-bum said Wednesday after attending a briefing by the country’s spy agency.
High demand from Russia’s war on Ukraine has driven up global artillery prices, with the 155 mm shells used by NATO forces priced at about $3,000 each. If North Korea sold shells at similar prices, the value of its shipments to Russia would exceed $3 billion, more than 10% of North Korea’s economy, based on an estimate of its annual output by South Korea’s central bank.
North Korea holds some of the largest stores of munitions and rockets that are interoperable with the Soviet-era weaponry Russia has sent to the frontlines in Ukraine. Cooperation between Pyongyang and Moscow has increased as the two have been pushed into global isolation.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made a rare trip to North Korea in late July to join in celebrations to mark the end of fighting in the 1950-1953 Korean War and was given a tour of the country’s latest weaponry by Kim. Soon after that, Russia sent a VIP military jet to Pyongyang, stoking concerns that North Korea was about to embark on a major arms transfer with Russia.
Kim then met Putin in Russia in September and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov went to Pyongyang in October, making his first trip there in five years.
“You don’t have Shoigu, the foreign minister and the president of Russia courting Kim Jong Un for peanuts,” Mallory said.
Smuggled cigarettes
Russia is likely offering Kim a package of assistance that may include cash, access to its banking systems, technology transfers and help in procuring components overseas that could be used to build weapons, he said.
This is probably a far better deal than what he gets from embassies.
The world first got a glimpse of some of the activities in 1976 when Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland accused a ring of North Korean diplomats of illegally smuggling duty-free cigarettes and liquor for sale on the retail market, as well as trying to traffic hashish.
In places such as Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola, North Korean officials were suspected of using their diplomatic pouches and other means to traffic items such as rhino horn and elephant tusks, according to a report by U.K. think tank the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies.
A United National Panel of Experts’ report on sanctions evasion released in September said embassies are offering diplomatic cover for front companies to engage in insurance fraud.
The practice has been going on for decades. Defector Kim Kwang Jin, who worked as a manager for Korea National Insurance Corp. told the Washington Post in 2009 about using his firm for insurance fraud. On one occasion the proceeds were collected and a cut sent to former leader Kim Jong Il in the form of a birthday present that consisted of two heavy-duty duffel bags stuffed with $20 million in cash.
Kim Jong Un’s decision to close embassies is probably more about difficulties in financing diplomatic activities rather than Pyongyang’s shifting foreign policy or waning interest in diplomatic engagement, according to Rachel Minyoung Lee, a regional issues manager at the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network.
“In fact, because of its confrontational relationship with the U.S., one could argue that it now more than ever needs to strengthen and expand ties with like-minded countries that are willing to stand with North Korea on the anti-U.S. front,” said Lee, who worked as an analyst for the CIA’s Open Source Enterprise for almost two decades.
With assistance from Shinhye Kang and Sam Kim.
Stars and Stripes · by Jon Herskovitz · November 2, 2023
3. Road rage: North Koreans forced to pitch in and patch potholes
Sigh... fix the roads for the elite.
Road rage: North Koreans forced to pitch in and patch potholes
People complain that they must sacrifice to fix roads that only benefit wealthy people with cars.
By Ahn Chang Gyu for RFA Korean
2023.11.03
rfa.org
North Korean authorities are forcing citizens to donate materials and labor to fix potholes and cracks in paved roads, but the people complain that it is unfair to make them sacrifice for maintenance on roads that they will never use, residents told Radio Free Asia.
Private cars are generally not allowed in North Korea, so most rural citizens get around on bicycles, which are not allowed on city streets. Only the wealthy elites will ever drive or ride in cars, so most citizens will never see the benefit of their labor.
Road maintenance was put on hold during the pandemic due to a lack of imported materials, but now government officials are enthusiastic about starting it up again, a resident of the northeastern province of North Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Asphalt road repairs have not been carried out in Kyongsong County over the past few years due to the inability to import pitch for road repairs due to the coronavirus outbreak,” the resident said. “The asphalt in Kyongsong County is only a few kilometers long, and only the main section downtown is paved.”
He explained that the road in Kyongsong has many potholes and missing sections, making it more difficult to traverse in a car than if it were unpaved.
“It’s a mess, but local residents don’t really care,” he said. “It’s only the high-ranking officials who drive on that road every day who get annoyed jostling about inside their cars.”
Donations required
Road maintenance used to be the responsibility of the government, but now the citizens are made to donate materials and carry out repairs, a resident of South Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“Last week, they carried out asphalt road repair work in Tanchon for the first time in several years,” he said. “Residents of each neighborhood had to donate three buckets of gravel. … Orders were [also] given to donate things such as old car and bicycle tires.”
A lot of fuel, such as coal and firewood, is needed to make an asphalt mixture by melting pitch and mixing in gravel. And this fuel is hard to supply, the resident said.
A man works to repair a road near Riwon on North Korea's northeast coast, Nov. 22, 2017. Credit: Ed Jones/AFP
“The pitch needed for asphalt road repairs must be purchased with foreign currency earned by each city and county,” he said. “The border [with China and Russia] have been closed due to the coronavirus, but supplies began to flow in from China little by little as the borders have reopened.”
With the reopening, local officials began outbidding each other for pitch, so that they could repair the roads in the areas they were responsible for, the second resident said.
“Pitch is not very helpful to the residents in their charge, but we are used to being made to repair the roads for their convenience.”
Unpaved roads
Most of North Korea’s roads are unpaved, especially outside of major cities. Most are gravel or dirt.
According to the latest statistics from the CIA World Factbook on North Korea, in 2006, the country had 25,554 kilometers (15,878 miles) of road, 724 kilometers (450 miles), or roughly 2.8% of which was paved.
However, the current percentage is likely higher; at the start of Kim Jong Un’s reign in 2011, each municipality was encouraged to compete with each other in terms of how well they embodied the country’s founding juche ideology of self-reliance.
Each county, city, and province is judged on how strong and vibrant their economies were, how happy and prosperous their citizens are, and how beautiful and modern their infrastructure is.
A huge part of beautification included paving major roadways that go through towns and cities, even if only for a few kilometers (miles) in each direction.
Rolling out the black carpet
Though most roads in the capital Pyongyang are paved, few are as one gets farther from the city center. Most other cities have a much smaller percentage of paved roads, and the tiny hamlets in the countryside are mostly unpaved.
Local government officials seek to pave the roads not only for their own convenience, they want to impress inspectors from the central government who come by each year, the North Hamgyong resident said.
“Every fall, inspectors from the Central Committee travel around the country to evaluate the status of land management projects,” he said. “Road management is a major evaluation item, so the local officials show more interest in road repairs than residents’ lives for their own sakes.”
Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong.
rfa.org
4. South Korea increasingly pessimistic as North Korean arsenal expands
South Korea increasingly pessimistic as North Korean arsenal expands
Ukraine, Israel showcase to Seoul failures of missile, drone defenses
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
Russian President Vladimir Putin, second left in front, and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, second right in front, examine a rocket assembly hangar during their meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome outside the city of Tsiolkovsky, about 125 miles from … Russian President Vladimir Putin, second left … more >
Premium
By - The Washington Times - Thursday, November 2, 2023
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is grappling with what many fear is a sharply deteriorating security situation and a diplomatic standstill as the North Korean threat expands inexorably.
Faraway conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have showcased the failures of defense systems against old and new missiles and armed drones, and the prospect of a productive dialogue with Pyongyang shows no signs of progress.
South Korean analysts reckon that the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un possesses some 100 nuclear warheads, with many more in the pipeline.
Mr. Kim “appears to be planning a force of at least 300 to 500 nuclear weapons. … The 300-weapon threshold could almost be reached in 2030,” a joint report by the U.S.-based Rand Corp. research institute and South Korea’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies stated last month.
The report warned: “North Korea has a nuclear weapon force that may already pose an existential threat to [South Korea] and is on the verge of posing a serious threat to the United States.”
As angst rises in Seoul and Washington, options to alter the dynamic on the divided Korean Peninsula are bleak. A deputy defense minister and a former South Korean nuclear arms negotiator acknowledge that defending Seoul from a concentrated North Korean attack is impossible and the prospect of Pyongyang abandoning its nuclear arms is unlikely.
SEE ALSO: North Korea’s Kim delivers ‘one million shells’ to Putin’s troops, Seoul says
Indefensible
An American expatriate businessman was surprised to learn that his new luxury, high-rise apartment in Seoul’s Yongsan district had an air-defense system on the civilian building’s roof.
The air defense mechanism would make him a target, and recent developments suggest such systems offer limited utility as protection against attack.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas — using massed barrages of low-tech rockets based on the World War II-era Soviet Katyusha — overwhelmed Israel’s formerly vaunted Iron Dome low-level air defense system in its terrorist rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7.
In Ukraine, neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian air defense network has been able to counter missile and drone strikes. Likewise, classic fighting platforms — armored vehicles, surface warships and jet fighter-bombers — have fallen prey to missiles and drones.
Both theaters have highlighted the sophistication and deadliness of current targeting systems and the porousness of defense systems.
Even high-tech Seoul was humiliated in December when its forces were unable to prevent North Korean drones from crossing the Demilitarized Zone and failed to shoot them down when they loitered over civilian airports and the presidential compound.
Analysts note that drones represent a minuscule percentage of the North’s bristling arsenal, which grows by the day.
Pyongyang’s artillery arm includes several hundred ultra-long-range tubes dug into mountain slopes and trained on Seoul, just 30 miles south of the DMZ. The North’s missile forces include long-range multiple-launch rocket systems and cruise and ballistic weapons. That does not take into account Mr. Kim’s nuclear weapons.
Whether argued with conventional or atomic weapons, few war planners could dream of a more target-rich environment than densely populated Greater Seoul, home to 24 million.
In the wake of the Hamas attacks, Sung Il, a deputy minister in the office of resource management for the South Korean Defense Ministry, was blunt when asked about his country’s defensive options.
“There is no such perfect weapon system to defend all attacks from the North. They can fire more than 10,000 rounds an hour,” he told the Defense Dialogue 2023 gathering last month in Seoul.
While South Korea is building a multistage anti-missile umbrella and fields high-tech preemptive and counteroffensive assets to strike firing sites, massive damage would be inevitable.
“There is no such system in the world” that can nullify North Korea’s threat, Mr. Sung said. Although the South could “try to defend key systems and key areas … there would be serious damage on the civilian side.”
Diplomatic delusions
With defenses increasingly at a disadvantage, the prospect of productive diplomacy with the Kim regime seems farther and farther away.
U.S.-backed multilateral talks in the 1990s and 2000s failed to curb the North’s expanding nuclear arsenal, as did direct talks between Mr. Kim and President Trump that produced three face-to-face meetings but no agreements.
North Korea detonated its first device in 2006 and its most recent — with the force of 10 Hiroshima bombs — in 2017. The chances of Pyongyang abandoning these assets are zero, said an expert with direct experience negotiating with the North Koreans.
“I believe that, from the first, denuclearization talks were just an illusion,” Lee Yong-joon, chairman of the Sejong Institute think tank, told reporters. “I believe there will be no further process for denuclearization talks.”
Mr. Lee, a senior member of past South Korean nuclear negotiating teams, said Mr. Kim put his central Yongbyon nuclear complex on the bargaining table in 2019 but now has three and perhaps four secret nuclear enrichment plants to build up his arsenal.
These assets represent a massive investment and constitute the otherwise impoverished regime’s only technological edge over the South.
“Nuclear weapons are critical to the worldview Kim has created for his people to justify his brutal reign and provide a means to achieve his objective of dominating South Korea,” Rand analyst Bruce Bennett wrote on the think tank’s blog. “Eliminate the nuclear weapons, and Kim is little more than a poor leader of a weak state, ripe for overthrow.”
One diplomatic step would be for Seoul and Washington to abandon per se denuclearization demands, recognize the reality of North Korea’s nuclear status and shift to arms control talks. Still, analysts view that as a political non-starter in Washington.
Differences over deterrence
One option for South Korea would be to pursue its own nuclear arsenal, though that could lead to clashes with the U.S. given Washington’s commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and the diplomatic and security fallout from a nuclear South Korea.
“The U.S. is very unlikely to allow South Korea to create an independent armament considering its alliances with other countries,” Mr. Lee said. “If it allows South Korea, it is likely to create a nuclear ‘domino effect.’”
Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey and other nations would likely press to follow suit, he said, and South Korea’s globe-spanning export economy could face punishing sanctions.
Another option is to deploy U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. The Asan/Rand report called for modernizing and earmarking for the peninsula some 180 U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, with about a dozen based in South Korea.
“That is unlikely to happen,” said Mr. Lee, noting U.S. offshore capabilities. The U.S. Navy “can strike North Korea by submarine from the middle of the ocean, and [tactical nuclear weapons] would also offer North Korea a target to attack within South Korea’s borders.”
Mr. Lee suggested a trilateral Japan-South Korea-U.S. missile defense, a massive increase in Seoul’s conventional forces and an expansion of the “extended deterrence” to the U.S. deployment of strategic bombers and submarines to the South this year.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
Copyright © 2023 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
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5. VOA [Washington Talk] “Respect for Korea’s desire for nuclear armament… “We will not shake our alliance.”
Eunjung Cho hosts Michael O'Hanlon and me on Washington Talk from Voice of America for broadcast into Pyongyang (primary target audience is the regime elite) and around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr7JfkVLLaA
[Washington Talk] “Respect for Korea’s desire for nuclear armament… “We will not shake our alliance.”
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Premiered 39 minutes ago #WashingtonTalk #VOA #APEC
As the North Korean nuclear threat intensifies, U.S. military experts say they respect the South Korean people's desire for nuclear armament and related discussions. He also said that South Korea's nuclear armament will not lead to the breakdown of the U.S.-ROK alliance and that it should not be made to pay a greater price than India or Israel. However, he emphasized that the United States' extended deterrence commitment is strong and that South Korea must be persuaded not to develop nuclear weapons. He also said that the decision to use nuclear weapons will be made jointly by the presidents of both the United States and South Korea within the overall war plan. Host: Eunjung Cho / Talk: Michael O'Hanlon (Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution), David Maxwell (Vice President, Asia-Pacific Strategic Center) #Washington Talk #VOA #APEC #U.S.-China
6. U.S. and South Korea Forge Stronger Cybersecurity Alliance Amid Growing AI Threats
We must fight the common enemies in the cyber domain.
U.S. and South Korea Forge Stronger Cybersecurity Alliance Amid Growing AI Threats
cryptopolitan.com · by Derrick Clinton · November 2, 2023
TLDR
- The U.S. and South Korea are uniting against AI threats.
- Their joint Strategic Cybersecurity Cooperation Framework is pivotal.
- Adversaries’ AI use pushes the alliance to bolster defenses.
In an effort to combat the increasing prevalence of cyber threats, the United States and South Korea have intensified their collaborative efforts in cybersecurity. Spearheaded by the recent executive order signed by President Joe Biden, the partnership aims to bolster the countries’ defenses against sophisticated AI-driven attacks. The initiative, which aligns with the evolving nature of global security challenges, underscores a comprehensive framework that emphasizes strategic deterrence and information sharing.
Strengthening bilateral ties
President Biden’s executive order, signed on October 30, emphasized the necessity for reinforced safety standards and enhanced user protections, marking a significant milestone in the consolidation of American influence in the field of artificial intelligence. The U.S.-ROK alliance has emerged as a key pillar in this strategy, leveraging resources to fortify cybersecurity and combat the escalating threats posed by AI-driven cybercrime and espionage.
Unified approach to cybersecurity
Under the leadership of President Biden and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, the alliance has witnessed a significant shift in focus, extending beyond conventional defense measures to address a spectrum of national security threats, with particular emphasis on cybersecurity. This reorientation acknowledges the critical need for a comprehensive approach to safeguarding critical infrastructure and countering the rising tide of cyber threats.
Experts such as Dennis Desmond and James E. Platte underscore the importance of integrated strategies that encompass trade, economic, diplomatic, and defense realms. The consensus emphasizes the necessity for mutual understanding among allies, fostering a united front against malicious cyber activities and promoting a cohesive response to potential threats.
The challenge of AI misuse
The widespread misuse of AI by adversarial states, as exemplified by North Korea and its utilization of AI for sophisticated hacking operations and cyber-espionage, poses a significant challenge for the U.S.-ROK alliance. Furthermore, the substantial investments made by China and Russia in military AI applications have underscored the critical need for proactive cybersecurity measures. While China’s advancements in AI-driven military technologies have served as a benchmark for other nations, Russia has demonstrated its prowess in orchestrating large-scale disinformation campaigns.
To counter these threats, experts advocate for the strategic utilization of AI tools, such as machine learning, to mitigate the impact of adversarial information campaigns. Additionally, joint initiatives between the U.S. and South Korea, including the establishment of a cyber working group and the introduction of joint cybersecurity advisories, have strengthened their collaborative efforts in combating cyber threats and fostering a secure digital environment.
A call for further collaboration
While progress has been made in the realm of cybersecurity cooperation, experts underscore the need for greater institutionalized coordination between the U.S. and South Korea. The establishment of a systematic approach that integrates government, academia, and the private sector is crucial for effective information sharing and the development of a unified response to emerging cyber threats. Additionally, the strategic allocation of resources and the formulation of unified response protocols are deemed imperative to effectively address and neutralize cyber threats at various levels of severity.
As the U.S.-ROK alliance forges ahead in its mission to counter AI-driven threats, a collaborative, integrated, and forward-looking approach is imperative. Coordinated efforts between the two nations, coupled with a comprehensive understanding of the evolving cybersecurity landscape, will serve as the cornerstone for a robust and resilient alliance in the face of an ever-evolving digital battlefield.
cryptopolitan.com · by Derrick Clinton · November 2, 2023
7. Review: In 'Beyond Utopia,' the weight of North Korean oppression on its citizenry is undeniable
I really want to see this film. Just have to find the time.
Conclusion:
But plan your double-feature wisely, doc lovers — when it comes to your tolerance for throat-tightening material, your mileage may vary. Know that “Beyond Utopia” is ultimately more than the cruel sum of its participants’ ills and the turbulence they’re willing to endure. Its engine is one of hope and belief, against all odds, that the impasse between mass indoctrination and an open society can be bridged, and that the desires and fears of everyday people who suffer the actions of a powerful few shouldn’t be ignored.
Review: In 'Beyond Utopia,' the weight of North Korean oppression on its citizenry is undeniable
Los Angeles Times · by Robert Abele · November 3, 2023
The world’s bad-actor states are well-known from the worrying news they regularly produce. But only North Korea’s brand of isolated, propaganda-fueled tyranny seems to inspire reportage steeped in the weird — thanks in part to the dangerous whims of its current leader and the coddling by America’s former president.
Enter documentarian Madeleine Gavin’s urgent dispatch “Beyond Utopia,” a reminder that people’s lives there are continuously at risk. It puts us right in the heart of a perilous attempt in 2019 by a North Korean family of five, and separately a teenage boy with a mother in Seoul, to flee Kim Jong Un’s oppressive rule. Guiding their efforts is a dedicated pastor in South Korea with extensive contacts in the Underground Railroad for defectors, plus his own scars from years of this hazardous work.
Between the in-the-moment tension and glimpses at the reality inside a hidden regime (footage was covertly shot with smuggled-in cameras), the film makes for a blistering, wrenching counterpoint to any narrative of North Korea that foregrounds the bizarre at the expense of the citizens suffering. Documentaries with life-or-death stakes, not to mention wider resonance in our increasingly unsettled geopolitical world, don’t get much more nerve-racking or heartbreaking than “Beyond Utopia.” At the same time, the film is inspiring about the lengths people will go to for a better life.
The Rohs — a husband and wife, their two small children, and an elderly grandmother — had been wandering for five days on Changbai Mountain just across the vigorously patrolled Yalu River that separates China and North Korea, when a farmer’s smartphone video of the desperate-looking family made its way to pastor Seungeun Kim in Seoul. The filmmakers had been gaining Kim’s trust for a separate North Korea-themed project when he gave them permission to film as he commandeered the Rohs’ journey, and also strived to help a woman named Soyeon Lee get her teenage son out.
Pastor Seungeun Kim in the documentary “Beyond Utopia.”
(Roadside Attractions)
Crossing that river border, we learn, is only the start of the danger: the pathway requires traversing the length of China, crossing Vietnam and Laos, before real safety is achieved by entering Thailand. At any point before then, authorities could catch the Rohs and deport them back to a North Korea brutally vengeful toward defectors. That picture of the dictatorship’s treatment of the disloyal, as detailed by interviews with experts including U.S. official Sue Mi Terry, author Barbara Demick and defector-activist Hyeonseo Lee, is more chilling than you can imagine.
Following the Rohs’ progress (which includes a separate harrowing nighttime river crossing on the Mekong in a crowded, unstable boat) and anxious mother Soyeon’s entirely different struggle tracking her son matches the rough emotional intensity of a Barbara Kopple immersion doc crossed with a Paul Greengrass thriller. Its power is further burnished by Gavin’s portrait of the determined, devout rescuer at its center, Kim, a genuine hero who can somehow compartmentalize his own life’s joys, sorrows and threats to be a steady beacon for the North Koreans who contact him. In this pastor’s poise and practicality, the sturdy righteousness of his calling makes for a fascinating contrast with the impenetrable martyrdom shown in another grimly compelling work of nonfiction from this season, “The Mission.” (Clearly not all faith-fueled devotions are equal in their worthiness or risk).
But plan your double-feature wisely, doc lovers — when it comes to your tolerance for throat-tightening material, your mileage may vary. Know that “Beyond Utopia” is ultimately more than the cruel sum of its participants’ ills and the turbulence they’re willing to endure. Its engine is one of hope and belief, against all odds, that the impasse between mass indoctrination and an open society can be bridged, and that the desires and fears of everyday people who suffer the actions of a powerful few shouldn’t be ignored.
'Beyond Utopia'
In Korean and English, with English subtitles
Rating: PG-13, for thematic material, violent content and disturbing images
Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Playing: Now at Lumiere Cinema, Laemmle NoHo 7, Laemmle Town Center 5, Laemmle Monica
Los Angeles Times · by Robert Abele · November 3, 2023
8. News outlets didn’t ignore Korean leaders’ historic summit. A video of the meeting is 5 years old
News outlets didn’t ignore Korean leaders’ historic summit. A video of the meeting is 5 years old
BY PHILIP MARCELO
Published 4:39 PM EDT, November 2, 2023
apnews.com
News outlets didn’t ignore Korean leaders’ historic summit. A video of the meeting is 5 years old | AP News
AP Fact Check
FILE - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, cross the military demarcation line to the South side at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone, South Korea, Friday, April 27, 2018. The Associated Press on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023 reported on social media posts falsely claiming that a new video shows a historic meeting between the two Korean leaders of that the mainstream media isn’t covering (Korea Summit Press Pool via AP)
By Philip Marcelo
Published [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]
CLAIM: A new video shows a historic meeting between the leaders of North Korea and South Korea at their border, but the mainstream media isn’t covering it.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The clip is more than five years old and shows a moment that was captured by news outlets from across the world.
THE FACTS: A popular social media post claims news outlets are so transfixed by conflicts roiling the world that they’re ignoring a momentous moment in global peace and diplomacy: a meeting of the two rival leaders of the Koreas.
The post includes a video that shows the leaders of North Korea and South Korea smiling as they shake hands and walk together along the demilitarized zone separating the nations.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is seen in the short clip first, walking down a large flight of steps with a phalanx of security guards in tow as he makes his way to his South Korean counterpart, who stands waiting at the demarcation line that has divided the two nations for generations.
The South Korean leader then steps over a line marking the border into North Korea before the two walk across the line together into South Korea.
“New history: Kim Jong Un shakes hands with South Korean leader as they both cross borders for the first time,” reads the text over the video that was widely shared on TikTok and other social media platforms in recent days.
“History made again. This gave me chills,” reads a caption above the post on Facebook, which has been liked more than 17,000 times. “You won’t see this on the television or hear about it on the radio. We the people all across the [world] want peace not war!”
But the historic moment isn’t new: it happened in 2018 and didn’t go unnoticed by news outlets at the time.
The Associated Press and many other media companies covered the fateful day, which marked the first time a North Korean leader crossed into South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953, which separated the once-united country.
In fact, the widely shared clip comes from The Guardian’s coverage of the April 26, 2018, meeting. The British news outlet’s logo is clearly seen at the start of the video.
At one point in the video, the two leaders can even be seen holding their pose and smiling for the cameras as they shake hands.
FILE - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un crossed on foot the military demarcation line in Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) for historic talks with South Korean President Moon-Jae-in on Friday, April 26, 2018.
The meeting took place in Panmunjom, the village in the demilitarized zone, or DMZ, where the armistice ending the Korean War was signed decades ago.
The carefully coordinated interactions between Kim and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in were captured in photos and videos, though their private conversations were largely inaudible, the AP reported at the time.
The two chatted while strolling slowly on a bright blue footbridge and sat down for more formal talks at the Peace House, a conference venue built on the South Korean side to host such high-level meetings between the two nations.
In front of government officials and the international press, the leaders then signed the Panmunjom Declaration, a joint statement on improving inter-Korean relations and officially putting an end to the Korean War, AP reported.
___
This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
Philip Marcelo
Reporter in Boston focused on immigration and race
apnews.com
9. S. Korea, Thailand to hold consular talks amid complaints over immigration services for Thai nationals
(LEAD) S. Korea, Thailand to hold consular talks amid complaints over immigration services for Thai nationals | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Duk-Kun Byun · November 4, 2023
(ATTN: UPDATES with more information)
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and Thailand will soon hold consular talks to discuss recent complaints by Thai nationals of their allegedly unfair treatment by South Korean immigration services, Seoul's foreign ministry said Saturday.
The two sides agreed to hold the talks between the directors-general for consular affairs at their respective foreign ministries, after the complaints spread on social media, with the hashtag "ban Korea travel" trending on the platform X in Thailand.
According to the posts, Thai nationals were unfairly denied entry or subject to strict screening at immigration points in South Korea.
Seoul's justice ministry, however, has highlighted a need to screen out potential illegal immigrants, noting some 78 percent of all visitors from Thailand are currently staying here illegally.
"Taking appropriate steps to prevent illegal stays of foreign visitors is a basic duty of the government," the ministry said Friday.
Seoul and Bangkok have reportedly agreed to discuss the issue of Thai nationals staying illegally in South Korea at their upcoming consular talks.
The decision to hold the consular talks was reached during the fourth round of bilateral policy consultations led by First Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin and Thailand's Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Sarun Charoensuwan in Bangkok on Friday, the ministry said.
South Korean First Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin (L) and Thailand's Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Sarun Charoensuwan shake hands during the fourth round of bilateral policy consultations in Bangkok on Nov. 3, 2023, in this photo provided by Seoul's foreign ministry. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
hague@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Duk-Kun Byun · November 4, 2023
10. N. Korea diversifying cybercrimes amid drop in value of cryptocurrency: report
N. Korea diversifying cybercrimes amid drop in value of cryptocurrency: report
The Korea Times · November 4, 2023
Portraits of the late North Korean leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il erected in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea, Dec. 19, 2018. AP-Yonhap
North Korea appears to be diversifying its cybercrimes to offset the declining value of cryptocurrencies it steals to fund its nuclear and missile programs, a report said Saturday.
According to the report by Kim Bomi, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Strategy, North Korea stole $340 million worth of cryptocurrencies in the first three quarters of the year, which amounts to 29.6 percent of the total damage reported worldwide, but is still less than the unprecedented volume it stole last year.
Kim attributed the decline to the sharp drop in the value of cryptocurrencies amid U.S. interest rate hikes and the bankruptcy of cryptocurrency exchange operator FTX.
Kim also cited countries' strengthened monitoring and sanctions in the wake of last year's hacking of Axie Infinity, a token-based online video game, by North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus, which led to the theft of $620 million in cryptocurrencies.
"North Korea is renewing its interest in attacking the financial sector," Kim wrote. "Starting last year, ransomware attacks are also on the rise."
Kim also said North Korea appears to be relying on Russian exchanges to cash its cryptocurrencies. (Yonhap)
The Korea Times · November 4, 2023
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com
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