Quotes of the Day:
"War educates the senses, calls into action the will, perfects the physical constitution, brings men into such swift and close collision in critical moments that man measures man. On its own scale, on the virtues it loves, it endures no counterfeit, but shakes the whole society until every atom falls into the place its specific gravity assigns it. It presently finds the value of good sense and of foresight, and Ulysses takes rank next to Achilles. The leaders, picked men of a courage and vigor tried and augmented in fifty battles, are emulous to distinguish themselves above each other by new merits, as clemency, hospitality, splendor of living."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Thus it has come about that our theoretical and critical literature, instead of giving plain, straightforward arguments in which the author at least always knows what he is saying andthe reader what he is reading, is crammed with jargon, ending at obscure crossroads where the author loses its readers. Sometimes these books are even worse: they are just hollow shells. The author himself no longer knows just what he is thinking and soothes himself with obscure ideas which would not satisfy him if expressed in plain speech.”
- Major General Carl von Clausewitz
“America doesn’t lose wars, it loses interest.” - Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani Ambassador to the U.S.
1. U.S. Defense Bill Drops Commitment to Troop Numbers in Korea
2. Five Eyes invitation may come with costs
3. Global Hawk flies over Korean Peninsula skies anew
4. S. Korea to continue efforts to improve relations with N.K. on occasion of major anniversaries
5. North Korean contract manufacturing companies in Sinuiju are increasingly shutting down
6. South keeps eye on North ahead of possible SLBM unveiling
7. N.K. paper stresses effective land management as top economic policy priority
8. Chinese FM to visit S. Korea for talks on bilateral relations, N. Korea: sources
9. Pakistan-North Korea’s ‘unholy alliance’ breeds doubt with thermal power plants near nuclear sites
10. North calls U.S. 'destroyer of human rights' after Afghanistan pullout
11. As Afghan Refugee Crisis Unfolds, Survivors Recall ‘Miracle’ Evacuation
12. The Afghan Effect: U.S. Afghan Withdrawal to Accelerate Alliance Change
13. What Happens When You Have Too Many Nuclear Cooks in the Kitchen
14. Christians in North Korea face torture, execution by firing squad: USCIRF report
15. Kim Jong-Un Demands ‘Urgent Action’ On Climate Change
16. South Korea - Container ship orders hits record amid soaring shipping fees
1. U.S. Defense Bill Drops Commitment to Troop Numbers in Korea
There are two key points from the article below are (1) A report on the feasibility of countries joining Five Eyes and (2) a report on intelligence collection in Korea coordinated with the Commanders of INDOPACOM and USSOCOM.
No one should overreact to this draft language, First it is only subcommittee language and second it is only directing the submission of feasibility reports.
Excerpts from the HASC subcommittee draft:
Five Eyes:
The committee directs the Director of National Intelligence, in coordination with
the Secretary of Defense, to provide a report to the House Committee on Armed
Services, the Senate Committee on Armed Services, and the congressional
intelligence committees, not later than May 20, 2022, on current intelligence and
resource sharing agreements between the United States and the countries of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom; as well as opportunities
to expand intelligence sharing with South Korea, Japan, India, and Germany. The
review shall include
Intelligence collection:
The committee directs the Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, in
consultation with the Commander of U.S. Forces Korea and the Commander of U.S.
Special Operations Command, to submit a report to the House Committee on Armed
Services not later than February 25, 2022, on intelligence collection capabilities and
activities in the U.S. Forces Korea area of operations, including with respect to
spaceborne, airborne, ground, maritime, and cyber intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance capabilities. The report shall be unclassified but may contain a
classified annex.
U.S. Defense Bill Drops Commitment to Troop Numbers in Korea
September 06, 2021 13:19
The U.S.' next defense bill for fiscal year 2022 drops a commitment to keeping troop numbers in Korea at the current level.
The bill, passed by the House Committee on Armed Services before ratification last week, will not immediately affect the 28,500-strong U.S. Forces Korea, but leaves the way open for slashing numbers if that is deemed necessary.
The USFK's role could also be expanded from a mere presence here to deter North Korea to a key force in the U.S.' new cold war against China.
The National Defense Authorization Act previously contained a clause aimed at preventing then-U.S. President Donald Trump from reducing troop numbers below the current level, but it has been dropped in the latest revision.
But the U.S government was keen to dispel worries that troop numbers will drop significantly. U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, "The president, as he has said repeatedly, has no intention of drawing down our forces from South Korea or from Europe."
Committee Chairman Adam Smith said, "We don't need [the clause] while President Biden is in the White House."
/Yonhap
Instead, the NDAA supports the U.S. troop presence here in general terms "to deter aggression against the U.S., and its allies and partners."
"This suggests that the USFK's role will be expanded from a mere presence for deterrence of North Korea to a key force to maintain order in the Indo-Pacific region," said Shin Beom-chul at the Research Institute for Economy and Society. "It also means that the U.S. will use the USFK as a front-line beachhead to contain China."
The U.S. has long been trying to give the U.S. Forces Korea more "strategic flexibility" in the Indo-Pacific region. The revision now requires the commander of the Indo-Pacific Command to consult with the commanders of the USFK and Special Operations Command before reporting on intelligence-gathering capabilities and activities in the USFK's areas of operations.
The committee also flagged South Korea as a potential member of the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing alliance of Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K. and the U.S. to contain China. Other potential members are Germany, Japan and India.
There also is speculation that the USFK will ask the South Korean military to engage in more joint drills than before. After recent combined exercises, USFK Commander Gen. Paul LaCamera said, "I know we can achieve more."
A government official here said, "There's a possibility that Washington will demand more participation in drills or put more pressure on us to join the Quad" or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, an informal anti-China alliance that includes Australia, Japan and India.
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
2. Five Eyes invitation may come with costs
We are a long way from changes to Five Eyes. But Mr Lee is right to flag the potential Chinese reaction to this against South Korea.
Five Eyes invitation may come with costs
South Korea will have greater access to classified intelligence from the US but Chinese backlash seems inevitable
Published : Sept 6, 2021 - 16:40 Updated : Sept 6, 2021 - 16:40
South Korea has received a fresh invitation from the world’s most exclusive intelligence-sharing alliance, the so-called Five Eyes, but experts warn there is no such thing as free lunch in diplomacy.
Last week, the US House of Representatives submitted a draft bill to the National Defense Authorization for the 2022 fiscal year, asking the US administration to consider expanding the Five Eyes program that currently consists of five English-speaking democracies: the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Along with Korea, three other nations, including Japan, India and Germany, were proposed as possible new members.
“The Five Eyes is an extremely exclusive intelligence alliance. The joining of three Asian nations would mean the alliance’s bigger presence in the Indo-Pacific region where the US is uniting allies to counter China’s growing power,” said Park Won-gon, a professor of North Korean studies at Ewha Womans University.
“For Korea, it is absolutely an opportunity to have access to high-quality intelligence. But that would come with sizeable costs, especially in its relations with China.”
Flags of Five Eyes members (123rf)
The US-led Five Eyes started in 1946 during the Cold War as a mechanism for monitoring the Soviet Union and sharing classified intelligence. Then, it has evolved into a more extensive alliance that transcends security and business spheres, with a majority of intelligence coming from Washington.
Korea and the US have also long shared classified intelligence but mostly on North Korea’s military and nuclear activities. Under the Five Eyes program, Korea is expected to have greater access to a much wider scope of intelligence on international affairs.
The issue is that now the unstated priority of the decades-old alliance is countering China’s influence and Korea is likely to face renewed pressure to choose between its biggest ally, the US, and its biggest trading partner, China.
In May 2020, the Five Eyes alliance agreed to expand its role in presenting a unified voice on human rights and democracy as well, voicing out concerns on issues like China’s territorial claims over the South China Sea and suppression of democracy in Hong Kong. China has vehemently protested against the allegations.
Even the current arrangement has struggled with members’ varying interests depending on their ties with the Chinese economy. At the time, New Zealand opted out of countering China, while Australia was slapped with a series of trade sanctions from China.
“It remains to be seen whether Korea will join the Five Eyes considering multiple factors like consensus among member nations and the willingness of the Korean government,” Park said.
“What’s clear is the Biden administration’s foreign policy is pivoting to the Indo-Pacific following its exit from Afghanistan. More invitations that require Korea’s tough decisions are likely to come in the future.”
The US draft bill will be reviewed at House and Senate subcommittees to be included in the final bill, with the deadline set for May 22 next year. The US government will make its final decision after consultations with current and future member nations.
The Korean government has not yet expressed its official stance on the issue, citing the still nascent phase of discussions in the US.
Early this year, there was speculation that Korea was mulling its entry to the Quad, an informal regional grouping of the US, Japan, India and Australia that discusses economic and security partnership and aims to bolster their ties against a more assertive China.
In the summit talks with President Joe Bide in May, President Moon Jae-in said the nation was willing to join any “open and inclusive” regional alliances, including the Quad, if necessary.
3. Global Hawk flies over Korean Peninsula skies anew
Again, prudent actions given the situation in north Korea.
Global Hawk flies over Korean Peninsula skies anew
Posted September. 06, 2021 07:36,
Updated September. 06, 2021 07:36
The Global Hawk (RQ-4), high-altitude, unmanned surveillance aircraft has flown into the Korean Peninsula and started surveying North Korea for an extended duration around the inter-Korean military demarcation line as signs suggested the North started preparation for a military parade lately.
According to multiple websites tracking military aircraft on Sunday, the Global Hawk took off the U.S. military’s Yokota Airbase in Japan and flew into the skies over the Korean Peninsula on Saturday. The aircraft passed South Korea’s southern coast, moved northward along the western coast and continued flying over the skies of MDL areas to and from east and west multiple times through Sunday morning. A Global Hawk has thus flown into the skies over the Korean Peninsula only eight days after the unmanned aircraft flew into the peninsula on August 27, when the South Korea-U.S. joint military drill for this year’s second half ended.
Analysts say the Global Hawk’s sortie into the Korean Peninsula is related to South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities’ attention to Pyongyang’s possible surprise provocation and demonstration of military force. Watchers also suggest the possibility that the North, which is conducting an annual summer military drill since July, will test fire its new weapons for attacking the South, including an improved North Korean version of the Iskander (KN-23). The E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (STARS), which surveys the North’s military situation including locations of transporter erector launchers, also flew over the skies of Yellow Sea waters in the Korean Peninsula on Saturday.
Also, it has been also reported that the intelligence authorities have repeatedly spotted scenes of more than 10,000-strong military troops gathering and marching in line together since late last month at Mirim Airport, situated about 5 kilometers from the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang. Analyzing these moves, the South Korean and U.S. authorities are judging Pyongyang is preparing a military parade to mark the 76th anniversary of the founding of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party on October 10. After unveiling an ultra-large ICBM and ‘Bukguksong-4 ㅅ’ SLBM at the 75th anniversary of the party’s founding last year, the North unveiled the “Bukkuksong-4 ㅅ,’ another new ICBM during the military parade marking the 8th party convention in January this year.
4. S. Korea to continue efforts to improve relations with N.K. on occasion of major anniversaries
Fantasy. Wishful thinking. South Korea is going to be left standing at the altar. It suffers from unrequited love. It takes two to tango. north Korea plays hard to get (hell, it doesn't even answer the phone when the South calls!) . I don't know how many sayings I need to use to emphasize the problem lies with north Korea and Kim Jong-un's decision making. South Korea has been doing everything it can to jump start north-South engagement but it is Kim Jong-un who refuses any offers of an outstretched hand from the South. That is likely because the example of the South is an existential threat to the regime.
S. Korea to continue efforts to improve relations with N.K. on occasion of major anniversaries | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Yonhap) -- The unification ministry said Monday it will continue efforts to use major inter-Korean anniversaries coming up this month as opportunities to resume dialogue and improve relations with North Korea.
On Sept. 17, South Korea celebrates the 30th anniversary of its simultaneous membership to the United Nations with the North.
The two Koreas are also set to mark the third anniversary of the 2018 Pyongyang summit declaration on Sept. 19, in which President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shared the view that the peninsula must be turned into a region free from nuclear weapons.
"To push forward the peace process on the Korean Peninsula, the early restoration of inter-Korean dialogue and cooperation is important above anything else," Lee Jong-joo, the ministry's spokesperson, said at a regular press briefing.
"We will continue our efforts to restore inter-Korean relations through various opportunities despite the difficult situation," she said.
Lee added that the ministry will put in all efforts to make the upcoming anniversaries "meaningful."
(END)
5. North Korean contract manufacturing companies in Sinuiju are increasingly shutting down
What destroys an economy? Loyalty funds paid to the regime.
The economy is failing and the Korean people in the north are suffering because of the deliberate policy decisions of Kim Jong-un.
North Korean contract manufacturing companies in Sinuiju are increasingly shutting down - Daily NK
Despite difficult business conditions, it does not appear North Korean authorities are lessening the “loyalty funds” businesses must pay
Unable to cope with business difficulties owing to the prolonged closure of the Sino-North Korean border, a growing number of workplaces are closing in North Korea. A source says the companies have tried to survive by laying off staff and selling assets, but they have hit their limit.
In a telephone conversation with Daily NK last Thursday, a source in North Pyongan Province said that a string of factories that produced clothing on a contract manufacturing basis for China have closed in Sinuiju. “Because of this, the mood in the city is growing worse,” he claimed.
Located on the Sino-North Korean border, Sinuiju is home to many businesses that take orders from China to manufacture items on a contract basis, delivering the finished articles to China. However, with Sino-North Korean trade suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, those businesses appear mired in difficulties with orders from China drying up.
According to a report on trends in North Korean trade in 2020 published in July by South Korea’s Korea Trade Promotion Corporation (KOTRA), North Korean imports and exports amounted to USD 863 million last year, falling 73.4% from the previous year.
According to the source, the president of one contract manufacturing company in Sinuiju had been delivering goods to China with about 500 employees in his pay. He was a successful businessman, paying fairly generous wages to his workers prior to COVID-19.
However, with work drying up with the closure of the border, the factory fell into serious business difficulties. The company president responded by laying off about 400 people this spring. He intended to lower fixed costs by reducing staff and to wait things out until the border reopened.
The Sino-North Korean Friendship Bridge, which connects the Chinese city of Dandong with the North Korean city of Sinuiju. / Image: Daily NK
The president reportedly expressed frustration that he wanted to keep employing his workers, but he had no choice but to let them go — even if he sold all his property, he would not be able to keep the business going. In particular, the source said he complained that inconsistent government policy was making it even harder to survive.
The company president struggled to keep the business afloat, selling off the company’s buses and trucks. However, he heard no news that trade would reopen. Ultimately, he laid off his remaining workers in July and plans to close the factory soon.
Though factories face business troubles so serious they are shutting down, it does not appear North Korean authorities are lessening the “loyalty funds” these businesses must pay.
“Even if the company fails, the tasks and bribes they must provide remain,” said the source. “The president of the [aforementioned contract manufacturing] company is worried that he might be exiled because he can’t pay up.”
North Korean trading companies must pay yearly “party funds” (loyalty funds) and deliver items demanded by the authorities. North Korean authorities press the people in charge of companies to make absolutely sure they pay their loyalty funds and deliver these goods, regardless of the circumstances.
Last year, an official in charge of managing North Korean workers in China extorted the meal money of his workers to pay his loyalty fees when he had difficulty coming up with loyalty fund cash.
Meanwhile, Sinuiju residents who lost their jobs following the closure of contract manufacturing businesses are reportedly suffering economic distress.
“Most of the locals who lost their jobs are having serious problems making ends meet,” said the source. “However, with no new work and no capital to do business, locals are worrying a lot.”
6. South keeps eye on North ahead of possible SLBM unveiling
Is it live or is it memorex? (I am dating myself). But is it the real thing or is the regime only going to show us a mock-up?
Monday
September 6, 2021
South keeps eye on North ahead of possible SLBM unveiling
The South Korean military is eyeing the possibility of North Korea unveiling a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) at a military parade marking the 76th anniversary of the establishment of the Workers' Party next month, according to intelligence officials Monday.
“North Korean troops are preparing for a military parade at Mirim Airfield in Pyongyang, and there is a possibility that the new SLBM will be unveiled,” said a South Korean intelligence official who spoke to the JoongAng Ilbo on the condition of anonymity.
Without specifying the means by which the information was gathered, the official added, “South Korea and the United States are monitoring North Korea’s movements with all of their reconnaissance assets.”
The U.S. Air Force's ground surveillance reconnaissance aircraft, the Northrop Grumman E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint Stars), has been reported as active in the skies above the Korean Peninsula earlier last month by aircraft tracking website Radar Box.
According to Radar Box on Saturday and Sunday, the United States' Boeing RC-135S Cobra Ball, which detects ballistic missiles, departed from Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan, and entered the Yellow Sea west of the Korean Peninsula.
Another U.S. aircraft, the high-altitude Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk, also flew over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday, crisscrossing over the Seoul metropolitan area and Gangwon several times in an east-west direction while maintaining its distance from the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which divides the two Koreas.
North Korea held two nighttime parades in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square within the past year, one marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party on Oct. 10, 1945, and another marking the eighth party convention in January.
During the parade last October, the North unveiled its new SLBM, named Pukguksong-4, while Pukguksong-5 was released in January. Experts believe that the military parades serve a dual purpose to celebrate the regime’s achievements while also drawing outside attention to new weapons.
SLBMs are strategic weapons considered essential to maintaining a country’s retaliatory or second strike capability should it come under a nuclear attack.
They are more difficult to detect than ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which require conspicuous launching facilities that can be more easily detected through satellite and air reconnaissance.
However, the North’s development of weapons over the past year has not stopped at SLBMs.
The International Atomic Energy Agency on Aug. 27 released a report on North Korea's nuclear development that pointed to signs that the reclusive country restarted its Yongbyon nuclear complex in July.
Analysts believe that by unveiling its new SLBMs and restarting its Yongbyon nuclear facility, North Korea is ramping up pressure on its foes — chiefly the United States — to ease international sanctions, and that demonstrations of its nuclear weapons and missile arsenal are targeted shows of force for both foreign watchers as well its domestic audience.
7. N.K. paper stresses effective land management as top economic policy priority
Poor land management goes back to the Arduous March of the famine of 1994-1996. Because of the failure of the public distribution system the people had to fend for themselves and they cut down much vegetation throughout the countryside in order to survive and of course this is one of the main reasons for so much erosion and loss of the already limited lands for agriculture.I do not know the the north can recover from so many years of abuse of the land and because the regime cannot provide for the people.
N.K. paper stresses effective land management as top economic policy priority | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's official newspaper stressed Monday that effective land management should be a top priority in the country's economic policy, calling for thorough preventive measures against flooding and other natural disasters.
"Work on land management is a task where we can protect a hundred and earn a thousand by investing ten," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the ruling Workers' Party, said. "If we want to realize fast and sustainable development, we need complete preparations to overcome natural disasters."
The paper, in particular, emphasized the importance of effective management of rivers, streams and seashores by repairing and constructing banks and sea walls.
Saying such large-scale projects need massive mobilization of workers and materials, the paper urged leaders of cities and counties to take full responsibility in carrying them out.
State media earlier reported about 1,170 homes were destroyed or flooded, and some 5,000 residents were evacuated due to heavy rainfall in South Hamgyong Province. Leader Kim Jong-un ordered full support for recovery efforts in the province.
The flooding came after the North was hit by back-to-back typhoons last year in major farming areas, which aggravated the country's already serious food shortage.
In June, Kim said at a party meeting his country's "food situation is now getting tense as the agricultural sector failed to fulfill its grain production plan" due to damage from typhoons last year.
(END)
8. Chinese FM to visit S. Korea for talks on bilateral relations, N. Korea: sources
China, hard power, wolf diplomacy, or soft power? What will they employ? And of course pressure the ROK to pressure the US to lift sanctions on nK
(LEAD) Chinese FM to visit S. Korea for talks on bilateral relations, N. Korea: sources | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with comments by a presidential official at bottom; ADDS background in 10th para)
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, Sept. 6 (Yonhap) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi plans to visit South Korea early next week for talks on bilateral relations and North Korea, diplomatic sources said Monday.
During the visit, Wang will hold talks with Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong and meet with other officials, sources familiar with the matter said. He could also pay a courtesy call on President Moon Jae-in.
Wang's visit, if realized, will come about five months after he last held talks with Chung in the southeastern Chinese city of Xiamen. Wang's last visit to Seoul took place in November last year.
South Korea has sought to maintain close ties with Beijing despite an intensifying rivalry between China and the United States, as the country tries to enlist support from Beijing to move the stalled nuclear talks with Pyongyang forward.
"We have a shared understanding with the Chinese side on the need for high-level communications, and we're closely consulting with them on various ways for exchanges," a foreign ministry official said, without giving further details.
The talks will come amid renewed tensions on the Korean Peninsula after the North warned of "a serious security crisis" in protest of the joint military exercise that Seoul and Washington staged last month.
China has expressed objections over the military drills between the South and the U.S., saying the exercise is not "constructive" and calling for Washington to avoid any action that would cause tension with the North.
While in Seoul, Wang is also expected to underscore Beijing's positions on key regional issues, including Taiwan and Xinjiang.
The two sides could also discuss possible ways to create fresh momentum for dialogue with North Korea on the occasion of the Beijing Winter Olympics slated to take place in February next year.
In February 2018, North Korea sent athletes to the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in South Korea, which led to the historic first-ever summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and then U.S. President Donald Trump four months later. Kim also held three summits with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in 2018.
Also on the table will likely be efforts to boost people-to-people exchanges, as next year will mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to South Korea may also be discussed during Wang's trip, a Cheong Wa Dae official said.
However, when asked if any progress has been made on arranging Xi's trip to Seoul, the Cheong Wa Dae official responded, "There's nothing I can tell you at the moment."
(END)
9. Pakistan-North Korea’s ‘unholy alliance’ breeds doubt with thermal power plants near nuclear sites
I will leave it to the nuclear experts to assess. But it should be no surprise as I understand the AQ Khan network contributed plans for north Korean nuclear devices. And of course there has long been missile cooperation between north Korea and Pakistan.
Pakistan-North Korea’s ‘unholy alliance’ breeds doubt with thermal power plants near nuclear sites
Updated Sep 06, 2021 | 09:43 IST
A recent 'coincidence' in two nuclear reactors, one in Pakistan and the other in North Korea, has India and the world worried.
(Representative Pic)  |  Photo Credit: iStock Images
New Delhi: The 'unholy alliance' between Pakistan and North Korea is well known. Pakistan gave North Korea nuclear technology and received missiles.
A recent 'coincidence' in two nuclear reactors, one in Pakistan and the other in North Korea, has India and the world worried.
Pakistan is setting up a 50MW thermal power plant (meaning using coal) at the Khushab nuclear power plant. It is a critical facility, producing weapons-grade plutonium for Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
The power plant is clearly for an uninterrupted supply of electricity to the nuclear complex. Other logistical work is also going on at Khushab.
At about the same time, the North Koreans have begun operating a coal-fired power plant at their Yongbyon nuclear facility, after a gap of two years. Here, North Korea extracts plutonium from the reprocessing of spent fuel rods.
What has made both countries set up coal-fired power plants at their nuclear facilities? Are both countries in a discussion about their nuclear projects? Is the old alliance still in place? And if the alliance is in place, what does it mean for not just the sub-continent and the world? We may know very soon.
Watch Times Now LIVE TV for latest and breaking news from India and around the world.
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10. North calls U.S. 'destroyer of human rights' after Afghanistan pullout
Human rights is a threat to the regime so it must take advantage of any opportunity to make counter accusations and divert attention from the regime. But no one should be taken in by north Korean propaganda.
Monday
September 6, 2021
North calls U.S. 'destroyer of human rights' after Afghanistan pullout
Screen capture of the statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, released on its website on Sunday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]
The North Korean Foreign Ministry in a recent statement criticized the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan, calling the American government a “destroyer of human rights and democracy.”
“The international society has already come to know better through the crisis in Afghanistan that the U.S. is the destroyer of ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy,’” reads part of the statement released by the ministry on Sunday. “The U.S. should wake up to the reality that there is no more country which would lend an ear to its hypocritical chanting of ‘human rights,’ and put an immediate end to its act of interfering in others’ internal affairs.”
The anti-U.S. rhetoric from the North follows several United Nations Security Council meetings on the situation in Afghanistan, with the last dated Aug. 30.
The United States pulled out of the country on Aug. 31, ending its 20-year war with the Taliban, who took control of Kabul and the Afghanistan government earlier last month.
The security council has also adopted major sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear weapons development. The sanctions have been supported by the United States, a permanent member of the council, which also levied its own sanctions on the North in 2008, which have been extended annually.
Although the Joe Biden administration has constantly signaled that Washington is open to dialogues and diplomacy with Pyongyang, it has maintained the official position that sanctions must be kept in place if there is no substantial change in the North Korean nuclear issue.
Pyongyang, in its recent statement, did not comment on the U.S. sanctions on the North, but did heavily criticize the U.S. sanctions on individuals and governments abroad, including those in Cuba, Russia and Nicaragua.
“What looks a sight is that the U.S. […] have made competing appearances, as if they are ‘human rights judges,’ to argue that those responsible for ‘human rights violations’ should be called to account, in a mere attempt to justify their acts of interference in the internal affairs of those countries,” the statement says.
The statement was released two days after some media outlets in Russia ran stories on recent discussions at the UN Security Council meetings that allegedly called for sanctions relief on North Korea.
“The proposal to ease sanctions on North Korea is still on the negotiating table of the Security Council, but the United States put the brakes on immediately,” Interfax, a Russian media outlet, reported on Saturday, quoting sources.
11. As Afghan Refugee Crisis Unfolds, Survivors Recall ‘Miracle’ Evacuation
Not the first article reminding us of this historical miracle. One of the best reenactments of this event is in the Korean movie "Ode to my Father." It is a beautiful film.
As Afghan Refugee Crisis Unfolds, Survivors Recall ‘Miracle’ Evacuation
The U.S. military evacuated 91,000 people out of a North Korean port in 1950. By some estimates, it was the single largest wartime refugee evacuation in American history until Afghanistan.
Some of the 91,000 Korean War refugees who were evacuated from Hungnam, a North Korean port, during an American-led naval operation in December 1950. Credit...Bettmann Archive
By
Sept. 5, 2021
SEOUL — When he watched the scenes of desperate refugees trying to escape Afghanistan during the American withdrawal ㅡ mothers clutching babies, men begging to board airplanes in Kabul — Sohn Yang-young, 70, felt tears welling up in his eyes, his heart aching as if he were there.
His family had lived through a similarly traumatic wartime experience.
Mr. Sohn’s parents were among 91,000 refugees that the American military evacuated from Hungnam, a port on the eastern coast of North Korea, in a frantic retreat from Chinese Communist troops during the Korean War in 1950. They boarded the last ship leaving the port with refugees — the S.S. Meredith Victory, a United States merchant marine cargo freighter.
Mr. Sohn was one of five babies born on the ship.
“When I watched the chaotic scenes at the Afghan airport, I thought of my parents and the same life-or-death situation they had gone through in Hungnam,” Mr. Sohn said in an interview. “I could not fight back tears, especially when I saw those children.”
A baby being handed to American troops over a wall at Kabul’s international airport during the chaotic U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan in August.Credit...Omar Haidari/via Reuters
In late December 1950, six months after the Korean War began, 100,000 American and South Korean troops were pulling back through the bitter cold and deep snow after the United Nations forces suffered a heavy loss at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as Lake Jangjin. The only route to safety in the south was by sea.
As was the case in Afghanistan this year, news of the American withdrawal triggered a large exodus. By the time the American troops reached Hungnam, throngs of people had already arrived at the port, hoping to flee the violence as Chinese troops, fighting alongside the North’s forces, closed in.
The Americans decided to rescue as many refugees as possible, jettisoning weapons and other cargo to make room on the 190 ships dispatched to evacuate the soldiers. The operation became known as “the Miracle of Christmas,” and by some estimates, it was the single largest wartime evacuation of civilian refugees in American history until Afghanistan.
Older South Koreans invariably cite the evacuation when they talk about their country’s alliance with the United States, forged during the war. When South Korea airlifted 391 Afghans last month — people who worked for South Korean troops stationed in Afghanistan and their family members — its decision was compelled in part by what the American military did in Hungnam.
American troops preparing for the long road to the sea after heavy losses at the Battle of Chosin Reservoir during the Korean War. As with Afghanistan, news of the U.S. withdrawal triggered a large exodus.
“The Americans were our savior,” said Lee Kweng-pil, another baby born aboard the Meredith Victory. “Without them, my parents would not have survived the war and I would not be here.”
Mr. Sohn, Mr. Lee and other children of the Hungnam refugees, including President Moon Jae-in, grew up listening to their parents recount how terrified they were of being left behind under Communist rule, and how panicked they were to get on the American ships. Mass extrajudicial executions of civilians accused of collaborating with the enemy were rampant during the war.
A team of excavators in Asan, South Korea, performing a simple ritual for massacre victims in June 2019. Extrajudicial executions of civilians accused of collaborating with the enemy were rampant during the Korean War.Credit...Woohae Cho for The New York Times
When the Americans retreated, fear spread through Hungnam. Its streets and harbor were flooded with people shouting for lost family members, babies screaming and military police officers blowing whistles to control the crowds, according to testimonies by some of those who escaped. Fire and smoke rose as soldiers burned trucks and other matériel they could not take with them.
“Shells flew overhead as the Allied ships fired to deter the Communist advance while the Communists fired back to sink the American ships,” said Han Geum-suk, a nurse in Hamhung who joined the evacuation. “We rushed through the cross-fire back and forth several times before we could catch a ship. The ground was strewn with people with their luggages who were killed. There was hardly any standing room on the ship.”
Few events of the Korean War have seared the psyche of older South Koreans as deeply as the Hungnam evacuation, which they saw as a symbol of wartime calamity and humanitarian grace. It is memorialized in South Korean textbooks, as well as in one of the country’s most beloved pop songs. “Ode to My Father,” a 2014 movie based in part on the evacuation, became one of the highest-grossing films in the history of South Korean cinema.
Mr. Moon’s parents were among the refugees who caught the Meredith Victory. The ship, designed to carry no more than 59 people, left Hungnam on Dec. 23, 1950, with 14,000 refugees. Sailing with no escort, it arrived at Geoje Island, off the south coast of South Korea, on Christmas Day. Mr. Moon, who was born in a refugee camp on Geoje in 1953, said his mother used to tell him about the candies handed out to refugees who were jam-packed into the cargo hull on Christmas Eve.
He has called the Meredith Victory’s voyage “one of the greatest humanitarian operations in human history.”
Korean refugees crowding the decks of fishing boats and other vessels during the evacuation of Hungnam in December 1950.
“I am deeply moved by the humanity the American military demonstrated when it evacuated not just its own troops, but refugees as well during such a desperate situation,” Mr. Moon said when he visited the United States in 2017.
The Meredith Victory’s captain, Leonard LaRue, made the decision to abandon weapons and cargo to carry as many refugees as he could in what has been called “the largest evacuation from land by a single ship.” The captain became a Benedictine monk in New Jersey after the war and died in 2001. The U.S. bishops’ conference has recently expressed support for his canonization.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Moon’s government has sent millions of face masks as a token of gratitude to Korean War veterans around the world, including three surviving crew members of the Meredith Victory: Robert Lunney, Burley Smith and Merl Smith.
Mr. Sohn, one of the babies born on the ship, met with Mr. Lunney several years ago when the American was invited to South Korea. Together they confirmed that Mr. Sohn was “Kimchi One.” According to Mr. Lunney, the ship’s American crew nicknamed the five babies born on board “Kimchi” because, apparently, it was the Korean word most familiar to them, Mr. Sohn said.
Mr. Lee was “Kimchi Five.”
Both Mr. Lee and Mr. Sohn said that when they saw the news of a young Afghan soccer player falling off an American plane and of babies being born during airlifts from Kabul, they relived the pain of war-torn Korean families.
President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, at the White House in June 2017 with President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Moon’s parents were among the Koreans rescued during the evacuation. Credit...Evan Vucci/Associated Press
Before joining the mad rush onto the Meredith Victory, Mr. Sohn’s father and mother entrusted their 9-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter to his brother, who stayed behind. His parents believed the family would be reunited when the tide of the war turned in favor of the United States.
Instead, the war was halted in a cease-fire and the Korean Peninsula remains divided. Mr. Sohn’s parents died without seeing their two children in the North again.
Thousands of refugees were stranded in Hungnam after the last ship departed. The American military bombarded the harbor to destroy its equipment and supplies so that the Communists could not use them. Mr. Lee, 70, said he has heard from North Korean defectors who say that many refugees left behind at the port died during the bombing, and that others were sent to prison camps.
After resettling in South Korea, Mr. Lee’s father ran a photo studio and his mother a grocery store. Mr. Lee became a veterinarian. They all named their shops “Peace,” he said. “My father didn’t want another war in Korea.”
Koreans fleeing Hungnam on U.S. Navy vessels. The evacuation, in late December 1950, was codenamed “Christmas Cargo.”
12. The Afghan Effect: U.S. Afghan Withdrawal to Accelerate Alliance Change
Dr. Cronin finds the bright side:
As the Afghan effect plays out in the years to come, much good can be derived from an inescapably jarring moment in history. South Korea’s greater self-reliance can be good for South Koreans and the alliance with the United States. Pyongyang may ultimately see North Korea’s growing dependence on China as too steep a price to pay for resisting arms talks. And the United States may eventually wind up with more credibility and capability to manage complex challenges globally, with a heightened focus on Northeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.
The Afghan Effect: U.S. Afghan Withdrawal to Accelerate Alliance Change
The Afghan effect is likely to reinforce the trends driving this missile race and arms competition.
America’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan will long reverberate on the Korean Peninsula. While this “Afghan effect” will be gradual and indirect, it portends far-reaching security consequences for both Koreas. The fallout may accelerate alliance transformation and add fuel to a burgeoning regional arms competition.
The decision to cut America’s losses in Afghanistan delivered a sharp blow to U.S. credibility. However, as President Joe Biden explained, the twenty-year war was “no longer in our national security interest.” Democracy demands accountability. Sooner or later, democratically elected officials shut down open-ended commitments that fail.
Afghanistan became America’s longest war because of an unwillingness to focus on the achievable aim of degrading international terror organizations such as Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Facing an expansive nation-building mission, Washington’s emerging theory of victory amounted to preventing a weak government from being toppled. Once U.S. troops began to leave, the government in Kabul collapsed.
The speed with which the U.S.-backed government in Kabul crumbled may frighten allies, including South Koreans. But Afghanistan is not Korea. The bilateral ROK-U.S. alliance deters North Korean aggression and advances a free and open regional system. Were America to yank all its troops off the peninsula—a dangerous idea already rejected by national security advisor Jake Sullivan—South Koreans would carry on. However, absent a Combined Forces Command leading both allies' ready forces, North Korea might gamble on a surprise attack. U.S. force presence drastically reduces the chance of miscalculation and helps uphold a peaceful order.
The Afghan effect will accelerate alliance transformation in several ways. The impact of the government's downfall in Afghanistan should spur South Korea to do even more to achieve greater self-reliance by fielding both weapons and trained forces that reinforce deterrence. These military advances will also bring South Korea closer to meeting the conditions to assume wartime operational control. As both governments have made clear, the critical task is less the precise timing of the transition and more the ability to meet the full operational requirements of possible contingencies. A more potent ROK armed force should be accompanied by even closer bilateral planning and policy coordination with the United States. Finally, alliance transformation also means pushing South Korea’s role in providing regional peace and security in tandem with like-minded countries.
A second aspect of the Afghan effect recognizes that Northeast Asia remains the cockpit of cutting-edge military capabilities.
For some time, China has been conducting an arms race on its own. Determined to surpass the United States as the world’s leading military, Beijing is expanding its nuclear arsenal to hold the U.S. homeland at risk while fielding missiles capable of mass precision strike on all U.S.-allied bases in Northeast Asia and beyond. China’s 2013 Air Defense Identification Zone overlaps with South Korea’s and Japan’s; in 2016, China penalized Seoul for deploying a THAAD missile defense system to offset North Korea’s nuclear program; and China’s mounting naval presence could challenge South Korean maritime sovereignty, including in the West Sea and adjacent Jeju Strait.
If Moscow retains status as a major power, then it is mainly because of Vladimir Putin’s investment in strategic arms and willingness to have Russian forces participate as a junior partner alongside PLA forces. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to work covertly to expand and upgrade its nuclear weapons and missiles, including more theater and strategic systems.
Democratic allies have also been active participants in this de facto missile race centered on powers in Northeast Asia. The United States continues to improve its ability to deploy dispersed, resilient, long-range precision-strike weapons. And America’s most capable regional allies are following suit. Australia has embarked on a major missile program, and Japan wants to add more offensive capability to fortify deterrence.
Earlier this year, the Biden administration terminated guidelines constraining South Korea’s missile ranges. Now Washington has approved the sale of thousands of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kits, transforming gravity bombs into all-weather precision-guided weapons.
The Afghan effect is likely to reinforce the trends driving this missile race and arms competition. North Korea, far from seeking denuclearization or even arms control, seems bent on greater self-reliance with the help of more advanced weapons. Xi Jinping undoubtedly sees a new opportunity to push back on American power in East Asia. His brand of assertive nationalism is sure to include further military modernization and operations.
While some will point to the apparent dangers of an arms competition run amok, there are also dangers in not keeping pace with the competition. As South Korean armed forces continue to fill out their missile and other defense capabilities, they still need to do more to demonstrate an alliance ability to conduct full-scale operations. The pandemic remains a significant constraint, but after three years without major alliance field exercises, there is a growing risk that the alliance could be resting more on its laurels than actual readiness. It is not enough to conduct just another desktop, computer-simulated command drills like those completed in August.
As the Afghan effect plays out in the years to come, much good can be derived from an inescapably jarring moment in history. South Korea’s greater self-reliance can be good for South Koreans and the alliance with the United States. Pyongyang may ultimately see North Korea’s growing dependence on China as too steep a price to pay for resisting arms talks. And the United States may eventually wind up with more credibility and capability to manage complex challenges globally, with a heightened focus on Northeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region.
Dr. Patrick M. Cronin is the Asia-Pacific Security Chair at the Hudson Institute.
Image: Reuters
13. What Happens When You Have Too Many Nuclear Cooks in the Kitchen
Making strategy is important but "doing" strategy is more important!
Excerpts:
In short, gatekeepers of the first nuclear age—the five nuclear-weapon states codified by the Nonproliferation Treaty—are struggling with how to cope with gatecrashers such as North Korea and Iran. Oldtimers are trying to manage new entrants at the same time they’re reducing their margin of atomic supremacy—and thus, potentially, their capacity to deter the Kim Jong-uns or Ayatollah Khameneis of the world. In the case of Northeast Asia, furthermore, the new normal has brought U.S. alliances under strain. America has hoisted its protective nuclear aegis over the region since the inception of the first nuclear age. But allies such as South Korea and Japan may come to question the durability of “extended deterrence.” If an erratic Kim can strike directly at American soil, would Washington trade, say, Honolulu for Seoul or Tokyo?
Such questions must haunt Asian minds. And there’s a conventional-warfare dimension to the nuclear problem. The U.S. force posture in Asia appears increasingly tenuous owing to Chinese, Russian and Iranian
anti-access/area-denial strategies and weaponry. It remains to be seen how credible allies would find American nuclear security guarantees if U.S. conventional forces could no longer count on access to the region, and thus to the allied bases that comprise America’s strategic position in Asia. If the United States could no longer defend partners through nonnuclear means, what then? Allies might justifiably question whether Washington would protect them if the nuclear option were the only option open to U.S. political leaders. In short, anti-access could hollow out U.S. nuclear deterrence—and thus the longstanding U.S. alliance system that buoys American strategy in the region. Seoul or Tokyo might develop freestanding arsenals rather than rely on unreliable American guarantees. They might even
bandwagon with the Chinas or Russias of the Far East if they saw no other recourse. The United States would lose either way.
Making strategy for an increasingly heterodox epoch—an epoch when more and more societies sport the ultimate weapon and think differently about how to brandish it—thus represents a trying task. Indeed, it could prove more trying than Cold War strategy-making from yesteryear. One hopes American and allied strategists are mulling these larger trends rather than stepping in the briar patch of obsessing over who has what weapon at the moment and who threatened whom today. Better to think about the unthinkable now than when the unthinkable takes place.
What Happens When You Have Too Many Nuclear Cooks in the Kitchen
Welcome to the second nuclear age.
Here's What You Need to Remember: Making strategy for an increasingly heterodox epoch—an epoch when more and more societies sport the ultimate weapon and think differently about how to brandish it—represents a trying task. Indeed, it could prove more trying than Cold War strategy-making from yesteryear.
It appears the fat kid in Pyongyang has backed off his threat to rain missiles on Guam. Still, one can only say: welcome to the second nuclear age. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave—no matter how many treaties nonnuclear states negotiate purporting to ban the ultimate weapon. Sage leaders must adjust policies and strategies to accommodate this brave new world—the world as it actually exists, in other words—rather than base their deliberations on fantasies of a nuclear-free world.
The first nuclear age was a terrifying time. Any erstwhile schoolkid who had to duck and cover will tell you that, as will any news consumer who saw nuclear blast radii blazoned on the map of his hometown on the front page of the daily newspaper—projecting likely casualties from an atomic strike. In retrospect, though, it was a time that had its upsides. Arsenals were colossal in numbers and destructive might relative to today’s modest forces. Yet the circle of nuclear-weapon states remained compact, capped at five by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970. That simplified the geometry of nuclear strategy and deterrence, especially since the nuclear club broke down into two roughly symmetrical caucuses hailing from European civilization and thus sharing similar assumptions about the worldwide. Yes, that Mao guy was a problem. That’s why both sides, including the Soviet Union, considered strangling the Chinese nuclear complex in its infancy. But whatever his legion of faults, the Great Helmsman hewed to nuclear minimalism. Only in recent years, decades after his passing, has China commenced a major upgrade to its deterrent forces.
Bottom line, atomic deterrence was a straightforward matter in yesteryear: the Soviet Union counterbalanced the NATO allies and vice versa, while the outlier nuclear-weapon state, China, maintained a humble arsenal while foreswearing first use of it. Now, there were some hairy times during the Cold War, to be sure. Folk of an age to remember the Cuban Missile Crisis shake their heads when that long-ago imbroglio comes up in conversation. In retrospect, though, the Caribbean crisis prodded the contestants to sort out rules for the deterrence game. East and West could compete without wrecking civilization. Nor was atomic competition quite that neat. Israel built an undeclared arsenal, India executed a “peaceful nuclear explosion” long before its 1998 nuclear breakout, and even apartheid South Africa constructed a few tactical nukes. A. Q. Khan trafficked the makings of nuclear weaponry on the gray market. Still, the logic of mutual assured destruction imparted a measure of predictability to Cold War strategy and policy.
No more. More and more countries have joined the atomic club for the second nuclear age. No longer are contestants symmetrical in worldviews or physical potential. New entrants come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and they hail mainly from non-Western civilizations. And they respond to different incentives. Some might see value in doomsday weaponry not just for deterrence but for battlefield use. All of this puts the assumption that states are rational actors under stress. Every time a new actor develops atomic weaponry, the international community debates whether it subscribes to the logic of mutual assured destruction or if that actor might actually use its bombs in combat. No one has to date, mercifully, but their forbearance might be one of those trends that holds until it doesn’t.
The rational-actor assumption underlying economic and international-relations theories is flimsy in any case. Philosophers maintain, rightly, that powerful passions impel human actions. Political and military leaders do not simply compile a ledger of costs and benefits, weigh the one against the other dispassionately, and reach a decision. Other forces are at work, and at times they overpower cost/benefit calculations. Thucydides points to fear and honor as well as seemingly objective reckoning of self-interest. Scottish Enlightenment thinker David Hume agrees that both rational and not-strictly-rational motives constitute prime movers for human thought and deeds. Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer goes Thucydides and Hume one further, contending that “extravagant hope” animates “true believers”—and that true believers draw strength and resolve precisely from disregarding objective reality. Couple powerful nonrational motives with nightmarish weapons and the outlook for the second nuclear age seems bleak indeed.
Nor should discomfiture stop with sizing up the gatecrashers to the current order. As newcomers fit out nuclear inventories and contemplate how to use them, oldtimers from the first nuclear age—gatekeepers, as it were—appear conflicted about their own stockpiles. NATO nuclear states France and Great Britain are undergoing partial nuclear disarmament, in part because of sincere commitment to disarmament, in part because of the sheer cost of replenishing aging weapons and delivery systems. Fielding adequate numbers of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines (SSBNs) represents a particular worry. Russia is struggling to renew its own arsenal, fettered by economic distress. Even America is replacing large numbers of creaky older weapons with fewer—albeit better—ones. During the 1990s, for instance, the U.S. Navy converted four of its Cold War-vintage Ohio-class SSBNs to fire conventional cruise missiles. The leadership intends to replace the remaining fourteen boats with twelve newfangled Columbia-class SSBNs, each of which will carry fewer submarine-launched ballistic missiles than an Ohio.
In short, gatekeepers of the first nuclear age—the five nuclear-weapon states codified by the Nonproliferation Treaty—are struggling with how to cope with gatecrashers such as North Korea and Iran. Oldtimers are trying to manage new entrants at the same time they’re reducing their margin of atomic supremacy—and thus, potentially, their capacity to deter the Kim Jong-uns or Ayatollah Khameneis of the world. In the case of Northeast Asia, furthermore, the new normal has brought U.S. alliances under strain. America has hoisted its protective nuclear aegis over the region since the inception of the first nuclear age. But allies such as South Korea and Japan may come to question the durability of “extended deterrence.” If an erratic Kim can strike directly at American soil, would Washington trade, say, Honolulu for Seoul or Tokyo?
Such questions must haunt Asian minds. And there’s a conventional-warfare dimension to the nuclear problem. The U.S. force posture in Asia appears increasingly tenuous owing to Chinese, Russian and Iranian anti-access/area-denial strategies and weaponry. It remains to be seen how credible allies would find American nuclear security guarantees if U.S. conventional forces could no longer count on access to the region, and thus to the allied bases that comprise America’s strategic position in Asia. If the United States could no longer defend partners through nonnuclear means, what then? Allies might justifiably question whether Washington would protect them if the nuclear option were the only option open to U.S. political leaders. In short, anti-access could hollow out U.S. nuclear deterrence—and thus the longstanding U.S. alliance system that buoys American strategy in the region. Seoul or Tokyo might develop freestanding arsenals rather than rely on unreliable American guarantees. They might even bandwagon with the Chinas or Russias of the Far East if they saw no other recourse. The United States would lose either way.
Making strategy for an increasingly heterodox epoch—an epoch when more and more societies sport the ultimate weapon and think differently about how to brandish it—thus represents a trying task. Indeed, it could prove more trying than Cold War strategy-making from yesteryear. One hopes American and allied strategists are mulling these larger trends rather than stepping in the briar patch of obsessing over who has what weapon at the moment and who threatened whom today. Better to think about the unthinkable now than when the unthinkable takes place.
James Holmes is J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and author of “Visualize Chinese Sea Power,” in the current issue of the Naval Institute Proceedings. The views voiced here are his alone.
Image: Reuters.
14. Christians in North Korea face torture, execution by firing squad: USCIRF report
Contrary to its constitution there is no religious freedom in north Korea.
Christians in North Korea face torture, execution by firing squad: USCIRF report
By , Christian Post Contributor | Sunday, September 05, 2021
People look toward the north through a barbed-wire fence near the militarized zone separating the two Koreas, in Paju, South Korea, December 21, 2017. | Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji
North Korea’s communist dictatorship has been deploying factions within the regime to carry out wrongful arrests, torture, executions and the denial of fundamental religious freedom rights as it seeks to “exterminate all Christian adherents and institutions,” the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom says in a report.
In its report, “Organized Persecution – Documenting Religious Freedom Violations in North Korea,” USCIRF says the violations it documented “as occurring as recently as 2020, are seemingly designed to remove all traces of Christianity.”
“The campaign to exterminate all Christian adherents and institutions in North Korea has been brutally effective, and continues through the work of the Ministry of State Security, networks of informants that stretch into China, the presence of ‘no-exit’ political prison camps, executions, and an educational and organizational system that deters adherence through schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods,” says the report, which is based on interviews of survivors, witnesses and perpetrators of religious freedom violations in 2020 and 2021.
The freedoms in North Korea are “subordinate to and overruled by a document known as the Ten Principles for Establishing a Monolithic Leadership System,” which has as its purpose to bring each North Korean individual’s thoughts and acts in line with the teachings of Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and Kim Jong Un, it says.
USCIRF also found that the Workers’ Party of Korea maintains church buildings in Pyongyang, and “it instructs a small group of approved specialized cadres to perform Christian ceremonies in these buildings, while at the same time forbidding North Korean citizens — including that group of specialized cadres — to live as Christians.”
North Koreans experience the denial of the right to religious freedom from birth, the report reveals.
“[School] lessons feature missionaries, and there are also movies about the missionaries,” a North Korean citizen is quoted as saying.
“There is actually a movie titled 'The Missionary.' The movie features an American missionary who came to Korea during the Japanese colonial occupation period and swindled children after pretending to care about them. After people watched the movie, they developed a negative impression of the missionaries on an intuitive level. People even use the word ‘missionary’ as a curse word.”
Another citizen was quoted as saying, “There was a separate subject that completely demonized the missionaries. The very purpose of that subject was to stress how horrible the missionaries are and how horrible religion and the practice of superstition is.”
USCIRF says it also “documented credible accounts of the execution of Christian adherents.”
“Kwon Eun Som and her grandchild were executed in July 2011 in Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province, with only a few security and law enforcement officials present to witness the event,” the report adds. “The execution was by firing squad and took place outside Hajong-ri in Onsong County. It was overseen by Onsong Ministry of State Security branch personnel, acting on the authority of the North Hamgyong Ministry of State Security in Chongjin.”
The report also identifies 68 cases of the state prosecuting individuals for their religion or belief or for their association with religious persons.
For years, North Korea has ranked as the worst country globally when it comes to Christian persecution on Open Doors USA's World Watch List.
“Being discovered as a Christian is a death sentence in North Korea,” says Open Doors USA, adding, “If you aren’t killed instantly, you will be taken to a labor camp as a political criminal.”
The ministry says that North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Un is reported to have expanded the system of prison camps, in which an estimated 50,000-70,000 Christians are imprisoned.
15. Kim Jong-Un Demands ‘Urgent Action’ On Climate Change
Still no mention of joining the Paris climate Accords.
Kim Jong-Un Demands ‘Urgent Action’ On Climate Change
PA Images
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has encouraged his officials to assist with ‘urgent action’ on climate change following typhoons and heavy monsoon rains.
Kim’s comments come after crops in the country were badly impacted by the weather over the last year, with droughts followed by the influx of rainwater causing damage to the food supplies.
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Speaking earlier this week at a meeting of the ruling party’s Politburo, the principal policymaking committee, Kim stressed that protecting against the effects of climate change was ‘more important than anything else’ and that measures were needed to overcome ‘abnormal climate’.
PA Images
According to state media reports cited by UPI, Kim said: ‘Disastrous weather is getting ever more pronounced worldwide and our country is also lying vulnerable to its danger.’
The North Korean leader told his officials that the ‘danger’ of climate change had increased in recent years and encouraged them to take ‘urgent action’.
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Officials were tasked with tackling drought and floods in the country by implementing crisis control measures such as ‘river improvement, afforestation for erosion control, dike maintenance and tide embankment projects’, as well as with ‘attain[ing] without fail’ the planned grain production goal for the year.
In June, Kim acknowledged North Korea was facing food shortages as he said ‘the people’s food situation is not getting tense’, noting at the time the agricultural sector had failed to meet its grain targets.
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As well as being damaged by weather events, the amount of food available in the country has been impacted by the coronavirus outbreak, which prompted North Korea to close its borders.
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As a result, it saw a drop in its trade with China, which the country relies on for food, fertiliser and fuel, BBC News reports.
At the meeting this week, Kim said officials must ‘bear in mind that tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment under the present situation.’
The official Korean Central News Agency, cited by The Guardian, said Kim also called for ‘fully providing material and technical means necessary for strengthening epidemic prevention, enhancing the professional qualifications and roles of the officials in the field of epidemic prevention and further rounding off our style epidemic prevention system.’
Earlier this week, the United Nations announced that North Korea had rejected an offer of almost three million coronavirus vaccines.
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16. South Korea - Container ship orders hits record amid soaring shipping fees
Container ship orders hits record amid soaring shipping fees
Posted September. 06, 2021 07:36,
Updated September. 06, 2021 07:36
Container ship orders hits record amid soaring shipping fees. September. 06, 2021 07:36. by Gun-Huk Lee gun@donga.com.
The total volume of new orders for container ships carrying freight has reached a record level ever in history this year. This comes as shipping companies are aggressively placing orders for new container ships as the fee for oceangoing freight hit an all-time high due to a soaring volume of international freight.
According to Clarkson Research, U.K.-based the shipbuilding and shipping market survey agency, on Sunday, the total global volume of new orders for container ships amounted to 15,071,478 million CGTs (Compensated Gross Tonnage) for the first eight months of the year. The volume is the largest ever since the agency started tallying the market in 1996. The volume is about 12 times the total volume of new orders placed during the same period of last year, and exceeds the volume recorded in 2007 (13,217,003 CGTs), the year when the shipbuilding industry enjoyed a boom.
The shipbuilding industry predicts the total annual volume of new shipbuilding orders will also set a new historical record this year as shipping companies are increasing new container ship orders en masse. Exporters and importers are having difficulties finding freight ships as major ports in countries around the world are struggling to deal with surging freight volumes in the wake of economic recovery.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
