Top 5 Small Screen DVDs of the Year
China has closed one of North Korea's bank accounts! Woohoo!! A small sign that China is winding down its enabling of North Korea. Where will Kim Jong Un turn now?
Anyone care to make a prediction about where this insane war of words between NK and SK will lead? Will some sort of skirmish break out? NK has included Guam and Hawaii in its rain of fire threats, which also sometimes include sinking everyone to the bottom of the ocean. SK President Park insists she will stand firm and retaliate to any provocation. Or is this just the annual hate-fest that occurs when the US-SK hold their joint military exercises and things will quiet down?
Hallelujah!! From the NY Times: "Already angry over tougher sanctions imposed last week to punish its nuclear tests, North Korea faces renewed pressure over its human rights record as the United Nations Human Right Council meets Monday to consider calls for an international inquiry into possible crimes against humanity." NK commits crimes against humanity. There is hardly a doubt. The UN needs to state it loud and clear.
From a newsletter usually devoted to nuclear prolifieration and death camps, a sweet story:
"This brings us to a recent story published in The Global Post by Geoffrey Cain. In the article, Cain reports about a popular dating service in South Korea dedicated to matching South Korean men with North Korean women living in the south. The service, known as Nam Nam Buk Nyo, is run by a husband and wife team who practice what they preach. Kim Eun-seo fled North Korea for China four years ago. She came to South Korea after hiding in China for a year. Once there, she met her husband Hong Seung-woo, who is a native South Korean. After successfully fixing up some of their friends with North Korean women, the couple started the business. Since then they have successfully matched over 400 couples. Interestingly, only four of those matches ended in divorce. That divorce rate is far lower than the 2.3% divorce rate for all of South Korea in 2011." The writer Alex Melton goes on to muse about the reasons for the low divorce rate, some benign, some dark, but the story still feels happier than most."
Kimjongilia makes use of NK's own propaganda. We'd have thought they'd have improved their technique somewhat since the film. Apparently not, as seen in this video.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/20/north-korean-video-shows-an-obama-in-flames/?src=recg
Google Maps has included the concetration camps in their mapping of North Korea. Willthis make them more banal or enrage people around the world?
Finally?? Will the UN investigate human rights abuses in NK and call them what they are? Crimes against humanity? This was half the raison d'etre for the film. Close the camps! Fingers crossed for a real breakthrough at last.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/29/opinion/north-korea-in-the-dark.html?ref=global-home&_r=0
Check out Bill Richardson in NK delivering messages to the NK officials. He is careful to skirt local human rights issues, always a no-no when on a diplomatic tour of The Hermit Kingdom.
NYT reporting on NK once more on the front page 1/5/13. The article addresses the increasing difficulties of escaping, causing a sharp drop in the number of defectors last year.
'“Even after the bribes are paid, there is no guarantee of success,” said Do Hee-youn, head of the Citizens’ Coalition for the Human Rights of North Korean Refugees, based in Seoul.'
The report mentions that to buy a bus or train ticket in China now, you need an ID card, so NK refugees can't travel within China, since they don't have ID cards.
Kim Jong Un is making overtures to the new president of South Korea, Park Guen-Hye, to possibly resume something like the Sunshine Policy, during which the South invested large sums in the North hoping for a thaw. As the article states, when President Lee came into power, he demanded something in return for the investments, and N/S relations quickly spiraled down. It is fascinating to note the backgrounds of both of these leaders, with Kim distancing himself from his father but imitating his grandfather Kim Il Sung, and with Park having lost her mother to an assassination attempt on her father, then an extremely anti-communist president of South Korea. The arguments for and against detente between the North and South have been raging for years, with no clear answer. The NYT article is interesting.
Beijing sends defectors back to Pyongyang despite outcry
Joongang Daily 12/30/12
As always, the issue of North Korean defectors made for big news this year.
Despite South Korea's plea to stop the repatriation of North Korean defectors, the Chinese chose to handle them their own way.
In February, China reportedly sent home nine captured refugees, stirring strong criticism from the international community. Returned defectors are typically sent to the North Korean prison camps, which are likened to gulags, and are often publicly executed.
Then-lawmaker Park Sun-young of then-minor opposition Liberty Forward Party claimed that three groups totaling 24 North Korean asylum seekers have been detained in China since early February.
Among them, nine defectors arrested in Yanji by the Chinese authorities were reportedly sent back to the North. China regards defectors as economic migrants and not as refugees.