More sabre-rattling from the Dear Leader

bb1 wrote:It's awful, isn't it? I didn't say anything much about it when it aired here, because it had barely finished when the reports of the Boston bombing came in.

It's hard to imagine having to live like that.

Sabot wrote:
I think he thinks people are scared of him. Lift the sanctions, or else I'll set my big bruvver on you, and he's got a gun.

bb1 wrote:I wish one of the generals would bump him off and melt down those ghastly statues, LL. I've no doubt he'll topple eventually, despots always do, especially incompetent ones.

But it's the people of North Korea who are suffering in the meantime.

North Korea says detained American tourist to face trial
By Jane Chung | Reuters – 3 hrs ago

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Saturday a Korean-American tourist, jailed by the reclusive state since late last year, will face trial for "committing crimes" against the North, a move that could further stoke tensions with the United States.

The move comes amid a diplomatic standoff between the North and the United States, and as Pyongyang has threatened to attack U.S. military bases in the Pacific and the South.

A number of U.S. citizens of Korean descent have run into trouble in the North over the years, and Pyongyang has tried to use their detention to extract visits by high-profile American figures, most notably former President Bill Clinton.

In the latest case, Kenneth Bae, 44, has been held by police since arriving in the northeastern city of Rajin on November 3. He was among a group of five tourists.

"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," KCNA state media reported, using the North's official title of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"His crimes were proved by evidence," it said, adding he would soon be taken to the Supreme Court "to face judgment". It did not provide further details.

South Korean rights workers said that the North's authorities may have taken issue with some of his photographs, including those of homeless North Korean children.

A South Korean newspaper published by an evangelical family said he may have been carrying footage of North Korea executing defectors and dissidents. It was impossible to verify this.

According to North Korean law, the punishment for hostile acts against the state is five to 10 years of hard labor.

Clinton flew to Pyongyang in 2009 and met then-leader Kim Jong-il before securing the release of two American media workers who had been charged with entering the North illegally.

Former U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson has made numerous trips to North Korea that have included efforts to free detained Americans. He delivered a letter regarding Bae to officials during a trip to North Korea in January, although he was unable to meet Bae.

Tensions between North Korea and South Korea and its ally the United States have spiraled in recent weeks since the United Nations tightened sanctions after the North's third nuclear weapon test in February.

The toughening of those sanctions led to the North threatening nuclear strikes against South Korea and the United States.

North Korea has a long record of making threats to secure concessions from the United States and South Korea, only to repeat the process later. Both the United States and the South have said in recent days that the cycle must cease.

On Friday, Pyongyang rejected a call for formal talks to end a standoff that forced operations at a joint industrial complex shared by the North and South to be halted.

South Korea in turn said it would pull out all its remaining workers from the Kaesong factory complex, which is just inside North Korea and is one of the North's few sources of ready cash.

Of the 175 remaining South Korean workers, 126 workers left the factory zone on Saturday. The rest are scheduled to return on Monday.

A representative of the South Korean firms at the complex urged the government to hold inter-Korean talks and to authorize their visit to North Korea on Tuesday, South Korea's news agency Yonhap said.

North Korean state news: American sentenced to 15 years hard labor
By K.J. Kwon and Greg Botelho, CNN
May 2, 2013 -- Updated 0357 GMT (1157 HKT)

(CNN) -- An American man detained in North Korea since last November has been sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, North Korean state news reported Thursday.

A story on the KCNA website indicated that Pae Jun Ho had been sentenced by North Korea's supreme court. The North has used that name to refer to the man U.S. authorities call Kenneth Bae.

A Korean-American, Bae entered North Korea on a valid tourist visa, a senior U.S. official told CNN on Monday. The official -- who spoke on background because of the diplomatic sensitivity of the issue -- said then that the State Department didn't know the exact charges against Bae.

The KCNA report indicated that the American was sentenced Tuesday for "carrying out serious crimes" against North Korea, without specifying what exactly he allegedly had done. He was arrested November 3 in Rason City.

The U.S. State Department had appealed Monday for Bae's release on humanitarian grounds. Three days earlier, a State Department spokesman told reporters that Swedish diplomats, who represent U.S. interests in North Korea because Washington has no diplomatic relations with the North, were able to visit Bae.

Some Americans have previously crossed the border without a visa, either knowingly or by mistake, but in this case, the U.S. official said, "This was somebody who was a tour operator who has been there in the past and has a visa to go to the North."

Bae's sentencing comes amid tense relations between North Korea and both the United States and its staunch ally South Korea. In recent weeks, the North has intensified threats against its neighbor and the United States.

bb1 wrote:That's just awful, LL - unimaginable to most of the outside world.

bb1 wrote:Bless her for her kind heart, LL - though it must be like the Tower of Babel sometimes!

North and South Korea Agree to First Official Dialogue in Years
By CHOE SANG-HUN, New York Times
Published: June 6, 2013

SEOUL, South Korea — North and South Korea agreed Thursday to hold their first government dialogue in years, an abrupt change after tensions over the North’s nuclear program this year escalated into one of the divided peninsula’s worst crises.

The announcement raised hopes that the two countries were moving toward a thaw in relations after a prolonged standoff in recent years that included military provocations from the North and retaliatory economic penalties from the South.

The agreement came after North Korea made a surprise overture on Thursday, proposing official negotiations with the South on reopening two shuttered joint economic projects, including the recently closed Kaesong industrial park, as well as humanitarian programs. South Korea, which has demanded such talks in recent months, quickly accepted the offer, proposing a cabinet minister-level meeting in the South Korean capital, Seoul, next Wednesday.

North Korea on Friday welcomed the quick response from the South and proposed working-level talks in Kaesong on Sunday to prepare for the proposed cabinet-level meeting. It also said it was restoring cross-border communications lines it had cut off earlier this year out of anger over joint United States-South Korean military drills.

The sudden change comes a day before President Obama’s scheduled meeting in California with President Xi Jinping of China, North Korea’s main ally. The North’s recent belligerence — including threats of nuclear attacks if provoked — was expected to be a main topic of discussion.

Last month, Mr. Xi told a high-level North Korean envoy visiting Beijing that the North needed to return to international talks aimed at ending its nuclear program, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated and dangerous. Analysts on Thursday cast the North’s latest move as a possible political gambit to ensure its benefactors in China do not bond with Mr. Obama over North Korea’s defiance.

“It is trying to shift the international focus from applying sanctions and pressure on the North to starting dialogue with it,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul.

The Chinese, who have grown increasingly frustrated with their recalcitrant ally, not only backed United Nations sanctions over the North’s nuclear test in February, they have also taken public steps to confront North Korea including ordering the Bank of China to stop dealing with the North’s largest foreign-exchange bank.

Analysts suggested that another motivation in trying to reopen the joint ventures with South Korea is to generate badly needed revenue. Kaesong’s factories, which paired North Korean workers with South Korean capital and management, alone generated $90 million in hard currency each year for its workers; experts say the state took much of that money.

The eight-year-old complex, the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation from years of warmer relations, was closed after North Korea pulled out all its 53,000 workers in April amid the latest crisis.

The overtures on Thursday and Friday were among the few conciliatory moves made by North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who has made his mark during a year and a half in power by defying the United States and South Korea.

The Obama administration said it welcomed news of the North-South dialogue. “We support, and have always supported, improved inter-Korean relationship, and we will continue our close coordination with our allies and partners in the region,” the State Department’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, said. Still, the overtures could complicate American strategy, which has been hard-line and focused on economic punishments to force the North to make real concessions on its nuclear program.

North Korea also proposed resuming cross-border tours from South Korea to a North Korean mountain resort that were suspended after North Korean soldiers fatally shot a tourist from the South in 2008, and reviving programs for arranging the temporary reunions of Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.

Until Thursday, North Korea had rejected the South’s repeated call for official dialogue to discuss the fate of the Kaesong park.

“We hope the government-to-government talks will become an opportunity to build trust between the South and North,” the South’s Unification Ministry said in a statement.

North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, meanwhile, said, “Our position has been consistent for promoting the reconciliation and solidarity of the nation and achieving reunification and peaceful prosperity.” It added, “The South’s authorities should not miss this opportunity if they really want to build trust and improve North-South relations.”

The North, analysts said, appears to be seeking a return to the level of inter-Korean economic cooperation that had prevailed on the peninsula for a decade until 2008. They said that the North Korean proposal could force the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, a conservative, to decide whether to revive the inter-Korean projects without any progress in denuclearizing North Korea. In a speech on Thursday, Ms. Park, who is slated to meet Mr. Xi late this month, reiterated her stance that North Korea must give up its nuclear weapons to open the way for the international community to ease sanctions and help with its economy.

Some analysts were skeptical of any long-term change. “There is no fundamental change in their positions,” said Dong Yong-seung, a North Korea specialist at the Samsung Economic Research Institute. “Denuclearization remains a stumbling block.”

The Obama administration has been leery of returning to the international talks the Chinese are pushing again; in the past, the North moved ahead with its nuclear programs despite talks and considerable investment from South Korea. Washington has also said it wants North Korea to improve ties with South Korea first, before reviving the international talks that involve six countries.

The proposal by North Korea indicated that it was meeting at least part of Washington’s demands.