| Home page To receive this publication via e-mail, click here. THE NORTH KOREA REPORT: AUGUST 25, 2003 Our statement on why North Korea must be liberated can be found here. TOP STORY: TALKS ON NK�S NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO BEGIN WEDNESDAY PRC OFFERING CARROTS TO NORTH KOREA; U.S. PREPARING TO GIVE STALINSTS WHAT THEY WANT FOR A PROMISE AND IAEA INSPECTIONS; RUSSIAN ENVOY �OPTIMISTIC� Communist China �has promised to persuade the U.S. to make a clear-cut commitment on not invading North Korea� (Willy Wo-Lap Lam, CNN), if the North promises to �climb down on the WMD issue,� something they have already done in a 1994 agreement that won the North two currently half-finished nuclear power plants and billions of dollars in fuel oil. As for the U.S. itself, it�s preparing the list of conditions North Korea has to meet before the regime can get what it wants. Those conditions include �an international verification regime far more stringent than the one North Korea halted last year after admitting to conducting a secret uranium enrichment program� (Washington Post). However, if North Korea agrees to American demands, it will get what it wants, �economic aid, energy deliveries and diplomatic links Pyongyang has sought, along with access to international institutions and stronger ties to neighboring countries,� and �a written assurance that the United States has no intention to attack.� All this in exchange for a promise similar to the one made in 1994, plus inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency � the folks who completely missed Iran�s nuclear weapons program (see 12/26/02 Update). That said, no one on the American side is expecting �any major breakthrough� (Washington Times) at this week�s talks. Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Losyukov said he was �discreetly optimistic� (CNN) about Wednesday�s talks. OTHER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION NEWS AUSTRALIAN PM DE-EMPHASIZES PSI EXERCISES DUE TO PRC ACTIONS Australian Prime Minister John Howard called naval exercises planned for early September to strengthen the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) �in the background, on the backburner, because of the very helpful trends which have emerged,� (The Australian) i.e., �China's diplomatic efforts to solve the nuclear crisis with Pyongyang.� The PSI is the international group working to stop the selling of arms to terrorists (CNN). The chief target for the PSI is Stalinist North Korea. Australia and the U.S. are two of the founding eleven members; the nine others are Japan, Britain, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Poland. COMMUNIST CHINA INSISTS IT WILL NOT LET NK SELL WMD, CRITICIZES PSI Foreign Ministry official Liu Jieyi claimed that the PRC would not be �a back door to evade international sanctions designed to prevent it from exporting weapons of mass destruction� (Washington Post). At the same time, Liu ripped the PSI as something that could �could make a bad situation worse.� Communist Chinese Vice Minister Zhou Wengzhong ripped the PSI, saying it would �exacerbate the problem rather than achieve a result� (Cybercast News). So while the Communists insist they won�t let North Korea sell nuclear and other weapons to terrorists, they want the rest of us to let the regime do it. How much sense does that make? Stop the North Korean Nuclear Power Plants: Despite North Korea�s boast of nuclear weapons, a brazen violation of the 1994 agreement to freeze its nuclear ambitions, the two nuclear power plants that were part of the deal have still not been canceled. Use this China e-Lobby fact sheet and tell the President to kill the power plants. OTHER AMERICAN-RELATED NEWS FOUNDER OF KEDO LANDS STATE DEPARTMENT POST Mitchell Reiss, the fellow who �helped start and manage a multinational organization devoted to giving nuclear technology and oil to the North Korean regime during the Clinton administration� (Insight via World Net Daily) is now the head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff. The organization referenced above is the infamous Korean Economic Development Organization (KEDO), born in the 1994 Agreed Framework to provide the Stalinists with two nuclear reactors if they �froze� their nuclear weapons program. The North admitted to violating that deal last fall (see 10/21/02 North Korea Report). OTHER SOUTH KOREA NEWS SOUTH KOREAN POLICE BLOCK RADIO AIRLIFT INTO NORTH KOREA This is a perfect microcosm of everything wrong in South Korea. Police there �blocked a group of human rights activists from sending balloons attached with radios into North Korea� (BBC). This came after the South Korean government, in the words of Korean-American activist Douglas Shin, �cheated us into believing this was OK to do.� The apparent reversal may have something to do with this week�s six-party nuclear weapons talks (see last North Korean Report). It is a clear signal of just how willing the dovish government of President Roh Moo-hyun, elected by a minority vote last December, is to appease the Stalinists. Heaven knows what they�ll get at the talks. Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the plan, the venerable Dr. Norbert Vollertsen (see 3/6/02 and 3/20/02 Updates and 5/6/02 and 12/9/02 North Korea Reports) was injured when the police rushed him to prevent the launch of one of the balloons. STALINIST MEDIA AT UNIVERSIADE GAMES INJURE HUMAN RIGHTS PROTESTOR North Korean �reporters� at the Universiade games in Daegu, South Korea noticed human rights protestors and took exception to �banners denouncing Northern leader Kim Jong-il and showing photos of starving children in the famine-stricken North� (BBC 8/24). They responded by injuring at least one of the protestors; it happened to be Dr. Vollertsen. Dr. Vollertsen, �already on crutches when he arrived at the rally, was knocked to the ground and later taken to hospital by ambulance.� The North had the gumption to demand an apology from the South for protest, and to prevent any future protests from occurring. Of course, the Stalinists do have a precedent on which to rely � dovish South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun�s pre-games apology to the North for an earlier anti-Stalinist protest (see last North Korea Report). Prior to that apology, the North had threatened to stay away from the games (BBC 8/20). MORE NEWS ON COMMUNIST CHINA�S ROLE U.S. TO PRC: LET UN HANDLE NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES American Assistant Secretary of State Lorne Craner has called on Communist China to let the United Nations handle the issue, and decided the fate, of North Korean refugees hiding in the PRC. The Communists send back any refugee from its fifty-plus-year ally, forcing the refugees to live as non-persons. Report: BBC Craner noted the U.S. Senate�s support for granting North Korean refugees asylum in the United States (under current U.S. law only South Korea can take them in). Several groups of refugees have used democratic embassies within the PRC as temporary havens (see 4/29/02, 5/13/02, 5/20/02, 6/24/02, 7/29/02, 2/17 and 7/21 North Korea Reports). INTERNATIONAL NEWS RUSSIAN NAVAL EXERCISE ANGERS NORTH KOREA North Korea is angry at Russia, its biggest apologist not named Communist China, for its military exercise aimed at testing �emergency responses to a possible surge of refugees or the discovery of a ship carrying a nuclear weapon� (Washington Post, seventh item). The exercises are just north of the Korean Peninsula, a good hint as to just where Russia sees these problems potentially occurring. Surprisingly, the exercises will also include South Korea and Japan, which is likely one of the major reasons the Stalinists are so upset about them (Parapundit). ABDUCTION NEWS NORTH KOREAN KIDNAP VICTIM SPEAKS OUT Kaoru Hasuike, who was kidnapped with his wife Yukiko and forced to serve the Stalinist regime for over twenty years, speaks of their ordeal to, among others, CNN. The Hasuike and his wife were two of the thirteen that North Korea has admitted kidnapping (see 9/23/02, 9/30/02, 10/21/02, 11/18/02, 2/10, and 3/17 North Korea Reports). Their children are still held hostage by North Korea. As any parent would, they miss their children deeply, and want more forceful action from Japan and the U.S. to reunite them: �It's unbelievable that North Korea is allowed to get away with such crimes by making threats to neighboring countries and playing brinkmanship diplomacy.� RELATIVES OF KIDNAP VICTIMS LEAD ANTI-STALINIST PROTEST AT NK FERRY Some relatives of the Japanese abductees led a protest against North Korea as the Man Gyong Bong-92 ferry steamed into Niigata. It was the first voyage for the North Korean ship in seven months � an earlier voyage had been cancelled due to evidence of espionage (See 2/3 and 6/9 North Korea Reports). Report: BBC COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS ON WEDNESDAY�S NUCLEAR TALKS Randall Parker (Parapundit founder and Member since 2003) cites and agrees with another of our favorites, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center director Henry Sokolski. Sokolski notes that Iran is looking at U.S. actions on North Korea to see if it could get away with its own nuclear program, and/or win a bunch of American concessions in the process (NPEC). Peter Brookes, of the Heritage Foundation, gives a quick summary of the players at the talks, and what they want from them, in the New York Post. Time Asia�s, Tony Karon, John Larkin, and Donald MacIntyre also weigh in. MORE ON NORTH KOREAN AND THE UNITED STATES Michael Crowley, of The New Republic, interviews Republican Curt Weldon, the Pennsylvania Congressman who visited North Korea and came back with a �ten-point plan� to give the regime, in the words of the Stalinist deputy Foreign Minsiter �exactly what we're looking for� (see 6/30 and 7/9 North Korea Reports). ON NORTH KOREA�S DISASTROUS ECONOMY, AND WHAT THE STALINISTS DO ABOUT IT Geoff Hiscock, CNN, examines the disaster that is the North Korean economy, and what the Stalinists have done to keep themselves � not their people, just themselves � afloat, including selling weapons and drugs. SOUTH KOREA SHUNS THE NOTION OF A LIBERATED NORTH Michael Schuman, Time Asia, finds that even the South Korean official charged with preparing for when Korea is whole and free is more worried about economic problems of reunification than the freedom of his fellow Koreans trapped under Stalinist rule. ON SOUTH KOREA, THE UNIVERSITY GAMES, AND THE APOLOGY Remember South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun apologizing to the North for an anti-Stalinist protest last week (see last North Korea Report)? Parapundit founder Randall Parker (Member since 2003) certainly does, and gives the dovish South Korean government a well-deserved tongue-lashing. THE DMZ: ENVIRONMENTAL PARADISE? If the desire of environmentalists to preserve the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, now accidentally �one of the few untouched havens for Northeast Asia's wildlife� (Nick Ease, CNN), stops the liberation of North Korea, it would be abominable. However, as an obstacle to the dovish South�s attempts to play nice with the Stalinists . . . ON COMMUNIST CHINA�S ROLE Hong Lu, a Communist Chinese fighter in the Korean War, felt snubbed by the Stalinist regime he helped defend. Jaime Floccus, CNN, tries to turn that one experience into �a reflection of shifting diplomacy� on the part of the PRC. It�s not too terribly convincing. Check out the Communist China and the Terrorist War page. Sign the petition for an American boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Miss an Update, Week's Links, or a North Korea Report? Find it via our home page. Feel free to forward this to anyone you think might be interested in receiving it. 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