| Home page To receive this publication via e-mail, click here. THE NORTH KOREA REPORT: JULY 27, 2004 Dragon in the Dark: How and Why Communist China Helps Our Enemies in the War on Terror is now available: here, at Amazon, or at 1-888-280-7715. Our statement on why northern Korea must be liberated can be found here. TOP STORY: NORTH KOREA REJECTS LATEST U.S. OFFER DISMISSES BOLTON ADVICE TO FOLLOW �THE CASE OF LIBYA� While in South Korea, Assistant Secretary John Bolton called on North Korea to follow the example of Libya and end its nuclear weapons program. The Stalinist regime responded within a week, calling the idea �a sham offer not worthy of further discussion� (BBC). The North specifically rejected an offer by the U.S. for fuel oil and �provisional� security guarantees if it froze its nuclear weapons development and began dismantling it after three months (see 6/28 and last NKRs). The Stalinists have already offered a freeze of its nuclear weapons programs, �perhaps leading to their eventual dismantling, but only after the US provides energy aid, lifts economic sanctions and stops accusing it of sponsoring terrorism.� In other words, while the North wants everything, not just a few things, before they give up their nukes. So now, the two sides merely differ on how much North Korea will get, and how much time it has, before it eliminates a single nuclear weapon. Once again, the U.S. was silent on liberation for the people of northern Korea. Stop the North Korean Nuclear Power Plants: Are the plants dead or aren�t they? You can make sure they don�t come back! Use this China e-Lobby fact sheet and tell the President to kill the power plants from the 1994 agreement that North Korea broke. OTHER AMERICAN-RELATED NEWS U.S. OFFERS FOOD AID TO NORTH As North Korea thumbed its nose at the U.S., the Bush Administration announced �it is to donate 50,000 tons of food aid to North Korea� (BBC), noting, without evidence that �the North was allowing more monitoring of food distribution and security.� The regime has repeatedly stolen the aid from its own people in the past (see 1/20 and 1/26 NKRs). STALINIST UN AMBASSADOR RIPS U.S. �HOSTILE POLICY� WHILE IN D.C. Meanwhile, Pak Gil Yon, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, was in Washington last week for a Korea Society seminar. Pak demanded the U.S. end its �hostile policy� (Washington Post) toward the Stalinist North, and repeated the North�s attempt to reverse the October 2002 admittance of its uranium weapons program (see 10/21/02 NKR). HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PASS NORTH KOREA HUMAN RIGHTS ACT The House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act. The act, sponsored by Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa), �authorizes funding to promote democracy and human rights inside the Stalinist state and to help refugees fleeing from it� (Cybercast News). The bill was greeted with anger by South Korea�s left, and praise from its right. U.S. FORCES OUT OF SEOUL BY 2008 The U.S. military will be out of Seoul by 2008. After December of that year, all troops currently in Seoul will be in Pyongtaek, a city about 50 miles south of Seoul. Report: BBC NEWS ON COMMUNIST CHINA�S ROLE SOUTH KOREA TAKES REFUGEES FROM NK TO AVOID DEPORTATION TO PRC An unnamed Southeast Asian country � �diplomats and missionary groups say the country is Vietnam� � Voice of America via Epoch Times, HK) � threatened to send over 400 North Korean refugees back to Communist China � from where they escaped. The PRC sends back any NK refugee it finds, forcing them to live as nonpersons. However, South Korea �stepped in� (BBC) and agreed to take them before they were sent back. The first group of over 200 has already touched down in Seoul; the second group should be there tomorrow. It is the largest ever transfer of North Korean refugees to South Korea. Also reporting: Cybercast News WOULD-BE PRC HIJACKER WANTED TO GO TO SOUTH KOREA A university librarian tried to hijack a Communist Chinese passenger plane and have it fly to South Korea. Yang Jingsong was unsuccessful in her attempt, and is now in PRC custody; they have already deemed her �mentally ill.� Reports: Straits Times (Taiwan), BBC INTERNATIONAL NEWS JAPAN MAY OPEN DIPLOMATIC TALKS WITH NK Japan is considering negotiations with North Korea on establishing diplomatic relations, due to �positive responses from North Korea on issues that would clear the way for talks on establishing diplomatic ties� (Voice of America via Epoch Times). Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said that �conditions to start negotiations are falling into place.� The largest impediment had been the fate of the children of five Japanese abductees who were allowed to return to Japan two years ago (see 9/23/02, 9/30/02, 10/7/02, 10/14/02, 10/21/02, 10/28/02, and 11/18/02 NKRs. They are now also in Japan and out of the Stalinists� clutches (see 5/24 and last NKRs). Left unmentioned is the fate of eight other abductees that the regime claims have died. The Stalinists have not presented one scintilla of evidence to back up that claim (they insist the bodies were washed away in a flood). Meanwhile, dozens of more Japanese families insist their loved ones were also taken. All apparently no longer have Tokyo�s ear. ABDUCTION NEWS JAPAN HOPES JENKINS WILL TAKE PLEA BARGAIN; U.S. FAMILY BARRED FROM SEEING HIM The case of Sergeant Charles Robert Jenkins became a little stranger this past week. Japanese officials �are looking for a plea bargain by alleged deserter� (Voice of America via Epoch Times), who is still in a hospital after being treated last week (see last NKR). The doctors treating him now say that �he did not need urgent medical care� (Washington Post). Curious as that may be, it is nothing compared to this � Japanese authorities won�t let Jenkins see his American relatives. According to James Hyman (Jenkins� nephew), �Japanese officials want to quickly settle the matter of the former sergeant, possibly through a plea bargain� (Washington Times, last item). Hyman insists that his uncle, far from deserting his post, was kidnapped by North Korea in 1965, and even claimed to have �a letter from the U.S. Army indicating that evidence used to back his desertion case did not exist� with him in Japan (see 12/19/02 NKR). Japan�s interest in the case stems from Jenkins� wife � one of the aforementioned Japanese kidnap victims. Should Hyman�s assertion be correct, Japan�s push for a �happy ending� could force an American soldier to confess to a crime he didn�t commit. OTHER SOUTH KOREA NEWS TERRORISTS SAY BEHEADED SOUTH KOREAN WAS A MISSIONARY The terrorists who beheaded South Korean Kim Sun-il in Iraq (see 6/21 and 6/28 NKRs) now say they killed him because �he was a heretic who tried to spread Christianity in Iraq� (World Net Daily). The original excuse was South Korea�s refusal to stop its deployment of 3,000 troops to Iraq. They deployment begins next month. COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS ON SOUTH KOREA CNN�s Mike Chinoy examines the new reality on the demilitarized zone, as American military patrols there near their end. Anthony Faiola, Washington Post, takes stock of the shifting nature of the U.S.-South Korean alliance in the wake of the $un$hine policy. Check out the Communist China and the Terrorist War page. Sign the petition for an American boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. 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