Koreas Paramount Leadership

[Gary Oak]

The South Korean leadership is clearly more responsible that Obama or Justin Trudeau.


Seoul Halts Genetically Modified Wheat Import From US Over Safety Concerns © REUTERS/ Jim Young
WORLD

South Korea has suspended customs clearance for some genetically modified (GMO) wheat imports coming from the United States over safety concerns, local media reported on Friday.

Wheat harvest in Russia's Kaliningrad Region. Exports of food now outstrip weapons, according to Gazeta.ru
© SPUTNIK/ IGOR ZAREMBO
Black Sea Area, EU to 'Dominate' Major Wheat Markets, Leaving US Behind
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The measure followed the announcement by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture that unapproved strain of genetically altered wheat was discovered in the western state of Washington, Yonhap News Agency reported. The distribution and sales of wheat are said to have been halted as well.
The South Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said it had asked the APHIS to provide details on the unapproved wheat and methods of inspection.

"We will thoroughly inspect genetically modified wheat from Washington State as soon as the U.S. provides relevant information," a ministry official said, as quoted by the media outlet.

Seoul imported 619,000 metric tons of wheat and 2,700 metric tons of flour in total from the United States as of July 25.

http://sputniknews.com/world/20160729/1 ... wheat.html

[Blue Frost]

That's good, and it should be banned here till it's tested for years by people without a vested interest like many at the FDA, and other federal agencies.

[Gary Oak]

I believe that it really says someting about a fat leader if he fights Christianity rather than fight starvation nad poverty.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/697 ... orth-Korea

[Blue Frost]

North Korea’s deputy ambassador to Britain defects from London
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... story.html
Deputy Ambassador Thae Yong Ho stands in front of artwork at the North Korean Embassy in London in 2014. (Katie Schubauer/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)
By Anthony Faiola and Anna Fifield August 17 at 2:21 PM

LONDON — The second in command of North Korea’s embassy in London defected to South Korea with his family, officials in Seoul said Wednesday, describing him as “sick and tired” of Kim Jong Un’s regime.

The defection, the latest in a string of high-profile escapes, constitutes an embarrassing blow to North Korea’s authoritarian leadership and potentially an intelligence windfall for South Korea and its allies, including the United States.

Thae Yong Ho, a cosmopolitan career diplomat, was a key official at the embassy, in a residential area of west London, and is thought to have escorted Kim Jong Chul, the North Korean leader’s older brother, during his trip to Britain last year to attend an Eric Clapton concert.

“He is absolutely central to the operation of that embassy,” said Adam Cathcart, a North Korea expert at Leeds University who met Thae several times. “He’d been there longer than the ambassador, and all the North Korea hands in London assumed that he was a really key person there.”

Thae in some ways had been the public face of the embassy, giving talks at bookshops and at British Communist Party meetings in which he extolled the virtues of the North Korean system, a sign of the latitude he had within the regime, Cathcart said.

After several days of rumors, South Korea’s Unification Ministry confirmed Wednesday that Thae, who is thought to be in his late 50s, is now in Seoul with his family.

“They are now under the Seoul government’s protection, and relevant institutions are proceeding with necessary procedures,” Jeong Joon-hee, a ministry spokesman, told reporters, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

[ The secret life of Kim Jong Un’s aunt, who has lived in the U.S. since 1998 ]

Defectors who held senior political or military positions within North Korea are extensively debriefed by the South Korean intelligence agency and then offered to U.S. military intelligence. They generally do not go through the resettlement program for regular defectors — where they learn things like how to use a credit card and the Internet — but often end up at a government-linked think tank.

The South Korean government, which has been taking a tough approach to North Korea since its nuclear test in January, used Thae’s escape to take another swipe at the regime in Pyongyang.

“This case shows that North Korean elites view that there is no hope in their country,” said Jeong of the Unification Ministry. “It also indicates that North Korea’s regime’s internal solidarity is weakening.”

But some analysts speculated that Thae’s departure could be linked to tougher sanctions against North Korea following this year’s nuclear and long-range missile tests. North Korea’s embassies are thought to be moneymaking centers, and over the years, diplomats have been caught smuggling contraband including gold, cigarettes, rhino horns and heroin. Increased scrutiny of North Korea’s activities, legal and otherwise, could make it harder for diplomats to meet their quotas.

South Korean officials did not disclose how or when Thae arrived, but the Guardian newspaper, quoting a student at his son’s school, suggested the family had “disappeared” sometime in July. Thae had talked publicly about living in London with his wife and said that his son attended high school in Acton, in west London. He has also mentioned an older son who graduated from a university with a degree in medicine or public health.

North Korean diplomats generally must leave one member of their immediate family in Pyongyang — the regime’s insurance against defections — and it was not clear whether Thae had managed to take all of his family with him.

Thae’s defection from London could complicate the delicate diplomatic ties between London and Pyongyang. A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office said, “It’s not a story we’re commenting on.”

[North Korea says it has been practicing to blow up South Korean airports]

Thae was known in London for attending political and cultural events. At times, he seemed good-natured, even humorous, as he joked in English about the high cost of living in capitalist London.

Warwick Morris, a former British ambassador to South Korea who had met Thae on about four occasions, said the diplomat was “smooth and sophisticated in a slightly North Korean kind of way.”

But Thae also displayed the particular brand of public devotion to his government shown by North Korean diplomats. In 2014, for instance, he scolded British journalists during a speech at a London bookstore for allegedly exaggerating the security level at a major event in Pyongyang, comparing it to what reporters might face if they attended an event at Buckingham Palace.

“There has been so much ideological work by the ruling class of the British,” he said, according to a video of his speech posted on YouTube. He added that they have “brainwashed” the working class.

John Nilsson-Wright, head of the Asia program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, said Thae was “very able, dapper, spoke excellent English ... He was atypical in a world of faceless bureaucrats and had a genuine interest in the country he was based in.

“I was surprised to learn of his defection, but not totally,” Nilsson-Wright said. “Anyone who is as bright as he is can see the difference between the official lines of the government and the reality of the outside world.”

[ I went to North Korea and was told I ask too many questions ]

Analysts agreed that Thae’s defection could be highly valuable to South Korea and the West. Thae would have come into contact, Nilsson-Wright said, with a number of influential people in the current North Korean administration. “He will have good details of how the government works,” he said.

North Korea allows only citizens deemed most loyal to the regime to travel abroad, so Thae’s flight marks the latest in a series of embarrassing defections.

In April, the South Koreans announced the arrival of a colonel from North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, the primary spy agency and the department believed to be behind the hacking of Sony Pictures in 2014 and the sinking of a South Korean naval corvette in 2010. That same month, South Korea confirmed the defection of 13 North Koreans working at a state-run restaurant in China — another key source of foreign currency for the regime.

Thae becomes the most senior North Korean diplomat to defect since the ambassador to Egypt sought asylum in the United States in 1997.

Karla Adam contributed to this report.

[Gary Oak]

Fortunately this Thae Yong Ho was able to get his family out. He must have worked out a lot of details as he would know better than us about Kim Jong Un's vindictiveness. Can you imagine living under the rule of North Korea ? I would get the death penalty for this thread.

[Blue Frost]

Yeah, his family would have paid, and likely some are even if cousins, or uncles.

[Gary Oak]

This has got to be winding Fatty Kim The Turd off a tad.


Kim Jong-un' makes a sensational appearance at the Rio Olympics

https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/kim-jo ... 26003.html

[Blue Frost]

My guess is that it's a lot more than that, I'm surprised there hasn't been some really bad mutations, but they are likely suppressing the info.

[Gary Oak]

Where on Earth is Kim Jong-un’s wife? North Korea’s First Lady not seen for SEVEN MONTHS

The wife of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, has not been seen in public for more than seven months, prompting speculation of instability in Pyongyang, pregnancy or a falling out with her husband.

An alternative suggestion put forward by experts monitoring the regime in North Korea is that Ri Sol-ju may have crossed Kim Yo-jong, Kim's younger sister, who is increasingly emerging as the power behind her brother's throne.

Mrs Ri last took part in a public event with her husband on March 28, Yonhap News reported, when she accompanied Mr Kim on a visit to a new commercial district and health complex in Pyongyang.

Since initially appearing as North Korea's first lady in 2012, Mrs Ri was regularly seen alongside her husband as he carried out "on-the-spot guidance tours" of factories, hospitals and theme parks. She was pictured alongside her husband in state media on 22 occasions in 2013 and 15 times in 2014, but only three times in the first three months of the year and not at all since then.

"This is certainly something of a surprise as Mr Kim himself has been frequently pictured in the North Korean media," said Toshimitsu Shigemura, a professor at Tokyo's Waseda University and an authority on the North Korean leadership.

Mr Shigemura added that there are unsubstantiated suggestions that Mrs Ri was very close to Jang Song-thaek, the dictator's uncle and mentor, who was executed in December 2013 after being charged with a raft of crimes against the state, including "gnawing at the unity and cohesion of the party.""There are several possible reasons, including that she is pregnant or that there is some sort of problem between the two of them," he told The Telegraph.

"There have also been reports of instability in Pyongyang and even of several attempted attacks, including by factions in the North Korean military, against Kim last year," Mr Shigemura added. "It is possible that Ri has not appeared in public because she is being closely guarded."

Another possibility is that Mrs Ri has in some way upset the dictator's sister, who was last year placed in charge of North Korea's Propaganda and Agitation Department.

Her tasks include promoting her brother's cult of personality, while she also reportedly exercises a good deal of influence over Mr Kim.

"The belief is that while Mr Kim lacks political ability, she is far more adept at the sort of manoeuvring that is required to keep him in power, so that is the task she has taken on," Mr Shigemura said.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/whe ... ailsignout

[Blue Frost]

My guess shes been feed to the dogs, and he got him some of those teen girls he is so happy with.

[Gary Oak]

He might have gotten tired of her. She might have dared to nag him or tell him a truth or too that he didn't wasn't to hear.

[Blue Frost]

That's my guess, she said something out of place that angered the fat little pig.
Sad thing is if he did something to her he likely did something with her family.

[Gary Oak]

Koreans are big on wife beating and I imagine that Kim Jong Un does it royal style

[Blue Frost]

I would bet he has others do it for him most the time. I didn't know they beat their wives a lot there.

[Gary Oak]

Just imagine, this forum would get a Korean a death sentence in North Korea.

What do North Koreans think about Kim Jong Un? This survey tries to find out. 2/30

The Washington Post Anna Fifield
8 hrs ago

IS leader confident in victory, in first message about Mosul battle
Biggest supermoon in 68 years to light up skies © Linda Davidson/The Washington Post A large screen photo of ruler Kim Jong Un and sparkling confetti cap an evening concert at the Pyongyang Arena in North Korea in May. TOKYO — What do North Koreans think about their leaders? It’s an impossible question to answer, given that North Korea is a totalitarian state where professing anything other than wholehearted adulation for the Kim regime could land a person in a political prison camp — or worse.

For years, researchers in Seoul have been trying to collect data on North Korean thought by conducting surveys of people who have escaped from the police state and made it to safety in South Korea.

But now a new project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, is trying to poll North Koreans who still live in North Korea.

“This gives us a window into what the average North Korean citizen is thinking,” said Victor D. Cha, chair of Korea studies at CSIS, who runs the “Beyond Parallel” project dedicated to Korean unification. “This is the first time we’re hearing directly from people inside the country.”

The project contracted a nongovernmental agency that works inside North Korea — Cha would not reveal its name to protect the safety of its operations — to carry out surveys. The latest, on how North Koreans think and talk about the Kim Jong Un regime in private, is being published Wednesday.

The NGO surveyed 20 men and 16 women between the ages of 28 and 80, spread across the country. They came from a variety of backgrounds, with jobs including doctor, laborer, homemaker, factory worker and company president.

Such is the nature of working inside North Korea that even Cha does not know how the NGO carried out the survey or if the people explicitly knew they were being questioned for a poll. And the survey was not done through cold calls — the survey administrators knew those they were questioning in some way.

“This isn’t Gallup-level surveying,” said Cha. “It’s only 36 people, but it’s 36 people more than anyone else has surveyed in North Korea. The findings are modest, but they’re pretty insightful.”

Thirty-five of the respondents said their family, friends or neighbors complained or made jokes about the regime in private.

“For the vast majority of the world’s population, especially for those people living in free and open societies, a similar such finding would be quite banal,” the survey report states. “But North Korea is not a free and open society. That all but one . . . say people they know complain and makes jokes about the government is an extraordinary number given the gravity with which the regime responds to criticisms.”

North Korea regularly ranks at the bottom of lists of countries with free speech, with Freedom House’s latest report noting that the nation has one of the most repressive media environments in the world. Only a handful of the most elite members of the regime has access to the Internet or to outside information.

The landmark Commission of Inquiry report published by a U.N. panel in 2014 concluded that there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought and expression in North Korea. “State surveillance permeates the private lives of all citizens to ensure that virtually no expression critical of the political system or of its leadership goes undetected,” it wrote. Punishments usually involve time in a political prison camp, and executions are ordered for serious offenses.

Academics at Seoul National University have been surveying North Korean defectors since 2008 — there are now about 30,000 living in the South — and have consistently found criticism of the Kim regime.

“This survey confirms defector testimony, but defector testimony is a biased sample,” Cha said, because people disaffected with the regime are more likely to flee the country. The finding that the overwhelming majority of respondents still living in North Korea also make jokes at the government’s expense is another thing altogether, he said.

The first survey results, released last month, were on the public distribution system that is supposed to supply basic food items to citizens but which broke down during the devastating famine of the mid-1990s. It found that none of the respondents thought the system provided what they want for a good life.

Marcus Noland, executive vice president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics and an expert on that famine, commended the “audacity” of even trying to do a survey inside North Korea, although he noted the process was opaque.

“What we have is a small survey, conducted according to an unrevealed methodology, that confirms what many of us thought that we already knew,” Noland wrote on his “Witness to Transformation” blog. “But the astonishing thing is that it even exists.”

The survey findings add to the stream of reports coming from “citizen reporters” inside North Korea. Media outlets including Rimjingang, run by Japanese journalist Jiro Ishimaru, and the Daily NK in Seoul, use informants inside the country, although their reports tend to be based on single sources from border regions.

ALSO WATCH: Secret Tapes Reveal Kim Jong Il's Frustrations

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/wha ... ailsignout

[Gary Oak]

Kim Jong Un I hope realises that the USA can bomb it into a parking lot very easily.

North Korea has a message for the new US president: We're staying heavily armed

North Korea has issued an ominous warning to the incoming U.S. president, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

Yonhap reported that a commentary in North Korea's major newspaper Rondon Sinmu did not refer to Donald Trump's victory specifically, but issued a veiled warning that the incoming administration would have to deal with a nuclear-armed North Korea.

The newspaper condemned outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama's "strategic patience" policy with North Korea - in which he continued to pressure the country with sanctions in an attempt to convince it to give up its weapons - with Rondon Sinmu saying that the policy had only left a bigger burden for his successor because Pyongyang used the time to become a nuclear state.

"Washington's hope for North Korea's denuclearization is an outdated illusion," the newspaper commentary said.

Yonhap also reported that although the rogue regime held off conducting nuclear or missile tests while the U.S. went to the polls, possibly so it could gauge Trump's policy on the country, it was likely tests would be conducted around key dates in December or January, including the fifth anniversary of the death of Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un's father.

During his campaign, Trump said that he was open to holding talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and North Korea cheered Trump's comments in June that South Korea should be forced to pay more to have U.S. troops on its soil.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/nor ... ailsignout

[Gary Oak]

I didn't see anybody having any fun. I doubt that the concept of fun has been grasped. Do they have any entertainment at all ? They don't seem to have any fashion either. They dress much like peasants in the most poor parts of China. This guys guide is almost certainly in very serious deep Shiite ! I wouldn't be surprised if his guide wasn't executed. His guide would be a minder. Every foreigner has people watching them in China. They get kudos for finding out what the forengner wants wether it is girls fame passport money and then after they find out what he/she wants they scheme to destroy these goals and exploit him/her. I didn't see any four hundred pounders waddling about either.

An Illegal Look Inside The Crazy World Of North Korea

http://detonate.com/an-illegal-look-ins ... orea-2/31/

[Gary Oak]

Surely the top leadership of North Korea must know that they could be purged if they piss Fatty Kim off and also know that he is limited and resent his authority. How will this Trump administration affect Kim ? With most of the country starving Kim must be very paranoid. I doubt that he will live a long life.

North Korean Defector claims Kim Jong-Un's regime on verge of collapse

Seoul: The North Korean regime is on an inexorable decline towards collapse, with its people increasingly disillusioned but its nuclear ambitions undimmed, a top defector said on Wednesday.
"I'm sure and I can say that Kim Jong-Un's days are numbered," said Thae Yong-Ho, who fled his post as North Korea's deputy ambassador to Britain in August.
In his first press conference for foreign correspondents, held under tight security, Thae said he was sure that more of his fellow countrymen would follow suit since North Korea was "on a downward path".
The elite were "turning their backs" on leader Kim Jong-Un, he said, adding: "The traditional structures of North Korean systems are crumbling."
Nuclear-armed North Korea has been ruled by the Kim dynasty since its foundation in 1948. It is subject to United Nations Security Council sanctions over its nuclear and missile programmes and is accused by the West of widespread human rights abuses.

http://www.news18.com/news/world/days-o ... 40794.html

[Gary Oak]

Is Fatty Kim The Turd losing his marbles ? Is paranoi getting the best of him ? Perhaps he felt that his brother had a legitimate claim to the North Korean throne.

3 arrested in NKorean's death in Malaysia; autopsy completed

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities announced two more arrests Thursday in the death of the North Korean leader's half brother, whose apparent assassination this week unleashed a wave of speculation and intrigue: a pair of female assailants, a broad-daylight killing and a dictator-sibling out for blood.

Investigators were still piecing together details of the case, including the widespread assumption that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un dispatched a hit squad to kill his estranged half brother, Kim Jong Nam. Known for his love of gambling and casinos, Kim Jong Nam had lived abroad for years, aware he was a hunted man.

Three suspects — two women and a man — were arrested separately Wednesday and Thursday. The women were identified using surveillance videos from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, where Kim Jong Nam, who was 45 or 46, suddenly fell ill Monday morning.

Malaysian officials said he died on the way to a hospital after telling medical workers at the airport that he had been sprayed with a chemical.

Multiple South Korean media reports, citing unidentified sources, said two women believed to be North Korean agents killed him with some kind of poison before fleeing in a taxi.

One of the female suspects had Vietnamese travel documents and was picked up Wednesday at the budget terminal of the airport, the same place where the attack took place. The other woman held an Indonesian passport and was arrested early Thursday.

Police said they were working to determine if the IDs were genuine. It was not immediately clear if the women were believed to be the actual assassins.

Indonesian diplomats met with the second suspect and confirmed she is an Indonesian citizen, officials said. Authorities identified her as Siti Aisyah, 25, originally from Serang in Banten, a province that neighbors the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Indonesian Immigration Office spokesman Agung Sampurno said officials from the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur met with the woman in Selangor state, where she is being held, and ensured she is in safe condition.

"They were allowed to see her but cannot make any questions," said Sampurno. "However, the team can confirm that Aisyah is Indonesian."

News of the third arrest came Thursday afternoon. Police said they had detained a Malaysian man who was believed to be the boyfriend of the Indonesian suspect.

Medical workers also completed an autopsy on Kim Jong Nam, but the results have not been released. The findings could reveal whether he was actually poisoned.

North Korea had objected to the autopsy but Malaysia went ahead with it anyway because the North did not submit a formal protest, said Abdul Samah Mat, a senior Malaysian police official.

On Thursday, Malaysian Deputy Home Minister Zahid Hamidi said security is a top priority for the government and the authorities had acted swiftly and efficiently.

Asked at a news conference why Malaysia failed to protect Kim Jong Nam, Zahid said: "What do you mean? Do we have to engage a bodyguard and usher him everywhere? No."

Kim Jong Nam was estranged from his younger half brother, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, and had been living abroad for years. He reportedly fell out of favor when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport in 2001, saying he wanted to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

Kim Jong Nam was the son of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's second leader, and Sung Hye Rim, an actress who analysts say was forced to divorce her first husband to live in secret with the future leader in 1970, a year before their son was born.

He was reportedly educated in Geneva and Moscow in his early teens and became fluent in English, French and Russian. After Kim Jong Il's death in 2011, Kim Jong Nam complained that Kim Jong Un, the country's new leader, was failing to treat him with respect and send him enough money, according to Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea's Sejong Institute.

However, Kim Jong Nam refrained from openly criticizing the North and kept a low profile after Kim Jong Un executed his uncle and former protector Jang Song Thaek, once considered the country's second-most powerful person, in 2013.

Since taking power, Kim Jong Un has executed or purged a number of high-level government officials.

The National Intelligence Service said North Korea had been trying for five years to kill Kim Jong Nam, and that he had sent a letter to Kim Jong Un in April 2012, begging for the lives of himself and his family.

Officials from South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers that Kim Jong Nam leaves behind two sons and a daughter with two women living in Beijing and Macau.

Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and Tim Sullivan in New Delhi contributed to this report.

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/3-a ... ailsignout

[Blue Frost]

I read he had been killed, and I figure Kim had his hands in it, and making others pay for his murder he likely ordered.
If I was in that country I would stay far away from him.