U.S. Weighs Intercepting North Korean Shipments

By DAVID E. SANGER

Published: June 7, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/world/asia/08korea.html?_r=1&hp

[...]

"While Mr. Obama was in the Middle East and Europe last week, several senior officials said the president’s national security team had all but set aside the central assumption that guided American policy toward North Korea over the past 16 years and two presidencies: that the North would be willing to ultimately abandon its small arsenal of nuclear weapons in return for some combination of oil, nuclear power plants, money, food and guarantees that the United States would not topple its government, the world’s last Stalinesque regime. [...]


---

My opinion exactly since 2005. Finally. Just to add - Kim Dae Joong, the Sunshine Policy, and anything like it was an utter fail. Lucky for S. Korea, sunshine boy Chung wasn't elected to see a repeat of history, not only continuously of maintaining a holocaust regime, but of South Korea's liberal naivity. Obama and Hilary are surprisingly taking the harder line than the Texan dubber of the "axis of evil." I approve.
-JSH

The Tyrant Who Tweets

Mark MacKinnon

Beijing — From Tuesday's Globe and Mail, Tuesday, May. 26, 2009 09:56AM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/the-tyrant-who-tweets-following-the-hermit-king/article1152638/

North Korea Demands Higher Pay at Industrial Park

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: May 15, 2009

[...]

"It remains unclear whether the North intends to force the shutdown of Kaesong through its demands, or whether the cloistered nation is merely seeking more money as the United Nations pursues tighter economic sanctions after the North’s April 5 rocket launching. North Korea’s leaders have also grown wary of capitalist influence spreading to the rest of their tightly controlled society from Kaesong. [...]

Earlier Friday, South Korea proposed talks for next week to discuss the fate of a South Korean worker detained in Kaesong on charges of denouncing the Communist government. During a brief discussion last month, North Korea refused to talk about the condition of the man, who has been held since March 30 without access to South Korean officials.

The North instead began demanding higher wages for 39,000 North Korean workers at Kaesong, who are now earning about $75 a month.

North Korea to Try U.S. Journalists

By CHOE SANG-HUN

Published: May 13, 2009

Two American journalists who have been detained in North Korea for two months on charges of illegal entry and “hostile acts” will be put on trial June 4, the Communist North announced on Thursday. [...]

Under North Korea’s criminal code, a person convicted of hostile acts against the state can face at least five years in labor camps. Illegal entry carries a sentence of up to three years in a labor camp.

[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/world/asia/14korea.html?scp=2&sq=north%20korea&st=cse

North Korea Duels With Iran for Attention

April 29, 2009, 12:46 pm
By Robert Mackey

[...]

In both cases, close allies of the United States feel threatened by the nuclear programs — Israel by Iran’s and South Korea and Japan by North Korea’s. So what explains the difference in the reaction of Americans to threats from the two countries? Could it be that the preoccupation of Americans, and Europeans, with the possibility of terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists makes the idea of nuclear weapons in Tehran seem more urgent than the idea of nuclear weapons in Pyongyang? Or is it that the theocratic leadership in Iran seems easier to talk to, and comprehend, than the Stalinist leadership in North Korea? [...]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/north-korea-duels-with-iran/?scp=4&sq=north%20korea&st=cse

North Korea Seeks Political Gain From Rocket Launch

By CHOE SANG-HUN, HELENE COOPER and DAVID E. SANGER

Published: April 6, 2009

[...]

Although the debris of the North Korean rocket fell hundreds of kilometers short of where the North had said they would land in the Pacific, “the launch carries big political and military significance,” said Jeung Young-tai, an analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

“No country will be naive enough to believe that it was a peaceful space program,” Mr. Jeung said.

“North Korea is on the threshold of becoming an intercontinental ballistic missile country.”

Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank, said the main motivation behind the launch was “to demonstrate the strength and vitality of Kim Jong Il’s leadership to the military and the population, and for the scientific sector to declare its fealty to Kim Jong Il’s leadership.” [...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/world/asia/07korea.html?scp=8&sq=north%20korea&st=cse

Op-Ed Contributor - North Korea's Stacked Deck

By Art Brown
Published July 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/opinion/15brown.html?scp=2&sq=north%20korea&st=cse

...

"If this were high-stakes poker, the North Koreans would be biting their lips to hide their smiles at the cards in their hands.

"As it stands now, we have agreed to ship North Korea a million new tons of fuel oil, released Mr. Kim from the handcuffs of our Trading With the Enemy Act, and — within the legally mandated 45 days — will throw in other goodies that come with removing North Korea from the State Department’s state-sponsor-of-terrorism list. This comes on top of the American decision last year to allow the North Koreans to transfer their tainted money out of a bank in Macao.

"But the topper is that Kim Jong-il knows he still gets to keep his stockpile of plutonium and even hang on to his existing rack of nuclear weapons (minus the one he tested in October 2006 to set the tone of the game)."

...

McCain and Obama on North Korea

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/mccain-and-obama-on-north-korea/?scp=1-b&sq=north+korea&st=nyt

Full Text of McCain Statement:

“The announcement today that North Korea has provided information concerning elements of its nuclear program is a modest step forward, as will be the destruction of the disabled cooling tower of Yongbyon. But it is only a step covering one part of North Korea’s nuclear activities. It is important to remember our goal has been the full, permanent and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. That must remain our goal. The Six Party agreement called for North Korea to make a full declaration of all its nuclear weapons and nuclear programs. Many questions remain about North Korea’s programs, including the disposition of plutonium at Yongbyon, the number and status of nuclear weapons, the nature of the highly-enriched uranium program, and the extent of proliferation activities in countries like Syria. I also want to make sure we fully account for the legitimate concerns of our South Korean and Japanese allies as we move forward. I understand certain sanctions were lifted today, some may be lifted in 45 days, and others remain in place.

“As we review this declaration and attempt to verify North Korean claims, we must keep diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to meet all of its obligations under the Six Party agreement, including denuclearization. If we are unable to fully verify the declaration submitted today and if I am not satisfied with the verification mechanisms developed, I would not support the easing of sanctions on North Korea.”

Full Text of Obama Statement:

“This is a step forward, and there will be many more steps to take in the days ahead. Critical questions remain unanswered. We still have not verified the accuracy of the North Korean declaration. We must confirm the full extent of North Korea’s past plutonium production. We must also confirm its uranium enrichment activities, and get answers to disturbing questions about its proliferation activities with other countries, including Syria.

“The declaration has not yet been made available, so Congress has not had a chance to review it. Before weighing in on North Korea’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, Congress must take the next 45 days to examine the adequacy of the North Korean declaration and verification procedures. Sanctions are a critical part of our leverage to pressure North Korea to act. They should only be lifted based on North Korean performance. If the North Koreans do not meet their obligations, we should move quickly to re-impose sanctions that have been waived, and consider new restrictions going forward.

“We should continue to pursue the kind of direct and aggressive diplomacy with North Korea that can yield results. The objective must be clear: the complete and verifiable elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs, which only expanded while we refused to talk. As we move forward, we must not cede our leverage in these negotiations unless it is clear that North Korea is living up to its obligations.

“As President, I will work from the very beginning of my term in office to secure the American people and our interests in this vital region. We must work with diligence and determination with our friends and allies to end this dangerous threat, and to secure a lasting peace on the Korean peninsula.”

NKorea blames Skorea for tourist death

By Associated Press
July 12, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-Relations.html?_r=1&scp=8&sq=north+korea&st=nyt&oref=login

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea said South Korea was to blame for the shooting death of a South Korean tourist in the communist nation, demanding an apology Saturday and saying it would ban visits to a mountain resort where Seoul has already suspended tours since the killing.

The North also rejected a South Korean request for investigators to visit the scene of Friday's shooting, claiming it has already clarified what happened with the South Korean tour company that runs the trips to the mountain on the peninsula's eastern coast.

Pyongyang's stance was certain to exacerbate tensions between the Koreas, which have flared since South Korea's new conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in February.

Earlier on Saturday, Lee denounced the killing of 53-year-old housewife Park Wang-ja and urged the North to cooperate in the investigation.

''What cannot and should not happen has happened,'' Lee told a security ministers' meeting, according to his office.

''I can't understand that they shot a civilian tourist'' at a time of the day when it is possible to discern she is a civilian, Lee said. He also urged Pyongyang to ''actively cooperate'' in an investigation.

But in the statement from a North Korean tourism bureau, Pyongyang said the tourist ''intruded deep into the area under the military control of the North side all alone at dawn,'' noting that even her ''shoes got wet.''

The North said its soldier spotted the tourist and ordered her to stop, but that she ran away. The soldier ''repeatedly shouted'' at her to stop and fired warning shots, but then ''could not but open fire'' at the woman, according to the statement from the Guidance Bureau for Comprehensive Development of Scenic Spots.

''The responsibility for the incident entirely rests with the South side,'' the bureau said in the statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The statement called for Seoul to apologize and take measures to prevent it from happening again.

Yonhap news agency cited a tourist who returned from the resort Friday as saying he saw a middle-aged woman dressed in black walking along the beach before hearing two gunshots and a scream about 10 minutes later.

''When I looked at the direction where the gunshots were heard, there was one person collapsed and three soldiers ran out of a forest and touched the person with their feet as if trying to see if that person is alive,'' Yonhap quoted 23-year-old Lee In-bok, a college student, as saying.

Lee told Yonhap that he and five others witnessed the incident while at the beach to watch the sunrise and that they were about 300 meters away.

Park's husband, Bang Young-min, 53, said he hopes for the truth of what happened.

''I hope all suspicions would be resolved ... so that the souls of the deceased can rest in peace,'' he said at a hospital in Seoul where Park's body was kept for a funeral.

------

Associated Press writer Burt Herman contributed to this report.

North Korea Destroys Tower at Nuclear Site

By Choe Sang-Hun
June 28, 2008

SEOUL, South Korea — In a gesture demonstrating its commitment to halt its nuclear weapons program, North Korea blew up the most prominent symbol of its plutonium production Friday.

The 60-foot cooling tower at the North’s main nuclear power plant collapsed in a heap of shattered concrete and twisted steel, filmed by international and regional television broadcasters invited to witness the event.

The tower is a technically insignificant structure, relatively easy to rebuild. North Korea also has been disabling — but not destroying — more sensitive parts of the nuclear complex, such as the 5-megawatt reactor, a plant that makes its fuel and a laboratory that extracts plutonium from its spent fuel.

Nonetheless, the destruction of the tower, the most visible element of the nuclear complex at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, affirmed the incremental progress that has been made in American-led multilateral efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs.

“As you all saw, the cooling tower is no longer there,” Sung Kim, a senior State Department official who witnessed the blast from a hill, told South Korean television. “It’s a very significant disablement step.”

But some experts in South Korea said the demolition, although dramatic, did not answer key questions, such as how many weapons North Korea has built or whether it has exported its nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

“It’s symbolic. But in real terms, whether demolishing or not a cooling tower that has already been disabled doesn’t make much difference,” said Lee Ji-sue, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Myongji University.

The demolition also shows that North Korea has concluded that the Yongbyon complex, in service for several decades, has served its purpose after producing an unknown number of nuclear weapons, Mr. Lee said.

United States officials have accused North Korea of hiding an uranium-enrichment program, a charge that the North’s declaration on Thursday failed to address.

On Thursday, North Korea submitted its first significant — although partial — account of its arms programs. Almost simultaneously, President Bush announced that Washington was removing North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, and issued a proclamation lifting some sanctions under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

“We appraise this as a positive step,” a spokesman for the North Korean Foreign Ministry told the North’s state-run news agency on Friday night. But if Washington wants to see further progress in ending the North’s nuclear programs, he said, it must “completely and comprehensively abolish its hostile policy.”

The spokesman added that South Korea should also be inspected and monitored to guarantee the “denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula.”

North Korea regularly accuses the United States of deploying nuclear weapons in the South.

The Yongbyon complex, built around a Soviet-era nuclear reactor, is the North’s only known source of plutonium. North Korea had started disabling the reactor and other parts of the complex last year under an agreement with the United States, South Korea, Japan, Russia and China.

Under the deal, North Korea has been receiving fuel aid from the five nations. But it was not obliged to destroy any of its nuclear facilities until further talks determine what rewards it will get in return.

South Korean and American officials welcomed the early demolition of the cooling tower as an encouraging sign of North Korea’s commitment to a broader deal under which Washington hopes to eradicate all the North’s nuclear assets.

“By demolishing the tower, North Korea appears to demonstrate that it would not produce any more plutonium,” said Kim Yeon-chul, a North Korea expert at the Asiatic Research Center at Korea University in Seoul.

The cooling tower carries waste heat from the reactor. While the Communist government kept its nuclear activities shrouded in secrecy, steam curling from the tower into the atmosphere was captured in spy satellite photographs, providing outside observers with the most visible sign of operations at Yongbyon.

The photographs reminded the rest of the world of the operation’s dangers. North Korea shocked the world in October 2006 by detonating a nuclear bomb in an underground test. It is also suspected by U.S. officials of providing nuclear technology to countries like Syria.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/world/asia/28korea.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=north%20korea%20destroys%20nuclear%20tower&st=cse&oref=slogin

U.S. to Take North Korea Off Terror List

By Norimitsu Onishi and Edward Wong
June 27, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/world/asia/27nuke.html?hp

TOKYO — North Korea took a major step on Thursday toward re-integration into the world community and rapprochement with the United States by submitting for outside inspection a long-delayed declaration of its nuclear program.

The Bush administration almost immediately announced it would remove the country it once described as part of the “axis of evil” from the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The declaration from North Korea, one of the world’s most isolated and impoverished nations, was expected to describe in previously undisclosed detail its capabilities in nuclear power and nuclear weapons — meeting a major demand of the United States and other countries that consider the North a dangerous source of instability.

“This can be a moment of opportunity for North Korea,” said President Bush, announcing the declaration at the White House. “If it continues to make the right choices it can repair its relationship with the international community.”

Mr. Bush said in the principle of “action for action,” the United States would lift some restrictions on commercial dealings with North Korea and within 45 days end its designation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.

China, which has been the host of the six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear program, said Thursday afternoon that the North was submitting its declaration. The White House confirmed the exchange shortly afterward and said that it would remove North Korea from the terrorism list and thus make it eligible for aid and assistance, a goal long sought by the cash-starved country.

American officials expected that the declaration, which had been due at the end of last year, would provide important details about North Korea’s nuclear facilities and programs, including the amount of plutonium produced at its nuclear reactor in Yongbyon.

"I do think it’s important to note that if we can verifiably determine the amount of plutonium that has been made, we then have an upper hand in understanding what may have happened in terms of weaponisation," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after arriving in Kyoto, Japan, on Thursday for a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized powers.

Ms. Rice added that the declaration was “a natural step on the way to dealing verifiably with the devices or weapons themselves."

Partly to deflect criticism from hard-line critics in Washington that the current deal was too soft on North Korea, American officials have emphasized the importance of the information on plutonium. The North is believed to have produced enough weapons-grade plutonium at its reactor in Yongbyon to make as many as half a dozen bombs.

But, significantly, the North’s declaration was not expected to reveal details on three critical points: the nuclear bombs the North has already produced; its alleged attempts to produce nuclear arms by secretly enriching uranium, which triggered the ongoing crisis in 2002; and accusations that the North helped Syria build a nuclear plant.

Some of the missing details, particularly on the North’s existing nuclear bombs, are expected to be revealed at the next stage of the step-by-step agreement when Pyongyang is bound to dismantle and abandon its weapons.

“This declaration completes this stage of the talks, as far as plutonium-related activities are involved,” said Yoon Duk-min, a senior analyst at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul. “But as far as negotiating on the other issues, that will have to be handled by the next administration in Washington. There’s realistically not enough time left for the Bush administration.”

“And North Korea, which got what it wanted by being removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, is probably waiting for the next administration,” Mr. Yoon said.

The North was scheduled to follow up on Friday by blowing up a cooling tower at its Yongbyon reactor, about 60 miles north of Pyongyang.

Norimitsu Onishi reported from Tokyo and Edward Wong reported from Beijing. Reporting was contributed by Helene Cooper in Washington and Graham Bowley in New York.

U.S. Urges North Korea to Fulfill Deal

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/world/asia/31korea.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By Reuters
December 31, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — North Korea has not met its commitment to account fully for its nuclear activities by the end of 2007 under a disarmament agreement, the United States said Sunday, urging North Korea to comply with its obligations.

North Korea, which tested a nuclear device in 2006, is facing a deadline at 11 a.m., Eastern time, on Dec. 31 to disclose details of its nuclear program under a disarmament-for-aid deal it reached with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.

“It is unfortunate that North Korea has not yet met its commitments by providing a complete and correct declaration of its nuclear programs and slowing down the process of disablement,” a State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said in a statement.

“We urge North Korea to deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear weapons and proliferation activities and complete the agreed disablement.”

American and South Korean officials have called on North Korea to say how much plutonium it has produced — about 110 pounds by the United States’ estimates — and respond to American suspicions about a secret program to enrich uranium for weapons.

Protesters Worldwide to Rally against China's 'Flagrant' Human Rights Violations

http://christianpost.com/article/20071129/30278_Protesters_Worldwide_to_Rally_against_China%27s_%27Flagrant%27_Human_Rights_Violations.htm
By Ruby Hwang
November 29, 2007

Demonstrations, petition drives, and prayer vigils will mark the “International Protest Against China’s Violent Treatment of North Korea Refugees” on Friday and Saturday at Chinese consulates and embassies in major cities around the world, including those in Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Holland, Japan, Norway, Spain, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“The demonstrations are a way of pressuring the Chinese government to comply with their obligations under the U.N. Convention on Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol,” says Lindsay Vessey, the advocacy coordinator for Open Doors USA, which is a member of the North Korea Freedom Coalition. “Under this convention, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) should have access to the North Koreans refugees hiding in China – estimated at 100,000 to 300,000 – and be able to protect and help them find asylum in other countries like the U.S. and South Korea. Yet, China is deporting refugees back to North Korea where they face terrible punishment.”

It is said that at least 500,000 North Koreans have crossed the border over to China in the past 10 years. Although the U.N. Special Rapporteur on North Korea considers the North Koreans who flee to China “refugees” deserving of protection, China has signed an agreement with its communist ally to return refugees back to North Korea where they face imprisonment, torture, and sometimes execution for leaving the country – a state crime.

China, in defense of its actions, has claimed North Koreans entering its country are “economic migrants” and not refugees and thus it has the right to return them.

“For several years both the Chinese and North Korean authorities have implemented measures to close the border,” notes Suzanne Scholte, chairman of the North Korean Freedom Coalition. “Currently the Chinese authorities are working more aggressively with North Korean agents to hunt down and repatriate the North Korean refugees. We have heard several reports that North Korean agents are posing as refugees to draw out both humanitarian workers and true refugees as part of this escalating crackdown. Even refugees in jail are being used as 'bait' to draw out potential rescuers, so that Chinese authorities can arrest them.

“The Chinese government needs to know that Christians around the world are aware and care about the government’s flagrant human rights violations and that we are committed to praying and assisting these refugees,” she adds. Scholte is urging people from around the world join those who are protesting against the injustice and praying for the refugees, many of whom are Christians.

“We need everyone to join and support these events as the situation in China is worse than ever for North Korean refugees,” she says. “Some cities will deliver petitions; some will stage protests and demonstrations. Wherever you are in the world, please take part in this effort. Please remember the suffering of the North Korean refugees and take a stand for them so that together we can help end the most avoidable human rights tragedy occurring in the world today.”

U.S. human rights activists have urged people not to travel to Beijing to attend the 2008 Olympics unless China grants the United Nation’s refugee agency, UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), access to North Koreans hiding in its territory.

North Korea is currently one of the most repressive regimes in the world and is ranked by the ministry Open Doors as the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. Citizens of the communist state are forced to adhere to a personality cult that revolves around worshipping current dictator Kim Jong Il and his deceased father, Kim Il Sung.

For more information on a specific event this weekend, contact the North Korea Freedom Coalition at sueyoonlogan@gmail.com or visit nkfreedom.org.

Christian Post reporter Michelle Vu in Washington contributed to this report.

Pastor Honored for Risking Life for Hundreds of North Korean Refugees

http://ny.christianpost.com/article/missions/112/section/pastor.honored.for.risking.life.for.hundreds.of.north.korean.refugees/1.htm
By Katherine T. Phan
October 17, 2007

NEW YORK — A pastor who has helped rescue North Koreans fleeing the country through an “underground railroad” was honored Tuesday night with the Civil Courage Prize.

The Rev. Phillip Jun Buck, originally from North Korea, accepted the $50,000 award at the Harold Pratt House where The Train Foundation recognized his “steadfast resistance to evil at great personal risk.”

Buck began his speech by thanking God and went on to describe the plight of North Korean refugees.

“I would like to receive this award on behalf of all North Korean refugees who have been killed or died because they have acted with an instinct to survive,” said Buck, whose daughter, Grace Yoon Yi, assisted with translation.

The 66-year-old pastor said he would use the prize money toward helping underground churches in North Korea, North Korean orphans in China, and North Korean refugee women who are victims to human trafficking.

The relationship between Buck and North Korea runs deep.

The North Korean native was separated from his family during the Korean War and spent his childhood in an orphanage in South Korea. He received an education and even a college degree through the support of an elderly Christian woman.

Buck later immigrated to the United States, where he pastored a Seattle church for 24 years until he was sent by his denomination as a missionary to Russia in the early 90s.

Eventually, the pastor expanded his ministry to China where through the course of ten years, he provided financial support, shelter, and food to over 1,000 North Korean refugees.

Most of the refugees had fled from the communist regime of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, whose rule has been marked by terror, famine, disease, and political oppression.

Melanie Kirkpatrick, Deputy Editorial Page Editor of The Wall Street Journal, who nominated Buck for the award, said that the deplorable situation continued even once the refugees reached China.

Men were sold into slavery and women were sold as brides or sexual slaves to Chinese men, described Kirkpatrick.

“Still, it was a better life than what they left behind in North Korea,” she added.

Furthermore, continued Kirkpatrick, instead of accepting the refugees, China even offered bounties for refugees and repatriated them back to North Korea, where they face imprisonment, torture, and sometimes execution for leaving the country – a state crime.

“North Korean citizens and refugees are human, each having a right to eat, a right to live, and a right to enjoy freedom,” proclaimed Buck.

In 1998, the Korean pastor said he made the decision to dedicate his life to helping refugees and “to live and to die with them.”

“My life calling is as a missionary,” said Buck. “I have always shared the word of God every time I gave money to these North Korean refugees. I did so to inspire and give faith in the future.”

In 2001, Buck began to move refugees to South Korea. To this day, he has guided over one hundred North Korean refugees out of China and ultimately to safety in South Korea.

But his efforts did not go unnoticed by Chinese authorities, who discovered his identity after obtaining his passport while raiding his apartment, where refugees were housed.

After escaping the arrest, Buck, then known as John Yoon, returned to the United States where he underwent the legal process to change his name.

“I did not see what I was doing as something wrong,” he said. “God has instructed us to help those who are in need, and I take that instruction very seriously.”

Buck returned to China in 2002 to continue his work but was arrested and imprisoned in May 2005. He was released August 2006.

“I have huge respect … for his courage and his cause,” said the Rt. Hon. Sir Geoffrey Howe, former Foreign Secretary of Britain, in his address speech.

Steve Kim, a furniture importer from Huntington , N.Y., who was recently released after serving time in the same prison as Buck, was also present at the award ceremony.

An Activist for North Koreans Wins Release

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1279419,00.html
By Bill Powell
August 2, 2006

For the last 15 months, Phillip Buck, 69, an evangelical pastor from Seattle, Washington sat in a jail cell in northeastern China his health deteriorating, not knowing when—or even if—he would get out and see his family in the U.S. again. The only thing he knew, he wrote in a letter from the jailhouse earlier this year, is that his cause was just.

Now he is free. Buck had been a key member of the so-called underground railroad that moves refugees from North Korea through China to safety in South Korea. On Monday, Aug. 21, the Chinese government released him, having convicted him of transiting people illegally out of the country. His sentence — following more than a year of jail time in the city of Yanjie— was deportation and a fine. "I was jailed with killers, robbers and other hardened criminals," Buck told TIME, "but I did nothing wrong. All I was doing was helping the [North Korean] refugees." Buck had devoted his ministry since 1997 to the cause of aiding North Koreans. Then, with North Korea in the midst of a famine that killed thousands, he set up and operated a small noodle factory there. But he soon decided "he wanted to help in a more direct way," his daughter Grace says, and by the late 90s became involved in the loose network of people—some affiliated with Christian churches in South Korea, Europe and the U.S.—who try to bring North Koreans out via China.

They are not always successful. In 2002, Buck had a narrow escape. He had helped moved "a lot of people" of people out of China and into South Korea by then, his daughter says, and his organization had been infiltrated by an informant. Chinese authorities raided one of Buck' s safe houses and arrested a group of refugees en route to South Korea. Buck' s apartment in Yanji, in northeastern China, was searched, but he was out of the country at the time and escaped capture. His family pleaded with him not to return -- to no avail-- and in May of 2005 he was arrested in Yanji. "They [the Chinese authorities] had been after me ever since 2002," Buck says. His sentence includes a ban from ever going back to China, but Buck says he still has a network of people in the country helping run the underground railroad, and he will now figure out ways to help them from afar, in part by raising money to house and feed North Korean refugees in China. "Every day in prison--457 days—I thought about the refugees and prayed to God to help them. My work is nowhere near finished."

Regular Freight Rail Service Starts Between 2 Koreas

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/world/asia/12korea.html
By Choe Sang-Hun
December 12, 2007

DORASAN STATION, South Korea — For President Roh Moo-hyun, who steps down in February and is barred from running for another term, the journey on Tuesday of a 12-car South Korean freight train across the world’s most heavily fortified border on Tuesday was one of the last hurrahs of his reconciliation policy with the Communist North.

The opening of regular cargo rail service between the two Koreas for the first time in 56 years came a week before South Korea’s presidential election.

The man who appears almost certain to succeed Mr. Roh — the conservative front-runner, Lee Myung-bak — has vowed to review all the major joint economic projects Mr. Roh agreed to with the North during his final months in office.

“If elected, Mr. Lee will link economic cooperation with the North’s denuclearization,” said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University and a North Korea policy adviser to Mr. Lee.

“The Roh government equated engaging the North with embracing it,” Mr. Nam said. “But Mr. Lee believes that engagement should include sticks too. He will offer carrots if North Korea behaves well, but will use sticks if it doesn’t.”

In recent months, Mr. Roh and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, have agreed on a series of economic projects estimated to be worth as much as $15 billion, with Mr. Roh hoping that the momentum toward reconciliation will be hard to break, no matter who becomes the next president in the South in the Dec. 19 election.

Mr. Roh has said that he sees no alternative to helping the North rebuild its economy. A stable North Korea will help South Korea attract foreign investors and reduce the cost of eventual reunification, he says.

On Tuesday, Lee Chul, the head of the South Korean national railway, saw the northbound train off from Dorasan, the last station on the South Korean side of the border. “This is a deeply emotional moment for Koreans,” he said.

“Today, we link our arteries,” he added.

The freight rail service inaugurated Tuesday is scheduled to operate five times a week on a track about 10 miles long.

Cross-border train service was cut in 1951, during the Korean War, which ended two years later in a cease-fire rather than with a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically at war.

Although hundreds of motor vehicles already cross the border daily, resuming the inter-Korean rail line has been a top ambition of recent South Korean leaders, who hoped it would bolster trade between the Koreas and provide South Korea with a cheaper, faster way of carrying its exports to the Chinese, Russian and European markets.

But for now, the rail line links only the South Korean border town of Munsan with Kaesong, a North Korean frontier city where South Koreans run factories with inexpensive North Korean labor. On Tuesday, it carried curbstones for roads and raw materials for shoes. Hours later, it returned to the South with finished shoes, garments and hydraulic pumps, all made in Kaesong.

Next year, a North Korean train will take over the daily shuttle.

When Mr. Roh met with Mr. Kim in Pyongyang in October, South Korea agreed to help the North renovate its main rail line between Kaesong and Sinuiju, North Korea’s main entry point to China. The project could cost $150 million, according to officials in Seoul.

“I fear that the two governments struck many deals ahead of the election in the South, hoping that the next government in the South will have no choice but to honor them,” Mr. Lee, the presidential candidate for the opposition Grand National Party, said in a newspaper interview last week. “But I will scrutinize each of those agreements to see if they are justified, or if they should be considered only after North Korea dismantles its nuclear weapons programs.”

NKorea May Miss Deadline for Declaration

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-Nuclear.html
By the Associated Press
December 27, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea may miss a year-end deadline to declare all its nuclear programs, South Korea's foreign minister said Thursday, after the North warned it would also slow work to disable its atomic facilities due to delayed aid.

North Korea had promised earlier this year to disable its main nuclear complex and give a declaration of all its nuclear programs by the end of the year in return for international aid.

''The timing was initially the end of December but that may go past the target date,'' Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told reporters.

''When the declaration is made is important, but it should be made in a sincere manner. We are making efforts to achieve a sincere declaration,'' he said.

The North began disabling key facilities at its nuclear complex north of Pyongyang. However, diplomats have said the North is likely to miss a year-end deadline for the disablement measures, because a key step -- removing fuel rods from the reactor -- could take several months.

''We are now in a critical juncture,'' Song said, adding that problems in meeting the deadline lie in both the disablement and disclosure.

On Wednesday, Hyun Hak Pong, a vice director-general at the North's Foreign Ministry, said economic compensation was ''being delayed'' and that meant the country had ''no option but to adjust the speed of the disablement process.''

The South Korean foreign minister, however, downplayed the remarks and said the disablement work was going well.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said Wednesday he was not aware of any slowdown in aid and the U.S. expects ''further heavy fuel oil shipments and other energy assistance to move forward in the near future.''

A Japanese newspaper reported Thursday that the U.S. and North Korea disagree on the amount of plutonium -- a key ingredient for atomic bombs -- that the communist nation has produced, a figure expected to be included in the declaration.

The regional daily Tokyo Shimbun quoted unnamed U.S. and North Korean officials as saying the North has told the U.S. it has produced about 66 pounds of the nuclear material, considerably less than a U.S. estimates of more than 110 pounds.

Song declined Thursday to address which amount was correct, saying the issue would be dealt with after the North gave its declaration.

SKorea's President - Elect Urges NKorea

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-SKorea-Presidential-Election.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By the Associated Press
December 20, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- President-elect Lee Myung-bak said Thursday he would not shy from criticizing North Korea's authoritarian regime, ending a taboo by a decade of liberal South Korean leaders who have aggressively sought closer ties with Pyongyang.

Lee, who won a landslide victory in Wednesday's vote, represents the conservative opposition Grand National Party that has been heavily critical of the South's engagement policy toward the North.

The new leader, a pragmatic former Hyundai CEO, is considered less hard-line, although he has called for stricter reciprocity from Pyongyang for Seoul's aid.

''I think unconditionally avoiding criticism of North Korea would not be appropriate,'' Lee told a news conference the day after the election. ''If we try to point out North Korea's shortcomings, with affection, I think that would make North Korean society healthier.''

Lee also urged North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and said Seoul would open normal trade only after Pyongyang disarms.

''The most important thing is for North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons,'' he said. ''Full-fledged economic exchanges can start after North Korea dismantles its nuclear weapons.''

The North this year began disabling its main nuclear facility under an international accord with the U.S. and other countries -- the first time Pyongyang has scaled back its development of atomic weapons. North Korea has promised to declare all its nuclear programs by the end of the year that will be eventually dismantled.

Lee won 48.7 percent of the Wednesday vote with the largest margin of victory ever in a South Korean presidential election -- besting his closest rival by more than 22 percent.

Under the past two liberal presidents, South Korea had failed to publicly raise human rights problems in North Korea out of concern its criticism may anger Pyongyang and complicate reconciliation between the countries that remain technically at war. The 1950-53 Korean War ended with a cease-fire that has never been replaced by a peace treaty.

The two Koreas embarked on unprecedented rapprochement after their leaders met for their first-ever summit in 2000, and the South is now North Korea's No. 2 trade partner after communist ally China.

The South also has been a main food donor for the impoverished North, but international monitors have raised questions about its ability to verify if aid gets to the needy and is not diverted to the military.

Later Thursday, Lee spoke by phone with President Bush, pledging to strengthen relations with Washington and work together to resolve the standoff over North Korea's nuclear programs, Lee's office said in a statement.

During the seven-minute conversation, Bush congratulated Lee on his election and stressed the importance of making the Korean peninsula free of nuclear threats and taking a stern attitude on Pyongyang to achieve that goal, the statement said.

Lee accepted an invitation from Bush to visit the U.S., the statement said.

Earlier, Lee told U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow he thought ''Korea-U.S. relations lacked trust a bit for the past five years'' and that he hoped that would change.

Lee earned his victory on a wave of discontent for incumbent President Roh Moo-hyun, whom many believe bungled the economy and dragged down the Asian nation's rapid growth.

Voters also appeared willing to overlook accusations of ethical lapses that dogged Lee throughout his campaign. Just days before the vote, the parliament approved an independent counsel investigation into alleged stock manipulation by Lee that is to be completed before the Feb. 25 inauguration.

Lee has said he will step down if found at fault.

Kang Jae-sup, chairman of Lee's Grand National Party, asked Roh on Thursday in a radio interview to veto the independent counsel bill to allow for a smooth transition of power.

Presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said the request has not yet been discussed. Another spokesman, Oh Young-jin, noted Roh had earlier expressed his intention to sign the bill.

Lee's main campaign promise was labeled the ''747'' pledge -- promising to raise annual growth to 7 percent, double the country's per capita income to $40,000 and lift South Korea to among the world's top seven economies.

Lee said Thursday he would court foreign investment and ''foster an environment where companies can operate freely.''

''The atmosphere was anti-business and anti-corporate so that companies were reluctant to invest,'' he said of his liberal predecessors.

------

Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang, Hyung-jin Kim and Kwang-tae Kim contributed to this report.

Philharmonic Agrees to Play in North Korea

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/10/arts/music/10phil.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
By Daniel J. Wakin
December 10, 2007

Adding a cultural wrinkle to the diplomatic engagement between the United States and North Korea, the New York Philharmonic plans to visit Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in February, taking the legacy of Beethoven, Bach and Bernstein to one of the world’s most isolated nations.

The trip, at the invitation of North Korea, will be the first significant cultural visit by Americans to that country, and it comes as the United States is offering the possibility of warmer ties with a country that President Bush once consigned to the “axis of evil.”

“We haven’t even had Ping-Pong diplomacy with these people,” said Ambassador Christopher R. Hill, the Bush administration’s main diplomat for negotiations with North Korea and the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.

Just last week Mr. Bush sent a letter to Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s leader, suggesting that ties would improve if North Korea fully disclosed all nuclear programs and got rid of its nuclear weapons. Conservatives have criticized the Bush administration for engaging with North Korea when it has violated nuclear promises, and in the face of recent intelligence indicating its possible assistance to Syria in beginning work on a reactor.

State Department officials said the orchestra’s invitation from North Korea and its acceptance represented a potential opening in that Communist nation’s relationship with the outside world, and a softening of its unrelenting anti-United States propaganda.

“It would signal that North Korea is beginning to come out of its shell, which everyone understands is a long-term process,” Mr. Hill said. “It does represent a shift in how they view us, and it’s the sort of shift that can be helpful as we go forward in nuclear weapons negotiations.” [...]

The concert is planned for Feb. 26 at the end of a previously planned tour in China. The orchestra is expected to stay in Pyongyang for two nights, with some teaching and a ceremonial dinner thrown in.

Some questions have been raised about the appropriateness of visiting a country run by one of the world’s most repressive governments. North Korea’s policies have been blamed in part for the famine-related starvation of perhaps two million people and it confines hundreds of thousands of people in labor camps.

If the orchestra goes to Pyongyang, “it will be doing little more than participating in a puppet show whose purpose is to lend legitimacy to a despicable regime,” Terry Teachout, an arts critic and blogger, wrote on the online opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal in late October.

Richard V. Allen, a national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan, and Chuck Downs — both board members of the United States Committee for Human Rights in North Korea — made a similar point on Oct. 28 on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. “It would be a mistake to hand Kim Jong-il a propaganda coup,” they wrote.

Mr. Hill acknowledged that “in a very theoretical way” any kind of opening lends legitimacy to the North Korean government. “But not opening up has not had any positive effect in bringing North Korea out of its shell,” he said. [...]

South Korea's Lee Ahead in Exit Polls

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-SKorea-Presidential-Election.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
By the Associated Press
December 19, 2007

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Former Hyundai CEO Lee Myung-bak claimed victory Wednesday in South Korea's presidential election, as voters overlooked fraud allegations in hopes he will revive the economy. [...]

Lee, a former Seoul mayor who turned 66 on election day, has led the race for months. His victory ends a decade of liberal rule in the South, during which the country embarked on unprecedented reconciliation with rival North Korea that has led to restored trade and travel across the heavily armed frontier dividing the peninsula. [...]

Candidate Lee Hoi-chang, who was trailing in third with 15.7 percent of the vote, congratulated Lee Myung-bak on his win.

''I hope he would uphold the people's yearning for a change in government and correct what the outgoing government has done wrong in the past,'' he told reporters.

The office of liberal President Roh Moo-hyun congratulated Lee.

''We respect the people's choice shown in this election,'' presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said in a statement. [...]

Lee has pledged to take a more critical view of Seoul's engagement with North Korea and seek closer U.S. ties. Efforts to end North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions stand at a critical juncture, with the communist country set to disclose all its programs for eventual dismantlement by a year-end deadline.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey congratulated Lee on his victory.

''We have a long history of cooperation and friendship with South Korea and fully expect that'll continue with this new government,'' he said. ''Certainly, we've got a number of important issues on our bilateral agenda including our mutual cooperation in the six-party talks.'' [...]

Nicknamed ''The Bulldozer'' for his can-do business acumen, Lee's support has been bolstered due to dissatisfaction over the five-year term of Roh, who was constitutionally barred from seeking re-election.

In 2002, Roh was elected after pledging not to ''kowtow'' to the U.S. while also continuing the rapprochement with the North fostered by his predecessor and fellow liberal Kim Dae-jung, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his ''sunshine'' policy of engagement with Pyongyang.