the week ahead in DPRK North Korea

Two Koreas will discuss Family Reunions

• Representatives from North and South Korea will meet on September 7 to discuss hosting reunions for separated families during the Chuseok holiday, which falls on September 27 this year.
• There have been 19 meetings of separated families thus far. The most recent was in 2014 when roughly 2,200 South Koreans were able to meet with their relatives in the North.

2015 Beautiful Dream Concert

• Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights will host a benefit concert in Seoul on September 8.
• Proceeds from the concert will be used to support North Korean youth who have resettled in the South. These youths face unique difficulties adjusting to the highly competitive in South Korea, but NKHR hope to enable them to fulfill their aspirations and perhaps even become future leaders of peaceful unification.
• Tickets are 20,000 won.
• Program details can be found here.

The Future of U.S.-South Korea Relations

• The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Korean-American Association will host this discussion in Washington D.C. on September 9.
• Panelists will discuss the future of U.S.-ROK relations in the lead up to Park Geun-hye and Obama’s summit in Washington D.C. on October 16. Some key topical areas that are likely to be raised include North Korea, regional security, and TPP.
• Panelists include; Han Sung-joo, former ROK ambassador to the United States; Hyun Hong-choo, former ROK ambassador to the United States and the UN; Choi Young-jin, former ROK ambassador to the United States; Evans Revere, former acting assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs and principal deputy secretary at the State Department; and Douglass Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
• For more information and to RSVP click here.

Seoul Defense Dialog

• South Korea will host the annual Seoul Defense Dialog in Seoul from September 9 to 11.
• Vice defense ministers from 33 countries will participate in this years meetings. However, North Korea has not sent a representative despite Seoul issuing a formal invitation for the first time this year.
• Panel topics at the conference include; global health and security, defense cooperation for responding to violent extremism and nuclear non-proliferation, maritime issues and cyber protection.
• The official schedule and speaker list can be found here.

Writing North Korean Social History

• The Centre of Korean Studies at SOAS will host this workshop in London on September 11.
• They hope to draw attention to social histories of North Korea, drawing up on recent scholarship.
• Speakers include; Suzy Kim, Columbia University; Cheehyung Harrision Kim, University of Missouri; Andre Schmid, University of Toronto; Carl Young, University of West Ontario; Adam Cathcart, University of Leeds; and Owen Miller, SOAS.
• Cost of attendance for students is 10 pounds and 15 pounds for others. SOAS students and BAKS members have free admission.
• For more information click here.

Sinn Fein Republican Youth Beal Feirste, Mo Chara, I'm so proud to stand so tall with you/ Open the Borders!

Sinn Féin - Republican Youth

Clear & resounding message from Sinn Féin Republican Youth Béal Feirste and Belfast Sinn Féin elected reps:

Refugees welcome in Ireland.

Open the borders.

This is the draft prologue from my manuscript I'm finalising over the next 3-4 months. This prologue is set in Seoul. The manuscript is titled RED PACK BANG and is about international control, transport and crime; its a novel. If you'd like to read Chapter one, please indicate by leaving a comment or just by viewing the prologue.

Prologue

The President’s Palace, Seoul, South Korea

The North Korean and Chinese delegates, outside the main palace’s formal photographic room, were dutifully waiting for the ceremonial single ‘knock’ to be delivered by the official usher.

The crowd of one hundred and twenty five photographers and journalists were separated from the guards and officials by a pristine red velvet rope.

The Usher was a gaunt, white haired, and obviously venerated old Korean gentleman wearing a formal suit, and white silk gloves. He must have been eighty and must have seen the decades of trouble and of wonder in Korea, a nation separated by the foreign and the insane. That hard time was over now. The healing had begun.

He knocked once on the great reinforced oak doors with a ceremonial carved golden staff. He paused, respectfully, as per custom; and then opened the thick sound-proofed doors inwards.

The carnage that awaited them all became the last thing, apart from the shattering jags of glass and the singularly bright red-orange flash, any of them ever saw.

In addition to the bodies of the Usher, the US President, the translator, the Secret Service Agents, the Chinese and North Korean delegates, one hundred and thirty six other people were incinerated by the explosion of the sidewinder missile that came straight through the heavily armoured ‘impenetrable’ glass of the South Korean Presidential Palace’s formal photographic room, straight through the massive open doors, fully detonating within the packed lobby.

The Red Package had been delivered.

KOREA news

Singapore firm building major new commercial building in N. Korea By Chad O'Carroll A Singaporean-linked company is building a major new commercial building in Pyongyang, which will incorporate a large department store and office space, sources in North Korea have told NK News. The building, which recent photos show to be at least 24 floors high, is located near Tongil street – in the south of Pyongyang – and currently appears to be in the latter stages of construction. “The Southeast Asian development department store on Reunification Street is getting built pretty damn quickly,” a source familiar with the construction, who requested anonymity, told NK News. “Sparks are falling off the building at night time constantly. “As far as I know it’s a Singaporean company that’s funding the entire thing … they will be opening their own stores there,” the source continued, adding that rumors in-country suggest it will house “Pyongyang’s largest department store.” Click here to read the full article at NK News

Over the border: What Dandong means to N. Korea By Dr. Andrei Lankov At a cursory glance, the Chinese city of Dandong is quite unremarkable; just one of many medium-sized cities to be found in China. It has its fair share of slums dating to the first half of the last century, not to mention its share of skyscrapers that play host to a Chinese nouveau riche doing their best at imitating their Western middle class counterparts. For the student of North Korea, however, this place is vital, and is potentially a veritable gold mine. This is, after all, the major channel for goods, money, intelligence and knowledge flowing in and out of North Korea. Dandong, together with the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the opposite bank of the Yalu/Amnok river, serves as North Korea’s major entry port to China and, broader speaking, the entire outside world. Click here for the full article at NK News

Why some N. Korean defectors’ stories fall apart By Jiyoung Song In its report released in February 2014, the United Nations Commission of Inquiry accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of committing crimes against humanity and called for the case to be referred to the International Criminal Court. For its report the COI, having been denied access to North Korea, instead carried out 240 confidential interviews with North Korean refugees living in South Korea, Japan, the UK and the U.S., including Shin Dong-hyuk. In January 2015, however, the DPRK government released a video of Shin’s father, claiming Shin’s stories were fake. When questioned Shin confessed that parts of the stories in his book were not correct, including sections on his time in Camp 14 and the age he was tortured. There are numerous other stories told by North Koreans that have later been found to be unreliable, even by North Korean standards.  Click here for the full article at NK News

South Korea’s Dead Governors Society By Fyodor Tertitskiy There are many disputed territories in the modern world. China claims ownership of Taiwan, Japan claims that South Kuril Islands should belong to it, Argentina claims the Falklands, Gabon claims the island of Corisco, etc. The complete list would be huge. Usually the pretending country created formal territorial units on the soil it claims. For example, the PRC formally has the “Taiwan Province” and Japan created the counties of Kunashiri, Shikotan, Shibetoro, Shana and Etorofu, which lie on the islands Tokyo has no control of. In some cases a “government in exile” is created, which should wield symbolic power over the claimed land. For example, Georgia has the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, which, according to Tbilisi is the legitimate government of Abkhazia – despite the latter being a de-facto independent country since 1992. A similar organization exists in South Korea as well. It is called the “Department for the Five Northern Provinces” and, as one may guess, it is considered the legitimate government of North Korea. Click here for the full article at NK News

Until they are home: The unit that scours for Korean War remains By JH Ahn At the end of August the South Korean Ministry of National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification (MAKRI) announced that it will launch a new set of mass recovery missions at a site near Yanggu, in South Korea’s Gangwon Province. Lee Young-suk, a 16-year veteran of the organization, expects it to approach this new mission to retrieve remains from the Korean War in accordance with its principles. “Our slogan is ‘First in, last out,’” said Lee, MAKRI’s current director of investigation. “Our recovery agents are always the first to show up at the recovery site and the last to leave until the very last remains of the fallen are recovered.” Lee spoke to NK News over the phone as he was working on an island in the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula, searching for the remains of an ROK Special Task Force team killed near the area battling North Koreans in the Korean War.

MISHIMA

Yukio Mishima books

I'm just recalling Mishima's novels that I've read over the years and am thinking of reading again soon...The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea I recall was very good and sharp; dark/bright incisive mind...so I think I will begin with this.
At the moment I'm slowly re-reading Camus' The Outsider. Stunning literature.
After Mishima will come a re-reading of Yasunari Kawabata's works.

I like re-reading a book after about a decade. New meanings and nuances flow. I recall I've read Hesse's Steppenwolf 3 times now, the first time when I was 20 and I found it to be very dark and brooding. At 40 years of age I found it to be quite fascinating. At 60 years of age I found it to be very funny/humorous...so it depends when you read things as well as what you read.

South and North Korea News

S. Korean president's warm welcome in China doesn't signify shift: Expert  Chung Jae-hung, senior researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, told NK News that while South Korea and China have been making friendly gestures in each other's direction recently, beyond the rhetoric little has changed. Both countries have still retained broadly the same policies with regard to both each other and North Korea, something which is unlikely to change any time soon. Visit NK News for more Why some N. Korean defectors’ stories fall apart, By Jiyoung Song While there is no doubt the North Korean regime has violated serious human rights, there is also a fundamental question about heavily relying on defectors’ testimonies as credible evidence. Jiyoung Song has spent many years listening to defector testimony, and here looks at some of the factors that can affect the credibility of the accounts that they provide. Visit NK News for more Until they are home: The unit that scours for Korean War remains At the end of August the South Korean Ministry of National Defense Agency for KIA Recovery & Identification (MAKRI) announced that it will launch a new set of mass recovery missions at a site near Yanggu, in South Korea’s Gangwon Province. MAKRI searches for, exhumes and attempts to identify lost human remains from the Korean war. We spoke to Lee Young-suk, a 16-year veteran of the organization. Visit NK News for more

Top Stories Today

N. Koreas Choe Ryong-hae returns home empty-handed (Yonhap News)
A key aide to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has failed to hold talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.

SK to provide 3 billion KRW in aid for inter-Korean forestry initiative (The Daily NK)
In a show of good faith, the South Korean government is planning to provide 3 billion KRW in funding for cooperative exchange between the South and North. 

DMZ film fest to open inside civilian control line (JoongAng Ilbo)
The seventh DMZ International Documentary Film Festival will kick off its eight-day run within miles of the demilitarized zone with a documentary about the life of a North Korean pop artist.

North Korea video shows two on trial for watching American films (The Daily Telegraph)
The two accused, aged 30 and 27, are made to stand outside in front of a 100-strong crowd as the charges against them are blasted out of loudspeakers attached to a van.

NK leader possibly visited weapon factory during China's military parade (Korea Times)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has inspected a machinery factory in a northwestern border city, the North's official media said Friday.