Laos send North Korean Refugess back to North Korea

Laos Hands 9 Defectors Over to N.Korea

Nine young refugees from North Korea reached Laos on May 10 after a dangerous journey across the Chinese border but were apparently sent back to the North, where they face internment or execution.

Both South and North Korea were informed shortly after the nine arrived in Laos.

Communist Laos eventually sided with North Korea, which took the unprecedented step of flying the defectors to China on Monday. This has prompted speculation that a prominent person was among the defectors.

Foreign Policy - short piece

When a dip-shit rules a country, or "Dear Leader, you put your finger in the thingy chogi..."

Kim Jong Un looking at things
 
The only real glimpses the rest of the world gets into North Korea are through state-released photos of Kim Jong Un -- photos, more specifically, as this Tumblr duly noted, of Kim Jong Un looking at things, a.k.a. providing "on-the-spot guidance," just as his father did before him.
Taking advantage of widespread interest in a shrouded country, its photogenic supreme leader, and the wide range of curious situations in which he is pictured (gazing at South Korea, looking at a floor plank, inspecting a child's track suit), "Kim Jong Un looking at things" is both a hit and an exposition. If there's one blog that sums up the bizarre, ridiculous, and fascinating nature of North Korea, its bizarre leader, and its propaganda machine, it's this one.

Pulp Liberation Army - By Isaac Stone Fish and Helen Gao | Foreign Policy

Pulp Liberation Army - By Isaac Stone Fish and Helen Gao | Foreign Policy

ROKDrop: Sexual Assault & the Military

U.S. Army still trying to figure out the sexual culture of young men, and women, in the service, and those that work around military compounds across the globe. Click on the picture for full article.

THE DIPLOMAT: Sharia Law & Human Rights Abuses

Outrage After Sharia Court Allows Rapist to Marry His 13-year-old Victim

May 23, 2013By Luke Hunt

A man has evaded rape charges via Sharia Law. Malaysians are enraged.

Image credit:Flickr (yunir)

Complications arising from overlapping state laws with religion are never-ending, particularly with Islam. Much of Borneo and the former British colonies on the island were Christian before what is now the state of Sabah and Sarawak (aka East Malaysia) entered a federation with Muslim Malaysia.
As Malaysia evolved so did internal migration and cross-culture absurdities inevitably came about. This reality was highlighted this week by a case involving a Muslim man who raped a 12-year-old girl and was able to obtain permission to marry her under Sharia law – avoiding prosecution in the process.
Thankfully, local prosecutors are pursuing a statutory rape charge against 40-year-old restaurant manager Riduan Masmud, who allegedly had sex with the girl in a parked car outside the Sabah state capital Kota Kinabalu in February. The girl is now 13 and his defense is that he married her.
State officials in Sabah want the marriage annulled. The girl is known to be from a very poor family and in one interview Riduan said the rape was a case of “suka sama suka” (“mutual consent”).
He was quoted in a report as saying that he would let her finish her studies and “maybe later take up a cosmetic course with my first wife,” who he added was a make-up artist.
The father of the girl apparently accepted the marriage saying, “What else could I do?” Her case only came to light following complaints from an aunt.
Riduan is currently free after posting bail of about U.S. $2,600.
Earlier this week a court told the prosecution it had until June 6 to decide whether or not to proceed with rape charges against Riduan after legal moves were made in April to have the case withdrawn following the marriage.
Welfare groups were outraged that Riduan was allowed to marry the girl, although the Sharia Court that allowed the nuptials has apparently said it could be annulled because Riduan did not tell the court that this was his second marriage when he applied for a certificate to marry the girl.
Gerakan Wanita’s deputy chief, Ng Siew Lai, said Riduan should not be allowed to walk free.
“I am really disgusted with the action of the rapist, whose name I cannot even bear to say out,” Ng said. “The girl is just a child who has a future, but due to the action of the rapist, it has gone up in smoke.”
She added that all children and in particular girls must be protected until they reach maturity.
“Simply marrying the victim will be seen as seeking the back-door attempt to escape punishment,” Ng continued. “We can never allow a rapist to go scot-free after raping a victim by marrying her. Gerakan Wanita firmly believes that prosecution should be mandatory in statutory rape cases and marriage can never be a solution.”

http://thediplomat.com/asean-beat/2013/05/23/outrage-after-sharia-court-allows-rapist-to-marry-his-13-year-old-victim/

For inquiries, please contact The Diplomat at info@the-diplomat.com

North Korea Hacking the West

North Korea: How the least-wired country became a hacking superpower

Geoffrey Cain

May 22, 2013

 

Obama's Self-Inflicted Scandal - By Richard A. Epstein | Foreign Policy

Obama's Self-Inflicted Scandal - By Richard A. Epstein | Foreign Policy

Obama's Plumbers - By James Traub | Foreign Policy

Obama's Plumbers - By James Traub | Foreign Policy

Personal note:
Normally I tried to post issues that relate specifically to Asia, and Northern Asian topics, onlu, and, those related to the ongoing human rights issues that belong to the development of Asian societies. But last Fall I posted a comment about how our government is lying to us about the Benghazi fiasco. Not that I was particular brilliant in my deductions, but I got there only by watching the information that is available to everyone. I mean, really, do they think we are all stupid. Indeed, they were lying to us and they are doing it again, or should I say, have been continually lying since they took office to sustain their grasp of power and the immunity that power gives to those that have it.

Well, this is the US, and before the IRS and the political machinery of the Obama administration drives common citizens into the underground, and globe trotting Sec. of States, smirk and go wink, wink, and say, well, golly gee, I really dunno know what happened, who did it, and what could it possible have to do with me, and "What does it really matter, anyway?" Well, the truth matters when we do nothing to defend our people or try to insinuate their betrayal through strong armed actions, and that is something this administration from the top down can not reconcile and seemed particularly peeved when they are drawn on teh carpet to respond. They have more moves than Michael Jordan going to the hoop, faking this way, dodging that, no look passes, and dribbling between our legs, while we try to understand exactly why our representatives are being killed in terrorists acts against which we made no effort in their defense or are intimidated for doing that most American of all things, wanting to participate in the political process.

Whatever mistrust we had in the Bush, after the still yet to be resolved issue of WMD, this gang of lying grasping power hungry politicians will be found out in the end, and as someone once said, this isn't the end, it's not even the beginning of the end, but it is the beginning of the beginning of the end.

There's a lot of fertilizer being made in DC......

Is This the Most Disgusting Atrocity Filmed in the Syrian Civil War? - By Peter Bouckaert | Foreign Policy

Is This the Most Disgusting Atrocity Filmed in the Syrian Civil War? - By Peter Bouckaert | Foreign Policy

The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object - by Noah Feldman | Foreign Policy

The Unstoppable Force vs. the Immovable Object - by Noah Feldman | Foreign Policy

Beijing's 'Bitskrieg' - By John Arquilla | Foreign Policy

Beijing's 'Bitskrieg' - By John Arquilla | Foreign Policy

Iron Man vs. the Super Censors - By Suzanne Nossel | Foreign Policy

Iron Man vs. the Super Censors - By Suzanne Nossel | Foreign Policy

Where in the world is this blog going?

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China & North Korean Bank Accounts in China

China Probes N.Korea's Bank Accounts
Chinese authorities have identified most of the accounts of North Korean companies and individuals in major Chinese banks, a diplomatic source in Beijing said Wednesday.

Three or four North Korean banks in Dandong, the biggest trading hub between North Korea and China, have reportedly closed down.

According to the source, Chinese authorities have combed through all North Korea-related accounts in major Chinese banks in an effort to implement sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council in the wake of the North's latest nuclear test.

In the process, North Korea apparently tried to dodge detection by opening new bank accounts under borrowed or false names, but Chinese authorities traced these accounts too.
If the accounts prove to be linked to illegal activities like nuclear weapons and missile development, Beijing apparently plans to impose sanctions on each individual North Korean bank, just as it did when the Bank of China cut ties with the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea on Tuesday.

Another source in China said, "It seems the U.S. provided China with indisputable evidence of illegal activities by the Foreign Trade Bank of North Korea."

In principle, North Korean banks in China are barred from remittance and currency exchange business and are nominally mere liaison offices. But in fact Beijing used to look the other way when they carried out such transactions for North Korean agencies and firms.

Now Chinese authorities are taking a tougher line.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's own money and cash for the North Korean military crosses the border in diplomatic pouches to avoid customs inspections, a North Korean source said.

A North Korean businessman said, "More than 20,000 Korean Chinese live in Dandong, and we've been dealing with many Chinese for more than a decade. There are lots of ways to remit money to the North."

How to you invetigate North Korean human rights abuses from afar? Foreign Policy Online

How do you investigate North Korean human rights abuses from afar?

Posted By Isaac Stone Fish - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 - 4:50 PM

On Tuesday, the U.N. Human Rights Council announced the three individuals who will lead the body's first-ever human rights investigation into North Korea. In an interview with the Australian broadcaster ABC, new panel member Michael Kirby, a former justice of Australia's high court, acknowledged the challenges facing the probe but added, "the media gives North Korea a hard time and that maybe or may not be justified. We just have to, as a judge would, decide the matter on the basis of the material that's given to us and report faithfully and honestly."


North Korea is infamously opaque -- a New York Times article on Monday about "the black hole of North Korea intelligence gathering" argued that U.S. "understanding of North Korea's leadership and weapons systems has actually gotten worse." And the outside world may know less about North Korea's gulags -- thought to hold roughly 150,000 to 200,000 people -- than its weapons capabilities.
Not only will North Korea not cooperate with the investigation (it has never admitted to the existence of its gulags), but it's very likely that no one from the United Nations will be allowed to enter the country to investigate. Even if they are allowed to enter, they won't be able to get anywhere near the gulags -- and perhaps won't even make it outside the capital city of Pyongyang.

So how does one investigate human rights abuses in North Korea from Geneva and Seoul? The answer's pretty simple: defectors and satellite maps.

The most comprehensive testimony on human rights abuses in North Korea comes from the NGO Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, which in April 2012 released its second report on North Korea's hidden gulags:

In addition to the testimony and accounts from the former political prisoners in this report, this second edition of Hidden Gulag also includes satellite photographs of the prison camps. The dramatically improved, higher resolution satellite imagery now available through Google Earth allows the former prisoners to identify their former barracks and houses, their former work sites, execution grounds, and other landmarks in the camps. The report provides the precise locations exact degrees of latitude and longitude-of the political prison camps that North Korea proclaims do not exist.

The problem is, North Korea is so isolated from the rest of the world that some changes only become apparent months, if not years, after they occur. After defectors cross the Chinese border, for instance, it usually takes them years to be in a position to safely tell their stories. And satellite maps show buildings, but not people. The U.N.'s testimony will no doubt be extremely thorough,  but still woefully incomplete when judged by similar human rights inquiries. If, for example, North Korea were to shut down its gulags, how long would it take the rest of the world to discover they no longer exist?

Morsy and the Muslims - By Shadi Hamid | Foreign Policy

Morsy and the Muslims - By Shadi Hamid | Foreign Policy

Dennis Rodman calls on Kim Jong Un to do him 'a solid' and release American detainee | FP Passport

Dennis Rodman calls on Kim Jong Un to do him 'a solid' and release American detainee | FP Passport

China: Year Zero - By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy

China: Year Zero - By Christian Caryl | Foreign Policy

Waiting for the Gosnell Verdict

Waiting for the Gosnell Verdict: pThe wait for the verdict in the trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell went on today as a jury continued to weigh the multitude of charges that the Philadelphia abortionist faces for butchering women and their babies. The case has gotten more attention in the mainstream media in recent weeks after conservative columnists lambasted it for [...]/p

The Most Dangerous Border in the World - By Ely Ratner and Alexander Sullivan | Foreign Policy

The Most Dangerous Border in the World - By Ely Ratner and Alexander Sullivan | Foreign Policy

North Korea Photographs from the National Review

World Photography Organizations Awards

The annual Sony World Photography Organization Awards honors the best still image work in a range of categories, representing amateur and professional lensers. Here's a look at the winners in the professional current-affairs category. This year's top honors went to Ilya Pitalev, who captured these images of life in North Korea.

(Ilya Pitalev)

(Ilya Pitalev)

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE NATIONAL REVIEW WHERE THE COMPLETE SLIDESHOW IS AVAILABLE.

Xi's War Drums - By John Garnaut | Foreign Policy

Xi's War Drums - By John Garnaut | Foreign Policy

China's new leader is using the military to consolidate his power. But has he unleashed forces beyond his control?