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We have made what we believe is a measured, eyes-open, risk-averse case for aid. The limited evidence we have on aggregate supply, commercial trade, existing stocks, the likely performance of the summer harvest and prices—both international and domestic—point to ongoing shortages that will almost certainly have adverse effects on vulnerable portions of the population. These [...]
We have finally gotten around to reading the leaked UN Panel of Experts report that has been getting so much attention recently. It provides a surprisingly useful and blunt introduction to how the North Koreans—with the complicity of unnamed “third parties”—has sought to circumvent the sanctions. But it goes farther by putting the country’s weapons programs [...]
Lead story: We continue to follow the disturbing report that the North Korean security apparatus has developed a more systematic policy for squeezing the 20,000 plus refugees in the South by using their families as hostages. Threats—needless to say, highly credible ones—are being used for a variety of purposes: To extort money from the refugees; [...]
We noted surprise in an earlier post of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell’s fulsome embrace of the Libya model for North Korea. Now the North Koreans have provided a predictably full-throated response: “The U.S. launched a military attack on Libya in collusion with some Western countries on March 19. It openly interfered in the [...]
