Kim Jong-un reportedly sending North Korean ‘slaves’ to Russia

B

blackascoal

The Force is With Me
NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is reportedly shipping tens of thousands of poor citizens to Russia in exchange for money.

Fox News reports that Human Rights Group Data Base Centre estimates that 50,000 North Koreans are working gruelling and low-paid jobs in Russia.

The group says North Korea is earning upwards of $US120 million every year from the scheme.

“The North Korean government maintains strict controls over their workers’ profits, in some cases probably taking 90 per cent of their wages,” Scott Synder, director of the Program on US-Korea Policy at the Council of Foreign Relations, told Fox News. “This is an issue that has been going on under the radar for a long time.”

North Koreans helped construct a new soccer stadium in St. Petersburg, where at least one North Korea was killed.

The US State Department issued a report on human trafficking last month that concluded that North Korean workers in Russia had been subjected to “exploitative labour conditions characteristic of trafficking cases such as withholding of identity documents, non-payment for services rendered, physical abuse, lack of safety measures, or extremely poor living conditions.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has proposed new sanctions to deal with the problem.

“Secretary Tillerson has called on all countries to fully implement all U.N. Security Council resolutions, sever or downgrade diplomatic relations, and isolate [North Korea] financially, including through new sanctions, severing trade relationships, expelling guest workers, and banning imports from North Korean,” a State Department official told Fox News.

The corruption has apparently only increased in the last 10 years as the monthly pay rate for the labourers has increased from about 17,000 roubles, around $376, to 50,000 roubles, or about $1079, according to the report.

“It’s very much analogous to any other type of trafficking situation across the world,” Snyder said. “Sex trafficking is done by shadowy, illegal organisations, but here we’re talking about state entities carrying out the trafficking. This really speaks to the nature of these regimes.”

http://www.news.com.au/world/asia/k...a/news-story/52c26c31eabf62e2452d293680db9283
 
Note that they are being paid - albeit poorly, the report is from Fox News, and the Trump Administration is firmly opposing the North Koreans at every turn.
 
LuvTrump said:
Note that they are being paid - albeit poorly, the report is from Fox News, and the Trump Administration is firmly opposing the North Koreans at every turn.
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:0) 'opposing'

The North Koreans are doing whatever they want to do without the consent of your opposing.

Tell me again what Trump is going to do if NK develops a ICBM that could reach the US?
 
blackascoal said:
:0) 'opposing'

The North Koreans are doing whatever they want to do without the consent of your opposing.

Tell me again what Trump is going to do if NK develops a ICBM that could reach the US?
Click to expand...

Assuming they get the capability probably 90% of the tech was developed under the previous administration.
 
blackascoal said:
:0) 'opposing'

The North Koreans are doing whatever they want to do without the consent of your opposing.

Tell me again what Trump is going to do if NK develops a ICBM that could reach the US?
Click to expand...

I expect he will unleash Mad Dog Mattis.
 
blackascoal said:
They already have that capability.
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ICBM's are staged rockets. NK got a stage one rocket to go up then down.

Then arming them presents another set of problems. They likely aren't there yet and they wouldn't be where they're at, except for the fact previous administrations kicked the can down the road---yes, including Bush II.
 
Darth Omar said:
ICBM's are staged rockets. NK got a stage one rocket to go up then down.

Then arming them presents another set of problems. They likely aren't there yet and they wouldn't be where they're at, except for the fact previous administrations kicked the can down the road---yes, including Bush II.
Click to expand...

So what, exactly, should previous administrations have done then?

Provoke a war with China? Because that's the endgame here.

Funnily enough, people in positions of power are, generally, quite reticent when it comes down to the issue of thermo-nuclear war.
 
charver said:
So what, exactly, should previous administrations have done then?

Provoke a war with China? Because that's the endgame here.

Funnily enough, people in positions of power are, generally, quite reticent when it comes down to the issue of thermo-nuclear war.
Click to expand...

They should have done what Trump is trying to do---pressure China into reigning in NK.
 
Darth Omar said:
They should have done what Trump is trying to do---pressure China into reigning in NK.
Click to expand...

What, like nobody thought of this before?

Previous administrations just missed this or thought "what the hell? What harm can a nuclear enabled North Korea be?"
 
North Korea’s successful test of an intercontinental missile is a test for Trump

North Korea just successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, one of its most audacious moves yet — and a vivid reminder that Pyongyang seems determined to test whether President Donald Trump is willing to turn his tough talk about the country’s nuclear threat into action.

The Hwasong-14 flew for 37 minutes, according to US Pacific Command, and traveled about 578 miles. It didn’t go as far as it could because it was shot at a high trajectory, likely to ensure it didn’t make another country believe it was being attacked. The projectile eventually landed in the sea between Japan and North Korea, but analysts believe it could have traveled as far as 4,200 miles if it had been fired with an actual intent to strike a target in case of conflict.

In response, the US and South Korea held a military exercise within 10 miles of the demilitarized zone that separates North Korea from its neighbor. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for “global action” to counter North Korea, while China and Russia asked for a “double suspension” of the military exercise and North Korea’s weapons program.

Based on the global reaction, the missile test was clearly a big deal. That’s because another of the caveats about North Korea — primarily that it didn’t have an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, that could hit the mainland United States — are steadily disappearing. “That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska,” wrote David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

And, down the line, this test could be seen as a stepping stone to an even more threatening development. “Even if this is a 7,000-km-range missile, a 10,000-km-range missile that can hit New York isn’t far off,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told the New York Times.
https://www.vox.com/2017/7/4/15919118/north-korea-missle-test-icbm-july-3

North Korea may have more nuclear bomb material than thought: U.S. think tank
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-exclusive-idUSKBN19Z1EN
 
North Korea boasts the world's fourth largest army. At 1.2 million soldiers, it is only slightly smaller than the 1.4 million personnel in the U.S. armed forces.

One of the consequences of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran is that Tehran got access to $100-$150 billion in frozen assets. It's likely that some of those funds ended up indirectly financing North Korea's nuclear weapons development program.

For the last half-century, we have taught Pyongyang that every time it bluffs, the West will back down. Not surprisingly, North Korea continues to pursue a strategy that has been shown to be a winning one.

It's very possible that the Trump administration is preparing to call Kim Jong-un's bluff. If so, we are heading for a showdown between two men whose political survival precludes either from backing down. Such dynamics invariably lead to a conflict that nobody wants but which neither side will back down to prevent.

A war would likely result in the end of the North Korean state, but it would also result in tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars of damage to South Korea and the deaths, potentially, of hundreds of thousands and conceivably millions of people.

Moreover, depending on North Korea's capabilities when such a conflict broke out, the violence could spill over into Japan as well, raising the cost, both in lives and property, commensurately higher.

North Korea cannot continue its present course of developing nuclear armed missiles. No American president will allow Pyongyang to develop a credible nuclear strategic capability to strike the continental United States. Barring North Korea's agreement to shut down its nuclear and missile program, a day of reckoning is coming.

The Trump administration has already indicated that the potential use of military force "is on the table" and is under consideration.

The U.S. Air Force is doing drills over South Korea and readiness preparations at U.S. military bases on Guam and elsewhere in East Asia. The U.S. government has already briefed civilian officials on Guam on civil defense procedures.

Currently, the U.S. has three carriers, the USS Carl Vinson, USS Nimitz and the USS Ronald Reagan, and their battle groups in the Sea of Japan.

A day of reckoning is coming. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but it is coming. If the signals from the Trump administration are to be believed, it may soon.



http://www.military.com/daily-news/...-nuclear-program-are-we-heading-showdown.html
 
Darth Omar said:
They should have done what Trump is trying to do---pressure China into reigning in NK.
Click to expand...

How is that working out for you?

China ‘won’t back further measures to rein in North Korea’
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...ce-north-korea-sets-unwinnable-economic-clash

Don’t count on China to rein in North Korea

The atmospherics between* *Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping have transformed at startling speed. When Trump hosted Xi at Mar a Largo a few months ago, he gushed all over his Chinese guest and proclaimed that China would make a strenuous *effort to change North Korea’s *behaviour.

Even if this bizarre interpretation of Xi’s intentions had been accurate, it would certainly have been impossible for Beijing to change North Korea’s strategic orientation in a couple of months.

It may well be that Trump never expected his Chinese gambit to work, but believed, or was *advised, that he had to be seen to have approached Beijing in good faith over North Korea before he could later move to his true position.

And that position is that Beijing bears enormous moral and political responsibility for the North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile threat. North Korean missiles are made partly from Chinese imported components; they are driven to their launch site on illegally imported Chinese vehicles; China provides a great deal of dual-use technology to North Korea; and China accounts for 90 per cent of North Korea’s trade.

We don’t know if North Korea has received nuclear technology directly from China. We do know that it got a lot from Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, and Pakistan got its nuclear technology from China.

Beijing has effectively enabled North Korea to become the threat it is today — on the brink of being able to load nuclear weapons on to missiles that could hit the US or Australia — because North Korea directly serves *Chinese strategic interests in *several key ways.

Firstly, North Korea is a buffer between China and South Korea. Beijing does not want a prosperous US ally on its land borders, which a unified Korea would be. It wants its citizens to gaze across the Korean border and see not Seoul’s gleaming skyscrapers, but the gruesome, labour-camp misery of North Korea.

Secondly, North Korea seriously hurts the two nations the Beijing leadership detests the most, Japan and the US.

Although it seems unlikely that North Korea can successfully miniaturise nuclear warheads so they can be effectively carried on their intercontinental ballistic missiles, Western defence analysts believe North Korea’s short-range missiles, which can easily reach South Korea and Japan, could carry nukes.

The existence of North Korea has furnished Beijing with immense leverage over Washington for decades. The diplomatic histories of the Clinton, Obama and Bush administrations are full of examples of Washington having to go soft with Beijing over some issue of concern — from the South China Sea to human rights to trade policy — because it desperately needs Beijing’s co-operation on North Korea.

It has cost Beijing nothing, it has achieved nothing for the US, but it gives Beijing immense extra influence.

Finally, Beijing, like Moscow, values highly its credibility with allies, no matter how distasteful those allies are. There is no sign it will allow the erratic Kim Jong-un regime to be toppled.

Not only that, this week Russia’s Vladimir Putin joined Xi in asking the Americans to stop joint military exercises with South Korea and end the provision of missile defence technology to South Korea, in exchange for North Korea agreeing to a freeze on its nuclear and missile programs. It is unlikely Beijing could deliver on this deal, and the Americans and South Koreans reject it utterly.

Weakening the US-South Korea alliance is a central strategic aim of Beijing. The Chinese hold as a core doctrine that there should be no formal military alliances in Asia and that “outside powers” should not play a security role.

For decades, they have wanted to chase the Americans from the region. Now, amid all this brinkmanship and crisis, there is a proposal gaining some support that would weaken the US alliance system in Asia. This is more gold that North Korea has delivered to Beijing.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...a/news-story/aee207d54e2dbfdf5eae84086747a91b

Too bad Trump doesn't know any of this, huh?
 
charver said:
So what, exactly, should previous administrations have done then?

Provoke a war with China? Because that's the endgame here.

Funnily enough, people in positions of power are, generally, quite reticent when it comes down to the issue of thermo-nuclear war.
Click to expand...

Hey there :0)
 
Darth Omar said:
Tell me you're not so hyper-partisan that you think NK is Trump's fault.
Click to expand...

I'm not partisan at all.

North Korea isn't Trump's fault at all. Admittedly, he's not been that great at handling the situation - ie the posturing and the empty threats. What he's going to find is the same thing that confronted previous administrations - the Chinese will only go so far in restraining NK, if they even can.

Bottom line is the Chinese prefer a nuclear armed North Korea than the Americans on their borders. They went to war last time to prevent this and they'll do it again.

There is no good outcome here.
 
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