Korean Peninsula Today, 18 June 2009

N. Korean Missile Train on the Move (Chosun Ilbo)

A special North Korean train which transported a long-range rocket or intercontinental ballistic missile to a launch site in Tongchang-ri, North Pyongan Province in May recently moved from a missile research center in Sanum-dong, Pyongyang to another launch site in Musudan-ri, North Hamgyong Province, a South Korean government source said Tuesday.

South Korean and U.S. authorities believe the North may have transported a second intercontinental missile to the launch site. The North launched a long-range rocket from Musudan-ri on April 5, which had also been transported by special train.

Seoul and Washington are wondering whether the North will launch two long-range missiles from both launch sites at the same time or whether the train is just a smokescreen to confuse watchers.

North Korea has threatened to launch another missile in protest against UN sanctions over its nuclear test. It apparently has three to four intercontinental ballistic missiles, and may be keeping one or two more at the research center in Sanum-dong.

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N Korea empties foreign accounts (AFP)

SEOUL -- North Korea is rushing to withdraw money from its overseas bank accounts after the United Nations imposed financial and other sanctions for its nuclear test, a report said.

South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo newspaper, quoting sources in Beijing, said the North had begun withdrawing funds from accounts in Macau and elsewhere for fear they would be frozen.

The paper said funds were being pulled out of almost all the communist state's foreign accounts held either by individuals or trading firms. It gave no details.

The National Intelligence Service was not immediately available for comment.

Security Council Resolution 1874 passed last Friday calls on UN member states to expand sanctions first imposed on the North after its initial nuclear test in 2006.

It calls for tougher cargo inspections, a tighter arms embargo and new targeted financial restrictions to choke off revenue for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile sectors.

Last week, before the resolution was passed, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said Seoul had given Washington details of 10-20 bank accounts held by North Koreans in China, Switzerland and elsewhere.

It said the accounts were suspected of being used for transactions related to counterfeiting, drug dealing and money laundering.

In 2005 the US Treasury Department blacklisted Macau's Banco Delta Asia (BDA) on suspicion of money-laundering and handling North Korea's counterfeit notes.

The move effectively froze Pyongyang's access to some 25 million dollars in BDA and led other nations to cut off financial dealings with the North.

The US freed the BDA funds in 2007 amid progress on a six-nation nuclear disarmament pact, which has now effectively collapsed.

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Video May Undercut U.S. Efforts to Secure Release of Reporters Jailed in North Korea (Fox News)

Foreign policy analysts are torn as to whether two journalists' "confessions" about crossing into North Korea will help alleviate their plight, one week after they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for the illegal border crossing.

A video said to show two American journalists crossing into North Korea could undermine U.S. efforts to negotiate their release, foreign policy analysts say.

The analysts are torn as to whether the journalists' "confessions" about crossing into North Korea will help alleviate their plight, one week after they were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for the illegal border crossing.

Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, told FOXNews.com that the "confession, quote unquote, may be an initial step in laying the groundwork for their eventual release."

But John Delury, associate director of the Center on U.S.-China relations at the Asia Society, said, "If North Korea has the video, that certainly makes it more difficult for the United States and its efforts to get them released."

"Up to now, it was a question mark" as to whether the reporting team from Current TV crossed into North Korea, Delury said.

The official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday that reporter Laura Ling and editor Eun Lee crossed the frozen Tumen River dividing North Korea and China three months ago and walked up the river bank -- all the while recording their transgression.

"We've just entered a North Korean courtyard without permission," the Korean translation of their narration on the videotape said, according to KCNA. One of them picked up and pocketed a stone as a memento, the report said.

Ling and Lee were arrested in Kangan-ri in North Hamgyong Province, the report said. Current TV executive producer Mitch Koss and the group's Korean-Chinese guide managed to flee, KCNA said.

Last Monday, Lee and Ling were sentenced in North Korea's top court to 12 years of hard labor for what the state-run media called "politically motivated crimes." They were accused of crossing into North Korea to capture video for a "smear campaign" focused on human rights, the report said.

"The accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts committed, prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of (North Korea) by faking up moving images aimed at falsifying its human rights performance and hurling slanders and calumnies at it," KCNA said.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who earlier called the charges against the women "baseless," said Washington was working every channel to secure their release, and asked that the North Koreans grant clemency on humanitarian grounds.

Delury said the video probably confirmed what the U.S. State Department already knew.

"I think a lot of people have suspected the whole time that for them to actually get physically detained by North Korean guards, they were in a gray zone at best," he said.

He added that the purported videotape may force the U.S. to seek a political pardon because it would prove that the reporters "did something foolhardy" and "took some risks that they undoubtedly regret." He said expending the political capital isn't in Washington's best interest.

"The U.S. may not like the sound of a political pardon because it's going against the direction of U.S. policy, vis-a-vis nuclear issues," he said.

Current tensions between the U.S. and North Korea make the case unpredictable.

The women were detained March 17 at a time of rising tensions between North Korea and the United States over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs. Weeks earlier, Pyongyang announced its intention to send a satellite into space aboard a long-range rocket -- a launch Washington called a cover for a test of a long-range missile designed to strike the United States.

The North Koreans went ahead with the rocket launch in early April, and in an increasingly brazen show of defiance, conducted a nuclear test on May 25 and fired off a series of short-range missiles in the days before the journalists' trial.

Klingner noted that in past cases of U.S. citizens straying into North Korea, they were arrested, convicted, jailed for several months and released after confessing to some sort of crime.

"It may be the first step in their rehabilitation, enabling them to be released," he said.

But, Klingner said, the ongoing tension "constrains" the ability of the U.S. to send in envoys as they did in 1994 and 1996.

"Right now, sending an envoy to North Korea carries a lot of baggage, and depending on who is sent it could undermine international efforts to have international consensus for punitive measures on North Korea," he said.

"Now this issue of the two journalists requires a different mode of diplomacy. We will have to engage (North Koreans) on their terms," Delury said.

Speculation has ensued over the possibility of the Obama administration sending former Vice President Al Gore, who founded the San Francisco-based media venture that sent the reporters, or New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who helped secure the release of U.S. detainees in North Korea in the 1990s.

But Klingner said if either one is sent, that would undermine U.S. envoy Stephen Bosworth, who leads Washington's nuclear negotiations with North Korea. The North "wouldn't want to deal" with him," he said.

Klingner added that it is not clear whether North Korea wants to deal with anyone.

"Because they're playing a nuke game, we're not sure if the old rules applies in other venues," he said.