NORTH KOREA NEWSLETTER NO. 59 (June 18, 2009)

*** NEWS IN BRIEF (Part 2)

North Korea Says Reports on Fake Dollars 'Scheme'

SEOUL (Yonhap) - North Korea said on June 12 South Korean news reports that the
socialist country counterfeited and mass circulated U.S. currency were driven by
an anti-North scheme.

Local newspapers recently reported the Busan provincial police agency in November
arrested four South Koreans who tried to circulate counterfeit 100 U.S. dollar
notes after smuggling them into South Korea from China. They also said
investigators found the dollars had been counterfeited in the North.
"The story about counterfeiting was concocted by the Bush administration in the
past in a bid to justify the financial sanctions against the DPRK (North Korea).
But when the story turned out to be plot of the CIA it became a laughing stock of
the world and the U.S. stopped talking about it any longer, as it was nothing but
a poor scenario with neither plausibility nor evidence," a spokesman for the
North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, said in an
interview with the (North) Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Seoul's revival of "the outdated anti-DPRK scenario" only reveals how the
"antagonistic forces" are in jitters over their lack of means to penalize the
North for its "just measure to bolster up its nuclear deterrent for
self-defense," the spokesman claimed.
North Korea conducted an additional nuclear test on May 25, calling it a measure
to build up the "nuclear deterrent."

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N.K. Criticizes U.S. Defense Secretary's Remarks on Missile Defense

SEOUL (Yonhap) - North Korea on June 16 criticized as "outrageous" U.S. Defense
Secretary Robert M. Gates' remarks on the possibility of the U.S. increasing the
budget for its anti-missile defense shield.
Gates on June 1 did not rule out pumping more funds into the nation's
anti-missile defense budget if "a rogue state such as North Korea" threatens the
United States.
"It is a sophism that cannot work on anyone and outrageous," said Minju Joson
newspaper of the North Korean Cabinet.
The U.S. in fact wants to "maintain its supremacy over the world through the
missile defense system," not seek world peace, the daily claimed. It criticized
the U.S. as "a peacebreaker and the ringleader of nuclear threat, proliferation
and arms race[s]."

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N.K. Says U.S. Nuke Umbrella for South 'Criminal Act' to Start War

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea denounced South Korea on June 15 for "begging" the
U.S. for nuclear protection, calling the move a "criminal act" aimed at starting
a nuclear war against the North.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met U.S. President Barack Obama in
Washington on June 16 (Washington time). The two leaders issued a joint statement
after the summit that included a U.S. pledge to provide an "extended nuclear
deterrent" for Seoul.
Such an official pledge is "an unforgivable criminal act to make South Korea a
nuclear powder keg that can explode at any moment and drive the peninsula into a
U.S. nuclear battlefield by drawing more U.S. nuclear weapons into South Korea,"
Rodong Sinmun, the North's main newspaper published by the Workers' Party, said.
The U.S. has provided a nuclear umbrella over South Korea since the Korean War
ended in 1953. But it would be the first time for any U.S. president to affirm it
in writing. The meeting follows North Korea's second nuclear test on May 25.
Rodong Sinmun said South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan "begged for" the
written pledge during his recent meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton.
"The group of traitors, setting the fate of the Korean people at naught, asked
for it and revealed every shred of its atrocious scheme to wage a second Korean
war with nuclear weapons on the back of its U.S. boss," the paper said.
The paper also accused the U.S. military stationed in South Korea of placing
about 1,000 nuclear bombs south of the border and blasted their joint military
maneuvers as "nuclear war exercises," it added.
"Our nuclear deterrence is a means of defense for our homeland, but we will never
show mercy to those who dare to wage a nuclear war against us," the paper said,
warning invaders would be turned into "ashes."
Protesting a recent U.N. Security Council resolution condemning its latest
nuclear test, the North said over the weekend that it will "weaponize" all
plutonium it has and start enriching uranium to provide fuel for a light-water
reactor it plans to build. The uranium enrichment plan sparked concerns it may
actually be used to build nuclear weapons.

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N.K. Says Detained U.S. Journalists Admitted to Smear Campaign

SEOUL (Yonhap) -- North Korea claimed on June 16 that two jailed U.S. journalists
admitted to plotting a "smear campaign" against the socialist state and linked
their detention to deteriorating relations with Washington.
Pyongyang is closely watching "the attitude of the U.S.," the official Korean
Central News Agency (KCNA) said, just hours before South Korean President Lee
Myung-bak and U.S. President Barack Obama were to meet in Washington. The leaders
were expected to focus on coordinating sanctions against the North over its May
25 nuclear test.
"At the trial, the accused admitted that what they did were criminal acts,
prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle the socialist system of
the DPRK (North Korea)," the report said.
Chinese-American Laura Ling, 32, and Korean-American Euna Lee, 36, both reporters
for San Francisco-based Current TV, were detained near the border with China in
March while working on a story about North Korean defectors.
North Korea's highest court sentenced them on June 8 to 12 years of hard labor
for illegal entry and hostile acts.
Laying out a detailed account for the first time, Tuesday's report connected the
journalists' case to the sharpening diplomatic confrontation between the U.S. and
North Korea.
The Americans consulted with senior producers of their television station in
January for the "anti-DPRK smear campaign over its human rights issue" and
received U$$9,950 for the project, the KCNA report said. In their Chinese visa
application forms, they reported themselves as computer specialists entering
China for travel, it said.
The journalists first traveled to South Korea to shoot footage of the
demilitarized zone and interview North Korean defectors who settled in the South
before flying to China, the report said.
With help from a guard introduced by Chun Ki-won, a South Korean pastor who helps
defectors, the reporters collected "vicious stories" about North Korea at the
Chinese border region and covertly crossed the Tumen River into the North at dawn
on March 17, the report claimed. They were arrested on the spot, it said.
The North said it was issuing the detailed report to "make it known to the world
that the American crimes were committed at a time when an unprecedented
confrontational phase is building up on the Korean Peninsula against the United
States."
It said, "We are following with a high degree of vigilance the attitude of the
U.S. which spawned the criminal act against the DPRK."
The report said the trial was not open to the public for fear that the country's
classified information might be leaked. Ling was represented by a lawyer, while
Lee gave up her right to an attorney, it said.
Their prison term is counted from March 22, when the two were formally detained
for an investigation, and the ruling cannot be appealed, the report said.
(END)