Foreign News and Analysis Since April 2005 -- formerly China Confidential -- What's Really Happening in the WorldForeign Confidential ™
Thursday, May 31, 2012
South Korea Arrests Two Men for Spying for North
Suspects May Have Aided GPS Jamming Operation
Authorities say the jamming was noted by pilots of hundreds of commercial flights over South Korea between April 28 and May 13. The interference also affected GPS receivers in ships in and near the port of Incheon.
At the time, officials here said they had pinpointed the jamming as emanating from Kaesong, above the DMZ in North Korea.
Businessman Has Previous Espionage Conviction
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency says one of the suspects, a 74-year-old businessman identified only by his surname, Lee, has a previous espionage conviction.
The second suspect, identified as Kim, 56 years of age, acquired citizenship in New Zealand and was conducting business there. A third individual, named Chung, who is under investigation, but has not been arrested, is a former defense contractor.
Police say one of the men had orders from Pyongyang to acquire GPS jamming devices and radar systems.
A police inspector says that Kim and Lee had sophisticated technical knowledge and met with a North Korean agent in Dandong in northeastern China in July of last year.
The president of the non-governmental Korea Defense Network, Shin In-kyun, says people are not dissuaded from spying for the North because actual sentences are not severe, even though those convicted of espionage can face a death sentence.
Shin says that when Lee, the suspect in this current case, was previously convicted in the 1970s he only served a 17-year sentence. But currently the punishments for spying are much lighter, usually about a three-to-four year prison term. Shin says the prison terms need to be lengthened to send a warning to those contemplating acts of espionage.
No one has been executed in South Korea since 1997.
From time to time, South Koreans are apprehended on charges of spying for the North.
Other Security Threats
News of the latest arrests come as South Korea's political mainstream began to move against a pair of lawmakers in the National Assembly regarded as potential security threats.
Lee Seok-gi and Kim Jae-yeon took their seats in the parliament Wednesday despite allegations that the pro-North sympathizers won their posts in March through a rigged party primary.
The two are among 13 lawmakers from the far-left United Progressive Party (UPP). They are members of the party's largest faction, composed of former student activists known for their sympathies towards Pyongyang.
Conservative members in the legislature say they are worried some of the UPP lawmakers will leak state secrets to the North that they will have access to as potential members of the intelligence or defense committees.
The two Koreas have no diplomatic relations and no peace treaty. The United States and Soviet Union in 1945 agreed to divide the peninsula along the 38th parallel. Elections in the south brought to power in Seoul the anti-communist Rhee Syng-man while the Soviets installed Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang.
Kim invaded the South in 1950. A devastating three-year civil war with foreign troops on both sides was fought to a stalemate.The Internationalization of the Egyptian Elections: Analysis
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
North Korea Enshrines Nuclear Arms
North Korea's new constitution proclaims the country's nuclear status. Read more.
Foreign Confidential™ analysts are not surprised by the development, having repeatedly said that the North will never scrap its nuclear arsenal.
Regarding the threats posed by North Korea and its partner in nuclear and missile crimes, Iran, there is only one solution: regime change. In the North Korean case, China's cooperation is key; in Iran's case, the cooperation of Russia is critically important.Foreign Investors Plan Zimbabwe Fund
The meeting was hosted by GAP member Imara Holdings, a pan-African investment banking and asset management firm. Zimbabwe’s Economic Planning minister, Tapiwa Mashakada, delivered the keynote speech.
Imara Holdings Group CEO Mark Tunmer said: “Hosting the 8th semi-annual GAP Conference in Zimbabwe came at an opportune time for Imara because it is well-positioned to take advantage of the country’s expected growth rate of 9.9% this year, and share opportunities with members of Global Alliance Partners.”
GAP's board of directors also elected a new chairman, John P. O’Shea, a veteran Wall Street investment banker, who announced that some GAP members are planning to set up a fund to invest in listed Zimbabwean companies.
“We are keen to take the project off the ground and there are ongoing talks with Imara on how to structure the fund,” O’Shea said. “The Zimbabwe fund could be the model for future GAP principals and employees to get involved in emerging markets."
O'Shea explained that GAP’s cross-border capabilities cover private equity, pre-IPO placements, share trading, research, funds management, and equity placement opportunities. The organization has 14 partners in 28 countries, whose scope and reach span strategic markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa and North America, providing a truly global platform.Al Qaeda Eyes Syrian Chemical Weapons
'The Flame' First Struck Iran's Oil Sector
Related: Computer Viruses Won't Stop IranIsrael Weighs West Bank Withdrawal
Jordan's Uranium Reserves Larger than Previously Believed
No Surprise: Anti-Austerity SYRIZA Leads in Greece
Controversy and Concerns Over General's Commando Comments
Covert Ops Story Could Provide Pyongyang With Pretext for Provocations
A U.S. Army general has stirred controversy this week about comments about American and South Korean military operations in the North. The U.S. military is denying reports that the head of U.S. special operations in South Korea acknowledged that American and South Korean commandos operate covertly in North Korea.
There are concerns about the ramifications of what the leader of the U.S. special operations command in South Korea said at a panel discussion in Tampa, Florida, on May 22.
Brigadier General Neil Tolley, speaking to an audience of hundreds of people at the Special Operations Forces Industry conference, discussed the challenges the United States faces determining what is inside North Korea's many secret tunnels.
Freelance combat reporter and technology writer David Axe was among those listening to the general.
"He was describing the utility of human intelligence on the ground in North Korea. He was describing it as though it were actually happening right now," Axe said. "He since has walked that back to say that he was speaking hypothetically, although he didn't say at the time he was speaking hypothetically."
Transcript Confirms Reporting
Another person who attended the panel discussion said he heard the same thing and a partial transcript corroborates Axe’s recollection.
“Without going into too much detail on our war plans, we send ROK [South Korean] soldiers, Koreans, to the North and U.S. soldiers, to do the old special reconnaissance mission" Tolley said during the discussion. "We used to do it in the 80's in Europe. It’s roughly the same kind of thing.”
If true, such cross-border operations would be a violation of the 1953 armistice that brought to a halt the three-year Korean War. Still, Axe says he did not realize the apparent significance of the general's remark at the time he wrote his story.
"I thought it was interesting. I hadn't heard that before, but I wasn't shocked by it because I've encountered U.S. special forces all over the world, in some places where their presence is not widely known or known publicly at all. It seemed kind of obvious they would be in North Korea," he stated.
"Parachuting" and a Pulled Post
Axe's report was published on Monday by the Japan-based online publication The Diplomat. In it, he also asserted U.S. special forces were “parachuting” into North Korea to spy on extensive underground military facilities. It prompted an unequivocal denial from U.S. Forces Korea, which insisted the quote was “made up."
The Diplomat then pulled Axe's blog post, acknowledging the possibility that the general was speaking about future war plans, not current operations.
Pentagon spokesman George Little reiterated to reporters at Tuesday's regular briefing that General Tolley was misquoted.
"My understanding is that the general's comments were contorted, distorted, misreported and that there is in no way any substance to the assertion," Little stated. "Again, that was misreported that there are U.S. boots on the ground in North Korea. That is simply incorrect."
North Korea has repeatedly violated the terms of the truce, over the years. The North sent commandos into South Korea repeatedly in decades past, with sometimes tragic consequences for both the infiltrators and South Korean civilians.
There are far fewer reports of violations from the South Korean or American side. In February of this year, during a defense committee hearing, a member of South Korea's National Assembly, Lee Jin-sam, made a stunning revelation. Lee claimed that in 1967 he was part of a secret mission that infiltrated the North, killing 33 enemy soldiers and sabotaging dozens of facilities.
The Kookmin Daily newspaper quotes a defense ministry official saying South Korean forces have not been involved in any such operations since 1972.
But a spokesman for the defense ministry in Seoul who handles international media inquiries says he cannot confirm that information.
Hidden History?
A U.S. military veteran has written of his participation in five secret Marine Corps missions after the armistice to find and rescue fellow service members still held by the North Koreans. In the book, The Untold Experiences of a Navy Corpsman, C. Gilbert Lowery claims U.S. Marine reconnaissance patrol teams in the North freed 26 prisoners of war.
General Tolley's comment last week raised speculation about whether contemporary U.S. special forces covertly infiltrate the North. Most analysts consider that highly implausible because of the great risks of such missions compared to their scant potential intelligence gains.
Nevertheless some Asia watchers, such as Chris Nelson of Samuels International Associates, are expressing concern. Writing in his influential Nelson Report he accuses Tolley of “proving the adage 'loose lips sink ships...this time with potentially deadly consequences.”
Nelson worries that the comment - even if it was a hypothetical - could be used by North Korea's leadership “grasping at any excuse for some kind of military 'response'” to perceived American and South Korean provocations.
At his home in South Carolina, reporter Axe says this is one story he no longer cares to pursue.
"I'm bewildered and I regret diving into waters that are far deeper than I had ever imagined," he said.
Axe says he has resigned as a contributor to the online publication which carried his controversial blog post.
A veteran journalist in Asia, Steven L Herman is the Voice of America bureau chief and correspondent based in Seoul. Prior to taking his post in South Korea in 2010, Steve, for more than three years, was VOA's South Asia bureau chief based in New Delhi, India.In Focus: Iran's Offensive in America's Backyard
An Alarming Expansion in the Western Hemisphere
While much attention lately has rightly been focused on Iran's nuclear weapons program, the mullahs have also been busy elsewhere—especially in America's own backyard. During Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-term presidency, Iran has expanded its activity in the Western Hemisphere to an alarming degree.
Tehran has found hospitable terrain among some of Latin America's most anti-American regimes, including in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The jihadist regime's hundreds of commercial, diplomatic and security ventures across the region not only help it break out of isolation, evade U.S. and international sanctions and forge relationships that provide access to needed resources, but also gain a foothold for Iranian intelligence, military and terrorist operations within striking distance of the American homeland.
Since Ahmadinejad took over the Iranian presidency in 2005, his administration has expanded Iran's diplomatic facilities in Latin America from five to 11 and set up 17 "cultural centers." Every one of these provides cover slots for operatives of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Quds Force and intelligence service (MOIS – Ministry of Intelligence and Security).
Their job is to manage relationships with narcotrafficking, organized crime and terrorist organizations. Riding the vector of a bourgeoning Lebanese Shi'ite immigrant population in South America dating to the 1970's, Hizballah has made the region a focus of its attack plotting, fundraising, money laundering, proselytizing, recruitment and terror training activities.
Terrorist Cells and Drug Cartels
Evidence also is mounting that Hizballah cells, with members in the hundreds, increasingly are working in cooperation with Mexican drug cartels, sharing terrorist expertise with them, and moving northward, across the border and up into the U.S. and Canada.
Reza Khalili, a former IRGC officer and CIA spy, says that IRGC units are running operations out of U.S. mosques and Islamic Centers. Toronto authorities have just discovered antisemitic, jihadist passages from Iranian sources in public school textbooks.
To date, though, U.S. leadership, fixated on negotiating Iranian compliance on nuclear issues, has been reluctant to see Iran's Western Hemisphere activities as the critical national security threat that they are.
Ahmadinejad has developed close ties with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, (shown left together) with whom Iran has signed at least 262 bilateral agreements totaling some $30 billion in agriculture, energy, finance and trade. According to Roger Noriega, former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States and a Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, however, many of these "development" initiatives serve another purpose for Iran.
Banking and Finance Accords
Banking and finance accords, such as with the Venezuelan International Development Bank (actually owned by the Iranian Saderat Bank, which is under U.S. and EU sanctions for connections to Iran's nuclear weapons program), serve as cover for money laundering and sanctions evasion.
Joint commercial ventures operate as fronts for military projects: Venezuelan government-owned Compañía Anónima Venezolana de Industrias Militares (CAVIM) is involved in military projects with Iran's Parchin Chemical Industries and Quds Aeronautics Industries. Both of these companies were sanctioned by the UN in 2006 for involvement in Iran's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The Venezuelan airline Conviasa operates regular flights from Caracas to Damascus and Tehran—but often carries cargo that U.S. authorities believe includes Iranian military technology bound for Venezuela. Mining projects may provide Venezuelan uranium to the Iranian nuclear weapons program, "bicycle" and "cement" factories actually produce rifles and other ventures support FARC cocaine and heroin trafficking.
Reports from Germany's Die Welt about an Iranian missile base on Venezuela's Paraguana Peninsula are even more alarming. A bilateral strategic cooperation agreement signed by IRGC Air Force commander Amir al-Hadjizadeh in October 2010 during a Tehran visit by Hugo Chavez authorized the project, currently under construction by the IRGC's Khatam al-Anbia division.
Iranian Missile Base
The missile base reportedly will contain in-ground missile silos for Iranian Shahab-3 (~ 2,000 km. range with the Sejil-2 variant reaching up to 2,400 km.) and other missiles. The Paraguana Peninsula forms the northernmost tip of Venezuelan territory and sits due south of Florida, about 2,400 km. away.
In February 2012, Michael Braun, former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) operations chief, told a congressional hearing that Mexican drug cartel operations in more than 250 U.S. cities offered a ready-made network for Hizballah, which uses their human and drug trafficking channels, money laundering operations and forged document expertise. Ambassador Noriega goes into even more detail, identifying "two parallel yet collaborative terrorist networks … in Latin America": One operated by Hizballah and the other directly by the Quds Force.
According to Noriega, these two networks include more than 80 operatives in at least twelve countries and also feature state-level links back to Iran, Lebanon and Syria. These Iranian-sponsored terror networks establish ties within Muslim communities throughout the region for proselytizing and recruitment activities as well as management of Hizballah's primary financial hub in the Western Hemisphere, located on Venezuela's Margarita Island.
Aside from Iranian missiles aimed at the continental U.S., the next most imminent concern to the U.S. is the deteriorating situation along the southern border with Mexico. Hizballah links with key Mexican drug cartels, such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas, help the Iranian terror proxy become increasingly financially self-sufficient (as sanctions bite into the Iranian economy) and also facilitate access into the U.S. and Canada.
Tunnels and Bombs
The case of Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, who was sentenced to sixty years in prison in 2008 on charges of organized crime and human smuggling, focused attention on his base of operations in Tijuana, Mexico, just south of San Diego, CA.
A September 2010 internal memo of the Tucson, Arizona, Police Department leaked by an internet hacker group highlighted the possibly inevitable eventuality that Hizballah expertise in explosives—improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and car bombs—will be transferred to Mexican drug trafficking organizations. Sophisticated narco-tunnels found along the U.S.-Mexican border also raise suspicions that Hizballah tunnel construction technology is finding its way to the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. lawmakers, including Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), left, Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King (R-NY), have sought to raise the alarm about the Iranian threat on our doorstep, but not enough yet is being done.
Blockbuster Finding
For instance, despite the December 22, 2011, ruling by NYC Federal District Court Judge George Daniels in the Havlish case that Iran shares responsibility with Al Qa'eda and Hizballah for the 9/11 attacks, not one single official at any level from the New York Police Department to the White House has acknowledged or addressed the implications for U.S. policy of this blockbuster finding.
In fact, in his January, 2012, testimony, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper (shown right) actually stated that Iran's leaders may "have changed their calculus and are now more willing to conduct an attack in the United States in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten the regime" – as though he were not perfectly well aware that Iran and Hizballah already struck the homeland more than a decade earlier.
Such candor failure before the American people and refusal to confront the Iran-Hizballah-Al Qa'eda terror alliance threat to the U.S. homeland belie the urgency of the whole government strategy that's needed to begin degrading and dismantling their network of operations—before an event, such as an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, triggers activation orders from the Supreme Leader to awaiting Hizballah cells.
As Norman Bailey, former National Security Council and senior ODNI official, has suggested, these measures should begin with designating Venezuela a state sponsor of terror, imposing penalties on countries and companies that facilitate Iran's Western Hemisphere activities and ensuring no let-up in the pace of U.S. Treasury Department designations of banks and other entities involved in enabling Iran's terror operations. Additionally, both unilateral and multilateral measures taken with friendly governments will be required to disrupt and dismantle the Iranian offensive in America's backyard.Tuesday, May 29, 2012
US Envoy's Undiplomatic Talk Riles Russia
Euro Falls Against Dollar on Spain Woes
Britain Bets on Biomass
Britain is cutting coal use to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and making huge investments in woody biomass, burning industrial-grade wood pellets and wood chips in electricity-generating power stations--or co-firing biomass with coal. Read more.
Foreign Confidential™ analysts add that sustainability is a key concern for UK utilities, which means demand for woody biomass from North America--Canada and the U.S. Northeast--is certain to grow by leaps and bounds in the coming years. Africa, South America, and Russia have vast biomass resources; but illegal logging, human rights abuses and corruption are commonplace in these regions.70% of Britons Now Anti-Austerity
Iran Hit by Another Cyberattack
US Denies N. Korea Mission Stories
Monday, May 28, 2012
Real Heroes … US Special Forces in N. Korea
Members of U.S. special forces are on the ground in North Korea, gathering intelligence on the country's network of clandestine military bases near its border with the South.
Brig. Gen. Neil Tolley, head of all American special operations forces in South Korea, said units of elite U.S. troops were conducting "special reconnaissance" missions in the North.
Read more.Understanding Syria's Wanton Slaughter
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Pinhas Inbari reports on the "web of international involvement" in Egypt's elections. Click here to read his analysis.
The West may have to intervene in Syria to prevent the Assad regime's stockpiles of chemical weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists. Read more.
The super-sophisticated computer virus that struck Iran--dubbed "the Flame"--represents a breakthrough in break-in spyware. Read more.
Israel's broad coalition government appears to be seriously considering a unilateral withdrawal from most of the West Bank--i.e. the disputed lands west of the Jordan River--to preserve Israel's Jewish character and to make way for the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. Read more.
Jordan's uranium deposits are larger than previously believed, energy officials say, raising expectations for the potential of a Jordanian uranium industry. Read more.
The Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) has regained its lead ahead of Greece's June 17 election. Read more.
The architect of the Obama administration's Russian "reset"--America's ambassador to Moscow--has made a practice of antagonizing the Kremlin with language that is not merely undiplomatic; it is downright insulting. Read more.
Seven out of 10 Britons are fed up with spending cuts, want the government to stimulate the economy, according to a new poll. Read more.
A Russian firm says Iran has been the main victim of a major, new, Middle East-focused cyberattack. Israel seems to be encouraging speculation that it is responsible for unleashing the virus. Read more.
The United States is denying reports it parachuted special forces soldiers into North Korea to gather intelligence on a secret tunnel network. Read more.
Carlo Munoz reports:
DEBKAfile on the Al Houla atrocity: "The wanton slaughter by Syrian forces of 92 confirmed victims, 32 of them children under ten, at the Homs village of Al-Houla Friday, May 25, was the most horrifying atrocity in the Middle East this week, but not the only one: In Sanaa, six days ago, al Qaeda’s suicide bombers, having penetrated Yemeni military ranks, detonated two tons of explosives at a parade rehearsal killing more than 100 soldiers and civilians and injuring 400."
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