ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

A former North Korean spy has recalled her role in blowing up a civilian South Korean jet in 1987 – killing all 115 passengers – after being “plucked” from her schoolyard to work for the regime. Kim Hyun-hee, who was later captured and tried to kill herself by swallowing cyanide, has come out of hiding to shed light on the regime’s warmongering and the desperate attempts by its “inexperienced” leader, Kim Jong-un, to shore up control over the military. The 51-year-old was given a death sentence after the 1987 attack, in which she and an accomplice managed to plant a bomb on a plane travelling from Baghdad to Seoul via Abu Dhabi. Despite the death of all 115 passengers on board, she was later pardoned after the South Korean government decided that she had been brainwashed. In an interview from an undisclosed location in South Korea where she lives in fear for her life with her husband and two children, she provided a rare insight into the inner workings of the secretive state and its yo...

Reports that North Korean missiles have been put upright on their launchers come as G8 foreign ministers discuss the crisis. A North Korean missile launcher has moved into the firing position with rockets facing skyward, Japanese media have said. The reports in the Kyodo news agency come as North Koreans celebrate the appointment of their leader Kim Jong-Un a year ago, and G8 foreign ministers discuss the crisis during a meeting in London. The Japanese government has been on high alert ahead of the expected test-firing of a medium-range missile by Pyongyang, deploying Patriot missile batteries in Tokyo as a defence measure. South Korean and US forces in the territory of Guam have announced an upgrade of their surveillance alert status. Tokyo is "gathering a variety of information ... with a sense of tension", Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera was quoted as saying by Kyodo. North Korea celebrates the appointment of Kim Jong-Un Meawnhile, Sky sources say the UK ambassador in...

(CNN) -- North Korea is "skating very close to a dangerous line" after weeks of saber-rattling, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Wednesday as northeast Asia watched for an expected missile test. "Their actions and their words have not helped defuse a combustible situation," Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon. He said the United States and its allies want to see North Korean rhetoric "ratcheted down," but if that doesn't happen, "our country is fully prepared to deal with any contingency." "We have every capacity to deal with any action North Korea will take to protect this country and the interests of this country and our allies," Hagel said. American radar and satellites are trained on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, where the communist government of Kim Jong Un is believed to have prepared mobile ballistic missiles for launch at any time, U.S. and South Korean officials warned. Hagel: N. Korea close to dangerous...

The use of threats and isolation against Iran and North Korea is a bizarre, perilous way to conduct foreign relations By Jonathan Steele April 10, 2013  -" The Guardian " - By coincidence two clashes over nuclear issues are hitting the headlines together. North Korea and Iran have both had sanctions imposed by foreign governments, and when they refuse to "behave properly" they are submitted to "isolation" and put in the corner until they are ready to say sorry and change their conduct. If not, corporal punishment will be administered, since they have been given fair warning by the enforcers that "all options are on the table". It's a bizarre way to run international relations, one we continue to follow at our peril. For one thing, it is riddled with hypocrisy, and not just because states that have hundreds of nuclear weapons are bullying states that have few or none. The hypocrisy is worse than that. If it is offensive for North Kore...