Free Republic

A report from Syria Monday night said that soldiers loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had opened fire on between 60 and 70 soldiers who attempted to leave the country in order to join opposition forces. Human rights groups in contact with Syrian rebels said that forces had killed over 30 people earlier in the day. The revelations on the murder of the soldiers came after Syria signed a deal to allow Arab League observers into the country. The observers would ensure that soldiers do not attack civilians, and that civilian protests do not erupt into violence.

Ex-N. Korean Soldiers to Form Anti-P’yang Group SEPTEMBER 06, 2010 13:27 North Korean defectors in South Korea will form a coalition to support anti-Pyongyang activities in conjunction with military officials in the North opposed to the communist regime The coalition plans to release at its inaugural ceremony Thursday the content of a phone conversation that demonstrates its links with ranking officials in the North Korean People’s Army. The North Korean People’s Liberation Front, which comprises North Korean defectors who served in the Stalinist country’s military, said Sunday that it will hold the coalition’s first ceremony Thursday in front of the...

Mr Amiri, 32, said he was seized and spirited from the country after being offered a lift while walking towards a mosque. He gave his account before flying home to Iran on Wednesday after taking refuge at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington earlier this week. The US state department has insisted he was in the US of his own free will but Mr Amiri said he was kidnapped by secret agents in Medina, Islam's second holiest city, in May last year. "A white van stopped in front of me... They told me in Farsi that...

Ted Kennedy's KGB Correspondence By Kevin Mooney on 6.22.10 @ 6:08AM Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's self-serving, secret correspondence with Soviet agents during the height of the Cold War included proposals for collaborative efforts designed to undermine official U.S. policy set by Democratic and Republican administrations, KGB documents show. With the media now reporting on the late senator's just released Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) file, now is an opportune time for a more expansive investigation into Kennedy's KGB contacts. The agency took a keen interest in a 1961 "fact-finding" trip the Massachusetts Democrat took to Mexico and other parts of...

Some North Korean defectors in Seoul believe many spies from the communist country have entered South Korea pretending to be refugees, exploiting loopholes in the intelligence agency's screening system. Their claim comes after two North Korean agents – both majors in the army's reconnaissance bureau – were arrested in April on charges of attempting to assassinate Hwang Jang-Yop, a high-ranking North Korean defector who has led anti-North campaigns. The two spies entered South Korea separately in January and February through China and Thailand by posing as defectors. Other defectors in Seoul said the North Korean officers were two among "quite...

WASHINGTON — An Iranian nuclear scientist who had been reported missing since last summer has defected to the U.S. and is assisting the CIA in its efforts to undermine Iran's nuclear program, ABC News reported Tuesday. The scientist, Shahram Amiri, has been resettled in the U.S., according to the report. The CIA had no comment on the report, a spokesman said. President Barack Obama said Tuesday he hopes international sanctions against Iran for pursuing its nuclear ambitions will be in place this spring. Iran maintains that its nuclear research is for peaceful purposes and not to develop weapons. Amiri, who...

An award-winning Iranian nuclear scientist, who disappeared last year under mysterious circumstances, has defected to the CIA and been resettled in the United States, according to people briefed on the operation by intelligence officials. Shahram Amiri, a nuclear physicist in his early 30s, went missing last June three days after arriving in Saudi Arabia on a pilgrimage, according to the Iranian government. The officials were said to have termed the defection of the scientist, Shahram Amiri, "an intelligence coup" in the continuing CIA operation to spy on and undermine Iran's nuclear program. A spokesperson for the CIA declined to comment....

IRAN NUKE SCIENTIST DEFECTS TO USA

South Korea's military says several North Korean soldiers crossed the border into the South this week, apparently to pursue a defecting soldier. Military spokesman Park Sung-woo said Thursday the North Korean soldiers crossed the border about an hour after a fellow soldier fled to the South on Tuesday. He says they retreated after South Korean soldiers fired warning shots. Park says North Korean soldiers did not return fire. He says the defector is being questioned. More than 18,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. They rarely cross the heavily armed border and instead defect...

Figuring out what's going on in North Korea is no easy task, but human rights groups in the South reckon they have stumbled on a winning combination. The groups, set up by defectors from the communist North who fled to the capitalist South, rely on those fleeing to provide news from across the demilitarized zone. The key weapon in their news arsenal is the cellphone. Defectors routinely stay in touch with relatives in the North, thereby providing a constant stream of information. That's why recent reports of social upheaval after Pyongyang devalued its currency were first carried by these human...

The unnamed 28-year-old reportedly arrived from China on Monday, defecting to the north for ideological reasons according to North Koreans who spoke to the conservative Dong-A Ilbo daily newspaper, based in Seoul. "I came here because I did not want to serve as a cannon fodder in the capitalist military," the American was quoted as saying. "I want to serve in the North Korean army." American State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that the report was being investigated but said there was no information on the man's name, occupation, or the circumstances in which he entered North Korea. The American...

(Begin my translation synopsis, from original Japanese):North Korean defector KANG CHOL HWANG, who is vice chair of a South Korean humanitarian group which assists North Korean defectors--(who himself is a defector/refugee from North Korea and survivor of the notorious "Yodok" Concentration Camp), reports the following new information to Tokyo based Sankei journalists by telephone:--Gunfire sound is increasing on the North Korean border with China these days. The gunfire can now be heard on almost a daily basis.--The gunfire is coming from North Korean side of the border and indicates two things: a) attempted escapes are increasing and North Korea has...

North Korean Defectors Puzzled, Moved by Roh Funeral By Kurt Achin Seoul 29 May 2009 South Korea's emotional farewell to former President Roh Moo-hyun brought much of the country together - including Koreans who were not born in the South. For North Koreans who have defected to South Korea, the outpouring of public emotion brought back memories of an earlier life - and reminders of how different their new life is. North Koreans who have begun a new life in the South were alongside their fellow Koreans in Friday's tearful mass gathering in Seoul. About 15,000 North Koreans now live...

Protesters mark Kim Jong Il's birthday by sending propaganda balloons into North Korea By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 11:35 AM on 16th February 2009 Protesters in South Korea launched balloons carrying tens of thousands of anti-Kim Jong Il leaflets into North Korea as its citizens enjoyed a national holiday to celebrate their leader's 67th birthday. As crowds of North Koreans visited statues and displays to celebrate their 'heaven-made commander', his opponents ignored a warning from Pyongyang and launched their campaign. For the first time, activists stuck North Korean cash into some of the vinyl leaflets to try and...

WASHINGTON - When Cuba faced the U.S. in a World Cup qualifier last night, it did so without midfielder Pedro Faife and forward Reynier Alcantara - who both presumably joined the growing legion of that country's soccer-playing defectors to America. Cuba's coach, Reinhold Fanz, first confirmed their disappearance from the team's Doubletree Hotel during their stays here this week. Neither one was at practice on Friday, or at the stadium last night for the match at RFK Stadium. "We have security, but you can't handcuff them to their rooms," Fanz told the Washington Post on Friday night. Together, the two...

UNITED NATIONS - A former Russian top spy says his agents helped the Russian government steal nearly $500 million from the U.N.'s oil-for-food program in Iraq before the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Sergei Tretyakov, who defected to the United States in 2000 as a double agent, says he oversaw an operation that helped Saddam's regime manipulate the price of Iraqi oil sold under the program — and allow Russia to skim profits. Tretyakov, former deputy head of intelligence at Russia's U.N. mission from 1995 to 2000, names some names, but sticks mainly to code names. Among the spies...

Sending Out Signals to Long-Isolated North Koreans Defectors Who Once Worked for Government of Kim Jong Il Now Broadcast From South of the DMZ By Francine Uenuma washingtonpost.com Staff Writer Sunday, December 30, 2007; A27 SEOUL -- Trained as a military propagandist in North Korea, Kim Seong Min has turned his skills against the government that once forced his allegiance. From a small radio studio in Seoul, he and a handful of other North Korean defectors deliver daily broadcasts to people who remain behind in the isolated communist state run by Kim Jong Il. "To give food provisions, if the...

Iranian former deputy defense minister Ali Rheze Asgari supplied intelligence sources in the West with information regarding the sites that Israeli jets allegedly attacked on September 6, the Kuweiti Al Jareeda reported Friday. Asgari defected from Iran several months ago and moved to an undisclosed location in the West. In related news, the Saudi paper Al Watan reported Friday that American jets were hovering in Iraqi airspace close to the Syrian border during the raid. Reportedly, the USAF jets were meant to give aerial backup to Israel in case IAF warplanes would come to any harm.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba is considering pulling out of the amateur World Boxing Championships in Chicago in October to avoid new defections by its boxers, Cuban leader Fidel Castro said on Wednesday. "Imagine all the sharks of the Mafia wanting fresh meat," the convalescing 80-year-old Castro wrote in a column published on the front page of the Communist Party newspaper Granma. "I must tell them: we are not keen on delivering it to their doorstep," Castro said, commenting on an attempt by German boxing promoters to hire two of Cuba's top fighters during the Pan-American Games in Brazil last month....

Cuban athletes leave games early By Gary Duffy BBC News, Brazil At the 1999 Pan-American Games in Canada some 13 athletes defected Cuban athletes have made a hurried departure from the Pan-American games in Brazil, apparently amid fears of possible mass defections. The delegation was rushed at short notice to Rio de Janeiro's airport, leaving the men's volleyball team no time to collect their bronze medals. The athletes were said to have been ordered to leave the games before the finishing ceremony on Sunday.

In recent days, intelligence circles in Tehran have been awash with rumors of a second high-level defection to the Americans of a Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Seyed Mohammad Soltani. Gen. Soltani is a career intelligence officer, who took over as head of the Persian Gulf bureau of Rev. Guards intelligence in October 2006. On February 8 – just one day after Gen Asgari disappeared in Istanbul – Gen. Soltani traveled to Bandar Abbas [Iran’s largest port, home to the Revolutionary Guard’s largest naval base], where he was scheduled to inspect an intelligence listening post. Instead, he vanished… So...

With Cash, Defectors Find North Korea’s Cracks Richard Humphries/Polaris, for The New York Times A MOTHER’S DETERMINATION Kim Myung-shim, above, fled North Korea in 2003 and then helped her three children escape. The last to flee, Lee Chun-hak, is now in an immigration detention center in Bangkok, where his mother visited him. She said she paid $3,600 to aid his escape from the North. By NORIMITSU ONISHI Published: October 19, 2006 BANGKOK — Last March, Lee Chun-hak, a 19-year-old North Korean, went to the Chinese border to meet with a North Korean money trafficker. Using the trafficker’s Chinese cellphone, Mr....

ANSEONG, South Korea — On a sprawling campus hidden in farmland here, about 300 North Koreans are learning that, no, actually, it was not the South that started the Korean War. And, yes, America is an ally, their re-education goes, before broaching the A B C's of capitalism, human rights and democracy. Field trips focus on how to apply for a job or use an automated teller machine. Women are shown the finer points of home decorating; men, the basic skills to fix the home boiler. Soon after landing in South Korea, all North Korean defectors come here to the...

/begin my translation N. Korea: Armed Men Attack N. Korea's Tumen Border  It is revealed that, just before the Lunar New Year's Day, multiple (armed) attacks on border guard by unidentified men occurred along N. Korea's northern border area. Especially, indications are that some of attackers were carrying automatic weapons and their movements are well-coordinated, leading us to wonder about their background. Multiple Attacks: According to the sources on N. Korea, on the evening of Jan. 28, a border guard at Namyang Worker's District, Onsung County, N. Hamkyong Province, spotted a few men crossing Tumen River from Kai-san-tun area of China, and attempted to arrest...

Seven Ethiopian soldiers who defected to Eritrea while in Israel were flown to Eritrea Wednesday night by the Eritrean ambassador. Tensions are high between the two neighboring African countries, which fought a border war in the late 1990s. The officers had come to Israel to learn how to use military equipment Ethiopia had purchased from a private defense company in Israel, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev. Eritrea's ambassador to Israel Tesfamariam Tekeste told Israel Radio that the soldiers had arrived at his home this week asking for asylum. A number of them wanted to reunite with family members living...

ESPN.com: Baseball Thursday, November 24, 2005 Updated: November 25, 2:06 PM ET Castro criticizes Cuban baseball player defectors Associated Press HAVANA -- President Fidel Castro criticized Cuban baseball players who have left the country for multimillion-dollar contracts in the major leagues, saying the island always finds better players to replace them. During a five-hour appearance on state television Wednesday, Castro remarked on those players "who cannot resist the millions of the major leagues" and acknowledged that baseball "is the sport in which we have been beaten the most" when it comes to defections. Still, the 79-year-old leader insisted Cuban baseball...

U.S. Draft Bill to Punish China for Deporting N.Koreans With China’s deportation of North Korean defectors to their Stalinist homeland looming like a black cloud over Seoul-Beijing ties, some U.S. lawmakers and activists are drawing up a bill to impose trade sanctions on China unless it stops the practice. Washington has warned Beijing of punitive measures if it continues to deport North Korean refugees but has so far taken no legislative action. Activists including the Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees hold a press conference urging Bejing to stop repatriating North Korean defectors, in front...

Dear Mr. President, Many in America, Australia, and especially Communist China have been following the story of Chen Yonglin, the former political consul for the Communist regime now in fear for his life for his willingness to expose that regime's network of overseas spies. Chen has already contacted our consulate for help and safety. I ask you to grant Chen Yonglin, his fellow defector Hao Fengjun, and their families in Australia political asylum in the United States. Chen and Hao have bravely revealed to Australia how Communist China keeps tabs on its exiles abroad, especially its exiled dissidents. To allow...

Canberra's bumbling in its handling of Chinese diplomatic defector Chen Yonglin is a direct result of a lack of clarity, realism and forthrightness in the Federal Government's China policy. Prime Minister John Howard recognises, correctly, that China will be vitally important to Australia over the next half century, and has, rightly, done all he can to assiduously cultivate good relations with that country. But the Government has naively thought it possible to dodge having to deal with the more unsavoury nature of what, despite some progress on human rights, is still a politically repressive regime. In pursuing the relationship, the...

Third Chinese defector turns up in Australia Thu Jun 9, 7:33 PM ET SYDNEY (AFP) - A third Chinese official has defected in Australia and already been granted refugee status after revealing he witnessed a dissident being tortured to death in China, his lawyer said. The unnamed official was a senior officer in a branch of the Chinese security service known as "610" and defected after witnessing repeated human rights abuses by other agents, lawyer Bernard Collaery said on ABC television late Thursday. Collaery, a prominent lawyer and former attorney-general of the Australian Capital Territory, said the official's assertions backed...

Australians rally in support of Chinese defectors Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:52 AM ET SYDNEY (Reuters) - Protesters rallied in several Australian cities on Saturday urging the government to grant political asylum to a Chinese diplomat who is in hiding saying he fears for his safety and that of his family if returned to China. Chen Yonglin, 37, has formally applied for political asylum after defecting last month but the Australian government has discouraged the application, which has been granted only very rarely in the past. About 50 people demonstrated in each of the rallies in Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide...

A second Chinese defector has claimed Beijing is running a large spy network in Australia and other Western countries, including the United States, following a similar allegation by a high-ranking Chinese diplomat seeking asylum. The diplomat, Chen Yonglin, the first secretary at the Chinese Consulate-General in Sydney, left his post last month. Chen claimed China had 1,000 spies in Australia involved in illegal activities, including abducting Chinese nationals and smuggling them back to China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has dismissed Chen's claims and said he defected because he wanted to immigrate to Australia with his family. But a second Chinese...

In 1987, after he was exonerated of corruption charges, former Secretary of Labor Raymond Donovan issued the classic plea of the wronged man: "Which office do I go to get my reputation back?" Whichever office it is, Ahmad Chalabi may want to apply there as well. The leader of the Iraqi National Congress has been the most unfairly maligned man on the planet in recent years. If you believe what you read, Chalabi is a con man, a crook and, depending on which day of the week it is, either an American or Iranian stooge. The most damning charge is...

Defectors face future together BY DAVID OVALLE AND ELAINE DE VALLE dovalle@herald.com LAS VEGAS - Members of the Havana Night Club show -- newly defected from Cuba -- enjoyed their opening night in these strange surroundings Tuesday, taking solace in what got them here in the first place. Each other. ''You know what gives me strength?'' said José Manuel, 38, a dancer and singer. ``The company. We dance. We act. This is what we want to do and it's what gives me strength.'' Throngs of gamblers stood up and cheered as the troupe preceded its official opening act Tuesday night...

227 More North Koreans Arrive in Biggest Mass Defection to South Korea By Soo-Jeong Lee/Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - A second wave of North Korean defectors arrived in the capital Wednesday, bringing the total in a two-day airlift from an unidentified Asian country to nearly 460, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. It was easily the largest group of defectors ever to reach the South. All had recently fled the communist North and taken refuge in hopes of eventually reaching South Korea. Wednesday's group of 227 North Koreans arrived at Incheon International Airport on a chartered Korean Air...

Report: Large Group of North Koreans Arrive in South Korea The Associated Press SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - About 200 North Koreans arrived in the capital on Tuesday from an unidentified Asian country, the largest group of defectors to reach South Korea, according to a news report. The defectors arrived on a chartered plane arranged by the South Korean government at an airport outside Seoul, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said. The 200 North Koreans were among 460 defectors that South Korea is trying to bring in from a Southeast Asian country. The second group was expected to arrive Wednesday....

A former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has defected to Azerbaijan and disclosed that Iran's military is infused with pro-U.S. sentiment. Col. Bakharali Bagiryan arrived in Baku last week. "I came to Azerbaijan 40 days ago and was registered with the Azerbaijani representative office of the UNHCR as a political émigré," Bagiryan said at the Baku Press Club Feb. 23. Bagiryan said many Iranian military troops would like to defect. "In Iran, the military are not issued with passports, which deprives them of the opportunity to leave the country legally," he said. "I have been sent to Azerbaijan...

A former commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has defected to Azerbaijan and disclosed that Iran's military is infused with pro-U.S. sentiment. Col. Bakharali Bagiryan arrived in Baku last week. "I came to Azerbaijan 40 days ago and was registered with the Azerbaijani representative office of the UNHCR as a political 魩gr鬢 Bagiryan said at the Baku Press Club Feb. 23. Bagiryan said many Iranian military troops would like to defect. "In Iran, the military are not issued with passports, which deprives them of the opportunity to leave the country legally," he said. "I have been sent to Azerbaijan...

School For NK Defectors, Privately Run, Offers Oasis of Warmth (Korea Times) Photo by Kim Hyun-tae Defectors aren’t completely alone when they arrive in South Korea. Cho Myong-suk runs a school to help ease the transition into a capitalist society, despite not receiving any government support. Life in South Made a Little Easier With Help of Friends by Kim Tae-jong The issue of how best to deal with North Korean defectors after their arrival and how to ensure they become productive members of society is definitely complex. Fortunately there are people out there trying to do just that. ``Our ultimate...

<p>AMHERST, Massachusetts -- When Yu-kun Jia, 13, races to catch her school bus in this Western Massachusetts town, she tries to block out the fact that she is one of China's most well-known political defectors. Or that her future in the United States remains uncertain. Or that she desperately misses her mother, who still lives in a rural Chinese village.</p>

The day before the renowned Cuban National Ballet took to the stage in Daytona Beach, two of its young dancers slipped away in a startling pas de deux, hoping for a new life in America. Gema Díaz, 21, and Cervilio Amador, 20, were supposed to perform in the company's production of Don Quixote on Sunday. But the pair had already defected, spirited away Saturday in a taxi that ferried them to West Palm Beach. By Wednesday, they were meeting with an immigration attorney in Coral Gables, preparing to officially ask for political asylum. ''This is an extraordinary story,'' said attorney...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- Nearly 4,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War, three quarters of them in the past five years, South Korea's Unification Ministry said in a report submitted Sunday. A total of 2,958 North Koreans, or 77 percent of the total 3,834 defectors, fled their country and arrived in South Korea after 1998, according to South Korea's Yonhap news agency. The ministry expects the number to rise as thousands of North Koreans are believed to be living in hiding in China, seeking a chance to come to South Korea. Most of...

SEOUL, Oct. 4 — Han, a Communist Party official in North Korea, was walking home from work when he heard he was in trouble. He had smuggled a radio back from China after an official trip. He listened to it late at night, huddled with earphones on and shades drawn, to hear music that brought him a whisper of sanity and took him away from the horrors of his day. Now, someone had found it, or someone had told. “It could have been my children who said something outside. It could have been my friend; one knew,” said Han, 39,...

I have another investigation on my website, entitled "The Latin American Bloc: The Ignored Danger to Freedon". I re-read it today and thought maybe you guys could use it. It explains how Venezuela and Brazil sponsor terrorism including Al-Qaeda, and how Communism is ready to conquer all of Latin America by 2005-2006, including Mexico. Let me know your thoughts.

U.S. Group to Fight North's Rights Abuses by Joo Yong-jung (midway@chosun.com) WASHINGTON - Several religious and human rights groups in the United States are driving forward to establish an organization that would strive to protect the freedom and rights of the North Korean people. To form the North Korea Freedom Coalition, representatives from 13 groups, including Concerned Women for America, the Defense Forum and the Hudson Institute, held a preliminary meeting Thursday. They decided to sponsor Congress's North Korea Freedom Act, and announced the general principles for extending liberties to North Koreans. Michael Horowitz from the Hudson Institute said in...

The head of the US-backed Iraqi National Congress (INC), Ahmad Chalabi, said Thursday that he put US officials in contact with three Iraqi defectors who provided detailed information about Saddm Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction program. "We ... introduced them to three defectors on the weapons program," Chalabi said after a briefing here with about 30 US lawmakers on a range of postwar issues, including the pace of Iraqi reconstruction and the prospects finding Saddam. "One of them was an engineer," Chalabi said. "We believe that he had valuable information about sites. He did not have any operational information...

N Korea Defectors Detail Drug Rings (& Missile Export)21May03 The Herald Sun, AustraliaIn a dramatic confession to the US Congress, two men identified as high-ranking North Korean defectors today said they had been intimately involved in test-firing Pyongyang's missiles in Iran and a state-sponsored drugs ring. The men, led into a congressional hearing wearing black hoods, gave evidence behind a screen to conceal their identities. They currently live in South Korea, but were brought to the United States by two refugee advocacy groups. Their appearance came as the Bush administration tries to turn the spotlight on North Korea's alleged...

May 14, 2003 Sources: N.Korean Defectors Smuggled Out of China By REUTERS Filed at 6:42 a.m. ET BEIJING (Reuters) - Several North Korean military defectors have fled their country and sought or been granted asylum in the West or in South Korea, independent sources said on Wednesday. Three sources told Reuters the defectors fled through China and traveled by plane, train or road on false identification papers to Southeast Asia in recent months. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said it had no knowledge of the defections, which could prove embarrassing for Beijing as it tries to facilitate negotiations between Washington and...

North aide says defector was only minor scientist BEIJING ¡ª A North Korean nuclear scientist who defected to the United States last year was not a particularly important figure, a senior North Korean source here said yesterday. The linked defections of the U.S.-trained nuclear scientist Kyong Won-ha and a number of military officials, organized privately by nationals of several nations, was reported over the weekend, and Dr. Kyong was described as a central figure in the North Korean nuclear program. ¡°North Korean authorities discovered Dr. Kyong¡¯s disappearance during the second half of last year,¡± the North Korean source said. ¡°As...

A SWATH of North Korea's military and scientific elite, among them key nuclear specialists, has defected to the US and its allies through a highly secret smuggling operation involving the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. The defections have taken place since last October and have been made possible through the help of 11 countries that agreed to provide consular protection to smuggle the targets from neighbouring China, according to sources close to the operation, which has now been wound up. Some countries also agreed to act as transit points for up to 30 days once the defectors left China, the...