complex

Feb. 26 (Asia Today) — North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bureau operates as a “complex threat entity” that merges military operations, cybercrime and terrorism under a single command structure reporting directly to leader Kim Jong Un, according to a new report from a Washington-based human rights organization.

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea released the report Sunday, titled Reconnaissance General Bureau: The Kim Regime’s Precious Treasured Sword. It offers one of the most detailed public examinations to date of the agency’s structure, financing and global reach.

The report was authored by Robert Collins, a former U.S. Army strategist with extensive Korea-related experience, including serving as chief of strategy at the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command – the joint military structure that oversees the defense of South Korea.

Collins argues that the RGB defies easy comparison to conventional intelligence agencies. Unlike South Korea’s National Intelligence Service or the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, which operate within defined mandates, the RGB consolidates military reconnaissance, special operations, cyberwarfare, espionage, psychological operations and operations targeting South Korea under one centralized chain of command.

The bureau reports to North Korea’s State Affairs Commission and ultimately to Kim Jong Un, who the report says treats it as a core instrument of regime survival. Kim has personally referred to its cyber units as a “precious treasured sword,” according to the report.

Seven Bureaus, One Command

Established in February 2009 through the merger of several intelligence and operations units, the RGB currently operates through six main bureaus and a seventh logistics unit.

The first bureau oversees agent training and infiltration missions. The second conducts military reconnaissance along the Demilitarized Zone and coastal areas. The third manages overseas intelligence and alleged international operations. The fourth handles inter-Korean dialogue and related policy support. The fifth directs cyber operations, including hacking and communications interception. The sixth provides technical support and electronic warfare capabilities, while the seventh handles rear services and logistics.

Taken together, the report assesses that the RGB maintains operational capacity across land, sea, air and cyberspace – a multi-domain reach that few comparable organizations possess.

Cyber Operations as a Revenue Engine

A substantial portion of the report is devoted to North Korea’s cyber activities, which Collins describes as both strategically and financially central to the regime.

The report estimates that North Korea maintains approximately 5,900 cyber personnel and identifies hacking groups Lazarus, Andariel and Bluenoroff as operating under the RGB’s organizational umbrella. These groups have been linked by U.S. and international authorities to some of the most significant state-sponsored cyberattacks in recent years.

Drawing on international assessments, the report alleges that North Korean-linked hackers stole approximately $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency in 2022 alone – funds it says are funneled into the country’s nuclear and missile programs, helping Pyongyang sustain its weapons development despite sweeping international sanctions.

The report also raises concern about reported cooperation between North Korean operatives and foreign cybercriminal networks, suggesting the bureau’s reach may extend further into the global criminal ecosystem than previously documented.

Human Rights in the Crosshairs

The report draws an explicit connection between the RGB’s security operations and human rights, an angle that sets it apart from purely strategic assessments of the bureau.

It argues that cyber intrusions, surveillance and information disruption campaigns may violate international covenants protecting privacy and freedom of expression. It further contends that revenue generated through cybercrime – redirected to weapons programs rather than civilian welfare – could breach obligations under international agreements on economic and social rights.

The report also revisits a series of past incidents attributed to North Korean operatives, including armed infiltrations, bombings and assassinations, characterizing them as violations of the right to life and other fundamental protections under international law.

A Threat Beyond the Peninsula

In its conclusion, the report warns that the RGB can no longer be viewed solely as a regional security concern. The integration of its cyber capabilities with emerging technologies – including drones and advanced reconnaissance systems – could significantly complicate the security environment in coming years, the report said.

The committee said the study is intended as a reference for policymakers, researchers and security specialists seeking to understand the bureau’s expanding operational scope.

No response from the North Korean government was immediately available. Pyongyang does not typically comment on reports issued by foreign organizations.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260226010007781

To age is to find one’s appreciation for life’s daily joys sharpen, especially as more inconvenient realities assert themselves. Lifelong Tangier resident Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), part of the bustling Moroccan city’s entrenched Spanish community, is one such grateful senior. We see her at the beginning of “Calle Málaga” in a state of smiling contentment, walking her neighborhood streets and being greeted by vendors.

What she surely isn’t expecting, however, as she buys food and makes croquetas in preparation for an eagerly awaited visit from her daughter from Madrid, is that this trip will threaten all she holds dear. That’s because Clara (Marta Etura), a divorced mom struggling to pay the bills, arrives with the news that she’s selling the grand old apartment her widowed mother has lived in for 40 years. Won’t it be nicer for Maria to live with her in Spain and be closer to her grandchildren? Or at the very least be taken care of locally in Spanish-specialized assisted living?

The look on Maura’s face — this celebrated actor’s most well-honed tool — suggests a range of emotions regarding forced elderhood or grannydom that are far less accommodating.

How Maria handles her imminent uprooting is at the core of Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s third feature, her follow-up to the similarly sensitive family drama “The Blue Caftan.” “Calle Málaga,” written with Touzani’s husband Nabil Ayouch, is not a passive narrative, though, merely content with the internalized ache of acceptance. It is to some extent an emotional heist film and protest tale in delicate harmony, in that after initially agreeing to be placed in that Tangier senior center while her possessions are boxed up or sold, Maria schemes to steal her life back from under her absent daughter’s nose.

If you don’t look too closely at the details of Touzani’s charming scenario — which requires that a lot of things to fall into place, if enjoyably so — the movie becomes a sweet and spicy counternarrative to stories about aging that patronize their protagonists. (Another noteworthy example was last year’s rapturous American indie “Familiar Touch.”) Maria essentially becomes a crafty squatter in her own up-for-sale apartment, reclaiming some items from a hard-nosed but increasingly understanding antiques dealer (a well-cast Ahmed Boulane) and engineering a clever way to earn money with the help of friendly neighborhood kids who adore her. Her gambit even opens the door for unexpected romance, giving her frequent chats with Josefa (María Alfonsa Rosso), a childhood friend, an increasingly eye-opening frankness.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Maura, her almond-shaped eyes as powerfully suggestive as ever, conveying Maria’s rejuvenated spirit and sensuality with as much magnetism. Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.

There is, after all, a reckoning for Maria’s situation we can’t help but keep in the back of our mind. Because our first brief glimpse of Clara is a sympathetic one — as opposed to conveniently antagonistic — we know “Calle Málaga” won’t settle for a tidy resolution. And it doesn’t, save leaving us with a view of Maria’s bid for freedom that, like the rose petal that is one of Touzani’s go-to visuals, beautifies the air whether still connected to the roots or separated and strewn like so much that’s fragile in life.

An association of South Korean companies that previously operated at an inter-Korean factory zone in North Korea on Tuesday called on the government to make efforts to allow business owners to visit the now-shuttered complex.

About 80 representatives from 38 member companies of the Corporate Association of Gaeseong Industrial Complex (CAGIC) made the request at a press conference held at the customers, immigration and quota (CIQ) office at Dorasan Station in Paju, just north of Seoul.

The association said its members hope to present the Kaesong Industrial Complex, which has been closed for the past decade, to inspect their business assets there.

“Ten years after the closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, companies that operated there are facing a threat to their survival. We want to return to Kaesong,” CAGIC Chairman Cho Kyung-joo told reporters.

The Park Geun-hye administration shut down the industrial complex on Feb. 10, 2016, in response to North Korea’s nuclear test and long-range missile launches.

Launched in 2004 as a flagship project symbolizing inter-Korean economic cooperation and reconciliation, the complex once employed about 55,000 North Korean workers at 120 South Korean firms.

Cho also urged the U.S. government to play a responsible role in approving visits by South Korean business owners aimed at protecting their assets in Kaesong.

“Just as the United States recently granted sanctions exceptions for humanitarian assistance in several global cases discussed at United Nations meetings, it should make clear that business owners’ visits to inspect their assets in Kaesong do not fall under sanctions”, he said.

Appealing to North Korea, Cho said companies operating at the complex had conducted business in good faith based on inter-Korean agreements and called on Pyongyang to cooperate in allowing business owners to visit the industrial zone.

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