Daily Archive: February 23, 2008

What’s the Russian Word for “Pueblo?”

A Russian cargo ship has been detained and boarded by armed coastguard agents in North Korean waters, Russian maritime officials say. The Lida Demesh, carrying a consignment of cars from Japan, was heading for the Russian port of Vladivostok when it was stopped by patrol near Cape Musudan. [BBC] Musudan-ri is absolutely the wrong section of North Korea’s coastline to approach. The area is infamous for such attractions as a missile test site, a nuclear test site, and a large...

Agreed Framework 2.0: The Shelf Life of Happy Talk

There are probably several good reasons I’ve never really enjoyed a musical except while looking at the lovely France Nuyen, who does not sing. If legacy was its object, Agreed Framework 2.0 won’t be a positive contribution to one. President Bush must know this, or he would have mentioned it in his State of the Union speech. Events turned against the agreement during the last quarter of 2007: specifically Syria, uranium, North Korea’s false declaration, and its failure to give...

Anju Links for 23 Feb 08

“SIX PARTIES, ZERO PROGRESS:” The Weekly Standard aptly describes the current state Bush Administration’s Korea policy: The real state of play, then, is that North Korea will not fully declare, much less disable or dismantle, its nuclear weapons programs, and it has continued to proliferate. To mask this noncompliance, the State Department will talk optimistically of the next phases of diplomacy, continuing to provide North Korea with heavy fuel oil, removing it from the list of state sponsors of terror,...