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13 May 2010

To most, a joke; to a few, a nightmare: Did you hear the one about North Korea claiming to have achieved nuclear fusion? Something tells me that my banner image will still be good for the time being.

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Like most things about North Korea, its World Cup team looks rather strange to foreign eyes.

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Another North Korean man has defected to the South by sea.

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The Chosun Ilbo talks about North Korea’s special forces, and the damage they could do to the inhabitants of a South Korean city.

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I like Aidan Foster-Carter’s new piece on denial and North Korea; in fact, this pretty much sums up what I’ve felt for years in many ways. Unlike Foster-Carter, however, I’m optimistic that South Korea — its government, at least — is just about done with denial. Instead, I see Lee Myung-Bak actually laying a neat foundation to shift his country’s policy in a much tougher direction, and to induce the United States to do the same.

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More bad publicity for the thugs at Samsung.

4 Responses

  1. I also liked the article by AFC for a change, seems the old hippy has still some clever insights left.

    My only ‘comment’ would be that North Korea may well NEVER collapse. Yes, KJI is mortal, but a duly elected Defense Commision will undoubtedly follow – perhaps led by KJE.

    It is worthwhile remembering that the leadership in NK wouldn’t want to collapse either.

    Last week’s Economist had an interesting article on ‘people’s revolutions’ and highlighted the fact that such revolutions only succeed when the security forces quietly side with the people.

    So far there is little evidence of the army siding with the people and if we want to believe Good Friends, then security forces will remain as unpopular as they are brutal.

    In that perspective, it’s quite understandable that the South’s hip Starbucks’ crowd won’t give a monkeys about their ‘brethern’ a little further North. And why would they, what do they have in common ? Nothing apart from being Korean.

    [Can you do me two favors? One, can you find me a link to that Economist article, which sounds like just what I need for something I’m writing? Two, can you lay off the pejoratives, please? – Joshua]

  3. Oh, and if you take me off moderation, then I’ll leave out the word muppet too ! Surely that’s gotta be a deal !

  4. I think they mixed up “fission” with “fusion” like I did when I was in 4th grade and was preparing a report for school on how nuclear power plants work.