Hundreds of thousands of enraged South Koreans did not turn out for a politically charged cande light vigil in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today. The non-rally did not follow a report that Chinese border guards shot a North Korean refugee dead while trying to cross into Mongolia and seek asylum. Twelve other refugees were arrested and are expected to be deported to North Korea, where they face almost certain death in concentration camps. The non-protesters also did...

Hundreds of thousands of enraged South Koreans did not turn out for a politically charged cande light vigil in front of the Chinese Embassy in Seoul today. The non-rally did not follow a report that Chinese border guards shot a North Korean refugee dead while trying to cross into Mongolia and seek asylum. Twelve other refugees were arrested and are expected to be deported to North Korea, where they face almost certain death in concentration camps. The non-protesters also did...

James Lileks’s excellent blog quotes an MTV interview with John Kerry. We’ve heard a lot of tired cliches about toothless, inbred Nascar Republicans; surely we should be just as worried when people encourage perky MTV airheads to pull a voting lever. In fact, we should give some serious thought to buying ads on MTV to explain that registering to vote requires you to go through a complex, drawn-out licensing process, complete with a civics examination, urinalysis, and the donation of...

Owen Rathbone has been on a roll this week, which may explain why he’s been getting hate mail from at least one reader. You couldn’t inspire this kind of blind vitriol without having struck the nerve that only unpleasant truths can reach. The correspondent didn’t identify himself, but you don’t need to go far out on a limb to figure that he’s an angry young Korean, dancing to the nong-ak drums of Roh Moo-Hyun’s Red Guards. The muddled thought behind...

James Lileks’s excellent blog quotes an MTV interview with John Kerry. We’ve heard a lot of tired cliches about toothless, inbred Nascar Republicans; surely we should be just as worried when people encourage perky MTV airheads to pull a voting lever. In fact, we should give some serious thought to buying ads on MTV to explain that registering to vote requires you to go through a complex, drawn-out licensing process, complete with a civics examination, urinalysis, and the donation of...

James Lileks’s excellent blog quotes an MTV interview with John Kerry. We’ve heard a lot of tired cliches about toothless, inbred Nascar Republicans; surely we should be just as worried when people encourage perky MTV airheads to pull a voting lever. In fact, we should give some serious thought to buying ads on MTV to explain that registering to vote requires you to go through a complex, drawn-out licensing process, complete with a civics examination, urinalysis, and the donation of...

Today comes the sad news that Kang Byong-sop, one of the courageous defectors who told the world about North Korea’s gas chambers, was seen on Pyongyang TV, reading a forced recantation of his charges. Undoubtedly, his days are numbered; one can only hope that his family will somehow manage to survive. China sent him back, of course, in clear violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of morality . . . both of which are clearly meaningless to...

Today comes the sad news that Kang Byong-sop, one of the courageous defectors who told the world about North Korea’s gas chambers, was seen on Pyongyang TV, reading a forced recantation of his charges. Undoubtedly, his days are numbered; one can only hope that his family will somehow manage to survive. China sent him back, of course, in clear violation of international law and the most fundamental principles of morality . . . both of which are clearly meaningless to...

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, sent me a draft of a bill introduced into the House yesterday as a counterpart to the Senate’s North Korean Freedom Act. You can see the bill and a summary of it here. I’m still studying the text, but it looks like an important step forward. Even better, it’s a slap to the appeasers (that means you, Neville Nohsamos, human candelabras, and yeah-buts* over in Seoul) as they try to...

Question–how could anyone have expected the U.N. to establish and enforce principles when its members don’t share any? Rabbi Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center has an outstanding op-ed about North Korea in the (Singapore) Straits Times, clearly the best English language newspaper in Asia. The Rabbi gives the U.N. both barrels, richly deserved and fully loaded with 00 heavy steel shot. How is it, he asks, that Kofi Annan speaks of preventing genocide–even of its need to admit its own...

Suzanne Scholte, the President of the North Korean Freedom Coalition, sent me a draft of a bill introduced into the House yesterday as a counterpart to the Senate’s North Korean Freedom Act. You can see the bill and a summary of it here. I’m still studying the text, but it looks like an important step forward. Even better, it’s a slap to the appeasers (that means you, Neville Nohsamos, human candelabras, and yeah-buts* over in Seoul) as they try to...

Question–how could anyone have expected the U.N. to establish and enforce principles when its members don’t share any? Rabbi Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center has an outstanding op-ed about North Korea in the (Singapore) Straits Times, clearly the best English language newspaper in Asia. The Rabbi gives the U.N. both barrels, richly deserved and fully loaded with 00 heavy steel shot. How is it, he asks, that Kofi Annan speaks of preventing genocide–even of its need to admit its own...

Rebecca MacKinnon at NKZone notes that the appeasers in Seoul are mobilizing against the North Korean Freedom Act. Reading this kind of nationalist pablum–and it really boils down to “Americans are incapable of real compassion for North Koreans, but let’s not give more than lip service to the concept, either”–makes the sarin seep from my pores. I lashed: ************** Yu and Jeong [the appeasers] maliciously question our concern for the North Korean people because the concept of compassion transcending race...

Rebecca MacKinnon at NKZone notes that the appeasers in Seoul are mobilizing against the North Korean Freedom Act. Reading this kind of nationalist pablum–and it really boils down to “Americans are incapable of real compassion for North Koreans, but let’s not give more than lip service to the concept, either”–makes the sarin seep from my pores. I lashed: ************** Yu and Jeong [the appeasers] maliciously question our concern for the North Korean people because the concept of compassion transcending race...

The charge the Chinese prosecutors used neatly encapsulates their cynical contempt for freedom. They called him a “human trafficker” for trying to help North Korean refugees escape from China–where life cowers under the daily threat of deportation back to the death camps in North Korea–to haven in South Korea. The brilliant Claudia Rosett told the story best here, in the Wall Street Journal, where she writes a bi-weekly column. Seok is also a professional photographer and stringer for the New...

Just a day after Muslim terrorists called France an “ally of Satan” (which by definition means they apparently no longer see the United States as Satan), Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-Bian has called France “evil-hearted” for joining China in its recent naval threaxercises that coincidentally come just before Taiwan’s election. Doesn’t Taiwan understand? It’s nothing personal for the French . . . it’s just business. After all, they’re quite willing to make the same moral compromises when they’re selling arms to...

The charge the Chinese prosecutors used neatly encapsulates their cynical contempt for freedom. They called him a “human trafficker” for trying to help North Korean refugees escape from China–where life cowers under the daily threat of deportation back to the death camps in North Korea–to haven in South Korea. The brilliant Claudia Rosett told the story best here, in the Wall Street Journal, where she writes a bi-weekly column. Seok is also a professional photographer and stringer for the New...

Just a day after Muslim terrorists called France an “ally of Satan” (which by definition means they apparently no longer see the United States as Satan), Taiwan’s president Chen Shui-Bian has called France “evil-hearted” for joining China in its recent naval threaxercises that coincidentally come just before Taiwan’s election. Doesn’t Taiwan understand? It’s nothing personal for the French . . . it’s just business. After all, they’re quite willing to make the same moral compromises when they’re selling arms to...